Buyer guide

The Best AI Website Audit Tools in 2026

AI search engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI read your site differently from Googlebot, and a normal SEO audit will not tell you whether they can reach, read, and cite you. The tools in this guide split into two camps: AI-readiness auditors that check your own site, and AI-answer monitors that track how often you appear in AI results. Most teams need one of each, so we explain both and rank them honestly.

Updated 6 tools reviewedRanked on the same criteria7 min read

At a glance

AUAuditZapOur tool
Free tierYes, AI visibility on the free tier
PriceFree plan, Pro $29/mo or $249/yr
Best forAI readiness plus classic SEO in one audit
OTOtterly.AI
Free tierLimited free or trial
PricePaid subscription
Best forMonitoring brand mentions in AI answers
PEPeec AI
Free tierPaid, demo available
PricePaid subscription
Best forBenchmarking AI share of voice vs rivals
SCScreaming Frog SEO Spider
Free tierYes, up to 500 URLs, desktop install
PriceFree, or from £199/year
Best forHands-on technical crawls
PRProfound
Free tierEnterprise, demo only
PriceEnterprise pricing
Best forEnterprise answer-engine analytics
SESemrush Site Audit
Free tierLimited free account
PriceFree tier, paid from about $139.95/mo
Best forAll-in-one SEO suites

We separated the tools by what they actually measure. AI-readiness auditors (like AuditZap and Screaming Frog) inspect your site: crawler access, schema, semantic structure, and freshness. AI-answer monitors (like Otterly, Peec, and Profound) track your brand across AI engines over time. We ranked within each camp on depth, free access, and how actionable the output is. Pricing on the newer monitors moves quickly, so verify current plans; figures are a July 2026 snapshot. AuditZap is our own product; we included it because it fits the category, and we ranked it against the same criteria as every other tool on this list.

What is AI visibility auditing, and how is it different from SEO?

Traditional SEO optimises for how Google ranks and links to pages. AI visibility (sometimes called GEO, generative engine optimisation) optimises for whether answer engines can fetch your content and quote it in an answer. The signals overlap, but AI engines weight things classic SEO tools do not surface: whether your CDN or firewall silently blocks AI crawlers even when robots.txt allows them, whether you have entity and answer-format schema, whether your content is wrapped in semantic landmarks, and whether it carries machine-readable dates and author attribution. An AI website audit checks those signals directly. AuditZap runs nine of these checks on every audit and rolls them into a 0 to 100 AI visibility score you can read about on the AI visibility page.

Readiness auditors vs answer monitors: which do you need?

If you have never checked whether AI engines can reach your site, start with a readiness auditor. It is a one-off diagnosis that finds the blocking firewall rule, the missing schema, or the absent llms.txt file that keeps you out of AI answers in the first place. Fix those, then a monitor tells you whether the work is paying off by tracking how often you actually appear in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI. Buying a monitor before you have fixed the fundamentals is like tracking your rankings before your site is crawlable.

The tools, ranked

Our toolAuditZap is our tool. We rank it here on the same criteria as every other entry.
1AU

AuditZap

Best for AI readiness plus classic SEO in one audit

FREEPRO

AuditZap runs 9 AI-visibility checks inside a full 40-check audit: llms.txt presence, AI crawler access in robots.txt, AI crawler firewall blocking (it fetches your site as GPTBot to catch a CDN turning AI bots away), citation and answer-engine schema, semantic content structure, content freshness, author attribution, and question-format headings. The nine roll into a 0 to 100 AI visibility score, and each issue can carry an AI fix instruction.

Free tier reality
The full AI visibility score and all nine checks run on the free tier, alongside our free llms.txt checker and llms.txt generator. AI fix instructions on every issue, the 50-page crawl, and clean watermark-free PDF export are Pro.
Pricing
Free plan, then Pro at $29 per month or $249 per year. Read more on the AI visibility page.
Best for
Teams that want to fix the technical reasons AI cannot see them, alongside a normal SEO audit, on a budget. For ongoing tracking of how often you appear in AI answers, pair it with a monitor below.
Run a free audit
2OT

Otterly.AI

Best for Monitoring brand mentions in AI answers

Otterly.AI tracks how your brand and chosen prompts show up across AI search, including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity, and reports share of voice and the sources being cited.

Free tier reality
This is a monitoring subscription, not a free on-page auditor. Access is paid, sometimes with a limited free view or trial, and it tells you where you stand rather than how to fix your own site.
Pricing
Paid, subscription-based; check the current plans, as pricing on AI monitors changes often.
Best for
Marketing teams that have already made their site AI-ready and now want to track their presence in AI answers over time.
Visit Otterly.AI
3PE

Peec AI

Best for Benchmarking AI share of voice vs rivals

Peec AI is an AI-search analytics tool that tracks how brands appear across LLM answer engines and benchmarks your visibility against competitors, aimed at marketing teams.

Free tier reality
A paid, team-oriented product rather than a free auditor. Like other monitors, it measures outcomes, not the on-page fixes that produce them.
Pricing
Paid, subscription-based; confirm current pricing before committing.
Best for
Teams that want a competitive benchmark of AI visibility and are past the readiness stage.
Visit Peec
4SC

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Best for Hands-on technical crawls

A desktop crawler (Windows, macOS, Linux) that pulls a spreadsheet-style export of titles, meta descriptions, status codes, redirects, canonicals, and more across a whole site. It is the reference tool for technical SEO auditing.

Free tier reality
No signup, but it is a desktop app you install rather than a web tool. The free version caps each crawl at 500 URLs and locks JavaScript rendering, scheduling, and integrations behind the licence.
Pricing
A paid licence (around £199 per year at the time of writing) removes the URL cap and unlocks rendering, scheduling, and API integrations.
Best for
People comfortable reading a data-heavy desktop tool who want maximum control over a technical crawl. If you want raw crawl depth over guided fixes, this beats us.
Visit Screaming
5PR

Profound

Best for Enterprise answer-engine analytics

Profound is an enterprise answer-engine optimisation platform that analyses how brands surface in AI answers at scale, with agentic analytics and deep reporting.

Free tier reality
Aimed at large brands with budget; access is via demo and enterprise contracts, not a free tier.
Pricing
Enterprise pricing, quoted on request.
Best for
Large organisations running answer-engine optimisation as a dedicated programme.
Visit Profound
6SE

Semrush Site Audit

Best for All-in-one SEO suites

Site Audit is one module inside the wider Semrush platform, which also covers keyword research, rank tracking, backlinks, and competitor analysis. The audit flags technical and on-page issues with severity labels.

Free tier reality
A free account exists but is heavily capped: one project, a small crawl budget per audit, and a limited number of requests per day. The genuinely useful coverage sits behind the subscription.
Pricing
Paid plans start at roughly $139.95 per month (Pro), which is a serious commitment for a small business that only needs an audit.
Best for
Growing businesses and agencies that want one platform for keywords, backlinks, and audits, and will use enough of the suite to justify the price.
Visit Semrush

Keep going with AuditZap

Run the free tools below on your own site, read the head-to-head comparisons, then start with the pillar guide.

Read the pillar guide: How to audit your site's AI search visibility

Frequently asked questions

What is an AI website audit tool?

An AI website audit tool checks whether AI search engines can reach, read, and cite your site. That means testing for AI crawler access, firewall or CDN blocking of bots like GPTBot, entity and answer-format schema, semantic structure, and freshness signals. AuditZap runs nine such checks on the free tier; you can start with the free AI visibility checker.

What is the difference between an AI audit tool and an AI monitoring tool?

An AI audit tool (AuditZap, Screaming Frog) inspects your own site and finds the technical reasons AI cannot see you. An AI monitoring tool (Otterly, Peec, Profound) tracks how often your brand actually appears in AI answers over time. Fix your site with an auditor first, then measure the payoff with a monitor. Our AI search visibility guide walks through the readiness side.

Why can AI engines not see my site even though Google can?

The most common reason is a CDN or firewall that blocks AI crawlers at the network level even when robots.txt allows them, so a robots.txt checker cannot detect it. AuditZap fetches your site as GPTBot and compares the result to a normal browser request to catch exactly this. Missing schema, no llms.txt, and no machine-readable dates also make you harder to cite.

Do I need an llms.txt file for AI visibility?

It is not mandatory, but a curated llms.txt gives AI assistants a clean summary of your site to work from. You can check for one with the free llms.txt checker, create one with the llms.txt generator, and read the full explanation in our llms.txt guide.

Does blocking AI crawlers hurt my Google ranking?

No. Blocking AI crawlers such as GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, or Google-Extended has no effect on Google Search rankings, which are driven by Googlebot. Blocking the training crawlers is a legitimate licensing choice; blocking the search and citation agents removes you from live AI answers. The AuditZap check separates the two so you can decide each on its own terms. See the AI visibility page for detail.

See where your site stands

Run all 40 checks free, with the 9 critical issues in full detail and one AI fix instruction on the house.

Run a free audit