10 Best BrightEdge Alternatives for SEO and AI Search (2026)

BrightEdge alternatives are worth a look if you want SEO and AI search covered without a multi-year enterprise contract. BrightEdge is one of the biggest enterprise SEO platforms, and in 2026 it added AI Hyper Cube, Agent Edge and a suite of agents that fix technical SEO on their own.

It still doesn't publish prices. Vendr puts the median contract at $50,000 a year across 46 purchases, on terms of 12 to 36 months. These 10 BrightEdge alternatives range from enterprise suites to tools you can try this week, with what each one tracks in AI search. Prices checked in November 2026.

BrightEdge alternatives compared

Prices from each vendor's pricing page, or Vendr where noted, checked November 2026. Monthly billing unless noted. Engines are those on the entry plan that includes AI tracking.

Tool	Starting price	AI engines tracked	SEO data	Acts on findings	Free trial	Contract
BrightEdge	Custom (Vendr median $50,000/year)	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and other platforms (AI Catalyst)+ others	Full enterprise suite	Site Agents for links, schema and tags	No	12 to 36 months (Vendr)
Orchly	$49/month	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, with Gemini, AI Mode, Claude, Grok and Copilot as add-ons; also tracks Meta AI and DeepSeek+5 add-ons	Rank tracking, Search Console, GA4	Agents run the work	7 days	Monthly
Conductor	Custom (Vendr median $49,020/year)	ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Grok, Copilot, Perplexity, from the Growth planFrom Growth	Full enterprise suite	Writing Assistant drafts	Yes, no card	Custom
seoClarity	ArcAI by quote; platform from $2,500/month	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, DeepSeek, Claude, Copilot, Grok+ DeepSeek	Full enterprise suite	ClarityAutomate deploys fixes	Custom trial after demo	Custom
Botify	Custom (Vendr median $74,200/year)	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini	Crawl, logs and rendering	PageWorkers deploys changes	No	Custom
Semrush Enterprise AIO	Custom (Toolkit $99/month)	ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek on Enterprise AIO+ DeepSeek	Full SEO database	Recommendations only	Via Semrush One, 7 days	Custom
Profound	Custom (Enterprise only)	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, AI Overviews, Exa+ DeepSeek, Exa	No	AI Marketer agents	7 days	Custom
Ahrefs	$129/month + Brand Radar from $199	AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot ($199 per platform, $699 for all six)$199 each	Yes	No	No	Monthly
SE Ranking	$129/month + $89 AI add-on	AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT with the AI Search add-on	Yes	No	14 days	Monthly
Search Atlas	$99/month (AI visibility from $199)	ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode from the Growth planFrom Growth	Yes	OTTO deploys fixes	7 days	Monthly
Scrunch	$250/month	ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot	No	Site audits; AXP on Enterprise	7 days	Monthly

1. Orchly: best BrightEdge alternative to track and grow AI visibility without an enterprise contract

Orchly is an agentic AI search optimization platform. It tracks your brand every day in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, with Gemini, Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok and Microsoft Copilot as paid add-ons (it also tracks Meta AI and DeepSeek), and its agents run on their own, on a schedule, across the whole loop.

They analyze your AI visibility, your competitors, your SEO and your Search Console and GA4 data. They find what to write and which pages to refresh and do it in your brand voice, keep Brand Brain up to date, find the sites, people and Reddit threads worth reaching, run the outreach and draft the replies, and audit your site for technical SEO and AI search issues, with the fixes ranked. You decide whether each agent runs on its own or waits for your approval.

BrightEdge gives an enterprise team deep data, a long list of recommendations and agents for technical fixes, on contracts Vendr puts at a $50,000 median. Orchly's agents run the content, outreach and site work end to end from $49 a month, though you won't get BrightEdge's enterprise keyword universe.

AI search tracking you can check every day

• Daily tracking. Mentions, position and share of voice in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews every day. Gemini, Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok and Microsoft Copilot are paid add-ons.
• Prompts you can segment. Every prompt is tagged branded or non-branded and by intent, and prompt research suggests new ones for your category.
• Citations and gaps. See every page AI cites, and use Mention Gap to find cited pages that name competitors but not you.

• Perception and fact check. Orchly shows the attributes and objections AI links to your brand, and checks answers against your approved facts in Brand Brain.
• Query fan-outs. See the background searches AI engines run before they answer. More on query fan-out analysis.

The Google side you'd miss from BrightEdge

• Daily rank tracking. Keywords by country and device.
• Search Console and GA4 together. Clicks, impressions, conversions and revenue in one dashboard, plus Page 360 for each URL.

• AI traffic analytics. On Pro, see AI crawler visits and human referrals from AI by platform and page.

Agents that run the work on a schedule

BrightEdge's Site Agents handle internal links, schema and on-page tags. Orchly's agents plan and write content, run outreach and audit the site on a schedule, and you decide whether each one runs on its own or waits for your approval.

• Content Agent. Turns lost prompts and decaying Search Console pages into article and refresh tasks, drafts them in your brand voice and publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Framer, Wix, Sanity or Ghost.
• Activation Agent. Finds the sites, Reddit threads and YouTube videos AI cites, drafts outreach and sends it from your Gmail, Zoho or SMTP inbox.

• Site Health Agent. Audits pages for technical SEO and AI search issues, ranked by priority, with a suggested fix for each.

Setup takes about ten minutes. Orchly reads your site and suggests topics, prompts and competitors, so you're not waiting on an onboarding plan.

Where Orchly falls short

• Not a full enterprise SEO data suite. Its keyword and backlink data is smaller than Semrush or Ahrefs, so teams that live in deep keyword research may keep a data tool alongside it.
• Newer brand. There are fewer public reviews than BrightEdge has built up over the years.

Orchly pricing

• Essential: $49/month for 25 prompts, 20 articles, 1 site and 1 user
• Pro: $125/month for 100 prompts, 50 articles, 3 sites and 5 users, with AI traffic analytics, custom agents and white-label reports
• Enterprise: custom, with a customer success manager
• There's a 7-day free trial, and yearly billing saves 25%.

See Orchly pricing or start a free trial.

2. Conductor: best for enterprise teams moving their SEO budget toward AEO

Conductor is an enterprise SEO and AEO platform that tracks brand mentions, citations, share of voice and sentiment across nine AI engine options, next to its keyword, content and site monitoring tools. It's the closest like-for-like swap for a BrightEdge team, and you can try it before you sign.

We haven't used Conductor ourselves, so this section is based on its pricing page, documentation, announcements and TrustRadius reviews.

Its AI Search Performance reports cover ChatGPT (Auto and Search), Claude Sonnet, Gemini, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Grok, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity in more than 160 countries, per Conductor's docs. That's a longer list than BrightEdge names for AI Catalyst.

Buying it feels a lot like buying BrightEdge. Plans are Essentials, Growth and Enterprise, all priced through sales, and Essentials has no AI search credits, so AEO tracking starts on Growth with 2,500 credits a year. Vendr puts the median contract at $49,020 a year, which is about what BrightEdge costs.

On September 24, 2026, Chief Product Officer Wei Zheng became CEO, and Conductor said AEO would be its focus, with new products announced for its C3 event on October 28.

Key features

• AI Search Performance. Mentions, citations, share of voice and sentiment by engine, topic, persona and country.
• Writing Assistant. 60, 180 or 600 AI drafts a year, with content scores and internal link suggestions.
• Website Monitoring. Round-the-clock page monitoring with alerts, from 100,000 pages on Essentials.
• AgentStack. Conductor data inside ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot through MCP and an API.
• Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics integrations for traffic and conversions.

Where it falls short

• No published prices on any plan, and Vendr's median is close to BrightEdge's.
• AI search tracking needs Growth or Enterprise.
• No outreach or citation-building tools, so earning mentions on other sites stays manual.

User reviews

“It gives live suggestions as we write, like keyword placement and meta tags, so articles start out optimized.” (Source)

“I'd like deeper AI search data in the platform, and daily updates instead of once or twice a week.” (Source)

“The platform felt pretty overwhelming when I first started. The certification helped, but it was a lot to take in.” (Source)

Pricing

• Essentials: price on request, with 500 tracked keywords, 60 drafts a year and no AI search credits
• Growth: price on request, with 2,500 AI search credits a year and 5,000 tracked keywords
• Enterprise: custom, with 2,500+ AI search credits and 10+ tracked websites
• There's a free trial with no card needed. Vendr reports a median contract of $49,020 a year.

3. seoClarity: best for data-heavy SEO teams that want wide AI engine coverage

seoClarity is an enterprise SEO platform and one of BrightEdge's oldest rivals, with an AI search module called Clarity ArcAI that tracks nine engines. It suits data-heavy SEO teams that want wide AI engine coverage and a trial on their own domain before they commit.

We haven't used seoClarity ourselves, so this section draws on its pricing pages, release notes and Capterra reviews.

ArcAI's Core package tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews and Gemini, plus DeepSeek, Claude, Copilot and Grok, which the ArcAI pricing page marks as new. Prompt tracking starts at 500 queries. The Discovery package adds AI bot tracking, and Accuracy adds monitoring for wrong or made-up answers about your brand.

The 2026 releases came quickly. ArcAI 3.0 shipped on April 1 with AI shopping tracking, accuracy and narrative controls, an agentic content workflow and an MCP server. LiveWire followed in July and puts seoClarity data inside LLMs, spreadsheets and dashboards, and ArcAI Insights arrived on September 17.

Unlike BrightEdge, seoClarity runs a free custom trial after a demo, with training included. ArcAI itself is quote-only, and the platform packages on its pricing page start at $2,500 a month, though the page says those figures date from October 2022.

Key features

• Nine AI engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, DeepSeek, Claude, Copilot and Grok on every ArcAI package.
• Prompt Research Explorer and AI Content Optimizer. Prompt demand research, plus 20 content analyses included.
• AI Bot Tracking. Which AI crawlers reach your pages, on the Discovery package.
• ClarityAutomate. Page Optimizer, Schema Optimizer, Link Seeker and Bot Optimizer push changes without a developer.
• MCP server and API. ArcAI data inside ChatGPT, Claude and your own reports.

Where it falls short

• ArcAI pricing is quote-only, and the published platform prices are years old.
• Bot tracking and accuracy monitoring are separate packages on top of Core.
• Built for enterprise SEO teams, with no outreach or content publishing agents.

User reviews

“Since we started with seoClarity, one of our most important keywords moved from the middle of page 5 to page 1 in eight months. The support team answers fast, too.” (Source)

“Getting the most out of it takes a pretty steep learning curve, and the interface isn't the most intuitive.” (Source)

“My only real complaint is that the UI is a bit dated.” (Source)

Pricing

• ArcAI Core, Discovery and Accuracy: price on request
• SEO platform packages: from $2,500, $3,200 and $4,500 a month (figures dated October 2022 on the pricing page)
• A free custom trial with training starts after a demo.

4. Botify: best for large sites where crawling and rendering are the bottleneck

Botify is an enterprise technical SEO platform for very large sites, built around crawling, log file analysis and tools that push fixes live, with an AI Visibility dashboard on top. It suits ecommerce brands and publishers with millions of URLs, where crawling and rendering are the real bottleneck.

We haven't used Botify ourselves, so this section is based on its release notes, help center and user reviews.

AI Visibility tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews and Gemini, per Botify's AI Visibility FAQ. AI Overviews and Gemini came in the April 2026 release. Botify's help center says answers come from vetted third-party providers that run each prompt on the engine's public website, logged out. Prompts run weekly, and since September 2026 you can set a daily refresh per project.

Execution on huge sites is where it differs from BrightEdge. PageWorkers pushes on-page changes, SpeedWorkers pre-renders pages so search and AI bots can read them, and AgenticCatalog, launched on March 24, 2026, builds AI-ready product feeds for retailers. A Botify MCP server arrived in September.

It won't save you money, though. Vendr puts the median Botify contract at $74,200 a year, priced mostly by URL count and modules.

Key features

• AI Visibility. Brand mentions, citations, sentiment and share of voice in ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Mode, with competitor groups.
• Log file analysis. How Google and AI bots actually crawl your site, URL by URL.
• PageWorkers and SpeedWorkers. On-page changes and pre-rendering deployed without a release cycle.
• AgenticCatalog. Enriched product feeds for AI shopping agents, with a feed audit since September 2026.
• Botify Assist and MCP. Ask questions of your Botify data, in the app or in Claude and ChatGPT.

Where it falls short

• Five AI engines, with no Claude, Copilot or Grok.
• Costs more than BrightEdge at the median, per Vendr.
• Most of the value shows up on very large catalogs and publishers, so it's overkill for smaller sites.

User reviews

The reviews we could find predate Botify's AI features, so they speak to the crawl and log tools.

“It combines keywords, log files and site crawls in one report, so we get a full view of site health.” (Source)

“Great data reliability and log analysis, but it gets very expensive once you add the log analyzer and keyword research.” (Source)

“Not the easiest program to learn, and it can be extremely slow at times.” (Source)

Pricing

• Custom: priced by URL count, log volume and modules
• Vendr data: median of $74,200 a year; mid-market sites (250,000 to 1 million URLs) typically pay $75,000 to $150,000
• There's no free trial.

5. Semrush Enterprise AIO: best for teams that want AI search inside a familiar SEO database

Semrush Enterprise AIO is Semrush's enterprise AI visibility product, tracking nine AI engines on top of the Semrush SEO data many teams already use. It suits enterprise teams that want AI search inside a database they know, with the $99 AI Visibility Toolkit as a smaller way in.

We tested the AI Visibility Toolkit. Enterprise AIO goes through a demo, so what we say about it comes from Semrush's pricing page.

The Toolkit was easy to read. The AI Visibility score and Brand Performance reports made sense in a few minutes, and prompt research next to keyword data felt natural if your team already lives in Semrush.

The entry plan is small, though. $99 a month buys one domain and 25 prompts, Prompt Tracking runs on ChatGPT Search, AI Mode, Gemini and AI Overviews, and Claude, Grok and DeepSeek wait for Enterprise AIO.

Enterprise AIO lists ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Gemini, Claude and DeepSeek, with custom prompt volumes, daily or weekly tracking, multi-brand reporting, forecasting and ROI attribution. Semrush has been an Adobe company since April 28, 2026.

Key features

• Nine engines on Enterprise AIO. ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Gemini, Claude and DeepSeek.
• Prompt database. Semrush says it covers 317 million+ prompts for research and competitor benchmarks.
• Forecasting and ROI attribution. Segment-level forecasts for visibility and traffic on Enterprise.
• Multi-brand reporting. Track by brand, concept or product line.
• AI Visibility Toolkit. $99 per domain, with Brand Performance, Prompt Tracking and AI readiness checks in Site Audit.

Where it falls short

• Enterprise AIO pricing only comes out in a demo.
• The Toolkit caps you at 25 prompts per domain, and each extra domain costs another $99.
• No standalone Toolkit trial, so you try it through Semrush One.

User reviews

“Prompt Research works like Keyword Magic for AI questions, with volume and intent data from a huge prompt database.” (Source)

“The AI Visibility score keeps me on top of the AEO and GEO work we need to prioritize.” (Source)

“As an agency we added brands to evaluate, one for a pitch we lost. There's no way to remove a brand yourself, and each one keeps billing $99 a month until support does it.” (Source)

Pricing

• Enterprise AIO: custom, through sales
• AI Visibility Toolkit: $99/month per domain for 25 prompts, billed annually
• Semrush One: from $199/month with 50 prompts
• Semrush One has a 7-day free trial, and the Toolkit has none of its own.

6. Profound: best for enterprise brands that only need AI search

Profound is an enterprise AI visibility platform used by more than 1,000 brands, with AI Marketer agents on top of nine-engine tracking. It suits large brands with a separate SEO stack that want a dedicated AI search tool rather than a full SEO suite.

We tested it on the 7-day trial. Profound picked 50 prompts for our industry that we couldn't edit, and only ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews ran, so the trial taught us more about the product than about our own market.

The dashboards are clear, and the agent side has moved fast. Since October 2026 you can set up an agent from a plain-language request, and it works from your brand facts in Context Manager. Profound has no rank tracker, keyword research or site audit, though, so it sits next to an SEO suite instead of replacing BrightEdge.

Buying it also looks more like buying BrightEdge than it used to. Profound removed its $99 and $399 self-serve brand plans in September 2026, the month it raised a $180M Series D at a $1.8B valuation, so brands now go through sales.

Key features

• Nine engines on Enterprise. ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, AI Overviews and Exa.
• AI Marketer. Agents that draft and refresh content, set up from a plain-language request.
• Prompt Volumes. Demand estimates from more than 1.5 billion prompts in 35 countries, updated weekly.
• Agent Analytics. AI crawler visits to your site, with Search Console data in Pages.
• Context Manager and MCP on Enterprise, for brand facts and data in your own AI tools.

Where it falls short

• No self-serve plan for brands, so pricing goes through sales.
• No rank tracking, keyword research or site audit, so you still pay for an SEO tool.
• The trial runs 50 preset prompts on three engines, and Grok was dropped when Exa replaced it in September 2026.

User reviews

“Good for insights and some recommendations.” (Source)

“It ships new features faster than the other tools we pay for, and we can pick the newest models when it refreshes our content.” (Source)

“It isn't the easiest tool to work with, and the pricing feels a bit high, though we save on maintaining our own workflows.” (Source)

Pricing

• Brands: custom Enterprise pricing through sales
• Agencies: a separate self-serve Agency Growth plan
• Trial: 7 days, with 50 preset prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews

7. Ahrefs: best for keyword and backlink research plus AI market data

Ahrefs is an SEO toolset best known for backlink and keyword data, with an AI visibility index called Brand Radar sold on top. It suits teams that want strong link data and quick AI market research without a sales call.

We haven't been able to test Brand Radar, since Ahrefs doesn't offer a trial, so this section is based on its pricing page, help docs and G2 reviews.

Brand Radar runs a database of more than 496 million prompts, built from People Also Ask questions and keyword expansions, through AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Grok tracking is paused, and Claude only shows up in custom prompts. Chatbot data refreshes monthly and AI Overviews every few days.

That makes it handy for sizing a market or checking any competitor during a meeting, with no project to set up. It's weaker at tracking the exact questions your own buyers ask, which need custom prompts at extra cost.

Key features

• Brand Radar. AI visibility for any brand across six platforms, from a 496M+ prompt index.
• Custom prompts. Your own prompts on top, with 150 to 600 checks included in paid Ahrefs plans.
• Site Explorer. Backlink and referring domain data, where Ahrefs has always been strongest.
• Keywords Explorer. Volumes, difficulty and SERP history for keyword research.
• MCP server. Ahrefs data inside Claude and other AI assistants.

Where it falls short

• The index is modeled from keyword data, not the prompts your customers type.
• Brand Radar is a separate fee, from $199 a month per platform or $699 for all six.
• No free trial, and no client-ready report export for Brand Radar.

User reviews

“It works especially well with Claude, feeding it real-time data that helps our site earn more LLM mentions.” (Source)

“Brand Radar covers many LLMs and countries, but every index update changes the metrics retroactively, so the history doesn't hold.” (Source)

“The credit limits on lower plans bite quickly when you run audits at volume.” (Source)

Pricing

• Lite: $129/month, with 150 custom prompt checks
• Standard and Advanced: $249 and $449 a month, with 300 and 600 checks
• Brand Radar: $199/month per AI platform, or $699/month for all six with 2,500 custom checks
• Extra custom prompt packs cost $50, $100 or $250. There's no free trial.

8. SE Ranking: best budget SEO suite with AI search tracking

SE Ranking is a mid-priced SEO suite for rank tracking, site audits, keyword research and backlinks, with AI search tracking through an add-on and through its separate SE Visible product. It suits mid-market teams that want to cut SEO spend sharply without giving up AI tracking.

Our hands-on time was with SE Visible, SE Ranking's standalone AI visibility tool, on its 10-day trial. The suite's own AI Search add-on we know from SE Ranking's pricing page and docs.

SE Visible was simple to start with. Prompts are pooled across your brands, results refresh daily, and you can export to CSV or XLSX. We missed a PDF or white-label report we could hand to a client.

Inside the suite, the AI Search add-on costs $89 a month on top of Core at $129 and tracks AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT. SE Visible is priced on its own from $99 and covers ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews, with Claude listed as coming soon.

Key features

• Rank tracking and site audits. Core includes audits of 250,000 pages a month.
• AI Search add-on. AI Results Tracker for AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT, plus competitor research across them.
• SE Visible. 200 prompts and 3 projects on Basic, with daily results from four AI engines.
• Competitor Gap Analysis. Added to SE Visible in July 2026.
• API and MCP for pulling SEO and AI data into your own tools.

Where it falls short

• The full stack means two products, with SEO in SE Ranking and deeper prompt tracking in SE Visible.
• No Perplexity on SE Visible's plan cards, and Claude is still coming soon.
• Lighter on the governance and multi-market setup huge enterprise sites need.

User reviews

“The competitor keyword analysis is strong, especially through the API, and it passed our security review.” (Source)

“A good Semrush alternative. If they fixed rank tracking reliability and a few UI bugs, it would beat the big names.” (Source)

“Prices have gone up, and the AI tools lag behind or sit behind extra payments.” (Source)

Pricing

• Core: $129/month ($103.20 billed yearly)
• Growth: $279/month ($223.20 billed yearly)
• AI Search add-on: $89/month ($71.20 billed yearly)
• SE Visible: from $99/month for 200 prompts and 3 projects, with a 10-day trial. The SE Ranking suite has a 14-day trial.

9. Search Atlas: best for automated on-site fixes

Search Atlas is an all-in-one SEO platform whose OTTO feature pushes on-page and technical fixes to your live site, with LLM visibility tracking from the Growth plan. It suits lean SEO teams and agencies that want changes deployed for them instead of handed over as a list.

We haven't used Search Atlas ourselves, so this section is based on its pricing page and reviews on Capterra and Trustpilot.

Plans now run on Universal Credits, one monthly pool that site audits, AI articles, rank checks and AI visibility queries all draw from. AI visibility starts on Growth at $199 a month with ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode. Pro at $399 adds Copilot, Perplexity and Claude, and Claude is new since August 2026.

OTTO is the part to compare with BrightEdge's Site Agents. It deploys changes to your live site automatically, which saves developer time but is a hard sell for enterprise teams that sign off on every production change.

Opinions are split. Search Atlas holds 4.7 on Capterra from 88 reviews and 3.9 on Trustpilot from 352, where recent reviews complain about cancellations, billing and unwanted site changes.

Key features

• OTTO SEO. Automated on-page and technical fixes, on 1 to 10 sites depending on plan.
• LLM Visibility. ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode on Growth; six platforms on Pro.
• Content Genius. AI articles and content edits, published to any CMS.
• Atlas Agent. An AI assistant across the platform.
• White-label dashboards on Pro and client portals on Agency.

Where it falls short

• No AI visibility on Starter, and Growth and Pro include 100 LLM visibility queries.
• Automated changes to a live site won't pass many enterprise change processes.
• Trustpilot reviewers report trouble cancelling and stopping charges.

User reviews

“A powerful, intuitive platform for fixing errors, improving content and ranking across search engines and LLMs.” (Source)

“The LLM visibility feature was one reason we signed up, but it was later restricted and repriced without warning.” (Source)

“OTTO made changes on my live site I didn't want. When I asked to cancel, the charges kept coming and I had to chase support again and again.” (Source)

Pricing

• Starter: $99/month for 50,000 credits, 1 project and 1 seat, with no AI visibility
• Growth: $199/month for 120,000 credits, 3 seats and AI visibility on 3 engines
• Pro: $399/month for 400,000 credits, 5 seats, 6 AI platforms and white label
• Agency: from $999/month. Every self-serve plan has a 7-day trial with a free onboarding call.

10. Scrunch: best for brands that want AI-optimized pages served to bots

Scrunch is an AI visibility platform, owned by Sitecore since June 2026, that pairs prompt tracking with site audits, AI crawler data and AXP, which serves AI-optimized versions of your pages to bots. It suits brands that want to see and shape what AI bots read, without an SEO suite attached.

We used Scrunch on the 7-day trial. Onboarding walks you through it. Scrunch wrote a brand description from our site for us to confirm, then we added competitors, a persona and topics and started from five suggested prompts.

Agent Traffic was the screen we kept going back to. Once your CDN or host is connected, it shows which pages AI bots read and why, and the GA4 AI referral report, improved in October 2026, adds the human visits that follow.

The plan you can buy is narrower than it used to be. Core is $250 a month for 125 prompts on four engines, ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews and Copilot. AXP, the closest thing here to BrightEdge's Agent Edge, is Enterprise only, along with Claude, Gemini, AI Mode, Grok and Meta AI.

Key features

• Core engines. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, with 5,000 responses a month.
• Agent Traffic. AI crawler visits by page, once your CDN or host is connected.
• GA4 AI referrals and an MCP server.
• Site audits. 5 a month on Core.
• AXP. AI-optimized page versions served to bots, on Enterprise.

Where it falls short

• No rank tracking, keyword research or other SEO suite tools.
• AXP and five of the nine engines are Enterprise only.
• New prompts drop to a 72-hour cycle after their first two weeks.

User reviews

“Agent Traffic shows which pages bots crawl most and why, whether for retrieval, indexing or training.” (Source)

“The granular data is great, but the recent UI overhaul made it harder to use after all the time I spent learning the old one.” (Source)

“We can't export the charts, so we screenshot them for client reports.” (Source)

Pricing

• Core: $250/month for 125 prompts, 4 engines, 5 user licenses and 5 site audits
• Enterprise: custom, with 9 engines, AXP, API and SSO
• Core has a 7-day free trial.

What changed with BrightEdge in 2026

BrightEdge has shipped a lot this year, so it's worth knowing what's new before you leave.

• AI Hyper Cube (March 10). A data layer for AI search that shows the prompts that matter, the sources behind AI recommendations and where your brand is missing, per the launch announcement. It launched with AI Agent Insights, which shows which AI agents visit your site and where they hit errors.
• BrightEdge MCP (by May 2026). Its MCP server brings Data Cube X, AI Hyper Cube, AI Catalyst and Search Console data into ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini Enterprise and Slack.
• Agent Edge (August 26). Serves a lighter Markdown version of your pages to verified AI agents at the CDN, while people and Googlebot get the normal page. In an early deployment with Arm, BrightEdge says it cut the payload by about 90% and verified agent traffic more than doubled within weeks.
• Wider AI Catalyst coverage. Through August, the AI Catalyst page named only ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews. The page live in October adds Google AI Mode and Gemini, "and other AI platforms".
• Autopilot became the Site Agents Suite (by October). Site Agent builds internal links, Schema Agent writes structured data, and Publishing Agent pushes title, meta and H1 changes to your CMS.
• Research. BrightEdge data from September 24 showed ChatGPT at 95.1% of AI referral traffic, with Gemini at 2.4%, Perplexity at 1.1% and Claude at 0.8% (announcement).

None of this changed how BrightEdge is sold. Pricing is still custom, there's no trial, and contracts still run 12 to 36 months.

When to stay with BrightEdge

Leaving isn't always the right move. BrightEdge still makes sense if:

• You run a huge, multi-market site. Data Cube X and the enterprise dashboards are built for tens of thousands of keywords across regions.
• Your team leans on its customer success team. TrustRadius reviewers single out onboarding and support, and one says BrightEdge replaced their SEO agency.
• You want technical fixes and agent-ready pages from the same vendor. Site Agents and Agent Edge cover internal links, schema, on-page tags and what AI agents are served.
• You're mid-contract. With terms of 12 to 36 months, it's often smarter to add a lighter AI search tool now and review at renewal.

Which BrightEdge alternative should you choose?

• You want SEO and AI search together, with agents that do the work on a schedule: Orchly.
• You want to stay on an enterprise suite with wider AI coverage and a trial first: Conductor or seoClarity.
• You run a massive technical site: Botify.
• You already use Semrush or Ahrefs: Semrush Enterprise AIO, or Ahrefs with Brand Radar.
• You want to cut SEO costs and keep AI tracking: SE Ranking.
• You want fixes deployed to your site automatically: Search Atlas.
• You only need AI search, at enterprise depth: Profound, or Scrunch for a published price.

If AI visibility is the main reason you're shopping, our guide to the best AI search optimization tools goes deeper.