Semrush AI Toolkit Review November 2026: AEO Consultant

The Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is the better buy when you want a published price for 25 daily prompts and one weekly brand narrative, inside a login the SEO team may already know. It is a weak buy when the question is yesterday's Perplexity answer for a prompt you wrote. On 7 November 2026 the toolkit pricing page showed one paid column, Base, at $99 a month per domain, billed annually. Semrush One Starter, the bundle that adds the SEO toolkit, was $199 a month, or $165.17 billed annually, with 50 prompts.

Last updated - November 2026

I am Austin Heaton. Most of the reporting I set up is for fintech teams. The rest is B2B SaaS and other industries when the buyer question looks the same. A visibility login is worth opening when I can see the mention, the cited URL, and the sentence. A score I cannot open is not a plan.

This page is the toolkit, not the four-tool shortlist. That shortlist is Profound vs Peec AI vs Otterly vs Semrush. The suite comparison against Ahrefs, including what I could read on 2 November, is Ahrefs vs SEMrush for AI search reporting. I am not pasting that page forward as today's invoice. Prices and limits below are from pages read on 7 November 2026: the AI Visibility Toolkit pricing page, the SEO and AI Search pricing page, the toolkit article, the metrics article, Prompt Tracking, Brand Performance, the features guide, the data-source article, and the subscriptions article. A dedicated AEO log with a different engine mix is the Otterly.ai review. A content suite that also tracks AI answers is Writesonic GEO vs Profound.

Key Takeaways

• On 7 November 2026 the AI Visibility Toolkit pricing page showed Base at $99 a month per domain, billed annually: 25 custom prompts, one Brand Performance domain, and mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity. The toolkit article says there is no free trial of that toolkit.
• Semrush One is a different subscription. The pricing page showed SEO at $139 a month ($117.33 billed annually), Starter at $199 ($165.17 annually) with 50 prompts, Pro+ at $299 ($248.17 annually) with 100 prompts, and Advanced as custom with unlimited prompts on the card. The knowledge base still says Advanced is 200 prompts.
• The SEO plan card names AI performance, sentiment, visibility reports, and custom prompt monitoring, and it does not print a prompt count. The subscriptions article says that plan has no dedicated prompt-tracking quota, no AI-ready Site Audit, and no per-domain brand performance. Those are toolkit objects, not classic rank tracking.
• Mentions and citations are different metrics in the metrics article. Prompt Tracking's setup steps name ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Gemini. The data-source article adds AI Overviews to Prompt Tracking. Perplexity is on Brand Performance, which updates weekly, not in the Prompt Tracking selector.
• The toolkit does not publish the page. The Content Toolkit, the AI PR Toolkit, and the Traffic and Market Toolkit are separate products. A score is not a citation. If the missing piece is a stored answer on more engines, start with AthenaHQ vs Profound or the Otterly review, not with a Semrush add-on by default.

What Is the AI Visibility Toolkit, and What Is It Not?

Semrush sells more than one thing with "AI" in the name. The AI Visibility Toolkit is the measurement subscription. The toolkit article describes six objects: Visibility Overview, Competitor Research, Prompt Research, Brand Performance, Prompt Tracking, and an AI search site audit. The pricing page's Base column is the commercial version of that list: reports for any domain, 25 custom prompts with daily AI rankings, one domain for Brand Performance, mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity, competitor analysis, prompt research, a site audit for AI readiness, and daily, weekly, and monthly updates. The compare table under that card says 300 AI analysis reports a day, and it marks Visibility Overview, Competitor Research, and Prompt Research as included.

That is not the SEO toolkit. The subscriptions article lists them as separate toolkits, next to Traffic and Market, Local, Content, Social, Advertising, and AI PR. Semrush One is the bundle: SEO plus AI Visibility, on a plan ladder from Free through Enterprise. Buying "Semrush" in the old sense, keyword research and rank tracking, does not put 25 prompts and a brand-performance domain on the invoice. The features guide is explicit about the split. Tracking on Google and in AI Overviews is available on any free or paid plan. Tracking on AI platforms such as ChatGPT and AI Mode requires Semrush One or the AI Visibility Toolkit.

Three neighboring products are not in the $99 column. The Content Toolkit is a separate subscription where Semrush says it scores a draft against factors it correlates with citations. It is an editor, not the prompt log. The AI PR Toolkit finds outlets, journalists, and pitches. A citation report is not a press desk. The Traffic and Market Toolkit estimates referral traffic from clickstream data. The features guide's plan list says it starts at $289 a month, and the quick guide on the same page says from $200 a month. I did not open that pricing page, so I am not choosing between those figures. Domain Overview is the teaser: the features guide says any free or paid plan can see mentions, citations, and an AI visibility score next to keywords and backlinks. That is not 25 prompts you chose, and it is not the weekly narrative.

How Do the Semrush AI Products Compare?

The table uses the pricing pages and the knowledge base read on 7 November 2026. Where two Semrush pages disagree, the cell says so. I am not smoothing the Advanced prompt cap into one number.

If the SEO subscription and the prompt log are about to be two invoices, Book a Call and bring the prompt list. The list shows whether 25 prompts is a sample or a category.

What Does Each Report Actually Count?

Visibility Overview is the benchmark. The features guide says it reads ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Google's AI Overviews, from the Semrush Prompt Database, on Semrush One or the toolkit. The metrics article defines the score as 0 to 100, how often the brand appears in AI answers compared with competitors. The toolkit FAQ is more specific: the score reflects how often the brand is mentioned compared with the median number of mentions for top industry competitors that Semrush picks. The data-source article gives a third formula: topic coverage, meaning how many topics include the brand compared with other domains, plus mention consistency inside those topics. I am not averaging three formulas. If a Monday slide needs one definition, I would quote the page the chart cites, and I would write the date on the slide.

The same metrics article separates the objects around that score. A mention is the number of prompts in which the brand is included in the response. One mention is one prompt, not one repetition of the name. A citation is the number of AI responses that cite your domain as a source. Cited sources are the other websites in the answer. Cited pages are pages on your domain. Monthly audience is an estimate of query audience across topics where you appear. Source opportunities are sites cited in answers that mention competitors and not you. Topic opportunities are prompts where competitors appear and you do not.

Competitor Research compares you with up to four competitors on mentions, citations, and topics, from the prompt database, on Semrush One or the toolkit. The metrics article labels weak topics, missing topics, and missing, shared, strong, and unique sources. Four competitors is the cap here. Brand Performance, below, lets you select up to nine. Those are not the same comparison. Prompt Research is the demand report: topic volume, not a volume for one prompt, and a difficulty score from the brands mentioned most often. The toolkit article caps it at 1,000 daily queries. Those three reports update daily on a rolling basis, and you can run up to 300 AI analysis reports a day. That 300 is on both the pricing table and the toolkit article.

Brand Performance is a weekly narrative, not the daily prompt

Brand Performance is four reports: Brand Performance, Perception, Narrative Drivers, and Questions. You enter a domain, a location, and a language. That combination uses one domain slot. The report page says you can compare up to nine competitors, filter by platform, and open any previous weekly snapshot. The platforms named in the report coverage are Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. The filter list on that page is the same four, plus All AI Platforms. Languages: 53. Locations: 68,500. The toolkit FAQ says more than 68,000 location options and does not print 68,500. I am using the report page for the count and the FAQ for the "more than" sentence.

Share of voice, in the metrics article, is the percentage of mentions your brand receives against competitors. Sentiment is described as the balance of positive and general sentiment. The Perception report says sentiment metrics there are based on non-branded queries only. Narrative Drivers adds top cited domains for non-branded questions, with a citation percentage, and a breakdown that splits branded and non-branded answers from branded and non-branded citations. Questions groups the prompts by topic and intent. The report says the questions are what the audience asks. The features guide says Semrush generates the prompt set from the domain and location, a mix of branded and non-branded queries. I would not tell a founder those prompts are the support tickets. They are Semrush's set, refreshed weekly.

Two Semrush pages do not use the same engine list for this report. The report page and the data-source article name Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. The features guide says Brand Performance analyzes responses across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. The toolkit FAQ says the reports run queries through models "like ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode," which is an example, not a full list. The pricing card says mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity, and it does not define Google AI. I am not expanding "Google AI" into Overviews plus AI Mode. If the board asks whether Brand Performance includes AI Overviews, the honest answer on 7 November is that one Semrush page says yes and the report page's coverage list does not.

The useful control is the answer text. The Brand Performance article says an Answers panel opens the full, unedited text of the response, for your brand or a competitor, without leaving the report. I did not log in and open one on 7 November. I am citing the help article. A share-of-voice bubble without that panel is a mood.

Changing the domain is gated. After you replace a domain slot, that slot has a 14-day cooldown. History for the old domain is kept, with a gap for the days it was not tracked. Another domain is $99 a month. The toolkit article is explicit that an extra domain does not add a user. An extra user is a separate $99 license, and the toolkit is not shared through shared limits. Brand Performance campaigns are visible to teammates who already have a toolkit limit. Other toolkit reports are not shared automatically. You export them, or you build them in My Reports.

Prompt Tracking is the daily row, on a shorter engine list

Prompt Tracking is the report I would use for a prompt the sales team actually hears. The article says you need the AI Visibility Toolkit. Setup is ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, or Gemini, then a location and, where the location has more than one language, a language. You can type prompts, import a file, or take suggestions. The limit line at the bottom of that article matches the toolkit: 25 prompts on the toolkit alone, 50 on Semrush One Starter, 100 on Pro+, and 200 on Advanced. The pricing card for Advanced says unlimited. I would put the pricing card on the order form and ask Semrush to reconcile the knowledge base before anyone promises an unlimited campaign.

The data-source article describes Prompt Tracking differently. It says the product monitors Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, and ChatGPT Search, collected the same way Position Tracking collects Google ranks. The setup steps I read do not offer AI Overviews as a search engine inside Prompt Tracking. AI Overviews tracking, in the features guide, sits on Position Tracking for any plan. I am keeping those as two features. A client who only has the SEO plan can be told, from the features guide, that AI Overview tracking is included. They should not be told that ChatGPT Prompt Tracking is included.

Inside the report, mentions and positions are defined again, and the definitions are not the Visibility Overview definitions. Mentions count how many times the brand name appears inside the answers. The name comes from campaign settings, and you can change it. Average position, in the metrics article, is where a citation of your domain typically sits: first citation, second citation, and so on. Visibility here is about top citations, not about the 0 to 100 benchmark. Zero percent means the domain is not in the top citations for any tracked prompt. One hundred percent means it holds the first citation for all of them. The article also says estimated traffic and share of voice are not available for these AI engines. Do not paste a Google share-of-voice number next to this visibility figure and pretend they match.

Average position is not one rule. In ChatGPT Search, citation-area domains rank top to bottom. In Google AI Mode, the response itself is position 1 and citations follow, unless a quick-results block sits above it. Shopping ads are their own feature when product cards appear. In Gemini, the first citation is position 1. A single average across those layouts will lie.

The Sources tab lists every cited domain and URL, including yours, with categories for your domain, competitors, social, knowledge bases, and other, plus a mention rate. A cited page can open recommendations. That is a work list inside Semrush. It is not a published paragraph. The article also describes a SERP snapshot of the ChatGPT, AI Mode, or Gemini result. I have not clicked View SERP in a paid account. Confirm it on day one. The standalone toolkit has no trial, so that day one may have to be a Semrush One trial. Exports listed on the Prompt Tracking article are Excel, CSV, Google Sheets, and PDF, plus a scheduled email. The toolkit FAQ caps CSV at 1,000 rows and 10 exports a day and does not repeat that cap on the Prompt Tracking page. Only desktop results are supported. Topic volume is limited to 15 named countries, while the location picker covers 220 or more. A country picker is not a volume.

Where Semrush Says the Numbers Come From

The data-source article says the prompt database behind Visibility Overview, Competitor Research, and Prompt Research holds over 317 million prompts and responses on ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and AI Mode, across 117 regional databases, captured from real requests rather than LLM APIs. The body says the set updates daily. The summary line on the same page says monthly. I am not picking the friendlier schedule. Brand extraction is not a plain text match. The example is Tesla the car company, Nikola Tesla, and Nikola Tesla Airport. I would check one colliding name before I trust a mention total. ChatGPT, in that article, means the latest model in search mode. It does not name a version. Perplexity is not in that 317 million list. It shows up in Brand Performance. Copilot does not show up as an answer engine on the toolkit pages I read.

The site audit checks crawlers, which is not a citation. The features guide names ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, Googlebot, Google-Extended, Perplexity-User, PerplexityBot, Claude-User, and Claude-SearchBot. The data-source article says eight AI crawlers and gives OAI-SearchBot as the example. Access conflicts: the features guide says the AI-readiness checks ship with every Site Audit, the subscriptions article says the SEO plan does not include an AI-ready Site Audit, and the toolkit article includes those checks for up to 100 pages. Run one crawl on the plan you pay for. The toolkit FAQ also names 42 countries for the prompt-database reports, plus a worldwide view on Visibility Overview. That map is not Brand Performance's 68,500 locations.

What the Invoice Says, and Who Already on Semrush Should Add It

The toolkit pricing page, annual view, is $99 a month per domain, billed annually. The toolkit article says the price is $99 a month, that there is no free trial, and that adding the toolkit to an existing annual subscription is a prorated charge for the months left, renewing on the same date as that subscription. I did not find a different month-to-month price on the toolkit page. Extra prompts are $60 a month for 50. Extra brand domains are $99. Extra toolkit users are $99 each. The main pricing page's generic additional-user line starts at $45 a month. That line is not the toolkit license. I would not budget $45 and expect a second person to open Brand Performance.

Semrush One is the path if the team needs the SEO toolkit anyway. The 7 November pricing page showed SEO at $139 a month or $117.33 annually, with five sites, 500 keywords, and custom prompt monitoring but no prompt count. Starter is $199 or $165.17 annually: 50 prompts, one brand domain, 300 AI reports a day, and an AI-ready audit. Pro+ is $299 or $248.17: 15 sites, 1,500 keywords, and 100 prompts. Advanced is custom. The card says 40 or more sites, 5,000 or more keywords, and unlimited prompts. The knowledge base says 200 prompts and drops the "or more." Free is $0, one demo project, 10 reports a day. Annual billing on that page saves up to 17 percent. The features guide's $139.95 SEO line does not match the card. Use the card.

The subscriptions article's description of the SEO plan matches the thin AI list and then draws the line the card does not: no dedicated prompt-tracking quota, no AI-ready Site Audit, no per-domain brand performance. "Monitor custom prompts" without a number is not 25 prompts. If someone on the SEO plan needs the daily row, the add is either the toolkit or a move to Starter. Starter at $199 a month is $100 more than the toolkit's $99 on the annual toolkit card, and it includes the SEO suite and twice the prompts. A team that already pays for SEO should compare Starter's increment with a second toolkit invoice, not buy Base because the word toolkit sounds smaller.

My Reports is how Semrush says you put AI referral traffic from Google Analytics next to visibility. Paid plans can do that, per the features guide. The pricing page also sells Base Report at $10 a month and Pro Report at $20 a month. I would open one existing report before adding that SKU. Semrush Enterprise AIO is a separate custom platform in the features guide: unlimited prompt tracking, custom integrations, multi-brand. "Unlimited" on the Advanced card and "unlimited" on an enterprise order are two conversations.

Which Limits Actually Change the Decision?

Five limits matter more than the feature count.

The first is the engine on the daily row. Prompt Tracking's setup is ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Gemini. Perplexity is the weekly Brand Performance set, not that selector. Copilot is absent. A Claude crawler check is not Claude's answer. If the buyer question lives in Perplexity or Copilot, start with the Otterly review or AthenaHQ vs Profound, not with this add-on.

The second is whose prompts they are. Twenty-five prompts you upload can be the fee and eligibility questions a buyer actually asks. Brand Performance will not start from that list. It starts from Semrush's generated set, weekly. The add-on is 50 prompts for $60: the base is 25, the add-on is 50, and Starter jumps to 50 by changing plans.

The third is the mention math. Visibility Overview counts prompts that include the brand. Prompt Tracking counts name appearances. Citations count responses that cite the domain. Share of voice is a percentage of mentions. The 0 to 100 score has two written formulas. None of those numbers is the sentence. The Answers panel and the SERP snapshot are the evidence. If a plan cannot show them, do not brief the executives on the score.

The fourth is the trial. The toolkit article says no. The Semrush One cards say try for free, and the subscriptions article says seven days for SEO plus AI Search plans. You can judge the snapshot on a One trial. You should not expect a free week of the $99 toolkit. Exports are off during trials, per the subscriptions article, even when the paid plan includes them.

The fifth is the page. This toolkit does not write it. The Content Toolkit might score a draft, on another subscription, using Semrush's correlation research. I did not open that scoring rubric on 7 November, and I am not treating a correlation as a citation. The work list inside Prompt Tracking sources is still advice. Someone has to ship the URL.

Who Should Buy It, and Who Should Skip It

Pick from the prompt, the engine, and the subscription you already pay for.

• The team already lives in Semrush, and the questions are Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, and ChatGPT. Do not buy the toolkit to duplicate AI Overview rows that Position Tracking already has. Move to Semrush One Starter when you need 50 prompts, one brand domain, and the AI-ready audit on the same invoice as the SEO tools.
• You do not want the SEO suite, and 25 daily prompts on ChatGPT, AI Mode, and Gemini are enough. The standalone toolkit is the $99 annual card. It has no trial. Confirm the SERP snapshot before you brief anyone.
• You need Perplexity on a prompt you wrote, every day, or you need Copilot. Do not buy this toolkit for that job. Read Otterly, and read AthenaHQ against Profound, first.
• You need the weekly narrative, sentiment, and cited publishers. Brand Performance does that, for one domain, on Semrush's prompts. The domain cooldown is 14 days.
• The gap is the article, the pitch, or the traffic estimate. Those are the Content Toolkit, the AI PR Toolkit, and Traffic and Market. AI Visibility does not include them.
• Fintech, payments, payroll, or lending. Prefer the report that shows the sentence next to the source. A visibility score does not check a fee or a license. On a live account, Austin Heaton still reads the answer before it goes into a client deck.
• You want a log that is only a log. That budget is the four-tool shortlist. This page says what the Semrush column includes in November 2026. It does not replace that shortlist.

A tool subscription and an engagement are different bills. This page is only the tool. If the choice is a person rather than a login, the comparisons live on the compare page.

What I Could Not Confirm

• A month-to-month price for the AI Visibility Toolkit. The pricing page showed $99 a month per domain, billed annually. The toolkit article says $99 a month and does not print a second rate.
• That Advanced prompt tracking is unlimited and that it is 200. The pricing card says unlimited. Three knowledge-base pages say 200.
• A single engine list for Brand Performance. The report page omits AI Overviews. The features guide includes them. The pricing card says "Google AI" and does not define it.
• That Prompt Tracking includes AI Overviews. The data-source article says yes. The setup steps name ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Gemini.
• A logged-in SERP snapshot or Answers panel on 7 November 2026.
• The Traffic and Market starting price. The features guide prints two figures, $289 and $200. I did not open that pricing page.
• Copilot as a tracked answer engine. I did not find it. Claude appears as a crawler check, not as an answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit include?

The toolkit article lists Visibility Overview, Competitor Research, Prompt Research, Brand Performance, Prompt Tracking, and an AI search site audit. The pricing page's Base column is one Brand Performance domain, a daily custom-prompt cap, and mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity. It is not the SEO toolkit, the Content Toolkit, or the AI PR Toolkit.

Is the AI Visibility Toolkit included in a normal Semrush SEO plan?

Not as the full toolkit. The subscriptions article says the SEO plan has AI performance tracking, sentiment, and visibility reports, and that it does not include a dedicated prompt-tracking quota, an AI-ready Site Audit, or per-domain brand performance. The pricing card still says that plan can monitor custom prompts, and it does not print a prompt count. Semrush One is the bundle that prints a prompt cap.

How does Semrush separate a mention from a citation?

The metrics article defines a mention as a prompt where the brand is included in the AI response, and a citation as an AI response that cites your domain as a source. Prompt Tracking uses a second mention definition: how many times the brand name appears inside the answers. I would not add those two mention counts together.

Which engines does Prompt Tracking cover?

The Prompt Tracking article's setup steps name ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Gemini. The data-source article says Prompt Tracking also covers Google AI Overviews. I am not merging those lists. Perplexity is named on Brand Performance, not in the Prompt Tracking selector I read.

Does Semrush show the AI answer behind the score?

The Prompt Tracking article describes a SERP snapshot of the ChatGPT, AI Mode, or Gemini result. The Brand Performance article describes an Answers panel with the full response text. I did not open a logged-in account on 7 November, so I am citing the help articles, not a screenshot I took.

Who should buy the toolkit, and who should skip it?

Buy the standalone toolkit when the team is not already heading to Semrush One and the job is a small daily prompt log plus one brand-performance domain. Buy Semrush One when you already need the SEO toolkit and a higher prompt cap. Skip the toolkit when the board question is Perplexity or Copilot on a prompt you wrote. A dedicated visibility log is a different subscription.

Will the toolkit get the brand cited?

No. The reports name mentions, citations, and gaps. They do not publish the page. The Content Toolkit is a separate subscription, and a score is not a citation.

Read next:

• Ahrefs vs SEMrush for AI Search Reporting
• Profound vs Peec AI vs Otterly vs Semrush
• Otterly.ai Review November 2026
• AthenaHQ vs Profound for AI Visibility
• Writesonic GEO vs Profound
• Compare AEO consultants and agencies

If the prompt cap, the engine list, and the SEO invoice still point at three different SKUs, Book a Call and we will put the 25-prompt toolkit, Semrush One, and the missing engine on one page before anyone adds a seat.