Otterly.AI runs your own prompts every day as a standalone tracker, starting at $29 a month with a no-card trial. Ahrefs Brand Radar ties AI visibility to Ahrefs search demand data and a pre-collected prompt index that refreshes monthly, so it suits teams already working in Ahrefs. DeepSmith is a strong alternative to both for tracking that leads to content: it checks your tracked prompts on a schedule, then Opportunity Agents and the Writer turn what it finds into published articles.
Choosing between Otterly.AI vs Ahrefs Brand Radar comes down to where you want AI visibility to live. Brand Radar sits inside the Ahrefs platform, so mentions and citations appear next to the search demand behind them, and you can research any brand without building a prompt list first. Otterly.AI is a separate tool that runs the prompts you give it every day and puts brand, competitor and citation numbers in one report. Both stop at measurement. DeepSmith goes on to produce the content the numbers call for.
Otterly.AI vs Ahrefs Brand Radar: the short answer
- Choose DeepSmith if you want one platform that tracks your prompts on a schedule and then writes the articles that close the gaps, from $99 a month with a 7-day free trial.
- Choose Otterly.AI if you want a daily tracker on your own prompt list at a published price, from $29 a month, with unlimited seats and a no-card trial.
- Choose Ahrefs Brand Radar if you already work in Ahrefs or want AI mentions weighted by Google search volume, and you can live with monthly index refreshes unless you pay for custom prompts.
| DeepSmith | Otterly.AI | Ahrefs Brand Radar | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price (monthly) | $99 (Pro) | $29 (Lite) | $50 (Basic custom prompts) or $199 (one index) |
| Annual price (per month) | $80 | $25 | Not listed |
| Prompts at entry tier | 50 | 15 | About 83 per day on one platform |
| Engines at entry tier | 1 (ChatGPT) | 4 | Chosen per prompt |
| Most engines on any plan | 10 | 7, with 3 as paid add-ons | 7, with Claude on custom prompts only |
| Free trial | Yes, 7 days | Yes, 7 days, no card | No |
| Search demand data | - | No, Estimated Intent Score only | Yes |
| Sentiment | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Page audits | - | Yes | Partial |
| Writes full articles | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Publishes to a CMS | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Grounds output in brand context | Yes | Not listed | Not listed |
| Public API | Yes, read-only | Yes, Standard and up | Yes, paid plans |
| G2 rating | 4.8/5 | 4.7/5 | 4.5/5 (Ahrefs suite) |
Pricing and features as of September 2026, from each vendor's site and public reviews.
Otterly.AI
Otterly.AI is a self-serve AI search monitoring tool from Austria-based OtterlyAI GmbH. It runs the prompts you choose every day across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with Google AI Mode, Gemini and Claude sold as paid add-ons. It reports mentions, citations, position, sentiment and share of voice against competitors. It is built for marketing and SEO teams at small and mid-sized companies and for agencies, since every plan has unlimited seats and Standard and above have unlimited workspaces.
The standout is how much it puts in one daily report. Brand, competitor and citation numbers sit together, and the tool adds a prompt research tool, page audits, ranked recommendations and Agent Analytics for AI crawler traffic. API, MCP and a Looker Studio connector start on Standard.
The real limits are in the packaging. Lite has 15 prompts and the next plan is $189 a month, and the three add-on engines cost extra. Otterly.AI documents no article writing or CMS publishing, and it cites only its AWS host's SOC 2. Its two G2 listings sit at 4.7/5 from 54 reviews and 4.8/5 from 42 reviews. Reviewers mostly praise the interface, quick setup and responsive support, and they ask for more flexible filters and deeper history.
Ahrefs Brand Radar
Ahrefs Brand Radar is the AI visibility module of the Ahrefs marketing platform, from Singapore-based Ahrefs. It combines two datasets. The AI Visibility Index holds pre-collected answers for 448M+ prompts drawn from Ahrefs keyword data, across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, refreshed monthly on a 90-day window. Custom Prompts track the questions you pick daily, weekly or monthly and add Claude. It is built for SEO and AEO teams, especially existing Ahrefs users and established brands with real search demand.
The standout is the link to search demand. Impressions weight mentions by Google search volume, and views for search demand, web visibility, YouTube and Reddit sit beside the AI numbers.
The limits are the refresh rate and the scope. Ahrefs says broad index data is monthly, not live, and the paid indexes have no free trial. The module describes no content briefs, writing or CMS publishing, and sentiment and alerts come through a separate product called Letaido. There is no rating for Brand Radar on its own. The Ahrefs suite sits at 4.5/5 on G2 from 717 reviews, which says something about the suite and little about this module. One Brand Radar reviewer reported that retrospective index updates changed historical numbers, and that is a single report.
DeepSmith: the alternative that tracks and writes
Otterly.AI and Brand Radar both end at the report. Otterly.AI adds audits and ranked recommendations, and Brand Radar surfaces gaps through report filters, but neither documents writing an article or publishing one to a CMS. For a marketing lead with a backlog of gaps and a small team, that leaves the slowest part of the job untouched. DeepSmith covers both halves in one platform.
On the tracking side, you define the prompts and DeepSmith checks them on a schedule. The Overview shows mention rate, citation rate and share of voice with a per-platform breakdown and a competitor leaderboard, and the Pages view shows which of your own pages AI actually cites. Discover Prompts builds a starter set from your product, persona and buyer-stage context, so you are not starting from a blank list.
On the production side, Opportunity Agents read that visibility data and return content ideas, each carrying the data point that justifies it. Ideas move into Planned Content, and the Writer turns each one into a finished, brand-grounded article with internal and external links, a cover image and publish-ready metadata. Autowrite can do this on a set date with no one in the app. Produced Content publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Strapi, Sanity or Contentful, or to your own webhooks, and Deep IQ keeps your product, persona, voice and visual guidelines in one place so every article is grounded in them.
Pricing is published. Pro is $99 a month ($80 billed annually) with 20 articles, 50 tracked prompts and 5 seats on ChatGPT. Grow is $199 ($160) with 40 articles, 100 prompts and 7 seats on ChatGPT and Perplexity. Scale is $399 ($299) with 90 articles, 200 prompts and 10 seats, adding Gemini. Enterprise is custom and covers all ten engines. There is a 7-day free trial and no long-term contract. DeepSmith is rated 4.8/5 on G2 and is SOC 2, GDPR and ISO certified.
Data method and freshness
Otterly.AI is fresher for your own prompts, and Brand Radar is broader for what it has already collected.
Otterly.AI tracks daily on every plan. It says it submits prompts to the consumer-facing AI websites rather than model APIs, with Claude as the exception, and you can inspect the captured answer and cited URLs for each prompt. It does not state how long it keeps answer history. Brand Radar works in two layers. The index question sets are re-tested monthly on a 90-day reporting window, and history is searchable back to 2025. Custom Prompts run daily, weekly or monthly, show data within 24 hours, and each check counts one prompt on one engine in one location, with Claude using eight checks per update.
Both tools sample, so treat single numbers with some care. Ahrefs notes in its methodology post that its prompt sampling reflects its keyword sources, with an English-language skew, and that visibility estimates are directional rather than measured AI referral traffic. AI answers also change from run to run, so the direction over several weeks tells you more than any one day.
What DeepSmith does: you choose the prompts, and each one carries its own mention rate, citation rate and full answer history. Settings control how often collection runs, so the checks follow the schedule you set.
Search demand and prompt discovery
Ahrefs Brand Radar wins this one clearly, because search demand is the thing Ahrefs already owns.
Its prompts come from the Ahrefs keyword database and People Also Ask questions, impressions weight mentions by Google search volume, and a Search demand view shows branded query volume behind a brand's mentions, refreshed every few days. A Topics view groups keywords to show which high-volume topics trigger AI answers. For a team that plans around keyword data, looking at Otterly.AI vs Ahrefs Brand Radar search demand features, the Ahrefs side keeps everything in one place.
Otterly.AI approaches prompt discovery differently. Its prompt research tool builds hundreds of prompts from a seed topic, brand or URL, groups them by intent and funnel stage, and can import Google Search Console keywords. It gives no prompt volumes. It offers a vendor-built Estimated Intent Score instead, because OpenAI does not disclose how often people ask a given question.
What DeepSmith does: Discover Prompts generates a starter set from your product, persona and buyer-stage context, and the Content Map shows where competitors cover topics you do not, with sitemaps re-checked every 24 hours. The prompts and topics you act on come from your own buyers and your own coverage gaps.
Engine coverage
On engines, Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Otterly.AI is close to a tie at seven each, and the difference is how you pay for them.
Otterly.AI includes four engines on every plan: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Google AI Mode and Gemini are each $9, $59 or $149 a month on Lite, Standard and Premium, and Claude is $29, $109 or $439. Covering all seven on Standard adds $227 a month. Grok, Meta AI and DeepSeek are not offered.
Brand Radar's index covers six platforms: Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Claude is available for custom prompts only. Grok is listed in the help center, but Ahrefs says it cannot collect new Grok data for the time being, so it does not count as covered today.
What DeepSmith does: it tracks ten engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Grok, Meta AI, Microsoft Copilot and DeepSeek. Pro tracks ChatGPT, Grow adds Perplexity, Scale adds Gemini, and Enterprise covers all ten.
Pricing and value
Otterly.AI is the easier price to plan around, and Ahrefs Brand Radar is the cheaper way to track a modest prompt list on one or two engines.
Otterly.AI has four published tiers. Lite is $29 a month ($25 annually) for 15 prompts, Standard is $189 ($160) for 100, Premium is $489 ($422) for 400, and Enterprise starts at 1,000 prompts on a custom quote. Extra prompts cost $99 a month per 100 on Standard and Premium. Seats are unlimited on every plan, and the 7-day trial needs no card. Some sign-up buttons still say 14 days, which looks like older copy.
Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Otterly.AI on price is harder to line up because Ahrefs sells in pieces. Each broad index is $199 a month, or $699 for all of them. Custom prompt packages are $50 for 2,500 checks, $100 for 7,000 and $250 for 25,000, and the pricing page shows 100 prompts checked daily on two platforms as a $100 example. Paid Ahrefs suite plans include a small allowance, from 5 daily prompts on the $129 Lite plan to 20 on the $449 Advanced plan. Ahrefs gives no annual price for Brand Radar and no free trial.
What DeepSmith does: its price covers tracking and production together. Pro at $99 a month includes 20 articles and 50 tracked prompts, and Grow at $199 includes 40 articles and 100 prompts. You are not paying one tool for the numbers and another for the writing.
From insight to action
Otterly.AI is narrowly ahead of Brand Radar here, because it turns its data into a ranked to-do list.
Its Recommendations feature produces ranked on-page and off-page actions across ten types, each with the affected prompt, the source beating you and a next step, and Lite gets three a week while higher plans get unlimited. Content Audit grades pages against the sources winning your tracked prompts, and a Gap Analyzer lists prompts where competitors are named and you are not. Brand Radar leaves the gap work to you: you find gaps through report filters, and automated recommended actions are not described. Its content tools are separate Ahrefs products, and gap analysis and alerts come through Letaido.
Neither tool writes the article or publishes it, so the work after the report still lands on your team.
What DeepSmith does: the same data that fills the Overview feeds Opportunity Agents, which return ideas with their evidence attached. Those ideas go into Planned Content, the Writer produces publish-ready articles, and Produced Content pushes them to your CMS. You can follow one gap from a tracked prompt to a live page without leaving the platform.
Which to choose: Otterly.AI or Ahrefs Brand Radar
- DeepSmith fits marketing teams that want AI visibility tracking and article production in one platform, with a published price, a 7-day free trial and a content pipeline that starts from the prompts they track.
- Otterly.AI fits agencies and small teams that want a daily report on a fixed prompt list, unlimited seats and workspaces from Standard, and a trial that needs no card. Budget for the add-on engines if you need more than four.
- Ahrefs Brand Radar fits teams that already live in Ahrefs, or established brands that want to research any brand or topic against search demand without building a prompt list first. Plan for monthly refreshes on the broad indexes and pay for custom prompts when you need daily data.
If you want to see your own prompts tracked and the first article ideas built from them, start a DeepSmith free trial.
