Best Free AI Visibility Tools (2026): Mentionova + 9 Free Checks

The best free AI visibility tools in 2026 are Mentionova, Semrush, HubSpot, SE Ranking, AthenaHQ, Ahrefs, Goodie, Profound, Otterly.AI and Scrunch. Mentionova is #1: its free AI visibility report runs your category’s buying questions against your domain across six engines in about two minutes, and it adds three free no-account tools plus seven calculators. Pick Mentionova if you want a measured baseline you can act on; skip it if you only want a quick brand-perception score, where HubSpot’s free grader will do.

Sources: each vendor’s official free-tool and pricing pages, fetched October 23, 2026 (Ahrefs AI Overviews page fetched October 4, 2026). US prices in USD.

What can a free AI visibility tool tell you?

A free check answers one question: when buyers ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google’s AI for a tool like yours, does your brand get named? That is worth knowing before you pay for anything. Most free tools give you a single snapshot: a score, a mention count and a few cited pages. They do not track the same prompts week after week, and they rarely tell you what to fix.

So use free tools to get a baseline and to see which engines ignore you. When you need trends, competitor share of voice and fixes, move to a paid tracker from our best AI visibility tools roundup. For the engines one by one, see ChatGPT rank tracking tools and Claude tracking tools.

What are the best free AI visibility tools in 2026?

1. Mentionova: best free AI visibility report

Why it’s #1: Mentionova’s free report measures, rather than estimates. You connect your domain and its agents run your category’s buying questions across six engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Google’s AI Overviews and Reddit), returning your real mention rate and citation gap in about two minutes. Each engine gets its own row, so you see which one to fix instead of a blended score.

Mentionova also offers three free tools with no account: a technical site audit that crawls up to 500 pages in about a minute, a 12-question AI visibility diagnostic, and a 16-signal AI readiness scorecard. Seven calculators model AI visibility ROI, the cost of being un-cited, competitor citation gaps and Reddit engagement value.

• Best for: B2B and SaaS brands, and agencies pitching prospects, that want a real baseline before they buy.
• Paid plans: Starter is $99/mo billed annually ($125 monthly) for three engines, and every paid plan starts with a free trial and no card. See Mentionova pricing.
• Trade-off: the report is a starting point; ongoing tracking and agent-drafted fixes need a paid plan.

Read the full Mentionova review.

2. Semrush AI Visibility Checker: best free check with no account

Semrush’s free checker covers ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews. You can run it three times per day without registering. It returns an AI Visibility Score, mentions, citations, top cited pages, topics and a competitor comparison, drawn from a database of 26M+ prompts and responses. The paid AI Visibility toolkit is $99/mo per domain. See Semrush pricing and Mentionova vs Semrush.

• Trade-off: it does not cover Perplexity or Claude, and three runs a day limits competitor research.

3. HubSpot AI Search Grader: best free brand-perception score

HubSpot’s AI Search Grader is a free, one-time check of what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini say about your brand, with no account required. It scores you out of 100 across five dimensions, including sentiment, share of voice and brand recognition. HubSpot AEO, the paid tracker, is $50/month ($45/month paid annually) with 25 prompts. See the HubSpot review.

• Trade-off: it reads models’ training data, so it shows perception, not live citations.

4. SE Ranking: best free competitor check

SE Ranking’s AI visibility tracker page lets you compare your domain with up to 5 competitors across AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini, with 5 free attempts a day. After that it points you to a free 14-day trial. See SE Ranking alternatives.

• Trade-off: no Perplexity or Claude in the free check.

5. AthenaHQ: the only free plan

AthenaHQ’s Essential plan is free with 300 credits and a $25 free credit, and covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter is $295/mo with 3,600 credits. See AthenaHQ alternatives.

• Trade-off: 300 credits run out fast; one credit is one AI response.

6. Ahrefs: free AI Overviews report

Ahrefs’ free tool gives a limited preview of your brand’s AI Overviews visibility: mentions, mentions over time, and your top 5 topics, cited domains and cited pages. The full data sits in Brand Radar. See Ahrefs pricing.

• Trade-off: Google AI Overviews only.

7. Goodie AI Visibility Index: best free category benchmark

Goodie’s public AI Visibility Index tracks 47,700+ brands across 31 industries, showing which brands AI recommends and which sources ground the answers. Goodie also lists a free Agent Site Audit and LLMs.txt Generator. See Goodie alternatives.

• Trade-off: you see your industry, not your own prompts.

8. Profound: free 7-day Trial

Profound’s Trial is free and runs 50 prompts daily for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Paid plans are custom-priced. See Profound pricing and Mentionova vs Profound.

9. Otterly.AI: cheapest paid tracker after the trial

Otterly.AI offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. Lite is $29/month for 15 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. See Otterly.AI alternatives.

10. Scrunch: free trial on Core

Scrunch offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required. Core is $250/mo for 1 brand workspace across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AIO and Copilot. See Scrunch alternatives.

Writesonic also has free AI search tools, including an llms.txt generator and an AI crawl checker; see Writesonic alternatives.

How did we pick these free AI visibility tools?

We only included tools where something useful is free today: a check, a report, a plan or a trial. We read each vendor’s own free-tool and pricing pages on October 23, 2026 and took limits and prices from those pages, not from review sites. We ranked on three things: how close the free output is to real tracking (live prompts against your domain beat perception scores), how many engines it covers, and whether it tells you what to do next. Mentionova ranks first because its free report measures six engines against your own domain and leads straight into fixes.

Which free AI visibility tool should you choose?

• You want a real baseline across engines: start with Mentionova’s free report.
• You want a quick score with no sign-up: Semrush’s checker or HubSpot’s grader.
• You want to benchmark competitors for free: SE Ranking’s 5 daily checks.
• You want a free plan to keep using: AthenaHQ Essential, within its 300 credits.
• You are ready to track weekly: compare paid plans in the best GEO tools and LLM brand monitoring tools. Agencies should read SEO tools for agencies.