Can I track AI visibility for free?

Partly. You can get a genuine one-time snapshot of your AI visibility for free: tools like HubSpot’s AEO Grader, Semrush’s AI Search Visibility Checker and Ahrefs’ AI Visibility Checker run with no account and show roughly how ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity describe your brand (each tool’s terms as of July 16, 2026). What free tools almost never give you is ongoing tracking, a chart of how your visibility moves as you ship changes or the models update. Most free checks run once, cover two or three engines, rarely include Claude or Grok, and score you without generating a fix. A few paid monitors add real free tiers. LLMrefs has a genuinely free single-keyword tier, but watching several engines on a schedule and tying them to real search traffic is generally a paid job. Free is the right way to learn whether you have a problem; a monitor is how you fix and watch it.

What “free” really means here

“Free” covers three different things, and the difference matters more than any single score. One-time graders let you type a domain, run a fixed set of prompts once, and hand you a grade with no account, a photo, not a film. Free tiers of a paid monitor give you a limited slice: one keyword, a handful of prompts, or a report emailed to you to pull you into a trial. And freemium tool suites give away standalone utilities like an llms.txt generator or a crawlability checker to earn goodwill.

All three are useful, and all three are marketing: a free checker exists to show you a gap and then sell you the fix, which is fine as long as you read it that way.

Where free stops and paid begins

The honest limit of every free tool is the same: it answers “am I visible right now?” well and “how do I stay visible?” not at all. Snapshots can also mislead because model answers vary run to run, so cross-check a couple and write down the date.

When you do move to a paid monitor, some offer genuine no-card starts, Otterly and AthenaHQ, for instance, let you begin without a card (each vendor’s terms as of July 16, 2026). Cituna is not one of them: it publishes a free llms.txt generator with no signup, but its full six-engine scan (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok and Google AI Overviews, not Microsoft Copilot, with the generated fixes and Search Console tie-in) sits behind a 7-day trial that asks for a card up front. You are not charged during the trial and can cancel anytime before it converts.

Related questions

What is the best free AI visibility checker?

It depends on what you want. For a no-signup, one-time snapshot, HubSpot’s AEO Grader and Semrush’s AI Search Visibility Checker are the fastest genuine free tools. For a free score plus public leaderboards, Am I on AI is a good look. For something you can re-run free over time, LLMrefs’ free single-keyword tier is the closest (each tool’s terms as of July 16, 2026).

Can I track my AI visibility for free over time?

Mostly no. Almost every free tool is a one-time snapshot, not ongoing tracking, you get a grade today but no chart of how it moves as you ship changes or the models update. LLMrefs’ free single-keyword tier is the closest to free ongoing tracking, and it is deliberately narrow. Watching several engines on a schedule is the job a paid monitor does.