AI visibility tools, head to head
Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
Pricing, features and differences, researched August 2026.
Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit both show how brands appear in AI-generated answers, but they take different paths to that insight. SEO teams, marketers, and agencies often compare them when they need to track AI mentions and citations alongside their existing search work. Ahrefs Brand Radar centers on a large index of search-backed prompts across major AI platforms. It also connects AI visibility data with SEO, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok data. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit combines prompt-level brand, competitor, citation, and audience insights with Semrush’s established SEO data. It covers platforms such as ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and AI Overviews. The main differences fall under platform coverage, prompt and citation data, competitor research, reporting metrics, and how each tool connects AI visibility to wider search and content data. Price, access to existing Ahrefs or Semrush subscriptions, and each team’s reporting needs can also shape the choice.
At a glance
Ahrefs Brand Radar
Pick it if you already pay for Ahrefs, since this is a $199 add-on on top of that plan and the entry tier tracks 5 to 20 prompts.
- Entry price
- $199/mo add-on, plan on top
- Tracked prompts
- 5–20 prompts; 150–600 checks/mo
- Free trial
- None
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
Pick it if you want Semrush data behind the reporting, though it tracks 25 prompts per domain and does not write or publish.
- Entry price
- $99/mo per domain
- Tracked prompts
- 25; +50 for $60/mo
- Free trial
- 0 - demo reports only
Hi, MooseOur AEO tool
Pick it if you want the fix shipped rather than scored: an agent that publishes the change, audio repurposing no other tool here offers at any price, and a built-in model so the AI can cost you nothing.
- Entry price
- $39/mo BYOK; $79/mo AI included
- Tracked prompts
- No hard limit on any plan
- Free trial
- n/a - free plan, no expiry
The row SEOs read first
Founders have SEO backgrounds?
A tool built by people who have done the work makes different choices.
Full comparison
202 rows across 20 categories. Values are quoted as published; where a vendor does not publish a number, the cell says so.
| Feature | Ahrefs Brand Radar | Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Hi, Moose Our AEO tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing & cost model | |||
| Free plan available | Free account, no AI visibility | No - and no trial | Yes - free forever, no card |
| Free daily visibility runs, no cap | No | No | Yes - local runs unlimited on every plan |
| Engines free to run daily | 0 | 0 - free checker is one-off | 5 |
| Entry paid price | $199/mo add-on, plan on top | $99/mo per domain | $39/mo BYOK; $79/mo AI included |
| Annual billing discount | Yes - 2 months free | Partial - $99 is the annual-billed rate | Yes - BYOK 2 months free; managed plans ~10% |
| Pricing model | Per engine index + prompt checks | Per domain + per user + prompt packs | Flat plan with monthly AI credit balance, or BYOK |
| Bring your own API key | No | No | Yes - OpenRouter |
| Can run with $0 AI cost to vendor | No | No | Yes |
| Usage metered in one transparent unit | Partial - checks cover custom prompts only | No - separate query, prompt, page, export caps | Yes - AI credits, published rate card |
| In-app usage dashboard | Yes - limits and usage page | Partial - subscription limit counters | Yes - % used, reset date, pace warning |
| Agency / reseller tier | No - agency directory listing only | No - $90/mo directory listing only | Yes - $149 BYOK Agency; $449+ AI included |
| Affiliate program | No - discontinued | Yes | Yes |
| Annual contract required | No - Enterprise annual only | Partial - $99 rate is annual-billed | No |
| Free trial length | None | 0 - demo reports only | n/a - free plan, no expiry |
| Paid plans pricing range | $29–$1,499/mo + $199–$699 add-ons | $99/mo + add-ons; enterprise custom | $39–$1,999/mo |
| Deployment, privacy & data ownership | |||
| Native desktop app | No - browser extension only | No - iOS/Android apps only | Yes - Windows and macOS |
| Browser-based app | Yes | Yes | No |
| Local-first data storage | No - cloud SaaS | No - cloud SaaS | Yes - local database on the device |
| Works offline | No | No | Partial - local models and stored data; engine checks need the web |
| On-device AI Inference | No | No | Yes |
| Local model sizes offered | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Data export on cancellation | CSV + API anytime | CSV, Excel, Sheets, PDF; 10 exports/day | CSV, PDF, DOCX exports plus full local backup |
| SOC 2 certification | SOC 2 Type 2 | Claimed on enterprise pages, not security page | Pending |
| ISO certification | ISO 27001 (2022) | Not published - PCI DSS Level 1 only | No |
| Local backup and restore | No | No | Yes - export and import a backup file |
| Visibility & prompt tracking | |||
| Engines tracked | 8 listed; 6 collecting | 5 surfaces; 3–4 per report | 10; 5 of them also collected locally |
| Real consumer-surface capture | Yes - free web UI, no login | Yes - clickstream and live queries, not LLM APIs | Yes - 5 engines read from the device, no API |
| ChatGPT | Yes - $199/mo index | Yes | Yes |
| Claude | Custom prompts only, 8 checks each | No | Yes |
| Gemini | Yes - $199/mo index | Yes | Yes |
| Google AI Mode | Yes - $199/mo index | Yes | Yes |
| Google AI Overviews | Yes - $199/mo index | Partial - research reports only | Yes |
| Grok | Listed, collection paused | No | Yes |
| Bing Copilot | Yes - $199/mo index | No - separate enterprise product | Yes |
| DeepSeek | No | No | Yes |
| Meta AI | No | No | Yes |
| Tracked prompts included | 5–20 prompts; 150–600 checks/mo | 25; +50 for $60/mo | No hard limit on any plan |
| Samples per prompt configurable | No | No - 1 run/day | Yes |
| Run cadence options | Daily, weekly or monthly | Daily; brand reports weekly | Multiple times a day, weekly, monthly, and on-demand |
| On-demand run now | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Instant one-off check | Yes - search the stored index | Yes - free web checker | Yes |
| Prompt manager | Yes - add, tag, delete | Yes - CSV/TXT import, tags | Yes |
| Branded vs non-branded classification | Not published | Partial - brand reports only | Yes |
| Prompt categories and topics | Yes - tags + topic clusters | Yes - tags + AI topic clusters | Yes |
| Per-prompt model selection | Yes - engines set per prompt | No - one engine per campaign | Yes |
| Brand name variant support | Yes - multiple names per brand | Yes - context-aware name matching | Yes - secondary brand terms |
| Brand multi-domain support | Yes - uncapped | No - $99/mo per extra domain | Yes - secondary owned domains |
| Suggested prompts from Google Search Console | No | No | Yes - real GSC questions |
| Suggested prompts from competitor gaps | Partial - AI generator from brand focus areas | Partial - competitor research report | Yes |
| Perplexity | Yes - $199/mo index | Partial - brand reports only | Yes |
| Scoring & analysis | |||
| Mention detection | Yes - string match | Yes | Yes |
| Citation detection | Yes - cited vs found-not-cited | Yes - domain and page level | Yes - domain and page level |
| Sentiment scoring | No | Partial - brand reports only, weekly | Yes |
| Average position / rank | No | Yes | Yes |
| Share of Voice | Yes - impression-weighted | Partial - brand reports only | Yes |
| Share of Mentions | Partial - mention counts per brand | Yes - 0–100 visibility score | Yes |
| Share of Citations | Partial - citation counts per domain | Partial - citation share by domain | Yes |
| Narrative drift detection | No | Partial - weekly snapshots, manual compare | Yes - scored against a brand truth profile |
| Feature-parity / accuracy scoring | No | Partial - feature sentiment, no ground truth | Yes |
| Untracked brand extraction | Partial - auto-suggests rivals at setup | Yes | Yes - with sentiment and average rank |
| Cited source categorization | Partial - by domain and page, not typed | Yes - own, competitor, social, knowledge base, other | Yes - 8 source types |
| Topic-level breakdown | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Engine-level breakdown | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Competitor tracking | Yes - any brand, no setup wait | Yes - auto-identified, editable | Yes - or promote any brand seen in results |
| Competitors included | Uncapped | 9 in brand reports | 15 |
| Visibility gap analysis | Yes - topic and citation gaps | Yes - topic and citation gaps | Yes |
| ChatGPT fan-out capture | Yes - ChatGPT and Perplexity | No | Yes |
| AI Mode grounding queries capture | No | No | Yes - the live grounding searches |
| Bing Index probe | No | No | Yes |
| AI crawler access check | Partial - bot traffic logs, no robots check | Yes - 8 bots, robots.txt, 100 pages | Yes - retrieval, live fetch and training |
| Reporting & exports | |||
| Executive dashboard | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI-written narrative summary | No | Yes - in brand reports | Yes |
| Data export | Yes - CSV, API, Looker Studio | Yes - CSV, Excel, Sheets, PDF; 10/day | Yes - CSV |
| Branded PDF report | No - Ahrefs branding, stated policy | Add-on, $20/mo | Yes |
| Scheduled email reports | Partial - report scheduling, $249+ | Yes - daily, weekly or monthly | Yes - paid, per-user opt-in |
| Action log with export | No - audit log on Enterprise | No | Yes - CSV on paid managed plans |
| Historical data retention | AI answers from 2025; 6–60 mo by plan | Weekly snapshots; no cap published | No cap - stored on device,. Paid plans offer 400 day backup on-cloud; audio analytics 180–365 days |
| Taking action (the AEO loop) | |||
| Covers full loop: track → fix → verify → deploy | No - measurement only | No - no fix or deploy step | Yes |
| Page-level AEO audit | No - technical SEO audit only | No - site-level score, 100 pages | Yes |
| Scored categories | 0 for AI readiness | 0 - single composite score | 9 |
| Retrieval-readiness scoring | No | No | Yes - deterministic dense retrieval |
| Evidence tiers on recommendations | No - no recommendations | No - severity only | Yes - proven, directional, best-practice |
| Element-level rewrite suggestions | No | No | Yes - element, character budget, before and after |
| Second-model QA pass | No | No - human review | Yes - pass, revised or needs human review |
| Static crawler-view snapshot | No | Partial - crawl as an AI bot, no screenshot | Yes - full-page screenshot, JavaScript off |
| Audit input sources | n/a - no AI page audit | Site crawl only, 100 pages | Live URL, pasted text, file, WordPress, Webflow, Grav |
| Baseline vs verification re-runs | Partial - crawl compare, not AI | Partial - crawl comparison, not AI | Yes - compares against the baseline |
| Recommendation status tracking | No | No | Yes - planned, staged, completed |
| Visibility data sets page priority | Partial - cited pages report | Partial - cited pages report | Yes - defend, recover, convert, earn |
| Search Console sets page priority | Partial - GSC data in platform | No | Yes - protect, balanced or expand |
| Branded audit PDF | n/a - no AI page audit | Add-on, $20/mo | Yes |
| CMS integration & publishing | |||
| WordPress | Plugin for audits, no publishing | No - separate content product | Yes - official plugin, production and staging |
| Webflow | No | No | Yes - OAuth MCP, pages and collection items |
| Framer | No | No | On roadmap |
| Grav | No | No | Yes - official plugin |
| Shopify | No | No | On roadmap |
| Surgical element-level edits to live page | No | No | Yes |
| Preview before applying | No | No | Yes |
| Staging environment support | No | No | Yes - WordPress, with promote to production |
| One-click rollback | No | No | Yes - WordPress |
| Patch history per site | No | No | Yes - WordPress |
| Visual placement picker | No | No | Yes - pick the spot on the rendered page |
| Push Schema JSON-LD into page | No | No | Yes - FAQPage schema |
| Publish approval gate | n/a - never publishes | n/a - never publishes | Yes - always, including scheduled runs |
| Agentic capability | |||
| Truly agentic (agent chooses its own steps) | No - separate product, $99+/mo | No | Yes - plans and executes against the live web |
| Fixed-workflow automation only | No workflow builder either | No workflow builder either | No - workflows exist alongside the agent |
| Agents can run on local model at zero cost | No | No | Yes |
| Multi-agent panel | No | No | Yes - two extra agents, paid plans |
| Live browser view | No | No | Yes |
| Take control mid-run | No | No | Yes |
| Steer agent while running | No | No | Yes - talk to any agent mid-job |
| Background execution | No - separate product | No | Yes - with notify on completion |
| Approval gate before real-world actions | n/a - takes no actions | n/a - takes no actions | Yes |
| Long-running deep work jobs | No | No | Yes |
| Scheduled agent jobs | No - scheduled prompt checks only | No - scheduled crawls and exports only | Yes - daily, weekdays, weekly, monthly |
| Agent produces saved artifacts | No | No | Yes - briefs, drafts, FAQs, audits |
| Evidence capture | Partial - raw AI answers stored | Yes - stored AI answers and snapshots | Yes - screenshots and captured proof |
| Searchable job history | No - saved reports only | No | Yes |
| Chat & assistant | |||
| Agentic chat with mid-answer tool calls | No - data exposed to outside assistants via MCP | No - recommendation cards, not chat | Yes |
| Model picker per conversation | No | No | Yes |
| LLM models available | n/a | n/a | 27 hosted + 3 local; any model on BYOK |
| Chat memory across conversations | No | No | Yes - semantic search over past chats |
| Live web search | No | No | Yes |
| Fetch and read URLs | Partial - import a URL in the editor | Partial - crawls a URL you enter | Yes |
| Semantic search over your own site | No | No | Yes - on-device index |
| Topic coverage check | Partial - topic score vs top pages | Partial - topic and citation gap reports | Yes - covered, partial or not covered |
| File attachments | No | No | Yes - txt, md, doc, docx, pdf, images |
| In-app screenshot capture | No | No | Yes - screen or window, with crop |
| Custom specialists with own tool access | No | No | Yes - plus 6 presets |
| Image generation | No | No - separate content product | Yes |
| Content generation | |||
| Research-backed briefs | Partial - topics and headings from top pages | No - separate content product | Yes |
| Live SERP / PAA research | Yes - separate $99/mo add-on | No - AI topic and question data only | Yes - plus related searches and AI search snapshots |
| Full draft generation | No - assisted editor, 1 doc/mo free | No | Yes |
| Brand voice grounding | Yes - brand kits | No | Yes |
| Brand truth profile | No - brand names and domains only | No - brand name and domain only | Yes |
| Internal linking placement | No - listed as coming soon | No | Yes |
| Featured image generation | No | No | Yes |
| FAQ generation with schema export | No | No | Yes - HTML and JSON-LD |
| Key points extraction | No | No | Yes - pushable into the live pag |
| AI-tell removal pass | Separate free tool, not in product | No | Yes - paid, toggleable |
| Artifact library | Partial - saved documents | No | Yes |
| Export formats | CSV, PDF; API, Looker | CSV, Excel, Sheets, PDF | Markdown, HTML, DOCX, PDF, TXT |
| Revise artifacts in place | Yes - editor + version history | No | Yes |
| Deploy directly to CMS | No | No | Yes |
| Content repurposing / audio | |||
| Turn any page into audio | No | No | Yes - URL, pasted text or file |
| Two-voice conversation format | No | No | Yes |
| Voices | 0 | 0 | 30 |
| Languages | 0 | 0 | 24 |
| Length options | n/a | n/a | Short, standard, deep dive |
| Embeddable audio player | No | No | Yes |
| Player theming and layout | No | No | Yes - theme, layout, accent, title, transcript |
| White-label audio attribution | No | No | Yes - agency plans |
| Attribution backlink to agency | No | No | Yes - real link in page HTML |
| Listening analytics | No | No | Yes - plays, completion, listen time |
| BYOK audio generation | No | No | Yes |
| Site crawl & monitoring | |||
| Automatic site discovery | Yes - own crawler + sitemap | Yes - crawler and sitemap | Yes |
| Scheduled full-site crawl | Yes - 100k–5M pages/mo by plan | Partial - AI checks capped at 100 pages | Yes - weekly or on demand |
| Monitored page management | Yes | Partial - one crawl campaign, 100 pages | Yes |
| Batched change digests | Partial - crawl comparison + email alerts | Partial - crawl comparison alerts | Yes |
| On-device semantic index | No | No | Yes |
| Page freshness tracking | Partial - page and content change data | Partial - crawl-to-crawl changes | Yes |
| Entity & knowledge graph | |||
| Site-wide entity graph | No | No | Yes |
| Inferred relationships | No | No - brand and sub-brand matching only | Yes |
| Salience scoring | No | No | Yes |
| Graph readable by AI agent | No | No | Yes |
| Graph export | No | No | Yes - CSV and PDF |
| Automation & workflows | |||
| Visibility-threshold triggers | No | No | Yes - mentions or citations, all or one topic |
| Pre-built recovery recipe | No | No | Yes - detect, locate, audit, stage a fix |
| Conditional branching | No | No | Partial - branches on whether a matching page exists |
| Scheduled content cadence | No | No | Yes - daily to monthly |
| Workflow reports | No | No - scheduled exports only | Yes - posted to the inbox |
| Alerts & inbox | |||
| Unified project inbox | No | Partial - recommendation cards on dashboard | Yes |
| Native OS notifications | No | No - mobile app push only | Yes - Windows and macOS |
| Customized notifications with severity thresholds | No | No | Yes - per project |
| Email digest | Partial - web mentions and rankings, not AI | Yes - scheduled exports | Yes |
| Teams & workspaces | |||
| Seats included | 1 | 1 | Unlimited on paid managed; 10 BYOK Premium, 25 BYOK Agency |
| Cost per additional seat | $40–$80/mo | $99/mo per user | $0 on paid managed plans, +$7 per seat for BYOK plans |
| Shared allowance across team | Yes - shared checks and credits | Partial - brand slots pool, access does not | Yes |
| Per-member usage visibility | Partial - per-user credit usage | Partial - limit allocation per user | Yes |
| Multi-project workspaces | Yes | No - 1 folder | Yes |
| Projects included | 5 / 20 / 50 / 100 | 1 folder, 1 brand domain | 1 free, 3–10 managed, 25–unlimited agency; +$10 each |
| Archive and restore projects | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Per-project API keys | No - account-level | No - account-level | Yes - rotatable |
| SSO / SAML | Enterprise only | Enterprise only | Roadmap |
| Agency & white-label | |||
| White-label PDF reports | No - stated policy | Add-on, $20/mo | Yes - visibility report and audit |
| Custom logo, color and link | No | Add-on, $20/mo | Yes |
| White-label audio player | No | No | Yes - custom attribution text and link |
| Client-facing backlink | No | No | Yes |
| Dedicated agency tier | No | No - $90/mo directory listing | Yes - four tiers |
| Client sub-accounts | No - projects and seats only | No - client portal discontinued | No - clients are projects, no client logins |
| Integrations | |||
| Google Search Console | Yes | Partial - via $10/mo report add-on | Yes - OAuth, credentials stay on device |
| Google Analytics | Partial - GA4 import into their analytics | Partial - via $10/mo report add-on | Roadmap |
| MCP connector support | Yes - hosted server, $129+ | No - needs an SEO or bundled plan | Partial - Webflow connects over MCP |
| Public API | Yes - $129+, unit-metered | No - separate SEO plan | No - project keys for own plugins only |
| Slack | No | No | No |
| Zapier | No | No | No |
| Custom connection support | Yes - API and data connector | Partial - report integrations on $20/mo add-on | Yes - request a connection, paid plans |
| Platform & support | |||
| UI languages | 12 | 14 | 6 |
| Troubleshooting and recovery tools | No | No | Yes |
| In-app help agent | Partial - live chat with support | Partial - recommendation cards, live chat | Yes |
| Done-for-you service available | No - partner agency directory | No - partner agency directory | Yes |
| Team | |||
| Founders have SEO backgrounds | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. Founder Sam Morris has 15+ years in SEO and software engineering. |
Which one to pick
Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit both suit teams that mainly need AI visibility measurement. Ahrefs is a strong fit for teams that want its search-backed prompt index, broad SEO data connections, public API, and SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 certifications. Semrush fits teams that already work in its platform and prefer a browser-based tool with prompt, citation, and competitor reporting.
Hi, Moose fits small teams and agencies that need to act on the findings as well as track them. It covers the AEO loop from tracking to page-level audits, rewrite suggestions, verification runs, approval-gated publishing, and WordPress, Webflow, or Grav deployment. It also tracks 10 engines, including Claude, DeepSeek, Meta AI, Grok, Bing Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Perplexity. Its AI Mode grounding-query capture, Bing Index probe, brand truth scoring, and live page audit add analysis that the other two tools do not list.
Cost and control also differ. Hi, Moose has a free-forever plan with no card, five engines available for daily runs, and unlimited local daily visibility runs on every plan. Paid plans start at $39 per month with an OpenRouter key or $79 per month with AI included. Teams can also run local models or bring their own API key, which can reduce vendor AI costs to $0. Ahrefs starts Brand Radar as a $199 monthly add-on on top of an Ahrefs plan, while Semrush starts at $99 per domain per month with no free plan or trial.
The desktop approach will not suit every team. Hi, Moose runs on Windows and macOS rather than in a browser, and it does not offer a public API, Slack, or Zapier. It also has SOC 2 certification pending, while Ahrefs publishes SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 credentials. For buyers who need cloud access, enterprise compliance documentation, or API-based reporting, Ahrefs may be the better choice.
For buyers who want local data storage, full local backup, on-device AI options, white-label reports, agency pricing, and a path from visibility data to approved changes on a live site, Hi, Moose offers the broader working set. It gives SEO teams a way to find AI search gaps, prepare a fix, review it, and verify the result without adding separate tools for each step.
Sources and research date
Researched August 2026
Every value comes from vendor pricing pages, public docs or a live account. Where a vendor does not publish a number, the cell says not published instead of an estimate. Plans change often. If a row is wrong, tell us and we will date the correction.
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