Free AEO and SEO tools cover most checks on a small site and give you a one-time look at your AI visibility. They stop at two jobs: tracking AI answers over time, and researching competitors at scale. Plan details below were checked on 29 Oct 2026 unless a source is named.
Vendors use "free" for very different offers. A tool with three searches a day and a tool that gives you your own search data forever both get the label. So this guide sorts each tool by how long its free part lasts, then by the job it does.
What does "free" mean for SEO and AEO tools?
Four kinds show up:
- Free on your own site. Full tool, no quota, but only for a site you can verify. Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools and Ahrefs Free work this way.
- Free with a cap. Permanent, but limited by pages per crawl or reports per day. Screaming Frog, Seobility, Semrush and Ubersuggest.
- Free snapshot. One report on how AI answers mention a brand, with no history. Ahrefs, Semrush and HubSpot each offer one.
- Free trial. Not free. A countdown to a paid plan, usually with a card.
Which free tools are worth setting up first?
| Tool | Kind of free | What stays free | Catch | Job | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Own site | Clicks, impressions, queries; a Generative AI report for AI Overviews and AI Mode impressions | Verified sites only; no keyword research | Your Google data | Google blog, Jun 2026; Dupple, Oct 2026 |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Own site | Site scan, keyword research, backlink data, AI Performance report (preview) | Bing and Copilot data only | Audit, Copilot citations | Dupple, Oct 2026; Bing blog, Feb 2026 |
| Ahrefs Free | Own site | Site Audit: 5,000 crawl credits a month per project; Site Explorer: 1,000 backlinks and keywords at once | Verified sites only; no competitor data | Audit, backlinks | 29 Oct 2026 |
| Screaming Frog | Cap | Crawl up to 500 URLs | No saved crawls or scheduling; licence £199 a year | Technical crawl | 29 Oct 2026; Dupple, Oct 2026 |
| Seobility Basic | Cap | 1 project, 100 pages per crawl, 10 keywords, 5 tool checks a day | Was 1,000 pages until 18 Sep 2026; Premium $69.90 a month | Audit, rank checks | Dupple, Oct 2026 |
| Semrush Free | Cap | 1 demo project, 10 reports a day, limited AI Visibility features | 7-day trial for paid plans; exports off during trial | Keyword and competitor lookups | 29 Oct 2026 |
| Ubersuggest Free | Cap | 3 searches a day, 25 tracked keywords, 150-page audit a week | Paid plans from $29 a month | Keyword ideas | Dupple, Oct 2026 |
| Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker | Snapshot | Any brand; ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, AI Overviews; no signup | Top 5 results per section; no history | AI mentions | 29 Oct 2026 |
| Semrush AI Visibility Checker | Snapshot | 3 runs a day without an account; ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews | One report; tracking needs a paid toolkit | AI mentions | 29 Oct 2026 |
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | Snapshot | One-time score for any brand across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | Form to unlock results; HubSpot AEO tracking is $50 a month | AI brand perception | 29 Oct 2026 |
Dupple is a comparison site that read each vendor's pages in October 2026.
What do Google and Bing give you for free on your own site?
Search Console is Google's own record of the queries, clicks and impressions your pages earned. Google began rolling out Generative AI reports on 3 June 2026 that count impressions inside AI Overviews and AI Mode, split by page, country and date. Coverage of the launch says they show impressions only, with no clicks or queries, and with AI Overviews and AI Mode combined. Confirm that in your own account before building a plan on it, and see our walkthrough of the Search Console AI Overviews report.
Bing Webmaster Tools is the stronger free AEO source. Its AI Performance report, in public preview since February 2026, shows when Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and some partner integrations cite your pages, plus the queries behind those citations. It has no click data and does not cover ChatGPT. It needs only a verified site.
GA4 standard is also free; the paid tier is GA4 360, built for high-volume sites. Use it for what visitors did after they arrived.
Which free crawlers and audits are worth using?
Ahrefs Free, formerly Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, covers unlimited verified sites. Its Site Audit spends a credit only on an HTML page that returns status 200, so redirects and broken URLs don't count. Competitor analysis needs a paid plan.
Screaming Frog is free up to 500 URLs and needs a £199 yearly licence beyond that. It runs on your computer, which suits a one-off audit.
Seobility changed most this autumn. According to Dupple and a pricing breakdown from Ecommerce Paradise, its free plan crawled 1,000 pages until 18 September 2026 and now crawls 100. Older roundups still list the old limit, so check the date on any free-tools list, including this one.
Which free tools help with keyword and competitor research?
Three work on sites you don't own, all with small caps. Semrush Free allows 10 reports a day. Ubersuggest allows 3 searches a day, and Moz Link Explorer allows 10 free queries a month (Dupple, Oct 2026). That is enough for a niche check or a look at one rival, not a workflow.
Do free AI visibility checkers work?
They work as a baseline, but they measure different things. Ahrefs says it queries five AI platforms with prompts taken from real searches, then reports mentions and the pages cited. Semrush says its tool draws on a database of 26M+ prompts and responses. HubSpot's Grader asks models how they describe your brand from training data, so it measures perception, not live citations.
Semrush itself calls its score a baseline. Treat all three that way: save the date and numbers, then compare next month.
What are the two jobs free tools can't do?
1. Tracking AI answers over time. Free checkers return a snapshot. Ahrefs shows the top 5 results per section, Semrush allows 3 runs a day, and HubSpot's Grader is a one-time check. Ongoing tracking is the paid step: HubSpot AEO is $50 a month, and Semrush's Starter plan tracks 50 prompts daily (checked 29 Oct 2026).
The free workaround is manual. Keep a sheet of 10 prompts, run them monthly on each engine and log whether your brand appears. The free AEO audit template has a layout. Bing's AI Performance report is the one free source of repeated citation data, for Microsoft surfaces only.
2. Competitor and backlink research at scale. Ahrefs Free works only on verified sites, and competitor analysis sits in paid plans (checked 29 Oct 2026). The research tools above stop after a few lookups. Bing's backlink insights include competitor sites (Dupple, Oct 2026), which is fine for spot checks. A weekly link gap across several rivals needs a paid index.
Both jobs need data collected again and again, which is where vendors put the paywall.
How do you build a free stack in 30 minutes?
- Verify your site in Search Console, then add it to Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing can import verified sites from Search Console, and data takes about a day to appear.
- Sign up for Ahrefs Free, verify the site and run a Site Audit.
- Run one free AI visibility check and save the date and results.
- Start a monthly log of 10 prompts.
- Once a month, review Bing's AI Performance report and Search Console's Generative AI report.
Pay when a cap blocks a real job. For most small sites that means the prompt log takes too long, or a competitor question comes up every week.
FAQ
What are the best free SEO tools?
Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for your own search data, Ahrefs Free or Screaming Frog for audits, and Semrush Free for the occasional competitor lookup.
Are there free AEO tools?
Yes, but they are snapshots or first-party reports. Ahrefs, Semrush and HubSpot offer one-time AI visibility checks, and Bing's AI Performance report shows Copilot citations for verified sites.
Can I track ChatGPT mentions for free?
Only by hand. Run the same prompts on a schedule and log the result. Free checkers show a single moment, and ongoing monitoring is paid.
Are free plans stable?
No. Seobility cut its free crawl from 1,000 pages to 100 in September 2026, and Ahrefs renamed Webmaster Tools to Ahrefs Free. Recheck limits before you rely on one.
Do the free AI visibility checkers agree with each other?
Don't expect it. They use different engines and methods, and HubSpot reads model training data. Compare each one against itself over time.
Sources (checked 29 Oct 2026)
- Ahrefs Free
- Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker
- Semrush: subscriptions and toolkits
- Semrush free AI Visibility Checker
- HubSpot AI Search Grader
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- Google: Search Generative AI performance reports
- Bing: AI Performance public preview
- Dupple: Best free SEO tools 2026
- Ecommerce Paradise: Seobility pricing 2026
- Superframeworks: Search Console AI Overviews report
- Adobe: Bing AI Performance report
- Locomotive: AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools
- Practical Ecommerce: Bing's AI Performance report