Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush AI Visibility: price and data

Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Semrush AI Visibility: the short answer

Checked 7 November 2026. Semrush sells its AI Visibility Toolkit at one price, $99 a month per domain, with prompt-database reports and 25 tracked prompts included (Semrush pricing). Ahrefs includes prompt checks in every plan from Lite ($129 a month) up and sells extra checks from $50 a month; its $100 package covers about 100 prompts a day on two platforms (Ahrefs pricing). This review compared public pages, help articles and filings only, through an AI-assisted research pass in a public browser. Neither tool was tested, so this page says nothing about data accuracy or how the reports feel to use.

Semrush is a trademark or registered trademark of Semrush Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All rights reserved.

What was reviewed and what was not tested

UI, UX and data accuracy were not tested. The research pass bought nothing, started no trial and made no API calls. Interface notes come from public pages and one official Ahrefs video.

There is no combined score. With the important criteria untested, a total would reward the vendor that publishes more, which is a different thing from a better tool.

What each one is

Ahrefs Brand Radar is Ahrefs' AI visibility product. It has two parts: Prompt Tracking for your own questions, and an AI Visibility Index that Ahrefs says covers "538 million prompts" (Brand Radar page).

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is a paid toolkit that "shows you how brands appear in AI-generated answers". It bundles Visibility Overview, Competitor Research, Prompt Research, Brand Performance, Prompt Tracking and an AI search site audit (Semrush knowledge base).

Interface: public pages and an official video

Ahrefs' Brand Radar video (Ahrefs Tutorials channel, uploaded 6 March 2026; the description calls Brand Radar "our AI visibility tool"). The research pass paused it at two points. At 0:30 a mentions chart has tabs for AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, with brands toggled on and off as lines. At 2:00 the sidebar lists YouTube and TikTok under Video visibility and Reddit under SERP visibility, each marked Beta.

This page shows no Semrush screenshot. Its brand policy says not to "use portions of screenshots" or screenshots that contain personal data (Semrush brand policy). The research captures were taken in a browser signed in to a Semrush account, and the only way to hide the account avatar was a crop. The public tool landing groups the toolkit into three menus (Semrush AI Visibility):

• AI Analysis: Visibility Overview, Competitor Research, Prompt Research.
• Brand Performance: Perception, Narrative Drivers, Questions.
• Boost and Monitor: Site Audit, Prompt Tracking, Content Creation.

Capabilities side by side

Data method, freshness and API

Ahrefs says it takes People Also Ask questions from its keyword index and enters them "into the web version of each AI chatbot using the default model", with no stored user data (Ahrefs help). Semrush says it sources prompts from "AI search clickstream data and Google's keyword dataset for AI Overviews", and that responses "are captured from real requests and not via any APIs of LLMs" (Semrush data article).

Ahrefs' prompt count differs across its own pages, all read on 7 November 2026: 538 million on the Brand Radar page (source), "542 million+" on the pricing page (source), and "500+ million", "405+ million" and, in its data-freshness table, "+350 million" in the help article (Ahrefs help). These pages may describe different prompt sets or dates, so this page does not treat them as one number. The capabilities table quotes the Brand Radar page.

The help article also says that after policy changes by Grok, "we are temporarily unable to gather new data" for that platform.

Pricing and cost model

Worked example: 100 prompts a day on two platforms for a month is 6,000 checks. On 7 November 2026 Ahrefs' $100 Growth package covered that, and Ahrefs uses this exact case as its example (Ahrefs pricing). On Semrush, 100 prompts means the $99 base plus two $60 packs, about $219 a month for 125 prompts (Semrush KB). Semrush does not say whether a prompt counts once per platform, so treat that figure as approximate.

Two smaller costs to check: Claude uses 8 checks per update on Ahrefs (Brand Radar page), and each Semrush user needs a separate licence (Semrush KB).

Company and operations

Y Combinator: the research pass found no listing in the YC company directory under the names Ahrefs or Semrush (checked 7 Nov 2026). A search miss proves nothing either way.

Recent product moves

• Ahrefs launched Brand Radar as a beta on 10 March 2025, describing it on X as a way to "Track brand visibility in AI-generated mentions" (@ahrefs on X). Vendor claim.
• Ahrefs' April 2026 update added Grok to Brand Radar and new Brand Radar API endpoints for managing reports (Ahrefs blog). The help article now says Grok data collection is paused.

The research pass found no dated changelog or launch post for the Semrush toolkit in the sources checked.

What each does well and badly

Ahrefs Brand Radar

• Good: every Ahrefs plan from Lite up includes prompt checks, so existing Lite or higher customers can start without a new purchase (Brand Radar page).
• Good: the help article lays out method, refresh rates and history start dates in plain tables (help).
• Weak: its prompt-count headline differs across its own pages.
• Weak: the chatbot index refreshes once a month, and each extra index costs $199.

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

• Good: one $99 price includes the database reports and 25 tracked prompts (pricing).
• Good: it explains its 0 to 100 AI Visibility Score, built from topic coverage and mention consistency (data article).
• Weak: no free trial (KB), and per-user cost is unclear: the KB says a $99 toolkit licence per subuser, while the AI pricing page lists additional users from $45 a month (pricing).
• Weak: the prompt database covers four surfaces, and Perplexity appears only in Brand Performance.

Who should pick which

• Pick Ahrefs Brand Radar if you already pay for Ahrefs, track many prompts, want Claude or Copilot coverage, or need API and MCP access.
• Pick Semrush AI Visibility if you want one predictable $99 line item, care mostly about ChatGPT and Google surfaces, and already work in Semrush.
• Look at a dedicated tool if you need fresher database data across many engines. Neither suite was built only for this job.

FAQ

Is Ahrefs Brand Radar included in my Ahrefs plan?

Partly. Lite, Standard and Advanced include 150, 300 and 600 prompt checks a month. The AI Visibility Index costs extra, from $199 a month (Ahrefs).

Does the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit have a free trial?

No. Semrush's knowledge base says "the AI Visibility Toolkit does not offer a free trial" (Semrush KB).

Is Semrush still independent?

No. Adobe completed the acquisition on 28 April 2026 (Adobe).

Sources, disclosure and changelog

Research pass: no purchases were made and no vendor was contacted during this review. Links are plain official URLs with no affiliate parameters. A Semrush account was signed in on the capture browser; the research pass did not use the paid Toolkit.

Limits: desk review only. The Ahrefs video is edited vendor content. Semrush One prices were not captured. Accuracy, speed and support were not tested.

Trademarks: Semrush is a trademark or registered trademark of Semrush Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Semrush's logo is left out because its brand policy gives no clear permission for logo use in a comparison like this one.

Changelog: 7 November 2026, first version. Same day, revised: removed a combined score and the Semrush screenshots and logo, and added inline sources.