Best Frase Alternatives (2026): 8 Picks for SEO and AI Search
The best Frase alternatives: Mentionova, Surfer, Clearscope, Writesonic, Semrush, AirOps, Otterly.AI and MarketMuse, with official prices and limits.
The best Frase alternative for most teams is Mentionova, at $99 a month billed annually: pick it if you came to Frase for AI visibility and want tracking across six answer engines plus agents that draft the content and Reddit replies that close the gaps; skip it if what you need is Frase’s core job, a content editor that scores a draft against the pages ranking on Google, in which case Surfer or Clearscope fits better. Frase now sells itself as an SEO and GEO platform, with AI Visibility prompts, Content Guard and a FraseCMS, from $39 a month billed yearly. The eight alternatives below cover the three reasons people leave: more AI engines, a stronger editor, or more content volume. Every price, limit and feature comes from the vendor’s own pricing or product page, fetched November 3, 2026.
| Alternative | Entry price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Mentionova | $99/mo yearly | Best overall: AI visibility plus drafted fixes |
| Surfer | $49/mo yearly | Content editor with AI tracking add-on |
| Clearscope | $129/mo | Editorial teams that want simple grading |
| Writesonic | $79/mo yearly | Budget AI articles plus prompt tracking |
| Semrush AI Visibility | $99/mo per domain yearly | Teams already on Semrush |
| AirOps | Free to start, task-based | Content workflows at volume |
| Otterly.AI | $25/mo yearly | Cheapest dedicated prompt tracking |
| MarketMuse | Free plan, demo for paid | Topic planning and content inventories |
Entry prices from each vendor’s pricing page, fetched November 3, 2026. US prices in USD.
Want the wider field first? Our best AI content optimization tools guide ranks the editors, and best AI visibility tools ranks the trackers.
What does Frase do, and what does it cost?
Frase started as a research-and-brief tool and now pitches a full SEO and GEO loop: research, an agent that drafts in your brand voice, content optimization, a site audit, AI Visibility tracking and a hosted FraseCMS. Its home page says AI Visibility “tracks where you show up across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Google AI on a daily cadence”, and that Frase runs inside Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor “through the MCP server and CLI, on every plan”.
Frase plans
| Plan | Price (yearly / monthly) | Key limits |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $39 / $49 | 1 seat, 1 site, 10 articles, 20 AI Visibility prompts |
| Professional | $103 / $129 | 3 seats, 5 sites, 40 articles, 50 prompts |
| Scale | $239 / $299 | 5 seats, 10 domains, 100 articles, 75 prompts |
| Enterprise | Custom | SSO, white-label |
Source: frase.io/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Billed yearly, that is $468, $1,236 and $2,868 a year. Extra seats on Professional cost $29 each. Every plan has a 7-day free trial with no card.
Which engines each Frase plan tracks
This is the detail most buyers miss. Starter tracks ChatGPT and Google AI only. Professional adds Perplexity and AI crawler monitoring. Claude and Gemini arrive only on Scale. History also scales with the plan: current data only on Starter, then 3, 12 and 24 months. Content Guard, Frase’s watch on published pages, covers 10, 75 and 300 pages across the three self-serve tiers.
Why look for a Frase alternative?
- The AI tracking is thin on the cheap plans. Twenty prompts on two engines is a sample, not a share-of-voice program. Five engines and 75 prompts cost $239 a month billed yearly.
- You want fixes, not only a score. Frase grades content and flags visibility changes. Tools such as Mentionova go further and draft the page or the Reddit reply that a missing citation calls for.
- You need a stronger editor. Teams that live in a content editor all day often prefer Surfer’s or Clearscope’s grading and integrations.
- You want more volume. If you publish hundreds of pages a month, task-based tools such as AirOps scale differently from Frase’s article caps.
How did we rank these Frase alternatives?
We scored each tool on five things, weighted for a team that is moving budget from classic SEO toward AI search:
| Criterion | What we checked |
|---|---|
| AI engine coverage | Which answer engines the entry plan tracks |
| Action | Whether it drafts or briefs the fix, not just reports |
| Content tooling | Editor, briefs and article generation |
| Price clarity | A published price and clear limits |
| Entry cost | What a small team pays to start |
Every figure comes from the vendor’s own pricing or product page, fetched November 3, 2026. Where a vendor publishes no price, we say so instead of estimating.
Mentionova
Mentionova tracks how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Reddit answer your buyers’ questions, then has agents turn the gaps into work: refresh briefs, new articles, and Reddit replies you post yourself.
Best for
Teams that bought Frase for the AI visibility angle and want deeper tracking plus content that closes the gaps, without stitching together a tracker and a writer.
What each plan includes
| Plan | Price (yearly / monthly) | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $99 / $125 | 100 agentic tasks, 25 prompts, 3 engines |
| Scale | $320 / $400 | 500 tasks, 100 prompts, 6 engines |
| Enterprise | $799 / $999 | 2,500 tasks, 250 prompts, 6 engines |
Source: mentionova.com/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Agency plans start at Launch, $200 a month billed annually ($250 monthly), with 50 prompts and 3 client workspaces. Every paid plan has a free trial and no card to begin.
How it compares with Frase
Frase’s content gap work starts from search results. Mentionova’s content gap analysis starts from AI answers: it “collects every prompt where an AI engine names a competitor and not you, across six engines, groups them into topics, and names the page that would close each gap.” Its content optimizer pulls 90 days of Search Console data for slipping pages, checks which sources the engines cite instead, and writes a refresh brief per page. The AI writer reads the live results page and real sources first, and “nothing publishes until you approve the draft.”
Limits
Starter covers three engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google). You need Scale for all six. There is no hosted CMS like FraseCMS.
The pricing catch
Tasks are a shared pool. Grids, workflows and Reddit thread enrichment (5 tasks each) all draw on it, so heavy content runs use it up faster than tracking does.
Who should skip it
Writers who only want a Google-focused editor score. A dedicated editor is simpler.
Why it is #1
It is the only tool here that covers six engines including Reddit, prices them publicly, and drafts the fix. That is the job most teams now want from a Frase replacement. See our Mentionova review for the full breakdown.
Surfer
Surfer is the best-known content editor in the category and now sells AI tracking alongside it.
Best for
Content teams whose daily work is optimizing drafts against what ranks, who want AI tracking in the same tool.
What each plan includes
| Plan | Price (billed yearly) | AI tracking |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | $49/mo | 120 documents, 10 tracked pages |
| Standard | $99/mo | 25 AI prompts, refreshed weekly |
| Pro | $182/mo | 50 AI prompts, refreshed daily |
| Peace of Mind | $299/mo | 100 daily prompts, API |
| AI Search Analytics | $82/mo | 50 prompts, refreshed daily |
Source: surferseo.com/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Limits
AI tracking on Standard refreshes weekly, not daily. Daily tracking starts at Pro.
The pricing catch
The listed prices are yearly. The annual plan saves “up to 17%” against monthly payments, so a monthly plan costs more.
Who should skip it
Teams whose main problem is AI answers rather than Google rankings. Surfer’s AI layer is a tracker, not a fixer. Compare it with the others in our Surfer alternatives guide.
Clearscope
Clearscope is the editor many content teams pick for its simple grading. It now tracks queries in ChatGPT and Gemini.
Best for
Editorial teams that want a clean content grade and a few AI queries tracked, with support included.
What each plan includes
| Plan | Price | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | $129/mo | 50 tracked queries, 50 pages, 20 drafts |
| Business | $399/mo | 300 tracked queries, 300 pages, 20 drafts |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom credits, SSO |
Source: clearscope.io/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Clearscope says its query tracking works “across ChatGPT and Gemini,” and that it shows the web searches AI platforms trigger (query fan-out). There is a 14-day free trial.
Limits
Two AI engines. No Perplexity, Claude or Google AI Overviews tracking is listed.
The pricing catch
Add-ons cost extra: additional tracked queries are listed at $6.50 a month on Essentials and $5.50 on Business, and additional drafts at $50 and $20.
Who should skip it
Teams on a tight budget. Essentials costs more than Frase Professional and tracks fewer engines.
Writesonic
Writesonic pairs an AI article writer with AI visibility tracking, and its paid tiers publish both limits.
Best for
Small teams that want articles and prompt tracking in one subscription at a low entry price.
What each plan includes
| Plan | Price (billed annually) | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $79/mo | 50 prompts, 15 AI articles |
| Basic | $199/mo | 100 prompts, 25 AI articles |
| Growth | $399/mo | 200 prompts, 50 AI articles |
| Enterprise | Custom | All 9 AI platforms |
Source: writesonic.com/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Limits
The paid tiers track ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Perplexity, Claude and the other platforms come on Enterprise.
The pricing catch
Sentiment analysis and the Action Center are Growth features. Starter’s agentic workflows are “Limited access (10 trial runs).”
Who should skip it
Teams that need Perplexity or Claude tracking without an enterprise contract.
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
Semrush sells AI visibility as a toolkit that sits beside its SEO suite.
Best for
Teams already paying for Semrush that want AI answers in the same login.
What each plan includes
The AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month per domain, billed yearly, with 25 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity. Additional users start at $45 a month. Details are on semrush.com/pricing/ai, fetched November 3, 2026.
Limits
The toolkit reports. It does not write or refresh content for you.
The pricing catch
Pricing is per domain. Agencies and multi-brand teams pay for each one.
Who should skip it
Teams that don’t use Semrush already. See Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit alternatives.
AirOps
AirOps is a content workflow platform, sold by tasks rather than articles.
Best for
Teams producing content at volume that want to build their own workflows.
What each plan includes
| Plan | Limits |
|---|---|
| Solo | ChatGPT insights only, 35,000 tasks, single user |
| Pro | 10+ answer engines, 100,000 tasks, unlimited seats |
| Enterprise | Custom prompts, pages and task limits |
Source: airops.com/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Limits
No list price is published for any plan. Solo and Pro both show a “Start for free” button.
The pricing catch
Solo users pay $0.025 for each task over the allotment.
Who should skip it
Small teams that want a tool that works out of the box. AirOps rewards workflow building. More in AirOps alternatives.
Otterly.AI
Otterly.AI is a focused AI search monitoring tool with low entry pricing.
Best for
Small brands that want cheap prompt tracking across four engines and will write the content themselves.
What each plan includes
| Plan | Price (yearly / monthly) | Prompts |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | $25 / $29 | 15 |
| Standard | $160 / $189 | 100 |
| Premium | $422 / $489 | 400 |
Source: otterly.ai/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Every plan tracks ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini as add-ons. Extra prompts cost $99 per 100.
Limits
It monitors. There’s no content editor or article writer.
The pricing catch
Lite’s 15 prompts cover only a small slice of a real buyer journey. Most teams will need Standard.
Who should skip it
Anyone who left Frase to get content help, not less of it.
MarketMuse
MarketMuse is a content planning tool built around topic models and content inventories.
Best for
Content strategists who plan large topic clusters and audit an existing library.
What each plan includes
| Plan | Limits |
|---|---|
| Free | 1 user, 10 queries a month |
| Optimize | 100 tracked topics, 5 briefs a month |
| Research | 1000 tracked topics, 10 briefs a month |
| Strategy | 10K tracked topics, 20 briefs a month |
Source: marketmuse.com/pricing, fetched November 3, 2026.
Limits
Its pricing page lists no AI answer-engine tracking.
The pricing catch
Paid plans have no published price. Each one leads to “Book a demo.”
Who should skip it
Teams whose priority is AI visibility. MarketMuse is a planning tool.
How to choose a Frase alternative
Decide what you are replacing
List the Frase features you actually use. If it is the editor, compare Surfer and Clearscope. If it is AI Visibility, compare Mentionova, Otterly.AI and Semrush. If it is article volume, compare Writesonic and AirOps.
Count engines, not just prompts
Frase Starter tracks two engines. Mentionova Scale, Otterly.AI with add-ons and Frase Scale each reach five or more. Our AI search statistics show why coverage beyond ChatGPT matters.
Check who writes the fix
A tracker tells you that a competitor is cited. Only some tools draft the page or reply that changes it. If your team is small, pick one that drafts. See AI SEO agents.
Frase alternatives by use case
| Use case | Pick |
|---|---|
| AI visibility plus drafted content | Mentionova |
| Daily content editor | Surfer |
| Simple editorial grading | Clearscope |
| Cheap articles plus tracking | Writesonic |
| Already on Semrush | Semrush AI Visibility |
| Content workflows at volume | AirOps |
| Cheapest prompt tracking | Otterly.AI |
| Topic planning | MarketMuse |
Frase alternatives pricing compared
| Tool | Entry (billed yearly) | Next tier |
|---|---|---|
| Frase | $39/mo | $103/mo |
| Mentionova | $99/mo | $320/mo |
| Surfer | $49/mo | $99/mo |
| Clearscope | $129/mo | $399/mo |
| Writesonic | $79/mo | $199/mo |
| Semrush AI Visibility | $99/mo per domain | Enterprise (custom) |
| Otterly.AI | $25/mo | $160/mo |
| AirOps | No list price | No list price |
| MarketMuse | Free | Demo |
Sources: each vendor’s official pricing page, fetched November 3, 2026. Clearscope lists monthly prices only.
Which should you choose?
Choose Mentionova if you want the most AI engine coverage for the money and agents that draft the content. Choose Surfer or Clearscope if your team’s day is spent in a content editor. Choose Otterly.AI if you only need cheap monitoring. And stay on Frase if its Starter plan’s two engines and 10 articles already cover what you do: at $39 a month billed yearly, it’s one of the cheapest all-in-one starts in the category.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Frase alternative?
Mentionova is our top pick for teams that use Frase for AI visibility. It tracks up to six engines including Reddit and has agents draft the content that closes citation gaps, from $99 a month billed annually ($125 monthly).
How much does Frase cost?
Starter is $39 a month billed yearly ($49 monthly), Professional $103 ($129) and Scale $239 ($299). Enterprise is custom. Every plan has a 7-day free trial with no card.
Which AI engines does Frase track?
Starter tracks ChatGPT and Google AI with 20 prompts. Professional adds Perplexity (50 prompts) and Scale adds Claude and Gemini (75 prompts).
What is the best Frase alternative for content optimization?
Surfer, for teams that work in a content editor every day. Discovery is $49 a month billed yearly, and Standard at $99 adds 25 AI prompts refreshed weekly.
Is Clearscope better than Frase?
Clearscope is simpler and includes support on every plan, but it costs more: Essentials is $129 a month for 50 tracked queries across ChatGPT and Gemini.
What is the cheapest Frase alternative?
Otterly.AI Lite is $25 a month billed yearly ($29 monthly) for 15 prompts, but it only monitors. For content plus tracking, Writesonic Starter is $79 a month billed annually.
Does Frase have an AI visibility tracker?
Yes. Frase AI Visibility tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Google AI daily, though the engines depend on your plan.
Is MarketMuse a good Frase alternative?
For topic planning, yes. MarketMuse has a free plan with 10 queries a month, but paid plans are sold by demo and its pricing page lists no AI answer tracking.
Should I replace Frase or add an AI visibility tool?
If you like Frase's editor, keep it and add a tracker such as Mentionova for AI answers. Replace it if AI search is now your main channel and Frase's plan limits are holding you back.
Does AirOps publish prices?
No. AirOps lists Solo, Pro and Enterprise without list prices. Solo includes 35,000 tasks and charges $0.025 for each extra task.
Sources
- Mentionova, Pricing, mentionova.com/pricing, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Mentionova, Pricing for agencies, mentionova.com/pricing, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Mentionova, Content gap analysis, mentionova.com/product/content-gap-analysis, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Mentionova, Content optimizer, mentionova.com/product/content-optimizer, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Mentionova, AI content writer, mentionova.com/product/ai-content-writer, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Frase, Pricing, www.frase.io/pricing, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Frase, Home, www.frase.io/, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Surfer, Pricing, surferseo.com/pricing/, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Clearscope, Pricing, www.clearscope.io/pricing, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Writesonic, Pricing, writesonic.com/pricing, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Semrush, AI Visibility pricing, www.semrush.com/pricing/ai/, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- AirOps, Pricing, www.airops.com/pricing, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- Otterly.AI, Pricing, otterly.ai/pricing/, captured Nov 3, 2026.
- MarketMuse, Pricing, www.marketmuse.com/pricing/, captured Nov 3, 2026.