Are There Free Plans, Trials, or Credits for SEO and GEO Tools?

What official data is free?

These are the main sources of AI data that come from the platforms themselves; online sellers in the US, Canada, Australia, India and New Zealand also get brand-level AI performance insights in Google Merchant Center. Start here before any third-party tool.

Which SEO tools are free?

• Ahrefs Free, formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, gives free access to three Ahrefs tools for your own verified site, including web analytics.
• Semrush's free plan includes a demo project and a small number of reports a day. Some AI data, such as Position Tracking of Google and AI Overviews and a limited Domain Overview, works on free accounts.
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider crawls up to 500 URLs free. A licence removes the limit.
• Browser extensions can check headings, structured data and robots rules page by page, as covered in which free Chrome extensions help with GEO audits.

Which GEO tools have free tiers or free checks?

Free tiers:

• Amplitude AI Visibility is included in every Amplitude plan, including the free one, and tracks ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews with prompts and competitors.
• Microsoft Clarity is free and includes AI Visibility: citations of your pages in Microsoft's AI experiences, the grounding queries behind them, and AI referral traffic, with Topic Insights in beta.
• AthenaHQ Essential is free with 300 credits, where one credit is one AI response. It covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot, with prompt analysis and source insights.
• Hall has offered a permanent free Lite tier with one project and 25 tracked questions, updated weekly. Hall joined Tracksuit in July 2026, so check whether the free tier continues. A closer look is in the Hall review.

Free one-time checks:

• HubSpot's AI Search Grader scores how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini describe your brand from training data. The full report requires a form.
• Ahrefs' free AI Visibility Checker draws on its Brand Radar data.
• Semrush lists a free AI Visibility Checker among its free tools.
• Other vendors, such as GeoscanAI and LightSite, offer free audits or diagnostics.

One-time checks are snapshots, useful for a first look but not for measuring change.

Which paid trackers offer trials?

As listed by the vendors:

Trial terms change often, so confirm the current terms at sign-up.

Are there free credits for building your own tracker?

Yes, and they are enough for a small do-it-yourself check:

• Gemini API: 5,000 free grounded search requests a month, then $14 per 1,000, but Google's terms forbid storing or analysing grounded results, so it cannot be used to build a tracker.
• Brave Search API: $5 of free credit a month, at $5 per 1,000 requests.
• OpenAI and Anthropic charge $10 per 1,000 web searches plus tokens, with no standing free search allowance.

API answers can differ from what people see in the consumer apps, so treat a script as an approximation. Many small businesses do better simply asking their questions by hand once a month.

How do you get the most from a short trial?

1. Prepare before starting: 20 to 50 prompts from real customer questions, labelled by intent, plus a list of competitors.
2. Choose the assistants your customers use, since trials may limit engines.
3. Start trials one at a time, so each one gets your full attention.
4. Run five prompts yourself in each assistant on day one, and compare the results with what the tool records.
5. Test the part you would pay for, such as source analysis, recommendations or crawler analytics, not just the dashboard.
6. Export what you can before the trial ends, including raw answers and cited URLs.
7. Set a reminder a day before any trial that needs a card, so it does not renew by accident.

What should you watch out for with free offers?

• Lead capture. Free graders and audits usually exist to generate sales leads. Expect follow-up.
• Fixed prompts. Some trials use the vendor's suggested prompts only, which may not match your customers' questions.
• Short windows. A three-day trial covers only three days of data. That shows the interface, not trends.
• Annual lock-in. Discounts for annual billing are tempting, but commit only after a month of real use.
• Scores without method. A free score is only useful if you can see how it was calculated.

What does a free monthly stack look like?

For a small business, this costs nothing but time:

• Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for AI impressions, citations and indexing.
• Ahrefs Free or Semrush's free plan for basic SEO data.
• Screaming Frog free for a crawl of up to 500 URLs.
• A spreadsheet of 20 questions, asked by hand each month in ChatGPT, Google, Perplexity and Gemini, recording mentions and sources.
• One free tier, such as AthenaHQ Essential, for occasional multi-engine checks.

When the monthly check starts taking more than half a day, or you need competitor tracking across many questions, a paid tool starts to earn its fee. How much people typically pay is covered in how much marketers are willing to pay for GEO tracking tools. Price comparisons across paid tools are in GEO tool pricing: Otterly, Minddex and Profound compared.

What do people ask about free SEO and GEO tools?

Is there a completely free AI visibility tracker?

Amplitude's AI Visibility is included in its free plan, for ChatGPT and AI Overviews, and AthenaHQ's Essential tier gives limited free credits. Beyond that, the free first-party reports and manual checks are the most reliable free option.

Do free trials show real data?

Yes, on the prompts you enter, but over a short period. Use them to judge accuracy and usefulness, not trends.

Are nonprofit or startup discounts available?

Some vendors offer them on request. Ask sales directly, since they are rarely listed on pricing pages.

Is free data from Google enough?

For Google's AI features, it is a strong start. It does not cover ChatGPT, Perplexity or Claude, so add manual checks.