Comparison · 14 min read · updated 2026-10-27
The best AI visibility tool for SaaS companies in 2026
SaaS buyers now ask AI for "best [category] software" and "[competitor] alternatives" before they ever open a review site. Every tool below will show you whether your product is named in those answers. They differ on price, on how many buyer questions they track, and on whether anyone writes the comparison and answer pages that actually get a SaaS product named. We compared nine tools using prices read from each vendor's own pricing page on 27 October 2026.
| Tool | Entry price (monthly billing) | Buyer questions tracked | Free trial | Writes the pages? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ShownInAI Starter | $9 first month, then $29/month | 10 unbranded buyer questions, rechecked every 14 days | No; $49 one-time report instead | Yes: 3 publish-ready pages at once, 3 more every month |
| OtterlyAI | Lite $29/month, Standard $189/month | 15 or 100 prompts, daily | Yes | Recommendations on Standard and up; you write |
| LLMrefs | $79/month (marked limited time) | 500 prompts, weekly reports | 7 days | No; free tools such as an llms.txt generator |
| Peec AI | Starter $95/month, Pro $245/month | 50 or 150 prompts, daily, 3 models | Ask vendor | No; insights and actions, you write |
| Rankscale | Pro $99/month | 1,200 credits a month (about 0.25 credits per engine per prompt) | Yes on Pro | No; recommendations and page audits |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | $99/month per domain (shown with annual billing) | 25 prompts, daily | No | No; separate content tools you brief |
| SE Ranking Core | $129/month ($103.20 billed yearly) | 100 AI prompts daily, plus 2,000 keywords | 14 days | AI writer you brief |
| Scrunch Core | $250/month | 125 unique prompts, 5,000 responses a month | 7 days | 1 page optimisation a month, basic content generation |
| AthenaHQ Starter | $295/month (free Essential tier with 300 credits) | 3,600 credits a month (1 credit = 1 AI response) | Free tier | Content optimisation agent; you publish |
Competitor facts from each vendor's own pricing page, checked 27 October 2026. Sources at the bottom of the page.
The short answer
If you are an early or mid-stage SaaS company that is not yet named in AI answers for your category, the cheapest way to change that is ShownInAI Starter: $9 for the first month and $29 a month after, and it writes the three pages that answer your buyers' questions instead of only charting your absence. If you are already named and want daily data across many prompts, OtterlyAI Lite or Standard, Peec AI Starter, LLMrefs and Rankscale Pro are the affordable trackers. If your SEO team already lives in Semrush or SE Ranking, add their AI tracking. Scrunch and AthenaHQ start at $250 to $295 a month and suit funded teams that want a deeper platform.
The rest of this page covers what a SaaS company actually needs, each tool's honest strengths and weaknesses (ours included), what it costs to track a realistic set of buyer questions, and how to choose.
What a SaaS company needs from an AI visibility tool
- 01Unbranded buyer questions. Whether AI can describe your product by name tells you little. What matters is whether you are named for "best [category] for [persona]", "[competitor] alternatives" and "[you] vs [competitor]", the questions people ask just before they shortlist.
- 02Competitor context. You need to see which competitors are named instead of you and which pages the answers cite, because those pages are the ones you have to match or beat.
- 03A price that fits the stage. A seed-stage team will not keep a $300 a month dashboard that shows zero every day for three months.
- 04Something that ships. For most SaaS products the gap is missing pages: no honest comparison pages, no alternatives page, no plain answer to "how much does it cost". A tool that only measures leaves that work on your list.
- 05A way to prove change. A before-and-after on the same questions, so you can show the team that the pages worked.
1. ShownInAI: best for SaaS teams that are not named yet
ShownInAI Starter is $9 for the first month, then $29 a month, cancel any time. We check 10 unbranded buyer questions for your category, show which competitors AI names instead of you and which sources it cites, then write 3 publish-ready pages that answer those questions: comparison pages, alternatives pages and answer pages with titles, outlines, comparison tables and FAQ schema, plus llms.txt. You get 3 new pages every month, tracking every 14 days with email alerts, and your money back if you are not named within 60 days. If you only want the diagnosis, the $49 report is a one-time purchase.
Weaknesses: 10 buyer questions every 14 days is far less data than the daily trackers below collect, there is no per-engine breakdown, and there is no free scan because live checks cost real money. If you need hundreds of prompts tracked daily across markets, a tracker will serve you better.
2. OtterlyAI: best low-cost daily tracker
OtterlyAI's pricing page lists Lite at $29 a month for 15 search prompts and Standard at $189 a month for 100, both tracked daily across 4 AI search engines, with more engines as paid add-ons, unlimited team members, brand visibility and sentiment analysis, citation source tracking and brand profiling. Standard adds optimisation recommendations, MCP access and agent analytics. Premium is $489 a month for 400 prompts, extra prompts are $99 a month per 100, and there is a free trial.
Strengths: low entry price, daily data, simple setup. Weaknesses: 15 prompts on Lite covers only a handful of buyer questions once you split them by persona and competitor, and nobody writes the pages.
3. LLMrefs: most prompts for the money
LLMrefs lists one plan at $79 a month, marked limited time only, with a 7-day free trial. It tracks 500 prompts for brand mentions, sources and fan-out queries across all the AI search engines it supports at no extra fee, with weekly AI visibility reports, geo-targeting in 50+ countries and 20+ languages, unlimited team members and projects, CSV export and API access, plus free tools such as an AI crawlability checker and an llms.txt generator.
Strengths: by far the most prompts per dollar here, unlimited projects. Weaknesses: reports are weekly rather than daily, the price is labelled as a limited-time offer, and it measures rather than writes.
Full one-to-one comparison, including how LLMrefs counts keywords and prompts: /compare/llmrefs-alternative.
4. Peec AI: best analytics for a growing marketing team
Peec AI's brand pricing starts at Starter, $95 a month for 50 prompts and 1 project, then Pro at $245 a month for 150 prompts and 2 projects, and Advanced at $495 a month for 350 prompts. Every plan tracks daily, lets you choose 3 models and includes unlimited users; extra models are priced per plan.
Strengths: clean analytics, daily data, unlimited seats, room to grow. Weaknesses: $95 a month for 50 prompts is a lot for a pre-revenue product, and the output is insight, not finished pages.
5. Rankscale: best for teams that want to tune their own prompt sets
Rankscale prices by credits. Pro is $99 a month ($84 billed yearly) for 1,200 credits, Pro+ is $229 for 3,000 credits with full REST API access, and Growth is $385 for 5,500 credits. Its FAQ says a query typically costs about 0.25 credits per engine per prompt, and unused credits roll over. Pro has a free trial.
Strengths: flexible scheduling, credits that roll over, page audits. Weaknesses: you design every prompt and decide which engines to spend credits on, and nobody writes the pages.
6. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: best if your SEO runs on Semrush
Semrush's AI pricing page shows the AI Visibility toolkit at $99 a month per domain, billed annually, with AI visibility reports for any domain, 25 custom prompts tracked daily, 1 domain for brand performance analysis, competitor analysis, prompt research and an AI-readiness site audit. Extra users start at $45 a month.
Strengths: one login with your SEO data, reports on any competitor's domain. Weaknesses: 25 prompts is thin for a product with several personas, pricing is per domain, and the writing is still yours.
7. SE Ranking Core: best all-in-one SEO and AI suite at mid price
SE Ranking's Core plan is $129 a month ($103.20 billed yearly) and includes 100 AI prompts tracked daily next to 2,000 tracked keywords, site audits, backlinks and API credits. More AI prompts come from its AI Search add-on, from $89 a month for 200 prompts. There is a 14-day free trial.
Strengths: classic SEO and AI tracking in one place, a generous trial. Weaknesses: you pay for a full SEO suite to get the AI tracking, and the AI writer drafts only what you brief.
8. Scrunch: best for funded teams that want site audits and optimisation
Scrunch's Core plan is $250 a month with a 7-day free trial: 125 unique prompts, 5,000 responses a month, 4 AI engines, 5 site audits a month, 1 brand workspace and 5 user licences, plus citations, sentiment, insights and recommendations, AI bot traffic, 1 page optimisation a month and basic content generation. Enterprise is custom and adds more engines, API access and SSO.
Strengths: a broad platform that covers monitoring, audits and some optimisation. Weaknesses: the entry price is high for an early product, and one page optimisation a month is a light touch.
9. AthenaHQ: best if you want a free tier to start
AthenaHQ offers a free Essential tier with $25 of free credit (300 credits), and Starter at $295 a month with 3,600 credits, where 1 credit equals 1 AI response, across 11 models, with unlimited topics, prompts and competitors, country-level support, CSV export, on-page and off-page actions and a content optimisation agent. API access and extra credits are paid add-ons. Annual billing is 17% off. Our one-to-one AthenaHQ alternative page (/compare/athenahq-alternative) works through what 3,600 credits buys.
Strengths: a free way to look before you pay, many models, a content agent. Weaknesses: $295 a month is the highest entry price here, and add-ons are priced on request.
What it costs to track 50 buyer questions
A typical B2B SaaS product has about 5 personas and 5 to 10 competitors, which quickly adds up to around 50 useful buyer questions. These are our own sums from the list prices above at monthly billing. They are rough, because each tool counts usage differently.
- LLMrefs: $79 a month covers 500 prompts, weekly.
- Peec AI Starter: $95 a month covers exactly 50 prompts, daily.
- Rankscale Pro: $99 a month for 1,200 credits; 50 prompts on 4 engines at about 0.25 credits each is about 50 credits a run, so daily tracking uses about 1,500 credits a month and needs Pro+ at $229 or a slower schedule.
- SE Ranking Core: $129 a month covers 100 prompts daily.
- OtterlyAI: Lite's 15 prompts is too few, so Standard at $189 a month for 100 prompts.
- Semrush: $99 a month per domain covers 25 prompts; 50 more prompts is a further add-on.
- Scrunch Core: $250 a month covers 125 prompts.
- AthenaHQ Starter: $295 a month for 3,600 responses, about 72 runs of 50 questions.
- ShownInAI Starter: $29 a month covers 10 buyer questions every 14 days, but includes 3 written pages a month. Its job is to get you named, not to track 50 questions.
Why written pages matter more than more prompts
We ran unbranded buyer questions such as "best [category]", "[competitor] alternatives" and "X vs Y" through AI search for 50 software brands. 39 of the 50 were never named in any answer to their own category's buyer questions, and all 30 brands that had launched in the previous month scored 0.
In 33 of the 50 cases, the most cited source was a competitor's own website: its comparison pages, docs and help centre. Review sites were the top source for only 6 of 50. For a SaaS company, that means the fastest lever is on your own site: honest comparison pages, an alternatives page, a pricing page that states real prices and plain answers to the questions buyers ask. Tracking 500 prompts daily will mostly confirm a zero until those pages exist. That is why ShownInAI writes them for you instead of selling more prompts.
How to choose
- 01Not named for your category yet, small team, tight budget: ShownInAI Starter, or the $49 report if you want the diagnosis first.
- 02Already named and want lots of prompts cheaply: LLMrefs for weekly coverage, Peec AI Starter or OtterlyAI for daily data.
- 03Your SEO team lives in an SEO suite: Semrush's toolkit or SE Ranking Core.
- 04Funded team that wants a full platform with audits and optimisation: Scrunch Core or AthenaHQ Starter, after a trial.
- 05Best of both: write the missing pages first, then add a tracker once you have something to track.
How we checked these facts
Every competitor price on this page comes from the vendor's own pricing page, read on 27 October 2026 and listed under Sources. We used US dollars and monthly billing unless stated; Semrush's AI page shows its price with annual billing, so we say so. The cost of tracking 50 buyer questions is our own arithmetic, not a price any vendor quotes. Prices change often in this market, so confirm on the vendor's page before you buy. ShownInAI's prices come from our own pricing page. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email [email protected] and we will correct it.
Questions
- What is the best AI visibility tool for SaaS?
- It depends on your stage. If your product is not yet named in AI answers for its category, ShownInAI Starter ($9 first month, then $29/month) is the cheapest option and writes the pages that fix it. For lots of prompts cheaply, LLMrefs ($79/month for 500 prompts, weekly) or Peec AI Starter ($95/month for 50 prompts, daily). For a full platform, Scrunch Core ($250/month) or AthenaHQ Starter ($295/month). Prices checked 27 October 2026.
- What is the cheapest AI visibility tool for a SaaS startup?
- From list prices checked 27 October 2026: ShownInAI Starter is $9 for the first month, then $29; OtterlyAI Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts; LLMrefs is $79 a month for 500 prompts; Peec AI Starter is $95 a month for 50 prompts. AthenaHQ also has a free Essential tier with 300 credits.
- Which buyer questions should a SaaS company track?
- Unbranded questions buyers ask before they shortlist: "best [category] software", "best [category] for [persona]", "[competitor] alternatives", "[you] vs [competitor]" and "how much does [category] cost". Branded questions about your own name tell you little about whether new buyers find you.
- How do I get my SaaS product recommended by AI?
- Publish honest comparison and alternatives pages, a pricing page with real numbers and plain answer pages for each buyer question, then make them easy to read with FAQ schema and llms.txt. In our 50-brand data, a competitor's own site was the top cited source in 33 of 50 cases, so your own pages matter more than review sites.
- Do any AI visibility tools write the content for you?
- ShownInAI writes 3 publish-ready pages after you start and 3 more every month on the Starter plan. Scrunch Core includes 1 page optimisation a month and basic content generation; AthenaHQ has a content optimisation agent; Semrush and SE Ranking have AI writers you brief yourself. The other trackers give recommendations and leave the writing to you.
- Is there a free trial?
- LLMrefs (7 days), Scrunch (7 days), SE Ranking (14 days), OtterlyAI and Rankscale Pro offer free trials, and AthenaHQ has a free Essential tier. Semrush's AI toolkit page offers no trial. ShownInAI has no free scan because live checks cost real money, but the first month is $9 and you can cancel any time.
Sources
OtterlyAI pricing (checked 27 October 2026)LLMrefs pricing (checked 27 October 2026)Peec AI pricing for brands (checked 27 October 2026)Rankscale pricing (checked 27 October 2026)Semrush AI pricing (checked 27 October 2026)SE Ranking subscription page (checked 27 October 2026)Scrunch pricing (checked 27 October 2026)AthenaHQ pricing (checked 27 October 2026)ShownInAI pricingRelated guides
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