Snapshot vs. the market
Free AI visibility scans, compared
We looked for every free live-engine AI visibility checker and on-page readiness scanner we could find, checked 2026-09-22. This is what each one covers, and why we call the Heralded Snapshot the most complete free one.
The field.
Two product categories compete for the same keywords. Live-engine checkers run prompts against LLMs and report whether your brand is mentioned, so they cost real money per run and nearly all gate on email or signup. On-page readiness scanners crawl your site and score GEO hygiene without querying any LLM, so they are free and ungated. A high readiness score says nothing about whether AI engines actually name you, and a mention check says nothing about why. The Heralded Snapshot itself is a free scan with six live engines, ten prompts run twice (120 answers), a competitor roster, cited sources by tier, owned-page matching, and a score. Here is everything else we found to compare it against.
| Vendor | Category | Free or trial | Signup | Engines (free) | Prompts (free) | One-off or ongoing | Competitors | Citations | Recommendations | Share or export |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peec AI | Live-engine | No free tier; trial only | Yes | 3 of choice (Starter) | 50 daily (paid) | Trial ~7d | Paid | Paid | Paid | CSV (paid) |
| Profound | Live-engine | Free AEO Report + free "Trial" plan | Email / account | Report: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AIO (3). Plan: ChatGPT, Gemini, AIO | Report undisclosed; plan 50/day x 7d | Report one-off | Yes | Yes | Yes | Emailed |
| Otterly | Live-engine | 7d trial, no card; separate free point-tools | Yes | 4 base (ChatGPT, AIO, Perplexity, Copilot); Claude, Gemini, AI Mode paid add-ons | 50 for 7 days | Weekly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Detailed Reports & Export in paid plans; trial not stated |
| PromptWatch | Live-engine | $0 "Explore" in pricing schema, quotas unpublished | Yes | 4 (paid tiers) | ~50 (third-party); Explore quota unpublished | Daily (paid) | Platform yes; Explore unverified | Platform yes; Explore unverified | Platform yes; Explore unverified | MCP + API |
| Scrunch | Live-engine | Free one-off Brand Audit + 7d trial | URL only (form asks for a website URL, no email step seen) | Claims 7 (vendor claim; count not shown on the audit page) | Undisclosed | One-off | Yes | Yes | Yes | Unverified |
| Athena HQ | Live-engine | Free tier, 300 credits one-time | Yes | 5 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AIO, Gemini, Copilot) | ~300 responses total (1 credit = 1 response) | One-off in practice | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (CSV export is Starter) |
| Semrush free checker | Live-engine | 3 uses/day, no account; toolkit has no free tier | No | 4 (ChatGPT, Gemini, AIO, AI Mode) | Preset, domain-level | One-off | Yes | Top cited pages | No | Unverified |
| Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker | Live-engine | Free, no signup, no limit | No | 5 (hero); FAQ lists 6 incl. AI Mode | Ahrefs search-backed prompt DB, no custom | One-off | Indirect | Top 5 cited domains + pages | No | No |
| SE Ranking free checker | Live-engine | 5 checks/day, no account; 14d trial | No (checker) | 5 (AIO, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity) | Domain snapshot, no custom | One-off | Up to 5 competitor domains | Free check shows mention counts; source analysis is paid | Paid toolkit | Copy table / Download CSV in free check |
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | Live-engine | Free one-off | Short form for full results (page title says no account) | 3 (GPT-5.4 mini, Perplexity, Gemini) | Preset | One-off | Re-run any brand | No | Written interpretation | None found on page |
| Writesonic GEO | Live-engine | Free signup trial, no card | Yes | ChatGPT, Gemini, AIO (Starter-Growth); 10 on Enterprise | Trial quota unpublished; Starter is 50/day | Trial | Yes (Brand Explorer, 5 runs) | Yes | Yes (Action Center, Growth+) | Unverified |
| Rankscale | Live-engine | 7d Pro trial, no charge until day 7 | Yes | 10 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, AIO, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, Claude, Grok, Copilot) | Credit-based (typically 0.25/run) | Trial | Yes | Yes | Yes (Scout recommendations) | Dashboard share links, CSV/Sheets (Pro+) |
| Am I Cited | Live-engine | Trial, card required | Yes | 4-5 | 5 prompts, 1 domain, 3 competitors | Trial | Yes (3) | Yes | Yes | Premium |
| Goodie | Readiness | Free no-signup tools, not an answer scan | No | Index filters 10; audit queries none | 36 technical checks | One-off; index monthly | Index only | Index only | 3 fixes | Optional email |
| Evertune | Live-engine | None | Demo gate | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| LLMrefs | Live-engine | Free account exists, quota unpublished; 7d trial of the $79 plan | Yes | 10 advertised (paid plan); free-account engines unpublished | 500 on the $79 plan; free quota unpublished | Trial | Yes (SoV benchmarking) | Yes | Yes | CSV + API |
| Bluefish | Live-engine | None, enterprise | Sales | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Omnia (useomnia.com) | Live-engine | Free checker; platform 14d trial, no card | 4 in the free checker | 10 per engine = 40 runs (live run); the highest per-check volume a vendor publishes | One-off, live | Share of voice | Yes | Yes | Emailed | |
| GEO Scout (geoscout.pro) | Live-engine | First check free, no card | Yes | 6 of 12, user-picked (live run) | 5 | Ongoing, free check refreshes every 7 days; daily tracking is paid | Up to 2 | Cited sources | Where to start (paid: full action list) | Unverified |
| PromptRush | Live-engine | Yes | Work email | 5 | Undisclosed | One-off, live | Ranked SoV | Behind second signup | Yes | Unverified |
| LLM Pulse | Live-engine | Yes | 5 | "a sample" | One-off, live | DIY re-run | Yes | Prioritised | Emailed link | |
| Prominara | Live-engine | 3/day | No | 3 | Undisclosed | One-off, live | Yes | Unverified | Checklist | Unverified |
| Moonrank | Live-engine | Yes | No (email unlocks full) | ChatGPT only free | 6 prompts, 4 intents | One-off, live | Names who was named instead | No | Unverified | |
| Honeyb | Live-engine | Instant check | No | 1 live free | 1 | One-off | Paid | Paid | Paid | No |
| Birdeye | Live-engine | 1 location | Likely email | ChatGPT only | Theme-based | One-off | Local rivals | Reviews, listings | Yes | Unverified |
| Indexly | Live-engine | 3 domains/day | Login wall | 4 | Prompt-level | Manual | Yes | Unverified | Yes | Unverified |
| SEO Review Tools | Live-engine | Credits | Account | 3 | Preset | One-off | Max 5 | No | No | Sheets/Excel |
| Amplitude | Live-engine | Yes | Email, SDR-routed | 2 | Undisclosed | One-off | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Searchable | Live-engine | Yes | Unverified | 3-6 | Unverified | One-off | Yes | No | Yes | Unverified |
| SEOmator, AIOScan, Website AEO GEO Checker, ClayHog, Geoptie, Foglift, Am I Visible On AI, Digital Success | Readiness | Yes | Mostly no | No LLM queried | On-page checks | One-off | No | No | Yes | PDF / share link in places |
The closest rivals, and what they miss.
Omnia, Ahrefs, and Scrunch are the closest free rivals on this list. Omnia's free checker publishes the highest per-check prompt volume of any free tool we found, 40 runs. Ahrefs is the lowest-friction: free, with no signup and no limit. Scrunch claims the widest free engine count, seven, though that figure is a vendor claim its own page does not state. None of the three combines a full competitor roster, source citations split by tier, owned-page matching, a score, and two runs per prompt per engine in one free scan, the combination the Heralded Snapshot runs together and that no free tool we checked matched in full.