Five free ways to find out whether ChatGPT, Gemini and the other assistants recommend your business. They do not work the same way, and the difference decides whether you get a useful answer or a row of zeros.
DisclosureCards on the table: one of these five is ours. It is described using exactly the same fields as the other four, so you can judge it on the same terms.
Which one should you use
If you only read one section, read this one. The right tool depends entirely on what you are trying to find out.
If AI has never mentioned you
AiBoost or Loamly
Live query tools still give you a full answer when your brand is absent.
If you want an answer in seconds
Semrush
A database lookup is instant when mentions already exist.
If you are an agency with local clients
Insites
Client-ready in under a minute, framed around local rivals.
If you want the gaps fixed afterwards
AiBoost
The only one of the five run by an agency.
The one distinction that decides which tool is useful to you
Live query tools ask the questions now
These put buyer questions to the assistants while you wait and read what comes back. Because the questions are asked fresh, a brand with no history still produces a complete answer: which competitors were recommended instead, on which questions, and which pages the assistant leaned on to decide. The cost is time, a few minutes rather than a few seconds, and usually narrower platform coverage. AiBoost, Insites, Loamly and HubSpot work this way.
Mention database tools count what is already recorded
These search a large stored index of previous AI answers for your brand name and report how often it appeared, with a breakdown by platform and the pages behind those mentions. They are fast, they cover more surfaces, and at scale they are excellent for watching a known brand. The catch is the failure mode: if nothing has been recorded, the honest output is zero, with no explanation attached. Semrush works this way.
This matters more than any feature list. Most businesses that go looking for a free AI visibility tool are doing so precisely because they suspect they are invisible, which is the exact situation where a database tool returns the least useful result. Pick the method that fits the question you are actually asking.
How we compared them
- We took the five free tools that come up most often when people ask an assistant for a way to check their AI visibility, and read each provider's own published description of what its free tier does.
- Every figure on this page, the platforms covered, the number of prompts, the signup requirements, the speed and the contents of each report, comes from the provider's own page on the date shown at the foot of this guide. Where a provider does not publish a number, we say so rather than estimating.
- We did not score the tools against each other. Scoring six products that answer different questions produces a league table that flatters whoever wrote it, so instead each tool gets a plain statement of what it does, what its free tier includes and what it is designed for.
- One limitation worth stating: free tiers change frequently in this category. Check the provider before relying on a specific limit.
The five tools side by side
Every figure below comes from the provider's own published description of its free tier, checked on 4 August 2026. Where a provider does not publish a number, the cell says so.
Free tiers in this category change often. Check the provider before relying on any single limit.
AiBoost Free GEO Audit
The only one of the five that is run by an agency you can hand the problem to, and the one built for businesses starting from zero.
How it works
Enter a website and it generates 34 buyer questions for that specific business, then asks them live to ChatGPT and Gemini with web search enabled. Questions are spread across the three stages of a real buying journey: the awareness questions people ask before they know who exists, the consideration questions that compare providers in a category and location, and the blunt decision questions of the form which company should I hire.
The free tier, exactly
Everything is free: no payment, no card, and no account to create. We ask for an email address so the report can be delivered, and that is the only thing we ask for.
What the report gives you
A visibility score out of 100, your gaps broken down by funnel stage, the competitors named in your place, the sources the assistants drew on, and a PDF you can keep or send to whoever owns the website.
Limitations
Two engines rather than four. It is a point-in-time audit rather than a monitoring dashboard, so trends need repeat runs.
Alternative: Loamly, if you want a wider single sweep with no follow-up.
Semrush AI Visibility Checker
A tidy scored summary that slots into a toolkit many marketing teams already pay for.
How it works
Also a database tool. Semrush states it draws on 26 million prompts and responses across more than 220 countries and regions, refreshed daily.
The free tier, exactly
Three checks a day without an account. No signup for that free allowance.
What the report gives you
An AI visibility score from 0 to 100, total mentions, a per-platform breakdown across ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode, your top cited pages, your best-performing topics, a competitor comparison and an estimated monthly audience.
Limitations
Four surfaces, a hard three-a-day ceiling, and the database caveat: it reports what has been indexed rather than running your questions now.
Alternative: our audit, for a live answer when the index has nothing recorded for you.
HubSpot AI Search Grader
Less about whether you are recommended, more about the character of what assistants say when they do mention you.
How it works
Asks live prompts of three assistants, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, about a brand you describe, then scores the answers across five dimensions.
The free tier, exactly
Free, one-off, and no account is required.
What the report gives you
A score out of 100 built from brand visibility, share of voice against competitors, sentiment, brand recognition and market position, plus a written analysis of how you are being characterised.
Limitations
A one-time snapshot with no tracking, and it leans on the brand details you type in rather than crawling your site. Our details for this tool come from its published description, because the page blocks automated fetching.
Alternative: our audit, if you need the causes rather than the characterisation.
Insites AI Visibility Audit
Purpose-built as a sales artefact: fast, client-ready, and framed around local rivals.
How it works
Runs live recommendation queries, around twenty of them, for any business website you enter. Their free-audit page names ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, while their published sample report scores four platforms including Grok, so treat the exact coverage as three to four.
The free tier, exactly
Free with no sign-up, results in under sixty seconds.
What the report gives you
A local AI visibility score out of 100, plus separate readings for awareness, accuracy of your business details, reputation and how often you are actually recommended, a prioritised issue list, and the local rivals AI suggests instead.
Limitations
Local-business framing throughout, which suits trades, clinics and salons better than national or B2B brands. Query count is not published.
Alternative: our audit, if you want a funnel-stage breakdown rather than a local score.
Loamly AI Visibility Check
The largest number of live prompts of any free tool here, and the most detail on how each assistant talks about you differently.
How it works
Scrapes your homepage to work out your category, then queries ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini with 50 industry-specific buyer prompts.
The free tier, exactly
Free with no signup, results in two to three minutes.
What the report gives you
An AI visibility score, a gap map showing which competitors are cited on each platform, and platform fingerprints showing how each assistant describes you differently.
Limitations
No stated paid tier or service behind it at the free level, so the report is where the relationship ends.
Alternative: our audit, if you want someone to close the gaps the report finds.
If you need this, use that
The questions people actually arrive with, and the tool that fits each one.
What to do once you have a score
A score on its own changes nothing. This is the order the work actually goes in, whoever you run the audit with.
Start with the sources, not your website
AI assistants assemble answers from the pages they retrieve. The usual reason a business is missing is that it does not appear in the round-ups, directories, review platforms and comparison pages that get retrieved for its category. Those placements are outreach work rather than something you can publish yourself, and they move the number faster than anything you do on your own site.
Then make your own pages quotable
Assistants lift text that is easy to extract: direct answers to real questions, specific facts rather than adjectives, and consistent details about who you are, what you do and where you operate. Pages written to rank often read as marketing copy that cannot be quoted cleanly, which is why plenty of businesses ranking on page one of Google are absent from AI answers entirely.
Fix the technical floor
Check that AI crawlers can reach and interpret your content, that your structured data describes the business accurately, and that the same name, address and description appear identically everywhere. None of this wins you a recommendation on its own, but any of it can quietly prevent one.
Re-check monthly, not weekly
Answers shift as the underlying pages shift, so short-term movement is mostly noise. Re-run after you have actually changed something, because that is when the number tells you whether the change worked.
Common questions about AI visibility tools
Is there a genuinely free tool to check how AI describes my business?
Yes, and more than one. All five tools in this guide have a genuinely free tier, and none of them needs an account (ours asks for an email address to deliver the report). They differ in method rather than price, which is what actually decides whether the result is useful to you. A database tool like Semrush returns in seconds but can only report mentions that have already been recorded. Live query tools such as ours, Insites and Loamly take a few minutes because they are asking assistants your questions while you wait.
Why does a free checker tell me I have zero mentions?
Because it searched an index of previously recorded AI answers and found nothing for your brand name. That is extremely common for smaller, newer or local businesses and it is a limit of the method rather than a verdict on your business. A live query tool will still give you a complete picture in that situation, because it asks the questions fresh and reports which businesses were named in your place.
Which AI platforms actually matter for a UK business?
ChatGPT and Google's Gemini carry most consumer use, so any check should cover those two at minimum. Perplexity matters for research-led and technical purchases, and Copilot appears inside Microsoft products used at work. Coverage of more surfaces is not automatically better if the questions being asked are generic, because a broad sweep of vague prompts tells you less than a narrow set of the questions your buyers actually ask.
How many questions should a useful audit ask?
Enough to cover a buying journey rather than a single search. In this guide the live tools range from roughly twenty questions at Insites to fifty at Loamly, with ours at thirty-four. What matters as much as the number is whether the questions were generated for your specific market and whether they span early research through to the direct hiring question, because a business can be visible at one stage and invisible at another.
Are the paid versions worth it?
They buy two things the free tiers do not: history, so you can see whether what you changed worked, and continuous tracking across more prompts and platforms. If you are actively working on AI visibility, that feedback loop matters. If you are simply establishing whether there is a problem, the free tiers answer that question honestly and cost nothing.
Can I trust a comparison written by one of the tools?
Treat it with the scepticism it deserves, including this one. We have marked our own tool clearly and described all five using exactly the same fields, so nothing is hidden by presenting one of them differently. Every figure here was read from each provider's own live page on the date given at the foot of this guide, so you can check any of it yourself.
What do I do once I know I am invisible?
Start with the sources rather than your own website. AI assistants build answers from pages they retrieve, so the usual cause of invisibility is being absent from the round-ups, directories, review platforms and comparison pages in your category. After that, your own pages need to be structured so they can be quoted, with direct answers, specific facts and consistent details about who you are and where you operate.
How often should I re-check?
Monthly is enough for most businesses. AI answers change as the underlying pages change, so week-to-week movement is often noise. Re-check after you have done something meaningful, such as landing a placement in an industry round-up or restructuring your key pages, because that is when a change in the score actually tells you something.
Run ours without leaving this page
The fairest way to judge a tool is to use it. This is the same audit described above, running live: 34 questions across ChatGPT and Gemini, scored out of 100.
What this guide leaves out, and why
Profound, Peec AI, Scrunch AI and Otterly.ai
Paid products with no free tier at the time of writing, so they fall outside a guide about free tools. Several are strong if you have a budget for continuous monitoring.
Rank tracking tools with an AI add-on
Traditional rank trackers that have bolted on an AI mentions feature usually gate it behind a paid plan, and the free view rarely tells you anything about AI answers.
Prompt-by-hand checking
Asking ChatGPT about your own business by hand is free and better than nothing, but the answer varies by session and by how you phrase it, which is the problem structured tools exist to solve.
Where these figures come from
- 4 August 2026 One tool removed from the comparison after we retested its free tier. The guide now compares five tools.
- 3 August 2026 First published. Details for each tool read from the provider's own page on this date.
Every claim about a competitor on this page was read directly from that provider's own live page source on 4 August 2026, not from a summary: Semrush AI Search Visibility Checker, HubSpot AI Search Grader, Insites Free AI Visibility Audit and Loamly AI Visibility Check. HubSpot's page blocks automated retrieval, so its details come from its published description and are marked as such in that section. Figures for the AiBoost audit come from the tool itself. Nothing here is estimated: where a provider does not state a number, this guide says so rather than guessing. Free tiers change frequently, so confirm any limit with the provider before you rely on it. This page is reviewed monthly and the date above is the last review.
See what AI says about your business
34 live questions across ChatGPT and Gemini, scored out of 100, with the competitors named. Minutes, free, no account needed.
Run the free GEO audit