Type a company you admire into ChatGPT, ask whether it is any good, then ask the identical question a minute later. Quite often the second answer names a different winner, and that experiment explains this list. A free AI visibility check can tell you, today, whether an engine recognizes a brand, whether it recommends it, and which rivals it names instead; it cannot tell you whether that will still be true tomorrow, because engines change their minds between identical runs. The honest free tools show the snapshot and say what it is; the paid tiers worth buying sample repeatedly, show the sources behind the answer, and then act. The six below are ranked on both halves of that bargain.
One gloss. AEO (answer engine optimization, or persuading the assistant to say your name before anyone else’s) is the discipline these tools serve, and a citation is the page an engine points to when it justifies an answer.
| Tool | Who it suits | Engines covered | Free look | Acts on what it finds, not only reports | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Honeyb | Best value and best overall: fullest free check, cheapest paid step | 8, from ChatGPT and Gemini to Google AI Mode and AI Overviews | Yes; no signup, works on any domain | Yes: impact-ranked fixes, publishing agent | From $29 a month ($23 billed annually) |
| 2. Rank Prompt | Small teams wanting a free plan | 6 named: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Claude, Gemini, Grok | Free plan with one full report, no card | Yes: content, tasks, outreach | $39 monthly on an annual plan, at the time of writing |
| 3. SE Ranking (AI Search Toolkit) | SEO users wanting a daily look | AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini (4) | Yes, 5 attempts a day | No: steps to follow | Add-on, €63.20 monthly on an annual plan, at the time of writing |
| 4. Geoptie | Budget buyers who like audits | Any 4 of 7 per brand | Free GEO tools, including an audit | No: recommendations | $49 a month, 15 prompts, at the time of writing |
| 5. Semrush AI Search | Marketers already in Semrush | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and more | Free plan and a 7-day trial | Prioritized fixes | €112.52 monthly, annual rate, at the time of writing |
| 6. Peec AI | Analysts who want exports | 3 named: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | Free trial only | No: suggestions | See vendor |
Three free checks run for this article, 22 October 2026:
Three brands, one free check each
| Brand | Score | Verdict | Named instead or alongside |
|---|---|---|---|
| mailchimp.com | 10/10 | Recommended | Alongside: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Constant Contact, MailerLite, Brevo |
| gusto.com | 10/10 | Recommended | Alongside: ADP RUN, OnPay, QuickBooks Payroll, Rippling, Patriot Software |
| calendly.com | 4/10 | Not in the answer | Instead: Acuity Scheduling, HubSpot Meeting Scheduler, Doodle, Cal.com, Microsoft Bookings |
Evening run, 22 October 2026, Gemini with live web search. An identical afternoon run scored gusto.com 4/10 and left it out of the answer: the same brand moved from absent to recommended within hours.
1. Honeyb
What it does. The free AI visibility checker asks for a website and nothing else: no account, no email. In about 15 seconds a live engine answers, and the result shows whether the engine knows the brand, whether it would recommend it in its category, and who gets named instead. It accepts any domain, so it doubles as a way to look up a competitor. Behind it sits a paid platform that puts buyer questions daily to eight engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode) and asks each prompt several times, so a movement in the trend is signal rather than noise.
Standout. It is the only free check here that needs no signup, and the only platform that treats volatility as the central design problem. The paid report lists which domains the engines cite in your category, flags where an engine states a wrong price versus your own site, checks whether AI crawlers can reach your pages, and ranks recommendations by impact; a Content Agent writes and publishes the articles those recommendations need, into WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, Wix or Ghost, or through a webhook.
Honeyb: the Sources view lists the Reddit threads and pages AI engines cite for a notion.so workspace. Captured 23 Oct 2026.
Watch out for. The free check is one engine answering one question; it is a snapshot, which is the point of this article. The $29 entry plan (The Minimum, $23 billed annually) tracks a single engine with 10 prompts a day; Multi-Model at $63 billed annually covers three engines, and the full eight need Full Spectrum at $159 billed annually. Those two plans open with a 3-day free trial; a strategy call is Enterprise-only.
What the engine said, mailchimp.com, 22 October 2026. Gemini, live with web search. Visibility score 10/10. “Mailchimp is a widely recognized marketing automation and email marketing platform operated by Intuit.” Verdict: “Recommended when buyers ask about Email marketing and marketing automation platform”. Named alongside: ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Constant Contact, MailerLite, Brevo.
2. Rank Prompt
What it does. Rank Prompt’s pitch is to find out if ChatGPT recommends your business and what to change so it does. Every account starts on a free plan with 10 credits, enough for one full report, no card, and according to the FAQ no time limit, across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Claude, Gemini and Grok.
Standout. The free plan is a real plan rather than a teaser, and the paid product adds a Content Studio, prioritized tasks, outreach to the sites engines cite, and one-click publishing to WordPress.
Watch out for. The pricing page disagrees with itself: Starter is shown at $39 a month billed annually on the plan card and $49 in a “Find your plan” box, and the FAQ quotes Agency at $149 where the card says $119, at the time of writing. The FAQ also says new accounts open with a report on three engines rather than six.
3. SE Ranking (AI Search Toolkit)
What it does. SE Ranking, an SEO platform, offers a free AI visibility check and a paid tracker covering AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini, with mentions and cited sources.
Standout. Five free attempts a day is enough to look up yourself and four rivals before lunch, and the 14-day trial needs no card.
Watch out for. Four engines means Claude, Perplexity and Grok are invisible. AI tracking is an add-on priced at €63.20 monthly under an annual contract at the time of writing, added to a Core plan shown at €87.20, and its “specific steps to improve” are left to you.
4. Geoptie
What it does. Geoptie is a GEO platform built around audits, rank tracking, content checks and keyword discovery, with a model selector listing ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and Grok. Several tools, including the audit, carry a “Try Free” button.
Standout. The price. Starter was $49 a month at the time of writing with 15 prompts and two brands, with unlimited audit reports on every plan.
Watch out for. Fifteen prompts on four engines per brand is a thin sample, there is no trial of the full platform, and the FAQ still promises optimization for “Google Bard” and “Bing Chat”, names their owners retired some time ago. Nothing is implemented for you.
5. Semrush AI Search
What it does. Semrush folds AI visibility into its SEO suite under the banner “From Traditional SEO to AI Discovery”, with tiers labeled SEO + AI Search, a free plan at $0 and a 7-day trial on paid plans.
Standout. For a team already in Semrush, the AI view arrives inside a tool it knows, and the first look costs nothing.
Watch out for. The AI SEO page did not name a single engine, say whether the product acts on what it finds, or show a price; the pricing page displayed the SEO tier at €112.52 and Starter at €158.40 a month on a yearly plan at the time of writing. The buyer assembles the picture from several pages.
6. Peec AI
What it does. Peec AI sells AI search analytics to marketing teams: visibility, position and sentiment for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, benchmarked against rivals.
Standout. Exports: an API, a Looker Studio connector, CSV downloads and an MCP server.
Watch out for. There is no free check at all, only a trial, so it fails this list’s first test; three named engines are the fewest here; and the pricing page lists three tiers with no figures.
Scorecard: what the free tier actually tells you
| Tool | Signup for the free check | Shows rivals the engine names | Repeated sampling on paid plans | Cited sources on paid plans | Cheapest paid step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Honeyb | None | Yes | Yes, each prompt more than once, daily | Yes | $29 a month |
| Rank Prompt | Account, no card | Yes, in the report | Credit-based | Yes | $39 a month billed annually |
| SE Ranking | None stated, 5 a day | Competitor visibility | Daily | Yes | Core plan plus add-on |
| Geoptie | Varies by tool | Rank tracking | Daily; repeats not stated | Yes | $49 a month |
| Semrush | Free plan account | See vendor | Daily | Yes | €112.52 annual rate |
| Peec AI | Trial account | Yes | Not stated | Yes | See vendor |
How we ranked
Five tests, each one you can run in a trial or a demo. Repeated sampling first, because it is the test free tools are built to fail: ask whether the same prompt runs more than once a day. When Honeyb ran identical questions repeatedly for a 240-answer dataset in July 2026, the top recommendation differed from one run to the next 28 to 44 percent of the time. Put plainly, a single free check has between a one-in-four and a one-in-two chance of showing a winner the next customer will not see. Second, source visibility: does the tool show which pages the engine cited, so you know whose review is doing the talking? Third, crawler reachability: can the engines’ bots read your site at all? Fourth, the action layer: does the tool draft and publish the fix, or hand you a list? Fifth, price per engine: the fee divided by the engines included at that tier.
The sources test matters more than it sounds. In a Honeyb study from 2026 that put the same buyer question to four AI models across 21 categories, only 5 categories produced a clean number-one brand named by all four models, and 16 showed real disagreement. The most-cited third-party domain across the whole dataset was G2, with 21 citations, in nearly every category. If four engines cannot agree on a winner, the brands that win most often are present on the pages all four read.
Verdict
Run the free checks in this order and the ranking explains itself. Honeyb wins as best overall because its free check is the only one with no signup and its paid tier is the only one built around repeated sampling, sources, crawler reachability and a publishing agent; it is best value because the step from free to paid is $29 a month, the lowest here for a tool that acts rather than reports. Rank Prompt is the runner-up for anyone who wants a free plan that never expires and can forgive a pricing page that needs proofreading. SE Ranking and Semrush are sensible if the SEO subscription is already paid for, Geoptie is the cheapest audit, and Peec AI is for analysts who prefer a Looker Studio connector to a free check.
FAQ
Why does the AI give a different answer when I ask the same question twice?
Because language models generate text probabilistically, and many run a fresh web search each time, so the pages they read differ from minute to minute. Treat one answer as a single draw and judge your visibility on many.
Is a free check enough for a small business?
It is enough to learn whether you have a problem, and which rivals the engines prefer. It is not enough to fix it or to know whether a fix worked, which requires watching the answer over weeks across several engines.
Which matters more, being mentioned or being cited?
Cited, by a distance. A mention is the engine remembering you; a citation is the engine pointing at a page that persuaded it, and pages can be influenced, whether yours or a review site’s.