The AI visibility market is growing fast. A year ago, almost no one was tracking how AI platforms talk about brands. Now there are half a dozen tools competing for your attention — and your budget.

Key Takeaways
  • AI visibility tools range from free to $500+/month — and price doesn’t correlate with coverage or depth
  • Most competitors either monitor (but don’t help you optimize) or cover only 3-4 platforms
  • Lighthouse covers 10+ platforms at $79/month with GEO scoring, custom prompts, and focus groups — features no competitor matches
  • The best tool is the one you’ll actually use — so we built the only one with a real free tier

Choosing the right one matters. These tools vary wildly in price (from free to $500+/month), in how many AI platforms they monitor, and in what they actually do with the data.

We’re going to be transparent here. Lighthouse is our product, so yes — we think it’s the best option for most teams. But we’ll show you exactly why, with real prices and real feature comparisons.

The Quick Overview

Here’s what the landscape looks like as of early 2026:

LighthouseFree / $79 / $249
Platforms: 10+ · Unique features: GEO content scoring, AI Focus Groups, AI bot tracking, custom prompt testing, expert AI agent · Best for: Teams that want comprehensive coverage at an accessible price
Profound$499+/month
Platforms: 8-9 · Strengths: Enterprise governance, multi-market, near-real-time · Best for: Large enterprises
Otterly$29–$189/month
Platforms: 3-4 · Strengths: Affordable entry point, Semrush integration

Detailed Breakdown

Profound ($499+/month)

Profound is the enterprise heavyweight. They’ve raised $23.5M in funding, and their platform is built for large organizations that need governance, compliance, and multi-market coverage.

Where Profound wins: Enterprise governance, multi-market monitoring, near-real-time tracking, and broad engine coverage (8-9 platforms).

Where Profound falls short for most teams: The price. At $499+/month with no free tier, Profound prices out the vast majority of marketing teams.

How Lighthouse compares: Lighthouse covers 10+ platforms at $79/month — roughly 84% less expensive.

Otterly ($29–$189/month)

Otterly earned Gartner Cool Vendor recognition in 2025, and for good reason — they made AI visibility monitoring accessible to smaller teams.

Where Otterly wins: Price-to-entry, Semrush ecosystem integration, clean weekly reporting.

Where Otterly falls short: Platform coverage. Otterly monitors only 3-4 AI platforms.

How Lighthouse compares: Lighthouse’s free tier already covers 5 AI platforms — more than Otterly’s entry plan.

What Makes Lighthouse Different

  • Free tier with no account required. No other AI visibility tool lets you run a full analysis for free.
  • Broadest platform coverage at any price. 10+ AI platforms starting at $0.
  • GEO content scoring. Page-level analysis of how likely your content is to be cited by AI.
  • Custom prompt testing. Test any question across every AI platform simultaneously.
  • AI Expert Agent. A built-in AI advisor that reads your full analysis and gives personalized strategic recommendations.
  • AI Focus Groups. Create synthetic audience personas and test brand messaging.
  • AI Bot Tracking. See which AI crawlers visit your site, what they read, and how often.
We built Lighthouse because we believed the AI visibility market needed a tool that was both comprehensive and accessible — not just for enterprise teams with six-figure budgets, but for every marketing, PR, and strategy team that needs to understand how AI sees their brand.

Related: What Is AI Visibility? · Understanding GEO Scores · See All Plans

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