ReviewAI visibility
Ahrefs Brand Radar Review: AI Visibility in Ahrefs
by the AEO GEO Labs team6 min read
Ahrefs Brand Radar is the AI visibility product inside Ahrefs. It tracks how often brands are mentioned and cited in Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, through custom prompts you choose and an AI Visibility Index of 449 million modeled prompts. As of October 2026, a small custom prompt allowance is included in every paid Ahrefs plan.
This review sits under our comparison of AI visibility tools. Facts come from Ahrefs' Brand Radar page, checked in October 2026. We describe the product as the vendor presents it; we have not run a paid Brand Radar account.
Ahrefs Brand Radar at a glance
Ahrefs Brand Radar works in two modes that answer different questions.
| Custom Prompts | AI Visibility Index | |
|---|---|---|
| Question it answers | How do AI engines answer the exact questions I care about? | How visible is any brand across a huge sample of AI prompts? |
| Prompt source | You write or generate them | Modeled from Ahrefs' keyword database, 449M+ prompts |
| Setup | You pick prompts and platforms | None, look up any brand |
| Best for | Niche or new brands with little search demand | Brands already appearing in AI search, competitor research |
| Price, as displayed in October 2026 | Included in paid plans, expanded tiers from £40 per month | From £159 per month |
Ahrefs displayed prices to us in pounds sterling, so your local currency and amount may differ. Check the page from your own location.
Custom Prompts: what is included
Custom Prompts is the part most Ahrefs customers already have. As of October 2026, the Brand Radar page lists this allowance in each paid Ahrefs plan, with prompts checked daily:
| Ahrefs plan | Custom AI prompts | Checks per month |
|---|---|---|
| Lite | 5 | 150 |
| Standard | 10 | 300 |
| Advanced | 20 | 600 |
| Enterprise | From 83 | From 2,500 |
Ahrefs explains the math on the page: each prompt is checked daily on every selected platform, so 5 prompts on 1 platform uses 150 checks a month. Claude is available but uses 8 checks per update. Spreading prompts across several engines uses the allowance fast. Five prompts on six platforms would need about 900 checks a month, well over the Lite allowance.
Ahrefs can also generate prompt ideas from competitor comparisons and pricing data, and shows the "fanout" queries AI engines run behind a prompt.
The AI Visibility Index
The AI Visibility Index is Ahrefs Brand Radar's large-scale dataset. Ahrefs states that every prompt is "modeled from real user searches in Ahrefs' keyword database," with more than 449 million monthly prompts. The page breaks this down by platform, with Google AI Overviews by far the largest share at over 315 million prompts and around 30 million each for Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Copilot, plus about 12.7 million for AI Mode.
Two things to understand about that dataset:
- The prompts are modeled, not collected from AI engines. No engine publishes what users type. Ahrefs builds prompts from search keywords, which is a reasonable proxy but not the same as real chat logs, where questions tend to be longer and more conversational.
- It favors brands that already have search demand. Ahrefs itself says the index is "best once your brand already appears in AI search." A new brand may find little to measure.
The index is still useful for competitor research: you can look up any brand without setup and see who gets mentioned in a market.
Other Brand Radar features
Brand Radar connects to several other Ahrefs tools listed on the same page:
- Cited pages and AI responses. See which URLs AI answers cite and read the responses.
- AI traffic. Find pages AI engines already send visitors to, through Ahrefs Web Analytics, listed as free.
- Bot visits. Watch AI crawlers fetch your pages in real time through Bot Analytics, listed as free while in beta. This matters because engines like ChatGPT search only cite pages their crawlers can reach, as OpenAI's crawler documentation makes clear.
- YouTube, TikTok and Reddit visibility. Off-site sources that often shape AI answers, listed as a bonus free during beta.
Strengths
Ahrefs Brand Radar's main strengths are scale and integration with Ahrefs data.
- Already included for Ahrefs customers. A starter prompt allowance comes with paid plans, so teams can test AI tracking at no extra cost.
- Six major platforms. AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, with Claude as an option.
- No-setup competitor lookups. The AI Visibility Index answers "who wins in this market" instantly.
- Backlink and keyword context. Seeing cited pages next to Ahrefs' link and keyword data helps explain why a page is cited.
- Crawler and traffic data. Bot visits and AI referrals help confirm engines can reach and send traffic to your pages.
Limitations
Ahrefs Brand Radar's limitations come from the check-based allowance and the modeled dataset.
- Small included allowances. Five to twenty prompts on the main paid plans is a taste, not a program.
- Checks multiply by platform. Tracking several engines eats the allowance quickly, and Claude costs 8 checks per update.
- Modeled index prompts. Useful for scale, but not a sample of real AI conversations.
- Index pricing sits on top. The AI Visibility Index is a separate monthly cost.
- The tracker caveat. It shows what engines said, not why they chose a source.
Who Ahrefs Brand Radar fits
Ahrefs Brand Radar fits teams already paying for Ahrefs who want AI visibility next to their SEO data, and agencies doing competitor research across many brands.
Teams that need hundreds of tracked prompts at a predictable price, or that do not use Ahrefs, should compare dedicated trackers such as the one in our Peec AI review and the SEO-suite alternative in our SE Ranking AI visibility tracker review. For Google AI Overviews specifically, see our roundup of AI Overviews trackers. If you want to sanity-check any tool's numbers, our guide on how to track AI brand mentions shows a manual method.
Frequently asked questions
What is Ahrefs Brand Radar?
Ahrefs Brand Radar is Ahrefs' AI visibility product. It tracks how often brands are mentioned and cited in AI answers from Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. It works through custom prompts you choose and through an AI Visibility Index of more than 449 million prompts modeled from Ahrefs' keyword database.
Is Ahrefs Brand Radar included in Ahrefs plans?
Partly. As of October 2026, Ahrefs' Brand Radar page says custom prompts are free for every paid plan from Lite up: 5 prompts on Lite, 10 on Standard, 20 on Advanced, and from 83 on Enterprise, each checked daily. Larger custom prompt tiers and the AI Visibility Index cost extra.
How much does Ahrefs Brand Radar cost?
As displayed to us in October 2026, Ahrefs listed expanded custom prompt tiers from £40 per month and the AI Visibility Index from £159 per month, which included 83 prompts a day and 2,500 checks a month, with overage billed per check. Ahrefs shows prices in local currency, so check the Brand Radar page from your own location.
Which AI platforms does Ahrefs Brand Radar track?
As of October 2026, Ahrefs Brand Radar tracks Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Claude is available for custom prompts and uses 8 checks per update. Ahrefs also reports brand visibility on YouTube, TikTok and Reddit, listed as free during beta.
AEO GEO Labs has no affiliation with Ahrefs.