Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: 2026 Comparison
Published October 15, 2026
Ahrefs and Semrush are best known as SEO suites, and each now sells AI visibility data. AI visibility tools report how brands appear in answers from AI engines.
Our analysts compared Ahrefs Brand Radar with the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit. We used each vendor's own pages as of October 2026. We then priced three tracking workloads on each, from one brand to five client brands.
In the following sections, we compare plans and prices, price the same workload on each, and explain which buyer each fits and what changed recently.
Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit Plans and Prices
Both vendors sell two kinds of AI visibility data: access to a large prompt database that someone else has already run through the AI engines, and tracking of prompts the customer writes. Ahrefs prices them separately. Semrush bundles both in one $99 toolkit with a 25-prompt allowance.
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | |
|---|---|---|
| Plans and monthly prices | Brand Radar AI database access: $199 per month for one platform or $699 for all platforms, sold standalone, each including 2,500 custom prompt checks a month. Custom prompt packages: Basic $50 (2,500 checks), Growth $100 (7,000 checks), Scale $250 (25,000 checks). Ahrefs Lite $129, Standard $249 and Advanced $449 include a small custom prompt allowance | Toolkit: $99 per month per domain. Semrush One (SEO + AI Search): Starter $199, Pro+ $299, Advanced $549 per month, or $165.17, $248.17 and $455.67 per month billed annually. Enterprise AIO: price not published |
| Prompts included | Database: 462,804,303 monthly prompts. Own prompts: Lite 150 checks (5 prompts daily on 1 platform), Standard 300, Advanced 600. Packages: 2,500 to 25,000 checks, with overage at $0.020, $0.015 or $0.010 per check | Database: more than 317 million prompts. Own prompts: Toolkit 25, Semrush One 50, 100 or 200. Extra prompts: $60 per month per 50 |
| AI engines tracked | Database: Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot. Own prompts: the same six plus Claude, which uses 8 checks per update | Pricing page: ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity. Semrush One help page: Prompt Tracking covers Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT, and Brand Performance reports cover AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini |
| Refresh frequency | Database question sets re-tested monthly on a 90-day reporting window. Own prompts: daily, weekly or monthly, set per platform | Prompt Tracking daily. Brand Performance reports weekly. Visibility Overview and research reports daily on a rolling basis |
| Seats | Ahrefs plans include 1 user; extra users $40, $60 or $80 per month on Lite, Standard and Advanced | One user per toolkit license. Each extra user of the toolkit needs another $99 license. Semrush One: 1 user included; extra users $45, $80 or $100 per month on Starter, Pro+ and Advanced |
| Projects and brands | Database: any brand can be searched, with no domain cap. Ahrefs plans: 5, 20 or 50 projects | 1 domain for Brand Performance reports; extra domains or locations $99 per month each |
| Free trial | None. Ahrefs says it does not run discounts; Ahrefs Free gives limited free access to Site Explorer and Site Audit | Toolkit: none. Semrush One: 7 days |
| Agency and white-label options | No agency plan listed. Ahrefs Advanced includes an agency directory listing | Pro Report add-on, $20 per month, adds branding and white-labeling to reports. Lead Generation add-on, $90 per month, lists the agency on Semrush's partner platform |
| Integrations and API | API and MCP access on Ahrefs Lite and above. Looker Studio integration on Advanced | MCP access from Semrush One Starter. API data integration on Semrush One Advanced. Toolkit CSV exports capped at 10 a day |
Ahrefs publishes the size of its database engine by engine. Of the 462.8 million monthly prompts, 325.0 million are Google AI Overviews, 17.8 million are AI Mode, and ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity hold between 29.8 million and 30.2 million each.
For the $199 database price, one platform means Google AI Overviews and AI Mode together, or ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot or Gemini on its own. The 2,500 checks included with database access, about 83 prompts a day on one platform, carry the same $0.020 overage as the Basic package.
Semrush's own pages do not agree on which engines Prompt Tracking covers. The toolkit help page gives Google AI Mode and ChatGPT as examples without a full list, and the Semrush One pricing page lists no engines. The Semrush One help article lists Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT. The Prompt Tracking help article lists ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode and Gemini, and Semrush's data article lists all four. Perplexity appears only in Brand Performance reports.
Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit Cost for the Same Workload
Ahrefs bills in checks and Semrush bills in prompts, so the Top GEO Agencies research team priced the same tracking jobs on both to get one monthly figure for each.
The three workloads below are custom prompts tracked daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode: one brand with 50 prompts, one brand with 150 prompts, and an agency with five client brands of 100 prompts each. Each cost is the cheapest published package, with overage where it is cheaper, that covers the workload.
For Ahrefs, checks per month are prompts x 3 platforms x 30 days, in one location. For Semrush, each Prompt Tracking campaign is set to one engine, and Semrush does not say whether a prompt tracked on three engines uses one prompt from the allowance or three, so Semrush is shown both ways. The costs leave out Ahrefs' database access, which starts at $199 per month, and assume Ahrefs packages can be spread across five brands, which Ahrefs' pricing page does not limit.
| Workload | Ahrefs Brand Radar custom prompts | Semrush, if a prompt counts once | Semrush, if each prompt counts once per engine |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 brand, 50 prompts, 3 engines, daily | 4,500 checks: Basic $50 + 2,000 x $0.020 = $90 | Toolkit $99 + one 50-prompt pack $60 = $159 | 150 slots: $99 + 3 x $60 = $279 |
| 1 brand, 150 prompts, 3 engines, daily | 13,500 checks: Growth $100 + 6,500 x $0.015 = $197.50 | $99 + 3 x $60 = $279 (175 prompts) | 450 slots: $99 + 9 x $60 = $639 |
| Agency, 5 brands x 100 prompts, 3 engines, daily | 45,000 checks: Scale $250 + 20,000 x $0.010 = $450 | $99 + 10 x $60 + 4 extra domains x $99 = $1,095 | 1,500 slots: $99 + 30 x $60 + 4 x $99 = $2,295 |
Claude costs more to track on Ahrefs, because each Claude update uses 8 checks. Fifty prompts on Claude alone, daily, come to 50 x 8 x 30 = 12,000 checks a month. Semrush lists no Claude tracking.
Ahrefs Brand Radar or Semrush: Which Fits Which Buyer
The two tools suit different buyers, depending on whether a team wants to track its own prompts, research a large database of existing ones, or both.
A team that only wants to track its own prompts pays less on Ahrefs at every workload priced here, because Ahrefs sells custom prompt checks on their own from $50 per month. The Semrush toolkit starts at $99 and includes its database reports in that price.
A team that wants database research across many brands, with no setup, gets that in the $99 Semrush toolkit. Ahrefs charges from $199 per month for Brand Radar database access, and $699 for all platforms.
Buyers who need Claude or Microsoft Copilot tracked for their own prompts can find both in Ahrefs. Semrush lists neither for Prompt Tracking.
Teams that already pay for one of the two SEO suites get some AI prompt tracking with it: Ahrefs Lite to Advanced include 5 to 20 daily prompts on one platform, and Semrush One includes 50 to 200 prompts.
Each extra Semrush toolkit user needs a $99 license, while Ahrefs charges $40 to $80 per month per extra user on its suite plans.
Recent Changes to Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush
Brand Radar's custom prompt tracking is less than a year old, and Semrush changed owners in 2026, so the dates help readers judge whether an older review still applies.
- January 15, 2026: Ahrefs' December 2025 product update introduced custom queries in Brand Radar, then supporting ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, billed in checks.
- April 28, 2026: Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush.
- August 26, 2026: Semrush launched a connector that brings Semrush data into Claude conversations. The connector runs inside Claude and leaves the list of engines Semrush tracks unchanged.
As of October 8, 2026, Ahrefs' Brand Radar page lists seven platforms for custom prompts: the four from January plus Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Claude. Its pricing page also sells custom prompt packages without an Ahrefs plan.
What Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush Pricing Means for 2027 and Beyond
For teams that only track their own prompts, Ahrefs Brand Radar costs less at every workload priced here: $90 per month for 50 prompts against $159 to $279 on Semrush, and $450 for a five-client agency against $1,095 to $2,295. Ahrefs also covers Claude and Microsoft Copilot for custom prompts, which Semrush does not list.
Teams that want database research on many brands with no setup get more for less on Semrush, where the $99 toolkit includes those reports. On Ahrefs, database access starts at $199 per month and reaches $699 for all platforms. Buyers already paying for either SEO suite can start with the AI tracking included in their plan.
Pricing on both tools is still taking shape. Ahrefs added custom queries billed in checks only in January 2026, and Adobe completed its acquisition of Semrush in April 2026, so further changes to packaging are likely. Buyers should confirm how Semrush counts prompts tracked on several engines, since the answer more than doubles the cost in some workloads, and expect usage-based billing to remain the main pricing model for AI prompt tracking.
Data Collection and Methodology
Neither vendor answers every question a buyer would ask, and a few of those gaps affect the cost figures.
Prices and plan details come from each vendor's pricing, plan and help pages as of October 8, 2026. All prices are list prices in US dollars per month before tax, billed monthly unless the row says otherwise. A "prompt" is one question the tool asks the AI engines, and Ahrefs bills its own prompts in "checks," where one prompt run once on one platform in one location is one check.
Semrush does not state how a prompt tracked on several engines counts against its allowance, and its help pages list different engines for Prompt Tracking. Ahrefs and Semrush build their prompt databases differently and refresh them on different schedules, so the 462.8 million and 317 million figures count different things.
Sources
- Top GEO Agencies, Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit Comparison: review of official pricing, plan and documentation pages, captured October 2026. Download the data (CSV)
- Ahrefs, Pricing, https://ahrefs.com/pricing, captured October 8, 2026.
- Ahrefs, Brand Radar, https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar, captured October 8, 2026.
- Ahrefs, Big data (AI visibility index), https://ahrefs.com/big-data, captured October 8, 2026.
- Ahrefs Blog, "Track your brand in Reddit and TikTok, custom AI prompts, and more (December 2025)," updated January 15, 2026, https://ahrefs.com/blog/new-features-dec-2025/, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush, AI Visibility Toolkit pricing, https://www.semrush.com/pricing/ai/, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush, SEO + AI Search plans and pricing, https://www.semrush.com/pricing/seo-ai-search/, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush Knowledge Base, AI Visibility Toolkit, https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush Knowledge Base, Prompt Tracking, https://www.semrush.com/kb/1503-prompt-tracking, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush Knowledge Base, Semrush AI visibility data, https://www.semrush.com/kb/1607-semrush-ai-visibility-data, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush Knowledge Base, Semrush One, https://www.semrush.com/kb/1608-semrush-one, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush News, "Adobe Completes Semrush Acquisition," April 28, 2026, https://www.semrush.com/news/455953-adobe-completes-semrush-acquisition-strengthening-cx-enterprise-with-enhanced-brand-visibility-capabilities, captured October 8, 2026.
- Semrush News, "Semrush Launches Official Connector for Claude," August 26, 2026, https://www.semrush.com/news/469301-semrush-launches-official-connector-for-claude-bringing-marketing-intelligence-into-ai-conversations, captured October 8, 2026.