The top 5 free AEO and GEO audit tools, and what each one actually checks.

Search for a free AEO audit tool and you get dozens of results that sound identical: an AI visibility score, a GEO checker, a citation readiness check. Underneath, they measure very different things. Some ask ChatGPT and other assistants what they say about your brand. Some scan one page of your site for schema and headings. Only a few do both and then tell you what to change. We tested the free tools people actually use and picked five, each the best at what it does. Yes, number one is ours, and we say plainly where it falls short too.

How we picked and judged them

Every tool here is free to use today, either fully or through a free version that is genuinely useful on its own. We judged each one on four questions:

• Does it test real AI answers? Asking an assistant the questions your customers ask is the only direct measure of AI visibility.
• Does it audit your site? Crawler access, schema, answer-ready content and trust signals decide whether AI can cite you at all.
• Does it tell you what to fix? A score without next steps is a number, not an audit.
• How hard is it to use? Some tools work in ten seconds with no account; others need you to set up prompts and read a dashboard.

1. AEO Armory: the most complete free AEO audit

Full disclosure: AEO Armory is our tool. We built it because the free tools we used each answered half the question. It is free, and we intend to keep the core audit free.

You enter your website, what you sell and where. AEO Armory asks ChatGPT and Google AI Mode 12 questions your customers would ask, records whether you are named, where, who is named instead and which sites the AI cites, and turns that into an AI visibility score. It then crawls up to 15 pages and scores 9 readiness checks: AI crawler access, readable without JavaScript, answer-ready formatting, questions answered, facts and sources, structured data, trust signals, response speed and plain-English readability.

Everything ends in a prioritized fix list. Each fix shows the evidence behind it, step-by-step instructions and ready-to-paste text, and a fix checker confirms the change is live. A prompt plan lists 15 to 30 questions you should be the answer to, with what to publish for each. Your dashboard also includes six free AEO tools: a prompt generator, an AI robots.txt generator, a robots.txt tester, an llms.txt generator, a readability checker and an AI content detector.

Pros

• Tests real answers and audits your site, in one report
• A fix list you can act on or hand to someone, with a PDF export
• Works for local, national and B2B businesses
• Free: 3 full audits a day, no card, no password

Cons

• No premium tier yet: no daily tracking, history charts or multi-location reports. We are building a high-quality free tool first, for everyone doing AEO, not just our own team.
• Two engines today (ChatGPT and Google AI Mode), not Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot
• Answers are collected as a US user in English, so it suits US businesses best
• Needs a free account, so it takes a minute longer than no-signup tools

Best for: anyone who wants one report that says where they stand and exactly what to do next, whether they fix it themselves or hand it to a marketer or agency.

2. Ahrefs Free AI Visibility Checker: the widest snapshot

Ahrefs' free checker needs only a brand name: no sign-up, no card. It shows how often your brand is mentioned across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, with the topics AI associates with you and the domains and pages it cites.

Pros

• The most engines of any free tool here
• Instant, with no account
• Shows the sites AI cites, which is where to earn mentions

Cons

• A limited preview: top 5 results per section, one-time snapshot
• No competitor comparison in the free version
• No site audit and no fixes; it shows the outcome, not the cause
• Ongoing tracking (Brand Radar) is a paid product

Best for: a fast read on brand mentions across many assistants, especially for brands with some existing footprint.

3. HubSpot AEO Grader: brand perception and sentiment

HubSpot's grader asks for your company name, location, products or services and industry, then asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini how they see your brand. You get a score out of 100 across five dimensions: sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice and market competition, with a written interpretation.

Pros

• Free, with no account
• The only free tool here that focuses on sentiment: how AI describes you, not just whether it names you
• Easy to read for owners and executives

Cons

• Based on what the models already know about your brand; it does not crawl your website
• Identifies gaps but not the steps to close them
• A one-time snapshot; smaller and local brands often score low simply because the models know little about them

Best for: established brands that care how AI talks about them, and anyone preparing a brand-reputation conversation.

4. Otterly.AI: the easiest step into ongoing tracking

Otterly.AI is a paid AI search monitoring platform, but you can start a free trial without entering payment details. You add the prompts you care about and it tracks whether your brand and your competitors appear in AI answers over time, with cited sources. Its Lite plan covers 15 prompts, Standard 100 and Premium 400.

Pros

• Tracks the same prompts over time, which a one-time audit cannot
• Competitor and source tracking built for marketers
• Trial without a card

Cons

• Not free after the trial
• You have to choose and set up your prompts, which is harder than it sounds if you have never done it
• More dashboard than diagnosis: it shows movement, and you still decide what to change

Best for: in-house marketers and agencies who already know their key prompts and need to report progress monthly. Pair it with a full audit first so you know what to track.

5. SEOScore.tools: a fast technical page audit

SEOScore.tools runs over 260 checks on a page with no sign-up: 68 SEO, 50 AEO and 55 GEO checks, based on your page's HTML, meta tags and schema, plus Core Web Vitals.

Pros

• No account, results in seconds
• Very thorough on page-level technical items
• Useful for developers checking a template

Cons

• Analyzes the page; it does not test what ChatGPT or Google's AI actually answer
• Hundreds of pass/fail checks without a sense of which matter most
• Scan reports are viewable by anyone with the link for 90 days

Best for: a developer or technical SEO doing a quick page-level check.

Which free AEO tool should you use?

It depends less on the tool than on who will act on the results.

• You do your own SEO: start with a full audit like AEO Armory, because you need the fix list more than the score. Use the robots.txt and llms.txt tools in its dashboard to make the technical fixes yourself.
• You are a marketer: run a full audit to find the gaps, then track your most important prompts monthly in a tool like Otterly.AI. Use HubSpot's grader when leadership asks how AI describes the brand.
• You want someone else to do it: run a free audit to see your visibility, download the PDF and hand it to your SEO company or marketer. The fix list tells them exactly what to do, and the next audit shows whether they did it. If you would rather we handle it, that is what SEOArmy does.

Whichever you pick, run it again after changes. AI answers vary from run to run, so the trend across several audits tells you more than any single score.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free AEO audit tool?

Yes. AEO Armory, Ahrefs' Free AI Visibility Checker, HubSpot's AEO Grader and SEOScore.tools are free, and Otterly.AI has a free trial without a card. They check different things: AEO Armory tests real AI answers and audits your site with a fix list, Ahrefs and HubSpot test what AI says about your brand, and SEOScore audits a page.

What is the best free GEO audit tool?

For a complete audit, AEO Armory, because it combines real ChatGPT and Google AI Mode answers with 9 site readiness checks and a prioritized fix list. For a quick multi-engine brand snapshot, Ahrefs' free checker covers the most assistants.

What is the difference between an AEO checker and an AEO audit?

Many free AEO checkers only scan a page for things like schema, headings and crawler access. An AEO audit should also test what AI assistants actually say about you, and turn both into a list of fixes.

Do free AEO tools work for B2B websites?

Yes, if the tool lets you describe what you sell. In AEO Armory, leave the location blank for a national or B2B business and the questions are written for your buyers. Brand-based tools like HubSpot's work for any company the models know.

How often should I run an AEO audit?

After every meaningful change, and at least monthly. Because AI answers vary between runs, compare the trend across audits rather than reacting to one score.