Semrush vs Ahrefs for AI visibility — and when you need a dedicated tool
Your agency already pays for Semrush or Ahrefs. Here's what their AI visibility products actually track, what they cost per client, and when a separate tool makes sense.
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Most SEO agencies already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs, so the first question about AI visibility is reasonable: can the suite do it? Both now can, in different ways. Semrush sells AI visibility per domain with prompts you define. Ahrefs offers both custom prompts and a large pre-built index of AI answers. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.
The short version
| Semrush AI Visibility | Ahrefs Brand Radar | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Track your own prompts per domain | Custom prompts and a market-wide AI Visibility Index |
| Price (9 Oct 2026) | $99 per domain per month (EU: €94.94, billed annually) | Custom prompts from €47/mo, small allowance included in paid Ahrefs plans; Index from €179/mo |
| Prompts | 25 custom prompts, tracked daily | Tiers from 5 to 20 custom prompts, more on Enterprise; Index ≈ 83 prompts/day, ~2,500 checks/month |
| Engines | ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity | AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot; Claude available |
| Best at | Tracking a client's prompts next to its SEO data | Category research and prospecting without writing prompts |
What Semrush does
Semrush's AI Visibility plan tracks 25 custom prompts per domain daily across ChatGPT, Google's AI, Gemini and Perplexity, and gives AI visibility reports for any domain. It sits next to the rest of Semrush, which is the main argument for it: your team sees AI mentions alongside rankings and traffic for the same client.
The cost to watch: pricing is per domain. Ten clients means ten domains — about $990 a month at list price before users or other add-ons. For one or two flagship clients that's fine; across a full roster it becomes the biggest tooling line in the agency.
What Ahrefs does
Ahrefs Brand Radar has two halves. Custom Prompts tracks the questions you choose, checked daily on the platforms you select, with a small allowance included in paid Ahrefs plans and paid tiers from €47 a month. The AI Visibility Index is a database of AI answers to prompts modelled on real searches from Ahrefs' keyword data, starting at €179 a month with check-based overage.
Where it shines: the Index lets you see how a brand — or a prospect's competitor — shows up across a category without designing a prompt set. That's useful for pitches and for picking which topics to track.
The cost to watch: checks. Custom-prompt tiers are small (5 to 20 prompts in the tiers listed), and Claude consumes several checks per update. Model the checks your client prompts would use before committing.
When the suite is enough
Use what you already pay for if:
- you report AI visibility for one to three clients,
- your reports are already built around Semrush or Ahrefs data,
- you mainly need directional answers ("are we showing up at all?") rather than a monthly client deliverable.
When a dedicated tool is worth it
The suites price AI visibility like an SEO feature: per domain or per check. A dedicated tool makes sense when AI visibility becomes a recurring deliverable for many clients. The signals:
- You're paying per domain for more than a few clients. At $99 per domain, 15 clients costs more than most dedicated tools charge for the whole roster.
- Clients want a report, not a screenshot of a dashboard. You find yourself rebuilding the same slide every month.
- Clients challenge the numbers. You need to open the actual answers behind a figure, with mentions highlighted, not just a score.
- You want to sell AI visibility as its own line item. Then its tooling cost per client needs to be small relative to what you charge.
Where Ranxii fits
Ranxii does one thing the suites don't optimise for: AI visibility reporting across a whole agency roster. Per client, you confirm about 20 buyer questions and up to 5 competitors; Ranxii asks them on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity every week, stores every answer, and prepares a monthly report with your agency's logo. It costs €99 a month for 20 clients.
It doesn't replace Semrush or Ahrefs — it has no keyword, backlink or ranking data, and it doesn't track AI Overviews or AI Mode. Many agencies will run both: the suite for SEO and market research, Ranxii for the client-facing AI visibility report.
A practical setup
- Use Ahrefs' Index or Semrush's domain reports to explore a client's category and find which questions matter.
- Turn those into a fixed prompt set per client — our guide to choosing prompts for AI visibility tracking covers how.
- Track that fixed set on a schedule, and report rates over many answers rather than single results. See how to measure AI visibility.
Sources
- Semrush AI Visibility pricing (checked 9 October 2026)
- Semrush knowledge base: AI Visibility Toolkit
- Ahrefs Brand Radar (checked 9 October 2026)
Check a client’s AI visibility in about a minute
Enter a client’s website. Ranxii suggests buyer questions, asks a few of them on Perplexity and shows who gets mentioned — the client, a competitor, or nobody. No sign-up.
Keep reading
- The best AI visibility tools for SEO agencies in 2026Seven AI visibility tools compared on what agencies actually pay for: engines, prompt limits, cadence, client reporting and cost per client. Prices checked October 2026.
- What AI visibility is, and how to measure it without fake precisionA practical definition of AI visibility and the six metrics worth reporting — mention rate, citation rate, share of voice, prompt coverage, engine split and sources — with what to avoid.
- Which prompts to track for AI visibility: building a client's prompt setHow to choose 20 buyer questions that make a client's AI visibility numbers meaningful — intents, wording, markets, examples for three client types, and mistakes that skew results.