AI Search Tools

Free AEO tools, compared by the loop: which ones fix, not just score you (2026)

Almost every free AEO tool is a scoreboard: it measures, sometimes diagnoses, and stops. We re-checked the free offerings of 16 vendors on Sep 26, 2026 against the Measure → Diagnose → Execute → Verify loop. Among free plans that don't expire, SolCrys is the only one we found that hands you the specific change to ship. Among free trials, Profound's 7-day trial lets you try its Agents before it runs out. Nobody closes the full loop for free.

Published 2026-06-11 · Updated 2026-09-26

Questions this guide answers

Is there a free AEO tool that fixes my content, not just scores it?
Which free AI visibility tool gives recommendations I can actually ship?
Are there any free AEO tools that close the loop?
Do free AEO tools generate the schema or fix for me?
What is the best free AEO tool with execution, not just a dashboard?
Does Trakkr still have a free plan?

Direct answer

There are plenty of free ways to find out how visible your brand is in AI answers in September 2026. There is almost no free way to do anything about it. That gap is what this guide is about.

Sort the free options by the job and they fall into a 4-step loop: Measure (where do I stand in AI answers?) → Diagnose (what specifically is wrong?) → Execute (give me the exact change to ship) → Verify (retest the same prompts to see whether it moved). We re-checked the free offerings of 16 vendors against those 4 steps on Sep 26, 2026. The result is still lopsided: every free tool measures, some diagnose, and among free plans that don't expire, only one hands you the change to ship. One free trial now reaches Execute too.

Disclosure up front: SolCrys publishes this guide, and our own free plan is one of the tools compared. We are not a neutral source. We name who is free-forever, who is a one-time lead-gen scan, and who is a trial with a clock running, and we state our own caveats: our free plan can hand you the fix but can't fully re-verify it within the free quota. Every vendor fact is from the vendor's own pricing or product page, as of September 2026.

The free category still stops at the scoreboard. One-shot graders (HubSpot, Ahrefs, Semrush, Mangools, Goodie), the one free-forever third-party tracker (Mangools' Watcher), and free trials (Trakkr, HubSpot AEO, Peec, Otterly, Scrunch, Rankscale, Knowatoa, LLMrefs, Am I on AI) top out at Measure or Measure + Diagnose.
Best free ongoing measurement: Mangools AI Search Watcher Free, the only free-forever third-party tracker we found (5 prompts, weekly). Trakkr, which held that spot in June, now offers only a 14-day trial that requires a card.
The one free-forever plan that reaches Execute is SolCrys: the free Content Audit hands you the concrete change (the JSON-LD block, the heading or meta rewrite) as an Action Hub task, tied to the page and prompts you were scored on. Your team reviews and ships it.
The one free trial that reaches Execute is Profound's: 7 days, 50 prompts run daily, and Agents with limited AI Marketer credits. After the trial, execution continues only on its custom-priced Enterprise plan.
Verify is where every free option runs short, including ours. A retest costs another run or another audit, so a complete free re-verify loop doesn't exist anywhere we looked.

The one distinction that decides everything: a score is not a fix

Most "free AEO tool" lists rank tools by how good the number is: how many engines, how fresh, how clean the dashboard. That is the wrong axis, because almost all of them live at the same step of the loop. They are scoreboards. A scoreboard tells you that you're losing 1–0. It doesn't tell you to change your striker.

The expensive, skilled, slow part of AEO is rarely the measurement. It's the work after: figuring out the specific change that will move a specific answer, writing it, shipping it, and checking whether it moved. So the distinction that changes your week is whether the free tool does any of that work for you, or hands the score back and wishes you luck.

That single question, score or fix, is what the comparison below sorts on.

Every free AEO option, mapped to the loop

Stages are scored for the free offering only, as listed on each vendor's own pricing or product page on Sep 26, 2026. "Free plan" means it doesn't expire. "Grader" means a free one-time scan or score. "Trial" means a time-boxed paid product. Execute means the tool produces the artifact you ship (schema, a rewrite, a page section), not a generic tip. We dropped Nightwatch from the June version of this table because we couldn't re-verify its free terms.

Tool	Free access	Measure	Diagnose	Execute (ship the fix)	Verify (retest)	Closes loop on free?
SolCrys	Free plan: email verification, no card	ChatGPT only, on demand (10 prompts, up to 3 checks a month)	Yes: 1 Deep Analysis + 1 Content Audit a month	Yes: audit findings become Action Hub tasks carrying the specific change (JSON-LD block, heading or meta rewrite)	Partial: the re-audit is built, but it uses the next month's audit	Closest: only free plan we found that reaches Execute
Mangools	Free plan (Watcher: 5 prompts, weekly) + free grader	Yes: best free ongoing measure, small and weekly	No	No	Partial: weekly re-checks of the same 5 prompts	No
HubSpot AI Search Grader	Grader, no account	Yes: one-shot, 3 engines	Partial: a sample of recommendations	No	No	No
Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker	Grader, no account	Yes: one-shot, 5 AI surfaces	No	No	No	No
Semrush AI Visibility Checker	Grader, 3 checks a day without an account	Yes: score, mentions, citations	Partial: competitor comparison and top cited pages; no recommendations	No	No	No
Goodie Agent Readiness Audit	Grader, unlimited, no account	Partial: site agent-readiness, not live answers	Yes: 3 priority fixes ranked by impact	No: identifies fixes, doesn't draft them	Partial: rescan anytime	No
Writesonic free tools	Free LLM Optimizer, no card	No	No	Partial: adds quotes and citations to text you paste, disconnected from any measured gap	No	No
Am I on AI	Free analysis + 7-day trial	Partial free / Yes in trial	Yes in trial: recommendations	No: advises, doesn't draft	Yes in trial: weekly scans	No: expires with the trial
Profound	7-day free trial	Yes: 50 prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews	Yes: opportunities (limited on trial)	Yes in trial: Agents with limited AI Marketer credits	Partial: 7 days of daily runs	No: execution continues only on Enterprise
Trakkr	14-day trial, card required	Yes: 8 models, daily	Partial: citations, perception, and site optimization checks	Not documented on its pricing page	Yes, during the trial	No: expires with the trial
HubSpot AEO	Free trial, no card	Yes: 25 prompts, 3 engines	Yes: prioritized recommendations	Not documented on its product page	Yes, during the trial	No: expires with the trial
Peec / Otterly / Scrunch / Rankscale / Knowatoa / LLMrefs	Free trials only	Yes (trial)	Partial to full (for example Peec Actions, Otterly and Rankscale page audits)	Mostly no drafted fixes; Peec says it doesn't write content by design	Partial (trial)	No: expires with the trial

The honest counters, handled

Two tools come closest to breaking the rule. Naming them is what makes this comparison trustworthy rather than convenient.

“But Writesonic's free LLM Optimizer rewrites my text”

It does. Writesonic's free LLM Optimizer adds expert quotes and authoritative citations to text you paste, and that is real execution of a kind.

It isn't loop execution, and the difference is the point. The optimizer is a standalone text box. It doesn't know which buyer prompt you're losing, it isn't fed by an audit of your live page, it doesn't emit the markup a crawler reads, and nothing ties the rewrite back to a retest of the prompts that scored you. Writesonic's paid plans (from $79/mo billed annually) pair AI visibility tracking with AI article generation, with its Action Center fully included on Enterprise. On a free basis, it lands where everyone else does: a score on one screen, a generic rewriter on another, and a manual leap in between.

“But Profound's free trial runs Agents”

It does, and it's the one free trial we found that reaches Execute. As of September 2026, Profound's pricing page lists a free 7-day trial with 50 prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews, plus Agents and a limited allotment of AI Marketer credits. That's a real way to see agent-drafted work before you buy.

It's still a trial. After 7 days, ongoing tracking and Agents move to Enterprise, which is custom-quoted, so it doesn't change the free-forever count. If you're already in an enterprise buying cycle, it's worth running.

Why the whole free category stops at the scoreboard

This isn't an accident of any one vendor; it's the business model. A free AI visibility score is an efficient lead magnet: it's cheap to run, it produces an alarming number ("you appear in 4% of answers"), and the alarm sells the paid plan. The recommendations, the drafting, the schema generation, and the retest are the parts that cost real compute and reputation, and they're exactly what the paid tier is for. So the free experience is built to stop at the moment you'd want to act.

That logic is why "free AEO tool" so reliably means "free AEO grader." It's also why the one free plan that crosses into Execute is worth a closer look.

What “reaches Execute on free” actually looks like

On the SolCrys free plan, you run a Content Audit on a page (1 a month on free). For each finding, the audit returns the specific remediation: the JSON-LD block to paste, the heading or meta rewrite, the table or section to add, with the points each fix is worth. You promote a finding to an Action Hub task and you're holding the change, not a suggestion to go make one. Your team reviews and ships it; SolCrys never publishes to your site. That's the step other free plans leave to you.

The honest boundary, so we don't oversell our own column. Free is ChatGPT only, with on-demand checks on 10 prompts, up to 3 a month; Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Claude are paid. It includes 1 Content Audit and 1 Deep Analysis a month and 1 workspace. The re-audit that shows whether your score recovered is built and shipped, but it uses another monthly audit, so on free you get one clean pass through Measure → Diagnose → Execute, and Verify lands the next month or on a paid plan (Starter includes 4 Content Audits a month). A recovered audit score shows the page now passes its checks; whether AI answers moved shows up in the rerun prompts. The free plan isn't the whole loop. It's the only free plan we found that gets you to the fix.

Which free path matches which job

Pick by the job in front of you today, not by the prettiest dashboard.

Your job today	Start with	Why
A free line that keeps moving	Mangools AI Search Watcher Free	Only free-forever third-party tracker we found; 5 prompts, weekly
A fast no-account "where do I stand?" snapshot	HubSpot AI Search Grader or Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker	Instant, zero friction; don't mistake the score for a plan
The widest free model set in one grade	Mangools AI Search Grader (7 models with a free account)	Broadest free set, using small API models
A site-readiness check with priorities	Goodie Agent Readiness Audit	Free and unlimited; 3 ranked fixes, not drafts
A free read and the specific change to ship	SolCrys free plan	The only free-forever path we found that hands you the fix, tied to the page and prompts you were scored on
Agent-drafted work before an enterprise purchase	Profound 7-day trial	Agents included with limited credits; expires
Execution and verification at scale	A paid execution platform (SolCrys, Profound, AirOps; see the closed-loop scorecard)	Free tiers, by design, stop before the work

Get started

The fastest way to see "score, then fix" instead of a score: run the SolCrys free audit (enter your domain, verify your email, no card), then promote one Content Audit finding to see the change it hands you. Start Free

Want a free line that keeps moving alongside it? Set up Mangools' free Watcher; we'd rather you measure than not. Ready for daily multi-engine tracking and the full Measure → Diagnose → Execute → Verify loop? See SolCrys pricing.

Sources

FAQ

Is there a free AEO tool that fixes my content, not just scores it?

Effectively one free plan, with caveats. Of the free offerings from 16 vendors we re-checked in September 2026, SolCrys is the only free plan that doesn't expire and reaches Execute: its free Content Audit hands you the concrete change (a JSON-LD block, a heading or meta rewrite) as an Action Hub task, tied to the page and prompts you were scored on. Profound's 7-day trial includes its Agents, but it's a trial. Writesonic's free LLM Optimizer rewrites pasted text, but it isn't connected to any measured gap. Everything else free stops at a score or a recommendation.

What is the best free AI visibility tracker?

For free ongoing tracking, Mangools AI Search Watcher Free: 5 prompts, weekly updates, no card. It's the only free-forever third-party tracker we found in September 2026; Trakkr now offers a 14-day trial with a card instead of a free plan. For a free one-shot score, HubSpot's AI Search Grader and Ahrefs' AI Visibility Checker are the most generous (no account). All of them measure; none drafts a fix.

Does Trakkr still have a free plan?

No. As of September 2026, Trakkr's pricing page lists a 14-day free trial that requires a card, then Growth at $100/mo (1 brand, 50 prompts, 8 models, daily) or Scale at $500/mo. It's a capable paid tracker, but it is no longer a free option.

Do any free AEO tools close the full loop (measure, diagnose, execute, verify)?

No, not on a free basis, including SolCrys. Verify (retesting the same prompts or re-auditing the page to see whether a change moved the number) costs another run everywhere it exists. SolCrys gets furthest on a free plan: measure, diagnose, and the fix, with the re-audit landing the next month or on a paid plan. Paid execution platforms, including SolCrys, Profound, and AirOps (see our closed-loop scorecard), put execution and verification on paid plans.

Why is everything free just a “grader”?

Because a free score is this category's lead magnet. It's cheap to produce, it surfaces an alarming number, and the alarm sells the paid plan. The recommendations, drafting, schema generation, and retest are the costly parts the paid tier exists to sell, so the free experience is built to stop right before you'd act.

Is the SolCrys free plan really free?

Yes: free, with email verification and no credit card. It's ChatGPT only, with on-demand checks on 10 tracked prompts (up to 3 a month), 1 Content Audit and 1 Deep Analysis a month, and 1 workspace. The trade is depth and cadence, not a paywall on the fix.

Free ChatGPT visibility check

Try the full loop on your own domain, free

Most free checkers stop at a score. The free SolCrys workspace runs 10 ChatGPT prompts on your domain, shows who gets recommended instead, and hands you the first fix to ship.

Start Free

Free · No credit card · About 5 minutes

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