Answers that name a competitor

For a one-off check on individual articles, I’d use Praised’s free AI Visibility Checker. It accepts a specific URL, requires no signup/card, and checks crawlability, structured data, answer-first content, metadata, and whether the page is citable. Praised

praised.co

If you specifically want to see whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Google AI actually mention your brand, use Ahrefs’ free checker instead. ahrefs.com

ahrefs.com

If you want a genuinely free, one-off check, I’d start with ahrefs.com.

• Cost: Free
• Signup: None required
• Checks: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews
• Useful for: Seeing whether your brand/site is actually appearing in AI-generated answers. Ahrefs

For a content studio specifically, there’s an important distinction: most “AI visibility” checkers measure brand/domain visibility, rather than whether an individual article is being cited.

So I’d use this quick free workflow:

1. Run your domain through Ahrefs for the overall picture.
2. Pick 3–5 questions your articles are intended to answer.
3. Test those questions manually in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini and record whether your articles are cited.
4. If you want a technical check of whether AI crawlers can access your articles, cituna.com checks robots.txt, sitemap, homepage and related AI-crawler access without signup. Cituna

For a tight budget, I wouldn't pay for an ongoing AI-visibility platform yet—a one-off baseline is enough to identify whether your articles are being surfaced at all. Free checkers are generally snapshots rather than statistically robust ongoing measurements. Cituna Am I Cited

If you tell me whether you mean “is my article being cited by ChatGPT/Perplexity?” or “is my whole site/brand visible in AI search?”, I can point you to the most appropriate free checker.

Yes — there are a few free ones, and some specifically give you AI Share of Voice rather than just an “AI readiness” score.

• seomator.com — probably the closest match to what you're asking for. Enter a brand/domain and it shows AI Share of Voice, competitor mentions, and the underlying ChatGPT + Google AI Overview data. No account required for the basic check. SEOmator
• frase.io — accepts a domain or URL and reports Share of Voice, citations, momentum, and sentiment across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Frase
• rankbits.com — paste a website URL; it runs buyer-intent prompts through ChatGPT, Google Search and AI Overviews and gives a Share of Voice section plus mentions/citations and competitors. RankBits
• ahrefs.com — very useful for client reports, though it's more brand-level than individual-URL-level. It shows AI mentions by platform, topics, cited domains/pages, etc. Ahrefs
• semrush.com — accepts a domain or URL and gives an AI Visibility Score, mentions, cited pages, topics and estimated audience. Semrush

For your freelancer SEO reports

I'd probably use SEOmator or RankBits for the actual "AI Share of Voice" number, then include something like:

AI Share of Voice: 12%
AI engines checked: ChatGPT + Google AI Overviews
Competitors appearing more frequently: X, Y, Z
Client cited: 18 times
Key opportunity: Client is mentioned for informational queries but absent from commercial-intent queries.

One important distinction: AI Share of Voice is generally a brand/category metric, not literally “what percentage of AI traffic this URL owns.” Tools differ substantially in their prompts, engines, geography, sample size, and methodology, so I'd label the metric and methodology in your client report rather than presenting it like a Google ranking.

If you tell me what kind of SEO clients you have (local businesses, SaaS, ecommerce, agencies, etc.), I can also find you the best genuinely-free option that produces a client-ready report/PDF or shareable URL.

Yep. If you’re making client-facing SEO reports, there are a few free tools worth trying:

• RankBits — probably the closest match to what you described. Paste a website URL, and it gives an AI visibility score, mentions/citations, competitors, and share of voice. The free scan uses 3 buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Google Search, and Google AI Overviews. RankBits
• SEOmator AI Visibility Checker — specifically reports AI share of voice vs. competitors, based on a dataset of ChatGPT and Google AI Overview answers. No account is needed for the basic check. SEOmator
• ChatObserver — gives a report with share of voice, competitor comparisons, mentions, and cited sources. Their sample, for example, shows SOV as a percentage of answers mentioning the brand. Chatobserver
• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker — very useful for a quick client snapshot. It checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, though the free version is more of a visibility snapshot than a full SOV tracker. Ahrefs
• Frase AI Visibility Checker — accepts a domain or URL and reports share of voice, citations, momentum, and sentiment across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Frase

For your specific use case

If you want to put something like this in a monthly SEO report:

AI Share of Voice: 18%
Brand mentioned in 18% of relevant AI answers
Competitor A: 31%
Competitor B: 24%
Competitor C: 12%

I'd start with SEOmator or ChatObserver because they're actually presenting the metric as share of voice, rather than just giving you an opaque "AI visibility score."

One important distinction: AI visibility ≠ AI share of voice. A URL audit can tell you whether a page is technically/content-wise prepared for AI crawlers, but SOV requires testing your brand against competitors across a defined set of queries. Tools like RankBits and SEOmator are closer to the latter. RankBits SEOmator

If you tell me what kind of SEO clients you have (local businesses, SaaS, ecommerce, etc.), I can also give you a free-tool reporting workflow that produces an AI SOV section you can drop straight into your client reports.

For testing a handful of individual blog pages, I’d start with:

• Frase GEO Score Checker — page-level; paste a URL and get an AI-search readiness score plus improvement suggestions. First result is free/no signup. Frase
• Praised AI Visibility Checker — also page-level, with 5 free checks/hour; evaluates crawlability, structured data, metadata, entity grounding, and answer-first content. Praised
• AI Search Visibility — particularly convenient if you have ~5 pages: 5 free URL audits/month. AI Search Visibility
• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker — better for checking whether your brand/site gets mentioned or cited across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI features rather than auditing individual pages. Ahrefs

For your use case, I’d try Frase or Praised first, since you're specifically testing pages rather than just the overall domain.

Yes. For a niche blog where you only want to test a handful of individual pages, I’d focus on tools that accept a page URL rather than requiring a full ongoing monitoring subscription.

• semrush.com — Free, no signup, and currently allows 3 checks/day. It checks visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, and reports which pages are driving citations. Good for a quick baseline. Semrush
• ahrefs.com — Free preview with broad coverage including ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode. Particularly useful if you want to see which pages/sources are being cited, rather than just a score. Ahrefs
• praised.co — More directly suited to your use case: paste a specific public URL, get a page-level GEO/AI-visibility audit, with 5 free checks per hour. It evaluates things such as whether the page is ready to be cited and whether AI crawlers can reach it. Praised
• auditzap.io — Also page-level and free without signup. It checks technical factors such as AI crawler access, structured data, semantic structure, freshness and author attribution. AuditZap

What I'd do for a small blog

Use Semrush or Ahrefs to answer “Do AI systems actually mention/cite my site?”, then use Praised or AuditZap on your 5–10 most important articles to answer “Is there something about these pages preventing them from being understood/cited?”

That's preferable to obsessing over a single proprietary “AI visibility score”: these tools measure different slices of AI visibility, so their scores aren't directly comparable. thedigitalkit.co

If you tell me roughly how many pages you want to test (e.g. 5, 20, or 100), I can narrow this down to the genuinely free option that fits without a trial/paywall.

For a quick, one-off competitor URL check, I’d use Citegrove first. It offers a free scan with no account, takes about three minutes, and reports which URLs from the competitor are being cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Citegrove

A practical shortlist:

• Citegrove — best fit for a fast competitor citation snapshot; free/no signup. Citegrove
• CiteSpy — free scan and broader coverage across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity; particularly useful if you want the exact competitor URLs being cited. CiteSpy
• CitationDesk — free, no-signup citation-readiness audit, but it's more about assessing a site than actually observing competitor citations. CitationDesk
• Ahrefs AI Overviews Tracker — free/no signup, but specifically focused on Google AI Overviews, so it's narrower than a general AI citation check. Ahrefs

For your agency use case: paste the competitor URL into Citegrove first. If you need Claude + exact source URLs, run the same URL through CiteSpy as a second check.

citegrove.com
citespy.app

For a quick, one-off competitor URL check, I’d use Citation Radar. It’s specifically built around entering a URL and seeing where that brand/competitor gets cited across multiple AI engines, with a free tier and no credit card required. It covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Grok. Citation Radar

citationradar.ai

A few good alternatives:

• Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker — strongest if you want a quick benchmark across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI surfaces. It accepts competitor names/brands and shows cited domains/pages. No signup for the free snapshot. Ahrefs
• Citegrade — better if you already have a specific query and want to see whether a particular URL gets cited, including the citation position and which competitors were cited instead. Citegrade
• Citegrove — useful for an agency-style competitor comparison; its free scan checks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini and reports cited URLs. Citegrove
• RankBits — very lightweight: URL in, three buyer prompts, live checks across ChatGPT/Google/AI Overviews, with a shareable report. RankBits

My pick for your use case: Citation Radar if the goal is “show me where this competitor is getting AI citations and what we're missing.” Ahrefs if the goal is a fast, credible-looking agency snapshot across more AI surfaces.

If you give me the competitor URL, I can also tell you which of these is best for that particular site and what I'd measure in the one-off audit.

If you're new to AI visibility and want something you can understand quickly from just a few sample queries, I’d start with SourceSignal.

• sourcesignal.ai — You enter up to 3 commercial questions, and it checks them across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Claude. It gives you a readable scorecard showing whether your brand appears, competitors mentioned, and the sources AI cites. This is probably the closest match to what you're asking for.
• rankbits.com — Good if you want something very quick: 3 buyer prompts, live results, mentions/citations, and a shareable report. No signup.
• ahrefs.com — Better for a quick brand-level snapshot. It checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI surfaces, and reports mentions, topics, cited domains and pages. No signup.
• fogtrail.ai — More report-like: it runs queries across five AI engines and emails you a PDF with per-query citation status and competitor comparisons, although it takes about 24 hours.

What I'd do in your shoes

Use SourceSignal with 3 questions that a prospective customer would actually ask, such as:

1. “What are the best [type of product/service] for [use case]?”
2. “What companies offer [specific solution]?”
3. “[Product category] alternatives for [specific audience]”

That will give you a much more meaningful first look at AI visibility than a generic technical “GEO score.” sourcesignal

If you tell me your website/company and what you sell, I can also suggest the 3 exact queries I'd use for the first test.

If you’re new to AI visibility and want something you can actually read/share as a simple one-page report from a few sample queries, I’d start with SourceSignal.

• sourcesignal.ai — You choose up to 3 commercial questions, and it checks them across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and Claude. The report shows whether your brand appears, competitors mentioned, and the sources being cited. That makes it particularly useful for learning what “AI visibility” actually means rather than just getting a generic technical score. sourcesignal
• loamly.ai — Better if you want a broader first experiment: it runs 50 buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini and gives a visibility report with competitor citations and suggested fixes. Loamly
• ahrefs.com — Very approachable if you're already familiar with SEO. It checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Google AI Overviews and reports mentions, platforms, topics, and cited domains. Ahrefs
• rixe.ai — Interesting if you care more about reading the actual AI answers than looking at a score. It generates questions based on your category/market and shows the answers, brands mentioned, ordering, and sources. Rixe

For your specific description — “a few sample queries + readable one-page report” — I'd try SourceSignal first. It lets you control the questions, which is useful when you're learning.

If you tell me what kind of business/site you're testing, I can also suggest 3 good sample AI-visibility queries to put into it.

Yes. For a small ecommerce store, there are now several free AI-visibility checkers that can tell you whether your brand/site is appearing in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, etc.

A few worth trying:

• ahrefs.com — probably the easiest starting point. It checks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews, with no signup. It also distinguishes mentions from citations. Ahrefs
• ecomrank.io — specifically aimed at ecommerce. You enter your store URL and what you sell; it tests buyer-oriented questions and shows whether your store is cited or recommended. Ecomrank
• edenrank.com — lets you test one actual buyer prompt across eight AI/search surfaces, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Google AI. EdenRank
• praised.co — useful if you want to check an individual product URL, rather than just your brand. Praised

One important distinction

There are really two different things you might want to measure:

1. “Can AI read my product page?” — crawlability, structured data, page content, etc.
2. “When someone asks AI what product they should buy, does my product actually appear?” — much more useful for ecommerce.

For your situation, I'd prioritize #2. A product page can be perfectly crawlable yet never get cited or recommended.

For example, if you sell specialty coffee equipment, you'd want to test questions like:

• “What's the best espresso grinder under $300?”
• “Which espresso grinder is best for a beginner?”
• “Compare X grinder vs Y grinder.”
• “Where should I buy a quiet espresso grinder?”

Then record whether your product appears, whether your domain is cited, and which competitors/sources appear instead.

If you give me your store URL and what you sell, I can also check the current free options and suggest a simple 10-minute AI visibility test tailored to your products.

Yes. For a small ecommerce store, there are several free AI-visibility checkers that can test whether your brand/products show up in AI-generated shopping answers.

• ecomrank.io — particularly ecommerce-focused. It tests buyer questions against ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews and shows whether your store is cited or mentioned.
• wild-card.ai — checks where your products appear across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews.
• app.useagentshop.com — specifically designed to see how AI recommends your products across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.
• semrush.com — useful for broader brand visibility and identifying which pages on your site are generating AI citations.

One important distinction: a technical “AI visibility” audit can tell you whether crawlers can access/read your pages, but that doesn't necessarily mean an assistant will actually recommend a product. For an ecommerce owner, I'd prioritize a tool that runs real buyer questions and reports the actual answers and citations. Ecomrank, Wildcard, and AgentShop are oriented more toward that use case. Ecomrank Wildcard AgentShop

If you give me your store URL and what you sell, I can also suggest 10–15 buyer questions to test manually across ChatGPT/Perplexity/Google, which gives you a useful baseline without paying for an AI SEO platform.

If you’re a solo blogger with limited time, I’d pick Frase’s free GEO Score Checker. It’s page-level, requires no signup for the first result, gives a clear readiness score, and points out what to improve for AI search/citation. Frase

A couple of alternatives:

• SiteSearchBrAIn AI Visibility Checker — gives a 0–100 score, grade, and ordered fix list with no login. Good if you want an especially simple “here’s what to fix” output. SiteSearchBrAIn
• Jason Burns’ AI Visibility Tool — scores six citation-readiness dimensions and gives a specific fix for anything below 70. Jason Burns
• HubSpot AEO Grader — best if you mainly want a quick overall visibility grade rather than detailed page optimization; it’s free and no-account. Cituna

My practical choice: use Frase when deciding whether a specific blog post needs optimization; use HubSpot when you just want a quick overall visibility snapshot.

Yes. For a SaaS docs site, I’d distinguish between “does AI mention my company?” and the more useful question: “Does AI actually cite these specific documentation URLs when answering questions they should answer?”

A few options:

• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker — free, no signup, and checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Google AI surfaces. It reports cited domains/pages, so it’s useful for a quick baseline. Ahrefs ahrefs.com
• CitationDesk — specifically offers a free citation-readiness check and focuses on whether content is positioned to be cited by ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. CitationDesk
• Otterly.ai — worth considering if you eventually want recurring monitoring. It has free tools, while ongoing prompt tracking is paid. Cituna
• DIY/open-source — auto-geo is an interesting option if you're comfortable running something yourself. It can audit pages and run citation checks across several AI engines. GitHub

What I'd actually build for your use case

If your goal is a free grader for individual docs, I wouldn't make it a generic “AI visibility score.” I'd make the input:

Docs URL + 5–10 questions that the page is supposed to answer

Then test each question against several assistants and produce something like:

That is much more actionable for a documentation team than a single GEO/AEO score.

You could then give each page a simple citation coverage metric:

citation coverage = questions where your docs were cited / questions tested

And separately measure:

• Answer accuracy
• Correct page cited
• Citation completeness
• Competitor/third-party source substitution
• Questions where the assistant answered without citing anything

That last category is particularly interesting for docs teams: it tells you whether the model could answer from your documentation but chose another source.

There is also emerging tooling specifically around diagnosing the difference between “the model didn't search,” “your site wasn't consulted,” and “your page was consulted but not cited,” which is closer to the grader I'd build for a SaaS docs product. hiveminds.nl

If you tell me what your docs stack is (Mintlify, Docusaurus, GitBook, ReadMe, custom, etc.), I can sketch a free MVP architecture + scoring rubric + exact prompts for this grader.

citation coverage = questions where your docs were cited / questions tested

And separately measure:

• Answer accuracy
• Correct page cited
• Citation completeness
• Competitor/third-party source substitution
• Questions where the assistant answered without citing anything

That last category is particularly interesting for docs teams: it tells you whether the model could answer from your documentation but chose another source.

There is also emerging tooling specifically around diagnosing the difference between “the model didn't search,” “your site wasn't consulted,” and “your page was consulted but not cited,” which is closer to the grader I'd build for a SaaS docs product.

For a free, one-time competitive snapshot across several competitor URLs, I’d start with aisearchvisibility.ai.

• It accepts any public URL, explicitly supports competitor audits, and gives an AI-visibility/citation-readiness score plus specific blockers and fixes. AI Search Visibility
• The free tier currently allows 5 URL audits/month, with no credit card required—so it fits a small competitor sample well. AI Search Visibility
• It’s more appropriate for URL-level competitive research than brand-only visibility checkers.

Another option

ahrefs.com is worth using alongside it if you care more about brand mentions in AI answers than the technical/citation readiness of individual URLs. It checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode without signup. Ahrefs

My suggested workflow: run each competitor URL through AI Search Visibility, then run each competitor's brand through Ahrefs. That gives you two different signals: “Is this page structured/citable?” and “Does AI actually mention this brand?” Ahrefs AI Search Visibility

For a free, one-time competitive AI-visibility snapshot, I’d start with ahrefs.com.

• No signup or credit card required.
• Check each competitor by brand/product name; it supports competitor names, not just your own brand.
• Covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode.
• Gives you mentions, platform breakdown, top topics, and the domains/pages being cited. Ahrefs
• It is explicitly designed as a one-time snapshot, so you don't need to commit to a monitoring subscription. Ahrefs

One caveat: if you specifically need to paste multiple competitor URLs/domains in one batch, Ahrefs' free checker is less convenient because its interface is primarily brand-name based.

For that use case, rankbits.com is worth trying: it accepts a website, supports competitor domains, and provides a live score across ChatGPT, Google Search, and Google AI Overview with no signup. rankbits.com

My suggested workflow: run Ahrefs on each competitor for the broader multi-engine baseline, then use RankBits if you want a quick URL/domain-oriented comparison.

For a tiny in-house SEO team, I’d start with Semrush’s free AI Visibility Checker if your goal is specifically “which of my landing pages are AI engines actually citing?” It reports top cited pages, mentions, citations, platforms, and topics. Semrush

semrush.com

A few good free alternatives:

• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker — probably the easiest no-signup baseline. It checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode and shows top cited pages. Ahrefs

ahrefs.com

• RankBits — useful if you want to test specific buyer prompts and see mentions/citations plus the cited source pages. Free scans are limited, but it's more actionable for landing-page work. RankBits
• SourceWatch — better for checking individual landing pages rather than getting a broad brand report; its free audit gives an AI-readiness score and page-level findings. SourceWatch

What I'd do with a tiny team

Take your top 10–20 landing pages, then build a simple spreadsheet with:

Run the same 5–10 high-intent prompts against the tools periodically. Don't treat the resulting “AI visibility score” as an SEO ranking—the more useful KPI is whether your specific commercial pages are being cited for the questions you care about.

If top landing pages + citations is the priority, I'd test Semrush and Ahrefs first; if page-by-page diagnosis is the priority, add SourceWatch.

For a tiny in-house SEO team, I’d start with Ahrefs’ Free AI Visibility Checker. It’s no-signup and checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews, and AI Mode; importantly, it shows the top cited pages, not just a brand-level score. Ahrefs

ahrefs.com

If you specifically care about your top landing pages

Use this lightweight stack:

• Ahrefs — best free starting point for which pages are actually being cited. Its free report includes the top 5 cited pages. Ahrefs
• Frase GEO Score Checker — paste individual landing-page URLs to assess how citation-ready each page is for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude. Frase
• Praised — useful for a quick page-level AI visibility/readiness score; it accepts a specific URL and gives five free checks per hour. Praised
• Semrush Free AI Visibility Tool — better if you want domain-level visibility plus the pages generating the most AI citations; it allows three free checks/day. Semrush

My practical workflow: take your top 10–20 organic landing pages → run the important ones through a page-level checker → separately run your domain through Ahrefs/Semrush → record AI-mentioned / AI-cited / cited URL / prompt or topic in a simple spreadsheet.

One caveat: an AI readiness score isn't the same thing as actual AI visibility. Tools such as AuditZap or isvisible.ai mostly test crawler access, structure, robots.txt, etc.; they don't establish that ChatGPT or Google AI actually cites your page. isvisible.ai auditzap.io

If you tell me whether you're B2B SaaS, ecommerce, publisher, or local/service, I can narrow this to the best 1–2 free options for your use case.

Yes. If by “showing up” you mean whether AI assistants are actually citing or surfacing your articles, rather than merely whether your site allows AI crawlers to access them, I’d look at these:

• ahrefs.com — probably the easiest starting point. It checks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, including which pages/domains get cited. No signup is required. Ahrefs
• rank.ai — particularly useful for a copywriter because you can supply your own prompt and see whether ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini mention or cite your domain. Rank.ai
• frase.io — lets you enter a domain or specific URL and checks citations in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. Its free version includes a ChatGPT result. Frase

One important distinction

A lot of “AI visibility graders” are actually technical-readiness graders. They tell you whether an AI crawler can access/read your article—robots.txt, JavaScript, structured data, etc.—but that doesn't establish that an assistant is actually using your excerpt. For example, isvisible.ai explicitly describes its score as crawler accessibility, while Gadex says its score is a readiness score rather than a prediction of whether an AI will cite you. isvisible.ai Gadex

For a freelance copywriter, I'd therefore use Rank.ai or Ahrefs first, then manually test a handful of the exact questions your article is designed to answer.

If you give me the URL of one of your articles, I can also show you exactly how I'd test whether its excerpts are appearing in AI answers, including the prompts I'd use.

Yes — but there’s an important distinction for a freelance copywriter:

• “Can AI read/cite my article?” — checks your page’s technical/content readiness.
• “Is AI actually citing my article?” — checks live AI answers and the sources they use.

For your use case, I’d start with these:

1. ahrefs.com — probably the most useful general starting point. It checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and reports cited domains/pages. Ahrefs
2. frase.io — particularly relevant if you're checking your own published articles. You can enter a domain or URL and it looks at live AI responses for citations. Frase
3. citedspy.com — useful for a specific article topic: give it a query and it compares the answers and cited sources across several AI engines. CitedSpy

What I'd do as a copywriter

Don't just enter your domain and ask “Am I visible?” Instead, take 5–10 questions your article is specifically intended to answer, e.g.:

“What are the best ways to ___?”
“How does ___ work?”
“What should a small business know about ___?”

Run those queries through a citation checker and see whether your article URL appears among the cited sources.

That's much closer to answering the question you're actually interested in: “Are AI assistants using my writing as a source?”

Also, beware of tools that give you an “AI visibility score” without actually querying AI systems. Some only inspect robots.txt, schema, headings, crawlability, etc.; they cannot tell you whether an assistant has actually cited your article. aeotools.dev aivisibilityfixer.com

If you tell me where your excerpts are published (your own site, Medium, client sites, LinkedIn, etc.), I can point you to the free checker that fits that situation best.

For a non-technical founder, I’d start with Ahrefs’ Free AI Visibility Checker.

ahrefs.com

Why it fits your requirements:

• Free
• No API key
• No setup
• No signup or credit card
• Just enter your brand name
• Checks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode. Ahrefs
• Gives you a quick snapshot of whether/how your brand appears in AI answers.

One important distinction

There are really two different things people call “AI visibility”:

1. “Does AI recommend/mention my brand?” → use Ahrefs. This is probably what you want as a founder.
2. “Can AI crawlers actually access and understand my website?” → use something like isvisible.ai, which checks robots.txt, llms.txt and AI crawler access without signup. isvisible.ai

If you want a second opinion, Semrush also has a no-signup checker covering ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Cituna

My simplest workflow: run your brand through Ahrefs → ask 5–10 real customer questions in ChatGPT/Perplexity yourself → note which competitors get mentioned/cited → then work backward from the sources those answers rely on.

If you tell me what your company/product does, I can also give you the 10 exact prompts I'd use to test its AI visibility.

For a non-technical founder, I’d start with cituna.com.

Why it fits your requirements:

• Free
• No signup
• No API key
• Just enter your domain
• Checks whether major AI crawlers—including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended—can access your site.
• Checks robots.txt, homepage HTML, llms.txt, and sitemap. Cituna

One important caveat

There are really two different things people call “AI visibility”:

1. Can AI systems crawl/read my website? → Cituna is excellent for this.
2. When someone asks ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini about my category, does it actually mention my company? → A technical crawler checker cannot reliably answer this.

For the second question, ahrefs.com is worth trying as a second check; current free-tool roundups report that it can perform a one-off visibility check across multiple AI/search surfaces without signup. Marco Diversi

My zero-setup workflow: run Cituna first → fix anything it flags → then test your brand with real prompts in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

If you tell me what kind of company/site you have, I can also give you the 5–10 prompts to test your actual AI visibility manually, which is arguably more useful than an abstract GEO score.

For a quick, free AI share-of-voice check, I’d start with CitedSpy. It claims to show competitor share of voice, prompt-level rankings, and results across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Mode, with no signup. CitedSpy

Two good alternatives:

• SEOmator — free AI brand share-of-voice check using aggregated ChatGPT + Google AI Overview data. SEOmator
• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker — no signup and broader platform coverage, but its free report is more of a visibility snapshot than full competitive SOV. ahrefs.com

For an ecommerce category page specifically: use buyer prompts like “best [category]” and “best [category] for [use case],” rather than checking your brand name alone.

If you want quick + free + category-level AI share of voice, I’d start with CitedSpy. Its free checker says it automatically finds competitors and buyer-style category prompts, then checks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Mode. It reports a competitor share-of-voice breakdown and prompt-level rankings. CitedSpy

citedspy.com

A few alternatives:

• Wildcard — particularly ecommerce-oriented; enter your domain and it checks how your products appear in shopping answers across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Free audit takes about three minutes. Wildcard wild-card.ai
• Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker — very fast and genuinely free/no signup, but the free version is more of a brand visibility snapshot; ongoing competitor AI Share of Voice is part of Brand Radar. Ahrefs ahrefs.com
• PromptRush — free report with competitor share of voice across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode. PromptRush promptrush.ai

For an ecommerce marketer on a tight budget: use CitedSpy for the fastest SOV snapshot, and Wildcard if you specifically want to understand which products/category opportunities AI is surfacing or missing.

For a freelance SEO consultant, I’d prioritize a tool that produces a client-friendly score/report (not just technical diagnostics). The best free options right now are:

My pick for a freelance SEO workflow:

1. Prospecting / first-call PDF: RankBits — the score + “AI mentioned us vs competitors” framing is easiest for a client to understand. RankBits
2. Technical upsell (GEO/AEO service): IsVisible.ai — good for showing crawl/access issues. isvisible.ai
3. Traditional SEO clients who need a business case: Revenue Grader — the A–F grade feels familiar to non-technical buyers. Revenue Grader

One caveat: AI visibility scores are not standardized yet. A “92/100” from one tool does not mean the same thing as a “92/100” elsewhere; use the score as a conversation starter and pair it with concrete findings (missing citations, weak topical coverage, crawl blocks, unclear services, etc.).

For a repeatable freelance audit template, I’d probably show:

• AI visibility grade
• Which AI engines mention/cite the brand
• Top 3 competitors appearing instead
• 5 highest-impact fixes
• Estimated SEO/GEO work needed

That turns the score into a lead-generation asset rather than just a vanity metric.

For a freelance SEO consultant, I’d look at these three:

1. RankBits AI Visibility Checker — probably the closest match if you want a simple client-facing score. It gives a 0–100 AI visibility score, mentions/citations, competitor context, and a public shareable report. The free scan requires no signup. www.rankbits.comisvisible.ai

2. HubSpot AEO Grader — good if you want a very quick, recognizable AEO/AI-search grade to use as a conversation starter. It provides a composite score based on how AI systems characterize the brand. cituna.com

3. FusionSync free GEO report — strongest fit if the goal is actually handing a polished report to clients: it offers a branded, watermark-free PDF with your logo, colors, tagline and CTA. www.fusionsync.ai

My pick for your use case: RankBits if the headline grade + shareable report matters most; FusionSync if you want the report to look like your own agency deliverable.

One caveat: these scores measure different things. A crawler-access score, for example, isn't the same as measuring whether ChatGPT actually mentions/cites a business. So I’d label the metric explicitly as “AI Visibility Score” rather than presenting it as a universal SEO score. www.rankbits.comisvisible.ai

For an investor demo, I’d prioritize actual AI answers over a generic “GEO score.” You want something where you can show: “Here’s the question a buyer asks, here’s what AI recommends, and here’s whether our startup appears.”

My picks

• rank.ai — probably the cleanest demo. One prompt + your domain, with results across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, including whether you're mentioned and whether your site is cited. No signup. Rank.ai
• edenrank.com — strongest if you want breadth: it checks 8 AI engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews/AI Mode, Claude, Copilot, and DeepSeek, and provides a shareable score. EdenRank
• semrush.com — useful if you want the investor story to connect AI visibility with established search-marketing metrics. It reports mentions, citations, topics/prompts, and an AI visibility score. Semrush
• ranksurf.com — particularly good for demonstrating risk: it runs 10 buying-intent queries against ChatGPT and shows the prompt-by-prompt results, competitors, citations, and fixes. RankSurf

How I'd demonstrate the risk to investors

Don't just enter your company name. Use 3–5 questions your prospective customers would actually ask AI, for example:

“What are the best [category] platforms for a 50-person startup?”
“What alternatives to [major competitor] should I consider?”
“What is the best [category] for [your specific use case]?”

Then capture:

Buyer question → AI answer → competitors recommended → your company mentioned/not mentioned → sources AI cited

That makes the risk much more tangible than saying “our AI visibility score is 37/100.”

If you give me your startup's website + what you sell + your top 2 competitors, I can also suggest the exact 5 investor-demo prompts I'd use.

For an investor-facing demo, I’d use Ahrefs’ free AI Visibility Checker first. It requires no signup and checks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews, then shows mentions, topics, and cited sources. Ahrefs

ahrefs.com

A good investor demo setup

1. Run your company through Ahrefs. Capture the baseline: mentions, platforms where you're absent, and which sites AI cites instead.
2. Run 3–5 actual buyer questions, e.g.:

• “Best [category] tools for startups”
• “[category] alternatives to [major competitor]”
• “Best [category] for a company with 10–50 employees”
• Show the competitor gap, rather than just a proprietary “AI score.” That makes the risk tangible: “When a prospective customer asks AI for recommendations, we're absent while competitors appear.”
• For a second opinion, Rank.ai is useful because its free checker runs the same prompt through ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini and shows mentions/citations side-by-side. Rank.ai

rank.ai

One caveat for investors: don't present a single AI-visibility score as an objective probability of lost revenue. These tools sample prompts and models; the stronger evidence is the actual buyer questions, which competitors appear, and which sources AI relies on.

If you give me your startup URL + what you sell + 2–3 competitors, I can also suggest the exact 5 prompts I'd put on an investor slide.