Pricing · 6 min read

What AEO and SEO tools actually cost in 2026

Advertised prices and paid prices are different numbers in this category, because the things you cannot work without are usually add-ons. Here is what each tool asks for, read off its own pricing page.

On this page
In one sentence

AI visibility tracking on its own runs $29 to $99 a month. In an established SEO suite it is now usually included, but with a prompt allowance sized for one brand rather than a client list, which is why the advertised price and the price you pay are rarely the same number.

The short answer

All prices USD per month, billed monthly, checked 17 August 2026. Annual billing typically saves 15 to 20% across the category.

  • Track AI visibility only: $29 to $99 a month.
  • SEO suite with AI visibility included: $129 to $139 a month to start.
  • The same suite sized for a client list: $249 to $437 a month.
  • All-in-one including AI visibility: $35 to $199 a month.

The interesting number is no longer the add-on, it is the allowance. Ahrefs Advanced at $449 tracks twenty AI prompts and seats one user. Semrush Starter at $199 tracks fifty prompts daily against one domain. Both are priced for a brand watching itself, which is why the arithmetic changes so sharply the moment you have fifteen clients instead of one.

AI visibility on its own

These tools do one job: ask AI engines questions and report whether you are cited. No keyword research, no content, no rank tracking.

ToolFromDetail
Otterly$29Standard $189, Premium $489. Claude costs $29 to $439 extra
Peec AI$95Pro $245, Advanced $495. Three models on every paid plan
Profound$99Growth $399. The $99 plan tracks ChatGPT alone
SE Visible$99Core $189, Plus $355. Five engines on all plans

Read the entry tier carefully in this group. Profound’s $99 plan tracks ChatGPT alone, and Peec’s paid plans let you choose three models, not all of them. The headline engine counts you see quoted elsewhere belong to Enterprise tiers.

SEO suites, with the add-ons

Here the base plan is only the start, because AI visibility is a separate module almost everywhere.

ToolBase planAI visibilityRealistic monthly
SE Ranking$129 Core, $279 Growth+$89 AI Search$437 for an agency with the Agency Pack
Semrush$139 SEO planIncluded. 50 to 200 prompts daily$299 Pro+ once you pass five websites
Ahrefs$129 LiteIncluded. 5 to 20 tracked prompts$249 Standard, one user per seat
Search Atlas$99 StarterFrom Growth, five platforms on Pro$999 Agency caps at ten client projects
Limecube$35 Starter, $99 ProfessionalIncluded at every tier$99 for fifteen clients

Agencies get hit twice, because white-label reporting is usually its own line too. On SE Ranking that is the Agency Pack at $69, which is how a $129 advertised plan becomes $437 for a three-person team.

Note on the Ahrefs figures, covered at length in the Ahrefs comparison: tracking beyond the included allowance is quoted two ways on their own site. The pricing page says from $199 a month with prompt packages at $50, $100 and $250; the Brand Radar page quotes €358 for selected platforms and €654 for all of them. Different currencies, and we cannot reconcile them. Confirm what you are quoted before budgeting.

What $99 a month buys

The most useful way to read this category is not cheapest-to-dearest, it is what the same money buys. At roughly $99 a month you can have any of these:

  • Profound Starter: ChatGPT only.
  • SE Visible Basic: five engines, 200 prompts, nothing else.
  • Peec Starter ($95): three models, 50 prompts.
  • Limecube Professional: six surfaces including Claude, plus keyword research, content generation, rank tracking, Google Ads and client reporting for up to fifteen clients.

We make the last one, so treat the framing with the scepticism it deserves. The prices are all published and take a minute each to check. The Semrush comparison works through what a suite subscription covers at this price and where its limits sit.

Buying from Australia

Almost every tool in this category prices in USD wherever you are, so an Australian buyer pays the USD price plus the exchange rate plus whatever the card issuer adds. At roughly 1.5 AUD to the USD, a $129 USD plan is about A$195 a month before fees, and that number moves with the currency rather than with anything you control.

A small number of tools bill in AUD directly, which removes both the conversion fee and the month-to-month drift. Limecube is one of them; our pricing page switches between AUD, USD and GBP. Worth checking on any tool you are seriously considering, because on a two-year horizon the conversion cost is not trivial.

How to budget for this

Start with the free thing. Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google the ten questions your customers actually ask, and write down whether you are cited. It costs an hour and tells you whether you have a problem worth paying to measure. Tracking AI search visibility covers the method.

Check your crawler access before you buy anything. If robots.txt blocks the AI crawlers you cannot be cited at all, and no subscription fixes that. Ten minutes, free.

Budget for the doing, not just the measuring. The commonest expensive mistake here is paying for a dashboard and nothing that acts on it, so you get the same bad news every month at a higher price each renewal. Whatever you spend on measurement, leave room for the research, the writing and the fixing that move the number. Content operations covers what that work involves.

Count seats and clients, not features. Per-seat and per-client pricing multiplies across a client list while a workspace price does not, and that difference usually dwarfs any single feature comparison. Do the arithmetic for the size you expect to be in a year, not the size you are now.

Frequently asked questions

  • How much does an AEO tool cost?

    A dedicated AI visibility tracker starts around $29 to $99 a month: Otterly from $29, Peec from $95, Profound and SE Visible from $99. In the SEO suites it is now usually included, within a limit: Semrush covers it in every paid tier from $139, and Ahrefs includes Brand Radar from $129 with five tracked prompts. SE Ranking still charges $89 on top. Tracking beyond the included allowance costs extra everywhere. All figures USD, August 2026.

  • How much does an SEO tool cost in Australia?

    Almost every tool in this category prices in USD regardless of where you are, so an Australian buyer pays the USD price plus the exchange rate and any card conversion fee. At around 1.5 AUD to the USD, a $129 USD plan is roughly A$195 a month before fees. A handful of tools including Limecube let you pay in AUD directly, which removes the conversion cost and the fluctuation.

  • Why is AI visibility priced separately from SEO tools?

    Because it was built separately. AI visibility needs live queries against ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI surfaces, which is a different data pipeline from crawling and rank tracking, and it costs the vendor per query. Established suites added it as a module rather than rebuilding, so it arrives as its own SKU with its own price.

  • What is the cheapest way to track AI visibility?

    Checking by hand is free: ask each engine the questions your customers ask and record whether you are cited. That does not scale past a handful of questions, but it is the right first step and it tells you whether you have a problem worth paying to measure. The cheapest paid option is Otterly at $29 a month for four engines, with Claude and Gemini as paid extras.

  • Do AEO tools charge for the AI API usage?

    Mostly it is included in the plan price, which is why plans are priced per prompt or per tracked question rather than unlimited. Each check is a real API call to a real engine and costs the vendor money, so the limits on your plan are what keeps that bounded. Watch for tools that meter prompts tightly, since a low headline price with a small prompt allowance can cost more than a higher price with a generous one.

  • Is it cheaper to buy one all-in-one tool or several specialists?

    Specialists usually win on depth, all-in-ones on total cost and on the time you spend joining data together. The arithmetic tips toward all-in-one quickly for agencies, because per-seat and per-client pricing multiplies across a client list while a workspace price does not.

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