Updated
Updated What changed on
Fact-checked Every tool price, plan and engine list on this page, the DataForSEO API prices and the Semrush, Ahrefs and Statista figures were re-checked at the source on 14 October 2026, including which engines DataForSEO names. The Datos Q2 2025 figure could not be re-checked and keeps its original date.
- Updated every tool price: Semrush now sells SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced plans, Profound dropped its $99 and $399 self-serve plans, and Mangools Watcher Pro is $49/mo, not $12.
- Added a section on DataForSEO API pricing for SERP and AI search data, from $0.60 per 1,000 Google results.
- Added that Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz and Sistrix now sell AI prompt tracking inside their SEO plans, and added Searchable to the AI tool list.
- Corrected the Semrush ChatGPT study: it found no statistically significant change in Google use, not a rise from 10.5 to 12.6 sessions a week.
- Replaced the March 2025 Google share figure with Statista's July 2026 figure of 91.32% of search engine referrals.
- Fixed two dead Ahrefs study links and added Ahrefs' October 2026 finding that ChatGPT's Reddit citations fell 88% in six months.
- Removed a Google AI Mode price from the DataForSEO list. No DataForSEO page I checked names AI Mode, Copilot, Grok or DeepSeek.
SEO tools vs AI search tools in 2026.
The 30-second answer
SEO tools and AI search tools measure different things. SEO tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Sistrix, Screaming Frog) track Google rankings, keywords, backlinks and technical issues. AI search tools (Profound, AIClicks, Otterly.AI, Peec, SE Visible, Searchable) measure how often your brand gets cited inside generative answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. The line is blurring: Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz and Sistrix now sell AI prompt tracking too, and SEO APIs such as DataForSEO let you build your own: Google results cost $0.60 per 1,000, or $1.20 with the AI Overview block. You still need both kinds of data. Google held 91.32% of search engine referrals worldwide in July 2026 (Statista), and a 2025 Semrush study found no statistically significant change in Google use after people started using ChatGPT. The two stacks complement each other. They do not replace each other.
Why a rank tracker answers a different question
of links cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot appear in Google's top 10 for the same prompt. Perplexity is the outlier at closer to one in three.
How it was measured: 15,000 prompts. This is 2025 data and has not been re-run, so treat it as directional rather than current.
of URLs cited in Google AI Overviews appeared in the first 10 results blocks for that query. Ahrefs counts blocks, not organic results, so this is not the same as ranking in the top 10.
How it was measured: 863,000 keyword SERPs and 4 million AI Overview URLs. Ahrefs measures the top 10 as blocks, counting ads, featured snippets and video packs as separate blocks.
was Ahrefs' July 2025 figure. It counted only the top 3 citations per AI Overview, and Ahrefs has since changed its parsing, so the two years are not like for like.
How it was measured: 1.9 million citations from 1 million AI Overviews, analysing only the top 3 most visible citations in each one. Ahrefs notes it improved its parsing between this study and the 2026 update. Both differences mean the fall to 37.9% cannot be read as a like for like change.
What each category is actually built for
The "SEO is dead, switch to AI" framing is wrong. The "AI search is just SEO" framing is also wrong. They are parallel layers and the tooling reflects that.
Track ranking on Google
Built around keyword position tracking, backlink graphs, technical crawl audits, on-page optimisation, SERP features and content gap analysis. The data foundation is large-scale crawling of Google and Bing results.
- Keyword volumes, difficulty, intent
- Backlink discovery and toxicity
- Technical crawls (404s, redirects, indexability)
- SERP feature tracking (PAA, featured snippets)
- Competitor keyword gap
Track citations in AI answers
Built around prompt sampling. The tool sends a set of prompts to each AI engine on a schedule, parses the answer, and records whether your brand was mentioned, cited as a source, or recommended over a competitor.
- Brand mention frequency per engine
- Citation source attribution (which page got cited)
- Share of voice vs named competitors
- Sentiment (positive, neutral, negative)
- Prompt discovery (what users ask AI)
Why you cannot use one to do the other's job
A rank tracker cannot tell you whether ChatGPT recommended you over a competitor when someone asked which CRM to buy. A backlink crawl never reaches inside a generated answer. The reverse holds: an AI citation tracker has no opinion on whether your meta description is too long or your crawl budget is being wasted on faceted URLs.
The big SEO suites now sell AI tracking too. Ahrefs Brand Radar starts at $199/mo for its AI prompt index, custom prompt tracking starts at $50/mo, and the Lite plan includes 5 tracked AI prompts. Semrush sells an AI Visibility Toolkit ($99/mo per domain, billed annually, 25 prompts) and an Enterprise AI Optimization tier with unlimited prompts across 9 engines. Moz includes 150 weekly tracked prompts from its $99/mo Standard plan. Sistrix includes prompt tracking in every plan, as a beta. SE Ranking sells an AI Search add-on. For a basic read on AI visibility, that may be all you need. For daily share-of-voice across many engines and markets, a tracker built from the ground up to sample engines continuously still goes further.
If AI Overview tracking is the main job, Ahrefs, Semrush, Sistrix, Otterly.AI and Peec all cover it, and so does the DataForSEO SERP API if you want the raw data.
Ahrefs also publishes some of the most useful AI search research: a study of 1.9M citations from 1M AI Overviews (July 2025), a study of 863K SERPs and 4M AI Overview URLs (March 2026) and a study of 1.4M ChatGPT prompts that found 67.8% of non-cited URLs came from Reddit. Its October 2026 US data shows how fast that moves: about 1 in 5 ChatGPT answers cited Reddit in March, and about 1 in 43 by late September. The research is excellent. The per-domain continuous tracking is still better handled elsewhere.
Side-by-side, what each category does
| SEO tools | AI search tools | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary signal | Position on Google / Bing | Citation inside AI answer |
| Data source | SERP crawl, backlink crawl | Engine prompt responses, read from the live app or a model API |
| Cadence | Daily ranking, weekly backlinks | Daily to weekly per prompt |
| Success metric | Clicks, sessions, traffic | Share of model, mentions, sentiment |
| Coverage | Google (always), Bing, Yandex, Baidu | ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Copilot, Grok |
| Backlinks | Industry-leading (Ahrefs, Majestic) | Not covered |
| Technical audit | Strong (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs Site Audit) | Not covered |
| Sentiment | Not covered | Native feature |
| Prompt discovery | Not covered | Native feature |
| Starting price | $29-$139/mo (Sistrix from €119) | Free-$125/mo, enterprise tiers custom |
Named tools by category
Traditional SEO tools (pick one as primary):
- Ahrefs - cleanest backlink data, strongest AI search research published in the market. Starter $29/mo, Lite $129/mo, Standard $249/mo. Brand Radar AI from $199/mo, with custom prompt tracking from $50/mo.
- Semrush - broader marketing-team feature set. Monthly plans on its SEO and AI search pricing page: SEO $139, Starter $199, Pro+ $299 and Advanced $549, with 50, 100 and 200 daily AI prompts on the top three. Bigger teams get AI Optimization by Semrush Enterprise at custom pricing. Adobe completed its purchase of Semrush on 28 April 2026.
- Sistrix - the European/UK favourite for visibility index work. From €119/mo plus taxes, with prompt tracking for AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity in every plan (beta).
- Screaming Frog - the technical crawler everyone runs. Free up to 500 URLs, £199/year for the licence.
- Moz Pro - declining share but still solid for Domain Authority work and beginner UX. Starter from $49/mo. AI Visibility (150 weekly tracked prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and Perplexity) starts on the $99/mo Standard plan.
- DataForSEO - cheapest API-first option for custom dashboards. Pay as you go, no subscription, $50 minimum top-up. Google organic results cost $0.60 per 1,000 in the standard queue and $2.00 per 1,000 live. Full API prices below.
AI search tools (pick one as primary):
- Profound - enterprise AI search analytics. No self-serve brand plan now: a free 7-day trial (50 prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews), then Enterprise at custom pricing for up to 9 engines. Agencies pay $99/mo plus $399/mo per client workspace.
- AIClicks - mid-market GEO platform. From $59/mo for 30 prompts on 3 engines you pick from ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode. Claude, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI cost extra.
- Otterly.AI - established AI visibility tracker, popular with UK agencies. Lite $29/mo, Standard $189/mo, Premium $489/mo, Enterprise custom.
- Peec AI - sentiment-heavy tracking, EU pricing. Starter $95/mo (€85), Pro $245/mo, Advanced $495/mo.
- SE Visible - from the SE Ranking team. $99/mo Basic, $189/mo Core, $355/mo Plus.
- Mangools AI Search Grader / Watcher - cheapest entry point. The Grader is free, and so is a 5-prompt Watcher tier. Watcher Pro is $49/mo, or $34.90/mo billed annually, for 500 prompts updated weekly.
- Searchable - an AI-native visibility platform. Its pricing page lists Pro at $125/mo for 100 prompts, Scale at $400/mo and Enterprise from $999/mo, and does not say whether $125 is the monthly or annual-billing rate. ChatGPT, AI Overviews and Perplexity come on every plan. Gemini, AI Mode, Claude, Copilot, Grok and DeepSeek are paid add-ons. Against Ahrefs or Semrush the split is the same as the rest of this page: Searchable tracks AI answers, the SEO suites track rankings, backlinks and crawls.
SEO API tools: what DataForSEO costs for AI search data
If you want your own dashboard rather than another subscription, an SEO API is the other route. DataForSEO is pay as you go: no subscription, a $50 minimum top-up and a $1 trial credit for new accounts. Prices re-checked at the source in October 2026:
- Google organic results - $0.60 per 1,000 in the standard queue, $1.20 priority, $2.00 live. Asking for the AI Overview block doubles the base price, which is how you track AI Overviews yourself.
- LLM Mentions - $0.10 per request plus $0.001 per row, over a database of more than 280M prompts and answers from ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. Some of its endpoints hold history back to 1 August 2025.
- LLM Responses - $0.0006 per live task plus the model's own charge, for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. These answers come from the model APIs.
- LLM Scraper - $1.20 per 1,000 results in the standard queue, $4 per 1,000 live, for what users see in the ChatGPT and Gemini interfaces.
- AI keyword search volume - $0.01 per task plus $0.0001 per keyword.
The catch: no single endpoint covers every engine, and AI Mode, Copilot, Grok and DeepSeek were not named on any DataForSEO page I checked. Someone also has to build and maintain the dashboard. Ahrefs and Semrush sell you the finished dashboard. DataForSEO sells you the raw data by the call.
The numbers behind "you need both"
The honest position is the one MarTech and Semrush are both pushing now: search is fragmenting, not migrating. Three data points worth knowing if anyone tries to sell you a pure-AI or pure-SEO position:
- Google held 91.32% of search engine referrals worldwide in July 2026 (Statista). Datos put Google at about 88% of search traffic in its State of Search Q2 2025 report, and has since published a Q2 2026 edition.
- Semrush's clickstream study of US desktop users (August 2025) found no statistically significant change in daily Google Search sessions after people started using ChatGPT, and even a slight increase. In that data, people added ChatGPT on top of Google rather than replacing it.
- AI search visitors convert at higher rates. Semrush's July 2025 study found AI search visitors were worth 4.4x the average organic search visitor, based on conversion rate. Smaller volume, higher intent.
So the volume is still on Google. The conversion premium is on AI. Tracking one without the other means you optimise blind on the channel you ignore.
What a sensible stack actually looks like
Three tiers I see settling out in UK B2B teams in 2026.
Honest framing: if your AI traffic share is still under 5% of organic sessions, paying for an enterprise tracker such as Profound is probably premature. Start with a free tracker (Mangools or the tool on this site), confirm whether AI is actually sending you traffic that converts, then upgrade. The trap right now is paying enterprise AI tracker prices for traffic that is not yet there.
What to ignore
- Tools claiming to "optimise for ChatGPT" via static rules. The engines change weekly. Anything sold as a one-time fix is selling false certainty.
- Trackers that will not say where their answers come from. DataForSEO, which sells both kinds of data, describes its interface scraper as what real users actually see, as opposed to the model API. Several trackers mix the two: AIClicks, Peec and Ahrefs all use APIs for some engines, such as Claude. Ask each vendor which engines it reads from the live app and which from an API.
- "All-in-one" platforms doing both badly. A bolted-on AI feature inside an SEO suite is not the same as a purpose-built tracker. Use the suite for what it is good at, pay the tracker for what it is good at.
Primary sources
- Datos - State of Search Q2 2025 (search engine market share, AI search usage growth)
- Semrush - Google usage after ChatGPT adoption (no statistically significant change in Google sessions, US desktop, August 2025)
- Semrush - AI search SEO traffic study (4.4x visitor value finding, July 2025)
- Ahrefs - search rankings and AI citations (1.9M citations from 1M AI Overviews, July 2025)
- Ahrefs - AI Overview citations and the top 10 (863K SERPs, 4M AI Overview URLs, March 2026)
- Ahrefs - why ChatGPT cites one page over another (1.4M prompts, April 2026)
- Ahrefs - ChatGPT query fan-out (Reddit citations down 88% in six months, October 2026)
- Bain - How customers are using AI search (shopping query share in ChatGPT)
- Statista - search engine referral share (Google 91.32% worldwide, July 2026)
- DataForSEO - pricing (SERP and AI Optimization API prices, October 2026)
More on the two categories.
What is the difference between SEO tools and AI search tools?
SEO tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Sistrix) track Google rankings, keywords, backlinks and technical issues. AI search tools (Profound, AIClicks, Otterly, Peec) track whether your brand is mentioned or cited inside answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. The two stacks measure different outcomes: one measures position in the ten blue links, the other measures share of the generative answer. Most teams need one of each, not one or the other.
Do I still need traditional SEO tools in 2026?
Yes. Google held 91.32% of search engine referrals worldwide in July 2026 (Statista). AI usage is growing on top of, not instead of, Google: a 2025 Semrush study of US desktop users found no statistically significant change in daily Google Search sessions after people started using ChatGPT. Traditional SEO tools cover the channel that still drives the majority of clicks; AI search tools cover the new channel that drives a smaller, higher-intent stream.
Can a regular SEO tool replace an AI search tool?
For basic tracking, sometimes. Ahrefs Brand Radar, the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Moz (from the $99 Standard plan) and Sistrix (every plan, in beta) now track AI prompts inside the SEO suite. For daily share-of-voice across many engines, a dedicated tracker (Profound, AIClicks, Otterly, Peec, SE Visible) still goes further on sentiment and source attribution. If your AI traffic is meaningful, run a dedicated tracker alongside your SEO suite.
Which AI search tool is best for a UK team in 2026?
Depends on size. Solo or small in-house: Mangools AI Search Grader (free) or AIClicks ($59/mo). Mid-market agency or in-house team: AIClicks, Otterly.AI or Peec AI ($29-$499/mo depending on plan). Enterprise with multiple brands and regions: Profound (custom pricing after a free 7-day trial) or SE Visible ($99-$355/mo). Ask each one which engines it reads from the live app and which from an API, because several use both.
How much should I budget for a combined SEO + AI search stack?
Small team: from about $29/mo, with Ahrefs Starter ($29) plus the free Mangools AI Search Watcher tier. Mid-market: about $190-$330/mo, with Ahrefs Lite ($129) or the Semrush SEO plan ($139) plus AIClicks ($59) or Otterly.AI Standard ($189), and a Screaming Frog licence at £199/yr. Enterprise: from about $600/mo for Ahrefs Standard ($249) plus SE Visible Plus ($355), before custom-priced tools such as Profound Enterprise. Prices checked on each vendor's own pricing page in October 2026.
Are free AI search visibility tools good enough?
For a one-off baseline check, yes. Mangools AI Search Grader, the AI Search Visibility tool on this site, and the Otterly.AI free trial all return useful first-look data. For continuous tracking, sentiment monitoring and competitor share-of-voice you need a paid tracker. Free tools are for the audit; paid tools are for the operating cadence.
Jason Burns
Independent UK SEO, GEO and AI consultant. In search since 2007. Portfolio includes 3M, BlackRock, Unilever and E.ON. Owner of SEO Moves Ltd since 2014.
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