LLMrefs alternative: ShownInAI vs LLMrefs

The short answer

Choose LLMrefs if you are an SEO or an agency that already works from keyword lists, you want to see AI visibility for hundreds of prompts across many clients and countries for one low price, and you or your team will do the content work. At $79 a month for 500 prompts with unlimited projects, it is one of the cheapest ways to get broad tracking data.

Choose ShownInAI if you are a founder, a small SaaS team or a local business with nobody to write, and you need the comparison, alternatives and answer pages that AI search actually quotes. ShownInAI costs $9 for the first month and $29 a month after that. It checks 10 real buyer questions, shows who AI names instead of you and which sources it trusts, writes 3 publish-ready pages straight away and 3 more every month. If AI answers still do not name you within 60 days, you get everything back.

Over a year, LLMrefs costs $948 at today's $79 a month (our arithmetic; the price is marked limited time, so it may rise). ShownInAI Starter costs $328 for the year ($9 plus 11 months at $29), and the $99 Agency plan costs $1,188 for 10 client sites.

LLMrefs pricing in 2026

LLMrefs' pricing page shows a single plan called All in One, aimed at marketing teams, at $79 a month and labelled "limited time only", with a 7-day free trial and "cancel anytime". The site also offers a free account with no credit card required.

The plan includes tracking of 500 prompts for brand mentions, sources and fan-out queries, access to all the AI search engines it supports with no additional fees, weekly AI visibility reports refreshed automatically, citation tracking to show which sources influence AI results, geo-targeting in 50+ countries and 20+ languages, unlimited team members, unlimited projects under one subscription, monthly AI prompt volume estimates, CSV export and API access, priority support and custom feature requests. It also bundles free tools: an AI crawlability checker, a Reddit threads finder and an llms.txt generator.

LLMrefs' FAQ says you can upgrade to add more keywords to your organisation at any time, but the pricing page does not list a price for extra keywords, so we do not quote one. No annual price is shown either.

Keywords, not prompts: how LLMrefs counts

Most AI visibility tools ask you to write a list of prompts. LLMrefs works the other way round: you enter keywords, as you would in a classic rank tracker, and it generates the fan-out prompts based on real conversations people have with AI chatbots. It then aggregates responses across many prompts to give each keyword a share of voice and an average position against competitors, and says every keyword is updated in the dashboard at least once a week.

That is a good fit for SEO teams that already think in keyword lists and want statistically steadier numbers than a single prompt gives. The trade-off is that you see aggregated keyword scores rather than one exact buyer question at a time, and the refresh is weekly rather than daily.

ShownInAI takes a narrower view on purpose. It asks AI search 10 unbranded questions a buyer would type when ready to choose ("best [category]", "[competitor] alternatives", "X vs Y") and reports, question by question, who gets named and which pages are cited. Then it writes the pages that answer those same questions.

ShownInAI pricing in 2026

ShownInAI's Starter plan is $9 for the first month and then $29 a month. It includes a scan of 10 unbranded buyer questions, the list of competitors AI names instead of you and the sources it cites, 3 publish-ready pages written straight after payment, 3 new pages every month from a fresh check, tracking every 14 days with email alerts and the 60-day money-back guarantee.

The Agency plan is $99 a month for up to 10 client sites, each with 10 buyer questions rechecked every two weeks, a client dashboard, white-label PDF reports with your logo, before-and-after proof and an embeddable lead-generation scanner. If you only want to know where you stand today, the $49 AI Visibility Report is a one-time purchase with no subscription.

What LLMrefs does better

• Much more tracking for the money. 500 prompts for $79 a month is far more coverage than ShownInAI's 10 buyer questions per brand.
• Unlimited projects and seats. One subscription covers every domain you manage and your whole team, which makes it very cheap per client for agencies that only need data.
• Countries and languages. Geo-targeting in 50+ countries and 20+ languages, against ShownInAI's focus on your main market.
• Keyword-based setup. You can import an existing SEO keyword list and see AI visibility within minutes, and it adds prompt volume estimates for your topics.
• A free trial and free tools. A 7-day trial of the full plan, plus free tools such as an llms.txt generator and crawlability checker. ShownInAI has no free plan.
• API access on the only plan, for teams that want to pull the data into their own reports.

What ShownInAI does better

• It writes the pages for you, every month. LLMrefs shows content gaps and the sources AI cites; someone on your side still has to write the pages. ShownInAI writes 3 finished pages straight after payment and 3 new ones every month, with FAQ schema, ready to paste into your site.
• It costs less for one brand. $29 a month against $79, and $9 to start, and the $29 includes the writing.
• It reads the exact buyer questions. Instead of an aggregated keyword score, you see which competitor AI names for each of your 10 buyer questions and which page it quotes, which tells you exactly which page to publish next.
• It is built for people with no time. There is no keyword list to build or dashboard to learn. You enter your website address, read who AI recommends instead of you, and publish the pages.
• It puts money on the result: named by AI within 60 days or a full refund, and a refund of the $9 first month if it is not useful within 7 days.
• White-label client reports. The $99 Agency plan produces branded PDF reports with your logo for each of 10 clients.

Why written pages matter more than more prompts

We ran unbranded buyer questions 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 those 50 cases, the most cited source was a competitor's own website: its comparison pages, alternatives pages, docs and help centre. Review sites were the top source for only 6 of 50 brands. The pages that decide who gets recommended are mostly pages companies wrote about themselves and their rivals.

So if you are not named yet, tracking 500 prompts mostly shows the same zero 500 times. It is useful once you are named and want to grow share of voice. What moves a brand from zero is publishing honest comparison and alternatives pages of its own. On LLMrefs that writing is your job; on ShownInAI it is the main thing you pay for.

Which one fits you

1. 01Solo founder or seed-stage SaaS with no content person: ShownInAI Starter. $9 to start, pages written for you, money back if it does not work.
2. 02SEO consultant or in-house SEO who writes their own content and wants broad, cheap tracking across many keywords: LLMrefs.
3. 03Agency that needs raw data across many clients, countries and languages: LLMrefs, because projects are unlimited on one subscription.
4. 04Agency that sells AI visibility as a done-for-you service to small clients: ShownInAI Agency at $99 a month for 10 white-labelled sites, with the pages written.
5. 05Not sure yet: start LLMrefs' 7-day trial or buy ShownInAI's $49 one-time report, and see what your own buyer questions return before committing.

Can you use both?

Yes, and at these prices it is a reasonable pairing. LLMrefs at $79 a month gives a weekly view across hundreds of prompts and many markets, and ShownInAI at $29 a month writes the three pages most likely to change those numbers. Together they cost $108 a month, still less than most single platforms in this category. If you can only pay for one, ask the usual question: do you need more data, or do you need the pages written?

How to switch from LLMrefs to ShownInAI

1. 01Export your keywords, sources and competitor rankings to CSV, and note which source URLs AI cites instead of your site.
2. 02Start ShownInAI for $9 with your website address. The scan runs straight after payment and takes about a minute.
3. 03Compare our competitors and sources with what LLMrefs showed. They are usually similar, because both tools read real AI answers.
4. 04Publish the 3 pages we write on your own site and link to them from your pricing page, docs or blog.
5. 05Keep LLMrefs if you still want weekly keyword tracking, or cancel it at the end of your billing period.

Other LLMrefs alternatives

If you want daily data rather than weekly, look at OtterlyAI (from $29 a month for 15 prompts) and Peec AI (from $95 a month for 50 prompts). For a larger platform, Scrunch Core is $250 a month and AthenaHQ Starter is $295 a month. We compare each one-to-one: /compare/otterly-ai-alternative, /compare/peec-ai-alternative, /compare/scrunch-ai-alternative and /compare/athenahq-alternative, and every tool side by side in /compare/best-ai-visibility-tool-for-saas and /compare/best-ai-visibility-tool-for-agencies. Those prices were read from each vendor's own page between 28 and 30 October 2026.

How we checked these facts

LLMrefs' plan, price and features on this page come from LLMrefs' own public pricing page, read on 30 October 2026. The $79 price is marked "limited time only" on that page, and no annual or extra-keyword price is shown, so the year cost above is our own calculation at the current monthly price. Prices change, so check the source before you buy. ShownInAI's numbers come from our own pricing page, and the 50-brand figures come from our own scan data set. If anything here about LLMrefs is wrong or out of date, email [email protected] and we will correct it.