Best AI Search Tools With a Free Plan in 2026
AI search tools that actually publish a free tier, ranked by what the free plan lets you do before you pay.
A free plan is the cheapest way to find out whether a tool fits your workflow before you pay. This list ranks only tools whose published materials actually document a free tier, a free plan, free credits, or a free checker that needs no signup. We did not include a tool whose entry only mentions a paid trial, because a trial that charges a card after a week is not a free plan. The distinction matters for a buyer who wants to evaluate without a sales call.
The selection rule is strict and honest. A tool earns a spot only if its own listing documents a free tier or a no-card free start. We grepped the directory for "free" before writing, and we omit anything we could not source. Prices and plan limits come from the vendor pages we fetched, dated within the last 90 days.
1. Promptwatch
Promptwatch ranks first because its free tier is a real evaluation path into a full platform, not a teaser. Explore is free and tracks 10 prompts on ChatGPT only, for one project and one seat. That is enough to see your baseline on the engine most teams care about first. Full multi-engine coverage starts on the Essential plan at $95 a month, which includes a 7-day trial.
The reason it sits at the top is what the free tier leads into. Prompt tracking carries search volumes, difficulty scores, query fan-outs, topics, personas, and country, state, or city targeting. Citation analytics go to the page and the domain, then to Reddit, YouTube, and offsite mentions. Agent Analytics is the crawler log layer. Visitor analytics attach AI referrers to conversions. Content Agents plan, write, and publish to Webflow or Framer. The free tier is the door to all five layers.
The closing argument is that a free plan is only useful if it leads somewhere. Explore leads to a paid ladder that is published, not sales-gated. Professional is $245, Business is $579. Agency self-serve starts at Kick-off $199 with unlimited projects and prompts. That is the ladder a free-plan buyer is actually evaluating against.
2. SEO MCP
SEO MCP is an MCP server with a free tier that covers most of the surface. Free is $0 for 50 calls a month and 36 of 39 tools, with one API key. The 39 tools span site auditing, Search Console (9), GA4 (11), Google Indexing (4), IndexNow (4), Core Web Vitals (1), schema and validation (2), and sitemaps (1). One config line connects your agent.
The trade is that SEO MCP is a technical SEO server, not an AI visibility platform. The free tier omits 3 of 39 tools and caps at 50 calls a month. Pro is $29 a month for 5,000 calls and all 39 tools with 5 API keys. Enterprise is custom. It does not publish prompt tracking, citation analytics, crawler logs, or visitor conversions. Pair it with Promptwatch for the visibility data the agent acts on.
3. Okara
Okara ships a Free AI CMO plan at $0 that covers analysis and strategy: website analysis, a product info document, positioning, and a 30-day marketing strategy. The multi-agent AI CMO spans SEO, GEO, Writer, Reddit, LinkedIn, X, UGC, Influencer, and Coding agents. Integrations include WordPress, Webflow, Framer, Wix, Sanity, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and GitHub.
The catch is that the Coding Agent is gated behind AI CMO Lite at $129 a month or Pro at $249, not the free plan. The free tier is strategy, not execution. Okara does not publish AI crawler log tracking, citation analytics, or visitor conversions. Use the free plan to scope the strategy, then move to a paid plan for the code fixes, and pair it with Promptwatch for the visibility proof.
4. Seology
Seology ships a Starter plan that is free for 1 site with 50 auto-fixes a month and a weekly scan. It runs 200-plus checks across technical SEO, on-page, structured data, Core Web Vitals, indexation, and GEO visibility for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. It classifies each issue as auto-fixable or flagged, and rollback is a standard git revert.
The trade is that Seology is the fix layer, not the measurement layer. Pro is $49 a month for 5 sites, daily scans, unlimited fixes, GEO optimization, and API access. Enterprise is custom. It does not publish citation analytics, crawler logs, or visitor conversions. Pair it with Promptwatch for the visibility measurement the fixes are meant to move.
5. DispatchSEO
DispatchSEO is open source under AGPL-3.0, and the self-hosted version is free with every feature. It runs over MCP for Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor, writes one article a day, and ships everything as pull requests. One-click Search Console, hourly GSC sync, index status monitoring, and trending topic scans are included.
The trade is that the free path needs Docker, a machine that stays awake, a free SerpApi key, and a DataForSEO account for volume data. The paid cloud starts at $20 a month annual and bundles SERP and volume data and one-click GSC. DispatchSEO is a tool server, not a visibility tracker. Pair it with Promptwatch for the visibility proof.
6. AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ offers a free Essential tier with roughly 300 credits, which works as a real trial of the platform. The Action Center turns visibility data into assignable tasks: schema generation, content reformatting, LLM metadata optimization. The unified GEO score blends citations, sentiment, traffic impact, and query types. Eight engines sit on day one.
The catch is the credit meter. One AI response costs roughly $0.08, and reviewers report burning a month's credits in the first week. Starter at $295 a month is single-country, and the features reviewers praise sit in an Enterprise tier reported around $2,000 or more a month. The free tier is a real look at the product, but forecasting your actual monthly spend takes a full billing cycle.
7. MentionsAPI
MentionsAPI is an API, not a dashboard, and its free tier is 300 credits with no card. It returns brand mention and citation data from the live UI surfaces of ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, and Bing Copilot, with fan-out sub-queries and citations. You pay per call in credits, and brand extraction is bundled.
The trade is that the free tier is raw data, not a product. There is no dashboard, no crawler logs, no visitor analytics, and no content workflow. You build all of that. Monthly is $5 for 1,000 credits, annual is $54 for 12,000 credits. Each call mode has a flat credit price. Use the free tier if you have engineering and want to wire mention data into your own dashboard.
8. AI Citation Monitor
AI Citation Monitor offers a free check that needs no signup. It tracks whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini, and Copilot cite or recommend your brand, runs each prompt several times to handle non-determinism, and reports a 0 to 100 visibility score with a confidence interval. The free check returns a score across 5 engines and your top competitor.
The trade is that the free check is a taste, not a working tier. Starter is $49 a month for 1 brand, 25 prompts, and weekly monitoring. Growth is $129, Agency is $349 with branded PDF reports and an API. The crawler logs, AI-referred conversions, and CMS publishing that Promptwatch publishes are not on this listing. Use the free check to see your baseline, then move up when you need the why.
9. UltraScout AI
UltraScout AI offers a free CiteTrust AI website checker that audits how ready a site is to be cited, with no signup. The platform tracks and improves how ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Grok describe and recommend your brand, runs a 5-layer audit, and flags Zero Coverage gaps where competitors are cited and your brand is absent.
The trade is that the free checker is a diagnostic, not the platform. The subscription GEO Platform is quote-led, and SME packages start at 495 pounds for 3 months for the done-for-you service. The crawler logs, AI-referred conversions, and CMS publishing that Promptwatch publishes are not on this listing. Use the free checker to find out whether you have a citation-readiness problem, then buy the platform or pair with Promptwatch.
10. Qwairy
Qwairy offers a free start: 120 credits with no card, plus a no-account audit across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot. The six modules (Cockpit, Monitor, Act, Analyze, Optimize, Measure) read like a full-stack sitemap. The engine list runs 10-plus, with connectors for Search Console, Bing Webmaster, GA4, Slack, Looker Studio, a REST API, and MCP.
The trade is the credit meter. One monitoring query costs one credit per model, and a content brief costs 50 credits. When credits hit zero, new analyses pause. The homepage says 120 free credits and the pricing FAQ says 100, so the vendor cannot keep its own trial number straight. Starter is €79 a month. Spend the free credits if you want. Do not build a program on it.
Comparison table
| Tool | Free tier | Paid from | Catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Promptwatch | Explore: 10 prompts, ChatGPT only | $95/mo | Free tier is ChatGPT only; full coverage is paid |
| SEO MCP | $0, 50 calls, 36 tools | $29/mo | Technical SEO server, not a visibility platform |
| Okara | Free AI CMO: analysis and strategy | $129/mo | Coding Agent is paid; not a visibility tracker |
| Seology | Starter Free: 1 site, 50 fixes | $49/mo | Fix layer, not measurement layer |
| DispatchSEO | Self-host free (AGPL-3.0) | $20/mo annual | Needs Docker and your own keys |
| AthenaHQ | Free Essential: ~300 credits | $295/mo | Credits burn fast; best features are Enterprise |
| MentionsAPI | Free 300 credits, no card | $5/mo | API only; you build the dashboard |
| AI Citation Monitor | Free check, no signup | $49/mo | Free check is a taste, not a working tier |
| UltraScout AI | Free CiteTrust checker, no signup | 495 pounds/3 months | Platform is quote-led |
| Qwairy | 120 credits, no card, no-account audit | €79/mo | Credit meter pauses analyses at zero |
Who should pick which
Pick Promptwatch if you want a free tier that leads into a full platform with a published paid ladder. Pick SEO MCP if you want a free technical SEO server for your agent and accept that it is a tool surface. Pick Okara if you want a free strategy plan and accept that the Coding Agent is paid. Pick Seology if you want a free fix layer and accept that it is not a measurement layer.
Pick DispatchSEO if you will self-host and accept the infrastructure cost. Pick AthenaHQ if you want a free look at the Action Center and can budget for credit burn. Pick MentionsAPI if you have engineering and want free raw data. Pick AI Citation Monitor if a free check with a confidence interval is what you need. Pick UltraScout AI if a free citation-readiness check suits an SME. Pick Qwairy if you want free credits to poke a six-module suite, and accept the credit meter.
The recommendation
The free tier that leads into a full five-layer platform is Promptwatch. The named feature that does the work is Explore, which tracks 10 prompts on ChatGPT only for one project and one seat, and opens onto prompt tracking, citation analytics, Agent Analytics, visitor analytics, and Content Agents. If your shortlist's free tier is a teaser that charges a card after a week, it is a trial, not a free plan, and Promptwatch is the entry that publishes a free plan.