AEO Guide · Updated April 21, 2026
Free AI visibility audit:
6 options ranked (plus DIY).
Published April 21, 2026 · Updated April 21, 2026
Most "free AI visibility audits" in 2026 are lead-capture forms dressed up in data clothing. A real audit measures six platforms, exposes the exact prompts your competitors win, and hands you a prescriptive next step. A lead-capture form asks for your email, your company size, your job title, and schedules a 30-minute discovery call before you see anything. The first is an audit; the second is pipeline. This guide ranks the six options that matter and notes which category each actually belongs to.
What a legitimate free audit actually measures
The minimum viable audit covers six axes. Anything shallower is marketing collateral.
- Six-platform coverage baseline. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, DeepSeek. Single-platform audits miss most of the picture because each platform picks its own winner.
- Brand citation scoring. Does your brand get cited? If yes, at what position? If no, which competitor was cited in your place?
- Competitor benchmarking. Two or three named competitors tracked through the same prompt set. Without a baseline, a "you got cited 37% of the time" number is meaningless.
- Buyer-intent prompt set. Ten prompts at minimum, mirrored on how buyers actually ask. Demo prompts cherry-picked by the tool vendor produce flattering numbers.
- Page-level gap detection. For prompts you lose, which specific page from the competitor is being cited? Without the URL, you cannot reverse-engineer the fix.
- Delivery in under 48 hours. Instant is a red flag (it means single-sample shortcuts); 48-hour-plus is slow enough to lose momentum.
The 2026 free-audit comparison
Six options compared across the axes that actually matter: is the audit truly self-serve, how deep does it go, what is the upgrade path, and who each one is built for.
| Option | Starting price | Cost per brand / mo | Self-serve? | Platforms covered | Our take |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citelligence Free Audit | $0 | $0 audit / $20-40 paid | Yes, no call | 6 (all major) | Best true free audit in 2026 |
| Peec AI | $0 trial | $300-500+ paid | No, sales call first | 6 | Best if you are enterprise-ready |
| Profound | $0 demo | $150-300 paid | No, demo call first | 6 | Best for content-led teams |
| Waikay | $69.95/mo | $69.95 × N brands | Paid only, short trial | 6 | Cheapest paid path to full coverage |
| Goodie AI | Free content sample | Varies | Partial, content only | Varies | Best for content agencies |
| Otterly.AI | Low starter | ~$15-30 | Paid only, thin trial | Subset | Best as a 30-day experiment |
Normalized to cost per brand per month. "Self-serve" means submitting a domain and receiving a deliverable without a sales call.
#1 Citelligence Free Audit
The Citelligence free audit sweeps 10 buyer-intent prompts across six AI platforms, compares results to 2-3 named competitors, and emails a branded PDF within 24 hours. No credit card, no discovery call, no time gate. The deliverable includes: which prompts you win, which you lose, which specific competitor is cited in your place, page-level URLs on the gaps, and a prioritized three-move recommendation list.
The thesis behind making the audit fully self-serve: most AEO buyers want to verify the category is real before they pay for anything. A paid trial inside a procurement cycle is the wrong front door. A free audit with real data removes the purchase risk and lets the buyer decide whether the paid product is worth $99 for the topical map or more for monthly tiers. We dogfood this on our own domain. Every week the platform publishes our internal gap report on the public leaderboard.
Platform coverage: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, DeepSeek (all six).
Delivery: Branded PDF within 24 hours, emailed.
Starting price: $0. Upgrade path: $99 topical map, then monthly unlimited-brand tiers.
Best for: Founders, DTC operators, B2B teams, agencies evaluating the category before paying.
#2 Peec AI
Peec AI offers a free trial, but the trial is gated behind a sales qualification flow. Expect to fill out a multi-field form, talk to a rep, and schedule a demo before you see real data. This is fine if you are already in-market for an enterprise tool and want a detailed walkthrough. Heavy if you are just trying to verify whether AEO matters to you. See the Citelligence vs Peec AI breakdown for the full enterprise-vs-self-serve contrast.
Free access? Trial, sales-gated.
Paid pricing: Enterprise, 4-6 figure annual contracts.
Best for: Marketing teams ready for enterprise procurement.
#3 Profound
Profound gates access behind a demo call with a strategy-led walkthrough. Worth it if you want to evaluate the recommendation engine specifically and have the calendar time to invest in a longer conversation. Not worth it if you want a quick data snapshot. Read the Citelligence vs Profound comparison for a closer look at the recommendation-engine tradeoff.
Free access? Demo call only.
Paid pricing: Mid-market, contact for pricing.
Best for: Content-led teams evaluating strategy tools.
#4 Waikay
Waikay does not offer a free audit, but paid plans start at $69.95 per project per month, which is the cheapest paid entry into full six-platform coverage. A 7-day trial exists, so treat that as a quick evaluation rather than an ongoing audit. We used Waikay for a month on DeadSoxy before building Citelligence; the per-project pricing is why we migrated. The Citelligence vs Waikay writeup documents the migration in detail.
Free access? Short paid trial only.
Paid pricing: $69.95/month per project.
Best for: Solo operators paying for one brand.
#5 Goodie AI
Goodie's free tier is oriented around AI content generation rather than visibility auditing. The audit layer is bundled into paid agency tiers. If your primary goal is auditing visibility independent of content generation, Goodie's bundling works against you. The Citelligence vs Goodie AI comparison frames the bundle-vs-focus tradeoff for buyers deciding between the two.
Free access? Content-gen sample, no real audit.
Paid pricing: Custom, agency tier.
Best for: Content agencies producing at volume.
#6 Otterly.AI
Otterly sits at the cheap end of the paid spectrum and offers a short trial. Platform coverage is thin (primarily ChatGPT and AI Overviews) and share-of-voice analysis is shallow. Useful as a 30-day low-cost experiment to confirm you care about AEO. Not useful as a long-term audit platform. See the Citelligence vs Otterly comparison for when to graduate out.
Free access? Thin trial on cheap paid tiers.
Paid pricing: Low starter tier.
Best for: A 30-day experiment before upgrading.
"A free audit is the front door. If the front door is locked behind a sales call, the building is not designed for you yet." The 2026 buyer rule
How to choose a free audit for your situation
The right option follows from one question: how ready are you to pay? If the answer is "I need to verify the category first," pick the truly self-serve audit. If the answer is "I am already sold on the category and want to evaluate paid tools," the sales-gated trials make more sense.
- You want to verify AEO matters to you, quickly, no call. Pick the Citelligence free audit. Full six-platform PDF in 24 hours.
- You are already in market for an enterprise tool. Pick Peec AI's sales-gated trial. The walkthrough is worth the time.
- You want a strategy-led evaluation with a rep. Pick Profound's demo call.
- You are ready to pay $69.95 and evaluate during a short trial. Pick Waikay.
- You are an agency evaluating bundled content-plus-visibility tools. Pick Goodie AI.
- You want the cheapest 30-day experiment. Pick Otterly.
Methodology: how we built the Citelligence free audit
The free audit runs a 10-prompt buyer-intent set across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and DeepSeek. Sampling is done with fresh sessions in each platform, with Perplexity source URLs preserved for page-level gap analysis. Results are benchmarked against 2-3 named competitors running the same prompt set, then compiled into a branded PDF delivered by email within 24 hours. Our full Citelligence Index methodology documents the underlying scoring math. For industry context on why this matters now, Perplexity's public documentation covers the Sonar retrieval layer that powers its citations, and llmstxt.org documents the structured-index convention that helps LLM-backed engines surface first-party content.
Frequently asked questions
What does a free AI visibility audit actually measure?
A legitimate free audit runs 8-12 buyer-intent prompts across the major AI platforms (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, DeepSeek) and reports: whether your brand is cited, what position you hold in the answer, which competitors are named instead, and which exact pages your competitors are winning on. Anything shallower than that is a lead-capture form, not an audit.
Is a free audit enough, or do I need a paid tool?
A free audit is a baseline snapshot. It tells you whether you have a visibility problem and roughly how big it is. A paid tool gives you the weekly drift tracking, larger prompt sets (50-200), multi-brand comparisons, and prescriptive content briefs. The free audit is right for the first decision; a paid tool is right for sustained execution.
Are free audits really free, or is there a hidden sales call?
It depends on the provider. Citelligence's free audit is fully self-serve: submit a domain, get a PDF, no call required. Some competitors use "free audit" as a lead-magnet for a discovery call, which is fine if you are ready to buy but expensive if you just want data. Read the fine print before giving up an email.
How long does a free audit take to deliver?
Citelligence delivers a branded PDF within 24 hours. Sweeping six AI platforms with multi-run sampling takes real compute, which is why instant audits generally use single-sample shortcuts that produce noisy results. A one-day turnaround is the realistic minimum for a defensible audit.
Can I do the audit entirely myself?
Yes. Run 10 buyer-intent prompts through fresh incognito sessions in ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. Log each response, brand position, and competitor list in a spreadsheet. Time investment: roughly 90 minutes. This is a perfectly valid DIY audit for a single brand. Beyond that, time cost beats tool cost.
What should a free audit NOT do?
A free audit should not ask for a credit card, should not require a 30-minute discovery call to receive the PDF, and should not hide the methodology. Any of those three are signs you are being qualified as a lead, not given an audit. A legitimate free audit treats the data as the product.
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Run your free AI visibility audit.
60 seconds. No card. No call.
We sweep 10 buyer-intent prompts across six AI platforms, compare to 2-3 competitors, and email a branded PDF within 24 hours. The same data the paid product surfaces on a weekly cadence.
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