Free AI Visibility Tools: How to Track Brand Mentions in ChatGPT for $0
Free tools to track brand mentions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. What open-source self-hosting, free tiers, graders and manual checks can and can't do.
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best free answer engine monitoring tools?
The most complete is Elmo, an open-source tool you self-host free under the MIT license, tracking ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews. AirOps has a free tier limited to ChatGPT. HubSpot's AEO Grader runs a free one-off audit. Manual checks and a DIY script round out the free options.
Can I monitor AI answer engines for free?
Yes. Self-host an open-source tool like Elmo for full, ongoing tracking across every major engine, use a free tier such as AirOps for a single engine, or prompt the engines by hand for occasional checks. Self-hosting is free of software cost; you pay only your own infrastructure and AI provider API usage.
Is there a free tool to track brand mentions in answer engines?
Yes. Elmo tracks brand mentions and citations across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews, free and open source when you self-host it. AirOps offers a free tier that tracks mentions in ChatGPT only. For a no-tool option, you can record mentions manually as you prompt each engine.
What's the best free alternative to Profound or Peec AI?
Neither Profound nor Peec AI has a free tier, only trials, so the closest free alternative is a self-hosted open-source tool. Elmo covers the same five major engines and the same mention, citation, and competitor metrics, with the trade that you run the infrastructure and supply your own API keys instead of paying a subscription.
Is there a free answer engine monitoring tool for digital marketing?
Yes. Marketing teams can self-host Elmo for free to track brand mentions, citations, and competitor share of voice across the major answer engines. Free tiers like AirOps cover a single engine for lighter needs, and HubSpot's AEO Grader gives a free audit of how citable your content is.
How do I check if ChatGPT mentions my brand for free?
Ask ChatGPT the questions your buyers ask, in both its base and search modes, and record whether it names or links to you. Repeat on a schedule, since answers vary between runs. To automate it, self-host a tool that queries the API, or use AirOps' free ChatGPT tier.
Is there a free AEO grader or audit?
Yes. HubSpot's AEO Grader is free and audits your content structure, schema, and AI readability, then returns recommendations. It is a one-off check of whether your pages are built to be cited, not ongoing tracking of whether engines cite you. Pair it with a monitor like Elmo to measure the effect.
Are free answer engine monitoring tools good enough?
For spot-checks and single-engine tracking, yes. For ongoing coverage across every major engine with history and competitor benchmarking, you either self-host an open-source tool, which is free but hands-on, or pay for a managed one. Free tiers usually cap you at one engine, and manual checks leave no history.
Yes, you can monitor your brand in AI answer engines for free. You have three real options: self-host an open-source tool like Elmo for full multi-engine tracking, use a free tier of a paid tool (usually one engine), or check the engines by hand. Each swaps the subscription for your own time or infrastructure.
Answer engine monitoring and AI visibility tracking are the same job under two names: watching whether ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews mention and cite your brand. Below is every free and free-tier option, what it covers, and where each one stops.
Key takeaways
The most complete free option is an open-source tool you self-host, like Elmo, free under the MIT license across every major engine.
"Free" still has a cost: self-hosting means running your own infrastructure and paying for your AI provider API usage.
Free tiers of paid tools exist (AirOps has one), but they usually track a single engine.
Free graders like HubSpot's AEO Grader audit your content once; they don't track mentions over time.
Manual checks cost nothing and work for spot-checks, but they leave no history and don't scale.
Free tools vary more than paid ones, so a few things decide whether one fits.
Engine coverage. The biggest split. Some free options track a single engine, usually ChatGPT, while a self-hosted open-source tool covers all the major ones. Check that it sees the engines your buyers actually use.
Tracking versus a one-time audit. A monitor re-checks your prompts on a schedule and builds history. A grader scores your pages once. You often want both, but they are not interchangeable.
The real cost of "free." A free tier is free because it is capped. Self-hosting is free of software cost but bills you for infrastructure and model API usage. Manual and DIY are free except for your time.
History and competitors. A spot-check tells you today's answer. Ongoing tracking with competitor share of voice tells you whether you are gaining or losing ground, which is where the value compounds.
Here is every way to track your brand in AI answers without a subscription, from a full open-source platform to a one-off audit. The table shows what each option covers before the sections below go deeper.
Tool
Free option
Engines covered
Best for
Elmo
Open source (MIT), free self-host
ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews
Full, ongoing monitoring you own
AirOps
Free tier
ChatGPT only
A hosted free tier with no setup
HubSpot AEO Grader
Free one-off audit
Audits your site, not live answers
A one-time content and schema check
Manual checks
Always free
Any engine you prompt
Spot-checks and small brands
DIY script
Free to build
Whatever APIs you connect
Developers who want a custom loop
AI products and prices change fast, so confirm current details with each vendor before you rely on them.
Elmo is an open-source answer engine monitoring tool you self-host, free under the MIT license. It tracks how ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews mention and cite your brand, and every metric is computed in code you can read. There is no license fee and no per-seat pricing.
Self-hosted, you get the full product: a visibility score, citation analytics, competitor benchmarking, brand-mention tracking, and data export through the API. Agencies can white-label it for client reporting. What free does not mean here is zero cost. You run the infrastructure, usually Docker and PostgreSQL, and you bring your own AI provider API keys, so you pay each model's usage directly. For most teams that lands well under a monthly subscription, and your data never leaves your servers. Elmo stays focused on measurement, so it tracks and benchmarks your presence rather than generating content or estimating prompt volume.
A managed cloud version starts at $29/month, for teams that would rather not run it themselves. For the developer-focused view of this category, see our roundup of open-source AI visibility tools.
Some paid tools include a genuinely free tier, but they cap it tightly. AirOps has a free tier that tracks ChatGPT only; broader engine coverage moves you to a paid plan. It is a fair way to watch a single engine without any setup, but a one-engine read misses where a lot of your buyers actually ask, since Perplexity, Gemini, and Google's AI Overviews go untracked.
Most other well-known tools offer a free trial rather than a free tier. Profound, Peec AI, Scrunch, Otterly, and AthenaHQ let you try the product for a limited window, then bill you. Two SEO suites price their AI modules openly: Ahrefs Brand Radar starts at $129 per month and the Semrush AI Toolkit at $139.95 per month, both alongside their core subscriptions. Read the fine print, because a free trial ends, and a free tier in this category usually means one engine and a small prompt allowance.
Not every free tool tracks mentions over time. Some audit your site once and hand back a score. HubSpot's AEO Grader is free and checks your content structure, schema markup, and AI readability, then returns recommendations for making pages easier for answer engines to quote.
A grader answers a different question than a monitor. It tells you whether your pages are built to be cited, not whether ChatGPT or Perplexity actually cite them right now. Run one to fix the on-page basics, then use a monitor to see whether the fixes move your visibility. The two are complements, not substitutes.
You can measure answer engine visibility with no tool at all. Open each engine, ask the questions your buyers ask, in both the base model and its search mode where that exists, and record whether the answer names or links to you. Note the competitors it names instead. If you sell project-management software, for instance, ask "What are the best project-management tools?" and "What is a good Asana alternative?", then check whether your brand shows up and which sources the engine cites. Repeat on a schedule, because the same prompt returns different answers between runs.
Manual checking works for a one-off read or a very small brand. It breaks down as you add engines and prompts. There is no history, no competitor share of voice over time, and the checking itself eats the hours you could spend fixing the gaps it surfaces. For a repeatable version of this loop, see how to track your brand in AI search.
ChatGPT is where most teams start, and it is the engine with the most free coverage. Four options, cheapest effort first.
Ask it yourself. Open ChatGPT, ask the questions your buyers ask, and run each one several times in a fresh chat. Check both the base model and search mode — they answer from different places and disagree more often than people expect. Free, immediate, no history.
Free tier of a hosted tool. AirOps tracks ChatGPT on its free tier. You get scheduled checks and a dashboard without paying, capped at the one engine.
Self-host an open-source tracker. The only free option that covers ChatGPT and everything else on a schedule, with history and competitor share of voice. Elmo is MIT-licensed and does this; see the free and open-source tools roundup for the alternatives.
Script the API. Query the OpenAI API directly and grep the responses for your brand. Worth knowing the catch: the API and the ChatGPT product do not return the same answers, so API-only monitoring misses what your buyers actually see.
Whichever you pick, run each prompt many times. ChatGPT samples, so a single check tells you almost nothing about whether you are really being mentioned — the rate across dozens of runs is the measurement.
If you write code, you can script the loop. Send your prompt set to the model APIs, directly or through a router like OpenRouter, parse each answer for your brand name and any links to your domain, and log the results over time. A first version is not hard to stand up.
The cost shows up later, in maintenance. You own the engine coverage, the parsing rules, the storage, and the reporting, and you keep all of it working as the models and their APIs change. Self-hosting an existing open-source tool gives you the same loop, already built and kept current, which is why most teams that want a free monitor start there instead of from scratch.
Free splits into two very different things, and the gap matters. A free tier is hosted and easy to start, but narrow: with AirOps you get one engine, ChatGPT, and you upgrade to see the rest. An open-source tool you self-host is the opposite. It asks for setup, then gives you the full product at no software cost: every supported engine, unlimited prompts, citation analytics, and competitor benchmarking.
So the honest summary is this. The only way to get full, ongoing, multi-engine answer engine monitoring for $0 is to self-host an open-source tool like Elmo. Free tiers are fine for watching a single engine. Graders fix your pages once. Manual checks cover the occasional spot-check. If you want breadth and history without running anything yourself, that is what the paid tools sell, and you can weigh them in our best AEO tools roundup.
Profound and Peec AI are among the most searched paid answer engine tools, and both run as subscriptions rather than free products. If you want their core job, tracking mentions and citations across engines with competitor benchmarking, without the bill, the free route is an open-source tool you self-host. Elmo covers the same five major engines and computes the same visibility and citation metrics, with the trade that you run it yourself.
There is no free tier of Profound or Peec AI to fall back on; both offer time-limited trials. So a genuine free alternative is not a cheaper hosted plan, it is a self-hosted open-source tool, or the manual and DIY methods above for lighter needs. See the wider AI visibility software hub to compare where each paid and free option fits.
Free options hold up until they don't, and the limit is almost always scale. The signals to change: more engines than a free tier covers, more prompts than you can check by hand, a need for history and competitor share of voice, or simply not wanting to run infrastructure yourself.
At that point you have two moves. Self-host an open-source tool and stay free but hands-on, or pay for a managed tool and buy back the time. Either beats guessing in a channel that increasingly decides how buyers find you. To compare the paid options, see the best AI visibility tools roundup.