Semrush and Ahrefs both sell AI visibility as an add-on to the SEO suite you may already pay for. A dedicated platform sells it as the product. The right choice depends on which cost you are trying to cut: the invoice count or the time between spotting a gap and shipping the fix. All prices and limits below were read from vendor pages on 28 October 2026 unless a line says otherwise. We make Mentionova, the dedicated platform in this comparison, so we say where it loses.
What are the key takeaways?
- Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month for 25 prompts, tracked daily, with one domain for Brand Performance. Extra prompts are $60 per 50. There is no free trial for the standalone toolkit.
- Ahrefs sells checks, not prompts. Lite ($129) includes 150 custom-prompt checks a month. Paid packs are $50 for 2,500, $100 for 7,000 and $250 for 25,000. Brand Radar's index costs $199 a month per AI platform, or $699 for all.
- On price per tracked prompt, Ahrefs' check packs are the cheapest option here. Tracking 25 prompts on three platforms daily is 2,250 checks (calculated), which fits in the $50 pack.
- Mentionova Starter is $125 a month ($99 annual) for 25 prompts on 3 engines. It is dearer than both add-ons for the same prompt count and runs weekly, not daily. It adds scored opportunities, briefs, CMS drafts and client workspaces.
- The add-on wins when you need SEO and AI data in one login. The dedicated platform wins when the work after the gap, briefs, drafts and client reporting, is the bottleneck.
- Semrush One Advanced has no public price. Semrush's help center lists its limits (200 prompts, 40 sites, 5,000 keywords); ask Semrush for a quote.
What do Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit and Ahrefs Brand Radar actually track?
Semrush tracks your brand in ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode and Gemini through Prompt Tracking, daily, and adds Perplexity to its weekly Brand Performance reports. Ahrefs covers Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, with Claude available for custom prompts only. Neither tracks Reddit as an engine.
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Ahrefs Brand Radar | |
|---|---|---|
| Engines | Prompt Tracking: ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode, Gemini. Brand Performance: adds Perplexity | AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot. Claude for custom prompts (8 checks per update). Grok paused |
| Cadence | Prompt Tracking daily. Brand Performance weekly | Custom prompts daily, weekly or monthly. Chatbot index updated once a month; AI Overviews every few days |
| Prompt database | 239M+ prompts (Semrush One page) | 512M+ monthly prompts on the Brand Radar page; the help center said 405M+ on 3 September 2026 |
| Custom prompts | 25 on the standalone toolkit | 150 / 300 / 600 checks on Lite / Standard / Advanced; or buy packs |
| Locations | 68,500 locations, 53 languages (Brand Performance) | Per-prompt location; one check per location |
| Other channels | Compares AI position with Google, Bing and Baidu rankings | YouTube, TikTok and Reddit-in-Google (beta indexes, free on paid plans) |
| Limits | Prompt Tracking is desktop only | Chatbot data comes from the web version of each assistant, with no personalization |
Semrush's Brand Performance reports cover Share of Voice, sentiment, narrative drivers and the questions people ask, with up to 9 competitors and weekly snapshots. Prompt Tracking reports AI Visibility, Mentions, Owned Sources, Topic Volume and Average Position, and shows the SERP snapshot behind each answer. Share of Voice and Estimated Traffic are not available in Prompt Tracking.
Ahrefs frames Brand Radar as a discovery tool: search any brand, product or region against its prompt index, then add custom prompts for the questions you care about. Its help center says custom-prompt tracking suits "a focused list of important questions", while the index suits wide benchmarking.
What does each cost once you add what you need?
Semrush's standalone toolkit is $99 a month for 25 prompts, with extra prompts at $60 per 50 and extra domains or users at $99 each. Ahrefs includes 150 to 600 custom checks on Lite and above and sells packs from $50. Mentionova Starter is $125 monthly ($99 annual).
| Item | Semrush | Ahrefs | Mentionova |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry AI product | AI Visibility Toolkit $99/mo (the toolkit page shows the annual figure; the help article names no term), 1 project, 25 prompts | Custom prompts: Basic $50 for 2,500 checks | Starter $125/mo ($99 annual), 25 prompts |
| Bundled with SEO | Semrush One Starter $199 (50 prompts), Pro+ $299 (100 prompts), $165 and $248 annual | Lite $129 (150 checks), Standard $249 (300), Advanced $449 (600) | Not an SEO suite |
| Top tier | Semrush One Advanced: 200 prompts, 40 sites, 5,000 keywords; no public price | Enterprise $1,499 on an annual commitment | Enterprise $999/mo ($799 annual), 250 prompts |
| Brand-wide index | Included in the toolkit reports | $199 per AI platform, or $699 for all (includes 2,500 checks) | Not offered |
| Extras | Extra domain/location $99. +50 prompts $60. Extra user $99 | Overage $0.020, $0.015 or $0.010 per check | Scale $400 ($320 annual): 100 prompts, 6 engines |
Two scenarios, with the arithmetic shown. One Ahrefs check is one prompt run on one platform in one location per update.
Scenario 1: 25 prompts on 3 platforms.
- Semrush: $99 a month, daily.
- Ahrefs: 25 x 3 x 30 days = 2,250 checks a month if daily (calculated). That fits the $50 Basic pack. Weekly is about 300 checks.
- Mentionova: Starter, $125 monthly ($99 annual), weekly runs.
Scenario 2: 25 prompts on 6 platforms.
- Semrush: Prompt Tracking covers 3 engines, so six-engine coverage is not available through it.
- Ahrefs: 25 x 6 x 30 = 4,500 checks daily (calculated), which fits the $100 Growth pack. Claude uses 8 checks per update, so leave it out or budget more.
- Mentionova: Scale, $400 monthly ($320 annual), 100 prompts on six engines including Reddit, weekly.
The honest read: for pure prompt tracking, Ahrefs' check packs are the cheapest per answer, and Semrush's $99 matches Mentionova's annual Starter at $99, with daily runs against weekly. Mentionova's price buys the work that follows tracking. It does not buy more answers.
Mentionova's own tiers are on the pricing page. Neither Semrush nor Ahrefs lists, on the pages read, a feature that turns AI visibility gaps into briefs and publishes drafts to your CMS. Ahrefs' pricing page shows a Content Kit add-on marked "Soon", from $99 a month.
When is the add-on the right buy?
Buy the add-on when you already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs, your question is "are we visible?" rather than "what do we ship next?", and you want SEO and AI data in the same login. Both add-ons also come with prompt datasets of hundreds of millions of prompts, which Mentionova does not have.
The add-on is the better purchase when:
- You already live in the suite. One invoice, one login, one report builder. Ahrefs includes custom-prompt checks on every paid plan from Lite, so the marginal cost to start is zero.
- You need the prompt-demand dataset. Semrush cites 239M+ prompts and Ahrefs 512M+. Those datasets size topics and show what people ask. Mentionova has no consumer-panel prompt volumes.
- You want daily runs. Semrush's Prompt Tracking is daily. Ahrefs runs custom prompts daily.
- You need scheduled Google AI Overviews and AI Mode tracking. Both add-ons track them. Mentionova pulls AI Overviews on demand rather than on a schedule.
- You care about adjacent channels. Ahrefs tracks YouTube, TikTok and Reddit as they appear in Google, in beta.
- You want to compare AI position with Google rankings. Semrush shows both side by side in Devices & Locations.
When does a dedicated platform win?
A dedicated platform wins when the bottleneck is acting on the gap, not seeing it. Mentionova rescores every opportunity nightly on a 0 to 100 scale and attaches a brief and a CMS draft to each. It also adds Claude and Reddit as scheduled engines and runs client workspaces on agency plans.
Where Mentionova is stronger, by capability:
| Capability | Semrush toolkit | Ahrefs Brand Radar | Mentionova |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gap to action | AI-generated strategic recommendations in reports | Fan-out queries, tags, "others only" filters | Nightly 0 to 100 scoring on gap, reach, effort and heat, plus brief and CMS draft to WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, Sanity or webhook |
| Claude as a scheduled engine | Not listed | Custom prompts only, 8 checks each | Scale and above |
| Reddit as a tracked engine | No | Reddit-in-Google visibility, beta | Scale and above, plus a Reddit engagement module |
| Client workspaces | Not stated on pages read | Not stated on pages read | Agency plans: Launch $250 monthly ($200 annual) for 3 isolated workspaces |
| API and MCP | Not stated on toolkit pages read | API, MCP, Looker Studio connector | v1 API on Scale and above; MCP server with 56 tools |
| Site audit | AI-readiness checks on up to 100 pages | Site Audit in the suite | 42-check site audit |
A dedicated platform also fits when you are an agency. Mentionova's Launch plan gives three client workspaces and 50 prompts across three engines, with white-label reporting. See agency AI reporting.
Test the gap on your own prompts: 14 days, no card, six engines.
For other options in the category, see best AI visibility tools, best AI SEO tools, AI visibility platforms and Profound alternatives. Feature-level pages: Mentionova vs Semrush and Mentionova vs Ahrefs. For the price of every platform in one table, see AI visibility tool pricing in 2026.
Where does Mentionova lose?
Mentionova loses on cadence, dataset size, engine count on the entry plan and price per tracked prompt. It runs weekly rather than daily, has no prompt-volume dataset, tracks three engines on Starter and costs more than either add-on for 25 prompts. Know that before you trial it.
- Cadence. Scans refresh weekly. Runs can be set to every two weeks or monthly. Semrush Prompt Tracking is daily and Ahrefs offers daily custom prompts. Mentionova does not offer daily runs.
- No prompt-volume dataset. Semrush's 239M+ and Ahrefs' 512M+ prompt indexes size demand. Mentionova tracks the prompts you add. It has no consumer-panel volumes.
- Starter has three engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google. Claude, Gemini and Reddit start at Scale ($400 monthly, $320 annual).
- AI Overviews are on demand. Mentionova records Google's organic top ten on a schedule and pulls AI Overviews on demand, not as a scheduled engine.
- API access starts at Scale. The v1 API is not on Starter.
- Price per tracked prompt. $125 monthly for 25 prompts against $99 for the Semrush toolkit and the $50 Ahrefs check pack for the same load.
- Not an SEO suite. No keyword database or backlink index. Mentionova connects to such tools through its 38 connectors instead of replacing them.
If those are your constraints, buy the add-on. We would rather you do that than churn from Mentionova in month two.
How do you test the gap in two weeks?
Pick five buyer prompts, run them in each tool you are considering, and compare three things: whether the tool agrees on your mention rate, which sources it shows, and how long it takes to go from gap to a brief you could ship. Fourteen days is enough for that, and every tool has a free path.
A two-week plan:
- Day 1. Write five unbranded buyer prompts. Use the 20-prompt method in How to check if ChatGPT mentions your brand and take the five most valuable.
- Days 1 to 2. Set up all three. Mentionova: 14-day trial, no card, 5 prompts, six engines. Ahrefs: if you are on Lite or above, your 150 included checks cover 5 prompts on 3 platforms weekly (60 checks, calculated), or use the free AI Visibility Checker. Semrush: the standalone toolkit has no free trial, so use an existing seat or the free checker (4 platforms, 3 uses a day, no account).
- Days 3 to 10. Let scheduled runs accumulate. Do not edit prompts mid-test.
- Day 11. Export mention rate and cited domains per engine from each tool.
- Day 12. For your top gap, time how long it takes each tool to get you to an action: a page to update, a source to pitch, a brief.
- Day 14. Decide. Our rule of thumb, not a research finding: if the tools disagree on mention rate by a wide margin, check your prompts and locations before you trust either number. Single-run results are noisy, which is why the test uses several days of runs.
Noise is real. SparkToro and Gumshoe's January 2026 study found under a 1-in-100 chance that two runs of a prompt return the same brand list. The authors recommend judging visibility across dozens to hundreds of prompts run many times. The study is not peer reviewed, and a co-researcher works at Gumshoe.ai, a vendor in this category. Weekly tools see fewer samples than daily ones, so give them longer.
Where does each number come from?
All read on 28 October 2026 unless noted.
- Semrush: semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit (price, prompts, extras, no trial); semrush.com/kb/1503-prompt-tracking (engines, cadence, plan prompt limits, desktop only); semrush.com/kb/1595-brand-performance-reports (weekly, engines, locations); semrush.com/one (239M+ prompts); free checker at semrush.com/free-tools/ai-search-visibility-checker.
- Semrush One prices ($199 and $299, $165.17 and $248.17 annual): semrush.com blog Starter vs Pro+ comparison; Semrush One plan limits including Advanced: semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit, re-read 29 October 2026.
- Ahrefs: ahrefs.com/pricing; ahrefs.com/brand-radar; help.ahrefs.com articles on Brand Radar (updated 3 September 2026) and custom prompts.
- Mentionova: mentionova.com/docs/billing/plans-overview and Mentionova's own compare data, last verified 10 October 2026.
- SparkToro, published 28 January 2026 (sparktoro.com).
Check counts and scenario totals marked "calculated" are our arithmetic from the vendors' published definitions.
What do people ask about Semrush, Ahrefs and AI visibility tools?
Does Semrush have an AI visibility tool?
Yes. The AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month for one project and 25 tracked prompts, with daily Prompt Tracking and weekly Brand Performance reports. Semrush One bundles it with SEO from $199 a month for 50 prompts, and the toolkit has no free trial.
How much does Ahrefs Brand Radar cost?
The AI Visibility Index is $199 a month per AI platform or $699 for all platforms, which includes 2,500 custom-prompt checks. Custom-prompt packs run $50 for 2,500 checks, $100 for 7,000 and $250 for 25,000. Lite, Standard and Advanced plans include 150, 300 and 600 checks.
Is Ahrefs Brand Radar included in my Ahrefs plan?
Partly. Custom prompts are included on Lite and above with a monthly check allowance. The brand-wide AI Visibility Index is a separate purchase. Ahrefs calls the included allowance a built-in trial of AI visibility tracking.
Which tracks more AI engines, Semrush or Ahrefs?
Ahrefs lists more: AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, plus Claude for custom prompts. Semrush's Prompt Tracking covers ChatGPT Search, AI Mode and Gemini, with Perplexity in Brand Performance reports.
Can I use Mentionova alongside Semrush or Ahrefs?
Yes. Mentionova is not an SEO suite and connects to other tools through its 38 connectors. You can keep your SEO suite for keyword and backlink data and use a dedicated platform for scheduled AI tracking and briefs.
Is a dedicated AI visibility platform worth more than the Semrush or Ahrefs add-on?
Only if you use what it adds. For 25 prompts, the add-ons cost less. A dedicated platform pays off when you need scored opportunities, briefs, CMS drafts, Reddit and Claude tracking, or isolated client workspaces. For monitoring alone, buy the add-on.
How often do these tools refresh AI answers?
Semrush Prompt Tracking is daily and Brand Performance is weekly. Ahrefs custom prompts run daily, weekly or monthly, and its chatbot index updates monthly. Mentionova refreshes weekly, with every-two-weeks and monthly options.
Compare the output yourself. Start the 14-day Mentionova trial, no card.