Brand Radar is the best tool here for market research and the weakest for watching your own prompts week to week. Instead of asking you to write a prompt list, Ahrefs has already run hundreds of millions of search-backed questions through the assistants, so you can see share of voice and cited pages for any brand, including competitors you don't track. But its chatbot indexes refresh monthly, $199 buys one platform, and the prompts come from search keywords rather than how your customers phrase things. It suits SEO teams and agencies on Ahrefs. A small business tracking 20 questions is better served elsewhere.
SEO suite add-on
Ahrefs Brand Radar
A huge pre-built prompt index for market research, sold per AI platform.
- Entry price
- $199/mo
- Free option
- None stated
- Engines
- 1 of 6 · up to 6
- Sees AI crawlers
- No
Pick it if SEO teams and agencies on Ahrefs doing competitive and market research.
Skip it if You want to track a short list of your own customer questions cheaply and often.
Prices from help.ahrefs.com, checked Nov 1, 2026. Visit Ahrefs
We read Ahrefs' pricing page, Brand Radar product page and help centre, and scored it on our rubric. We didn't use Brand Radar for this review. Checked November 1, 2026.
How Brand Radar works
Most trackers start empty: you write prompts and they run them. Brand Radar starts full. Ahrefs takes People Also Ask questions from its keyword index and submits them through each chatbot's web interface, using the default model and running each question from the location of the keyword it came from, with no stored user data. Ahrefs' FAQ puts the result at "519 million+ search-backed prompts", though its own meta description says 475 million, so treat the exact figure loosely.
From that index you get share of voice, mentions, citations and impressions for any brand or domain, with results sortable by relevance or search volume. It sits beside Ahrefs' backlink, keyword and web-visibility data, and also covers YouTube, Reddit and TikTok in beta.
Custom prompts fill the gap for questions the index doesn't cover: you add your own, choose platforms (Claude is available here, via the API) and check them daily, weekly or monthly.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| One AI index | $199/mo | One platform's AI index (e.g. ChatGPT), standalone with a free Ahrefs account |
| All AI indexes | $699/mo | Every platform plus 2,500 custom prompt checks a month |
| Custom prompts | +$50 | Basic pack: 2,500 checks a month ($100 and $250 packs too) |
Ahrefs' help centre lists $199 a month per AI index and $699 for all platforms. Custom prompt packs add $50, $100 or $250 a month; overage is $0.01–0.02 a check. Ahrefs' core plans are $129 (Lite), $249 (Standard), $449 (Advanced) and $1,499 (Enterprise, annual commitment) a month. Prices may vary by region. Source: help.ahrefs.com/en/articles/11064852-what-is-brand-rada, checked Nov 1, 2026. Prices in USD.
Custom prompts are priced in checks: Ahrefs says "each prompt is checked daily on every selected platform. 5 prompts on 1 platform = 150 checks/mo", and Claude uses 8 checks per update. So 20 prompts on four platforms checked daily is 20 × 4 × 30 = 2,400 checks a month, which fits the $50 Basic pack. The help centre says Ahrefs' Lite and higher plans include custom prompts for the six main platforms, and the AI indexes need the Brand Radar AI add-on on any paid plan. How those combine for your account is worth confirming with Ahrefs; the pages don't spell out every case.
For comparison, Ahrefs' core plans are $129 (Lite), $249 (Standard), $449 (Advanced) and $1,499 (Enterprise) a month on its pricing page.
How it scores
- Cost for one small business25% weight2$199 for one AI platform, $699 for all; custom prompts cost extra on top.
- Engine coverage at entry tier20% weight3One platform per $199 index; six for $699.
- Data method and freshness15% weight3Well documented (PAA questions via web interfaces), but chatbot data refreshes only monthly.
- Insight and next steps15% weight4Market-wide share of voice, cited pages and competitor gaps without building a prompt list.
- View of your own site10% weight1No crawler or agent analytics.
- Self-serve and trial15% weight4Published prices and standalone purchase; no stated trial.
Weighted for a small business buying its first tool. Scored from published pricing and documentation, checked Nov 1, 2026; not from hands-on testing. How we score
The refresh problem
- Engines at entry
- One of: AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot
- Most engines available
- All six for $699; Claude for custom prompts only
- How it collects data
- Takes People Also Ask questions from Ahrefs' keyword index and submits them through each chatbot's web interface in the keyword's location. Claude runs via API. Source
- Refresh
- AI chatbot indexes monthly; AI Overviews every few days; custom prompts daily, weekly or monthly
- AI crawler / agent data
- None
- Seats
- Per Ahrefs account
- Trial
- None stated; Brand Radar buyers get a free Ahrefs account
Ahrefs is open about refresh rates, which is to its credit: web visibility every few minutes, Search Demand and AI Overviews every few days, and AI chatbots once a month. Monthly is fine for "how does our share of voice compare to last quarter?" It's too slow for "did the page we published last week start getting cited?" Use custom prompts, checked daily, for that.
Ahrefs' index has also produced some of the most useful public research in this field. Its March 2026 study of AI Overview citations (38% from Google's top 10, down from 76% in its July 2025 study) and its study of how rarely ChatGPT cites Google's top results were both built on Brand Radar data.
Strengths and weaknesses
Where it's strong
- No prompt list to build: hundreds of millions of search-backed prompts already run
- Share of voice and cited pages for any brand, including competitors you don't track
- Sits next to Ahrefs' backlink and keyword data
Where it's weaker
- Chatbot indexes refresh monthly, so it's slow to show change
- $199 buys one platform; all of them cost $699
- Its prompts come from search keywords, which may not match how your customers ask
Who should pick something else
- Small businesses tracking their own customer questions. Otterly or Peec track a short list daily for less.
- Semrush users. The AI Visibility Toolkit keeps everything in one login. See Semrush vs Ahrefs Brand Radar.
- Anyone who wants to see AI crawlers on their site. Brand Radar doesn't do agent or crawler analytics; Scrunch, Profound and Peec AI do.
Alternatives
- Otterly.AI$29/moA single business or consultant tracking its own name and a few competitors.
- Peec AI$95/moAgencies and in-house teams tracking a few brands or markets, who want daily data and a tidy UI.
- Scrunch$300/moMulti-location and mid-size brands that want prompt tracking and agent analytics in one tool.
- AthenaHQ$295/moBrands that need many engines, including Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral, and can budget by usage.
- ProfoundCustomLarge brands and enterprise marketing teams with budget and someone to act on the data.
- Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit$99/moTeams already on Semrush who want AI visibility in the same reports.
- cite-met (ours)$60/moSmall businesses rebuilding or moving their site who want hosting and AI crawler data in one place.
We publish this site and own cite-met, listed above. cite-met is a hosting platform that shows AI crawler fetches per page; it does nothing like Brand Radar's market research.
Questions people ask
How much does Ahrefs Brand Radar cost?
Ahrefs' help centre lists $199 a month for one AI platform index and $699 a month for all platforms, which includes 2,500 custom prompt checks (checked November 2026). Custom prompt packs cost $50, $100 or $250 a month. Prices may vary by region.
Which AI platforms does Brand Radar cover?
Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot in its AI indexes. Claude is available for custom prompts only, via the API. Grok was listed as temporarily unable to gather new data.
How often does Brand Radar update?
Ahrefs says its AI chatbot indexes (ChatGPT, Gemini and others) refresh once a month and AI Overviews every few days. Custom prompts can be checked daily, weekly or monthly.