What does Semrush AI Visibility actually do — and what it misses.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit tracks how your brand appears across AI-generated answers. The core product is Brand Performance reports — which engines name your brand, what share of voice you have relative to competitors, and which sources the engines cite. Its reports draw on ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews, with Perplexity added in Brand Performance only. Prompt Tracking, the part that runs your own prompts daily, covers ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode and Gemini. The Toolkit sits alongside Semrush's traditional SEO suite — Position Tracking, Site Audit, Keyword Magic — and shares the same workspace and login.

Depends on prompt volume and domain count. The $99/month standalone tier covers exactly one domain, one user, and 25 prompts — enough to baseline a single brand at low frequency. At $99 per domain, an agency tracking five clients pays $495/month and ten clients $990/month, before extra users and extra prompts (the 25-prompt limit is per account, not per domain). If your real usage is more than ~1,200 prompt-engine checks per month (at the four-engine average check price), the subscription math works. Below that — most monthly or quarterly audit cadences — pay-per-check tools like AuditAE come out meaningfully cheaper.

Only in part. Perplexity appears in the Brand Performance report, which draws on Semrush's own prompt database and updates weekly. Prompt Tracking, where you track your own prompts daily, covers ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode and Gemini, not Perplexity (Semrush knowledge base, checked October 2026). If Perplexity matters in your category, use a tool that runs your prompts on Perplexity directly. AuditAE runs every prompt on Perplexity by default.

AuditAE on pay-per-use. There's no subscription floor, no per-domain charge, and 5 of free credit lands when you create an account — no card required. For agencies running quarterly audits across multiple clients, AuditAE typically costs a fraction of what Semrush bills for the same roster: $99/month for one domain, $495 for five and $990 for ten.

Different product, different surface. The regular Semrush SEO suite measures how your pages rank on Google's blue links — keyword positions, organic traffic, SERP features, backlinks. The AI Visibility Toolkit measures whether AI engines name your brand inside the answers they generate — a separate measurement layer that doesn't show up in Search Console. They overlap on the underlying SEO investments (good content helps both), but they answer different questions and need different cadences.

No standalone free trial for the Toolkit. Semrush offers demo reports you can browse, and the parent Semrush platform has a free tier, but you can't run AI Visibility audits against your own brand without an active paid subscription. AuditAE takes the opposite approach — $5 of free credit (about 3 typical audits, each one 5 prompts × 4 engines = 20 checks at $1.65, or 1 including its fix-it playbook) lands when you create a free account, no card required.

Yes, but each domain scales the bill. The standalone $99/month tier includes one domain — add-on domains and additional prompts are billed separately. Semrush One bundles ($199–$549/month) raise prompt caps but still charge per-domain for Brand Performance. For agencies, the math compounds fast: five clients cost $495/month and ten clients $990/month, before user seats and extra prompts. Per-check tools have no per-domain tax — you pay only for the checks you run.

For AI-search citation tracking, mostly yes, though the engine sets differ. AuditAE runs your prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews (Google AI Mode is opt-in), where Semrush's Prompt Tracking covers ChatGPT Search, Google AI Mode and Gemini. AuditAE surfaces share-of-voice and competitor data, exposes per-prompt-per-engine cells, and ships REST API + MCP server access. What AuditAE doesn't replace is the rest of the Semrush platform (Keyword Magic, Position Tracking on traditional SERPs, Site Audit, Backlinks). Many teams pair AuditAE for AEO with their existing SEO stack rather than replacing both.