AI visibility trackers (GEO)
As of October 29, 2026, Ahrefs Brand Radar's cheapest paid plan is Included in Ahrefs Lite, Standard, Advanced at $129, $249, $449 per month, per its own pricing page. Ahrefs Brand Radar is built around tracking and improving AI visibility, while Paperboy writes and fact checks the articles those answers can cite, and the table shows where the two overlap.
| Row | Paperboy | Ahrefs Brand Radar |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan | $49 a month | $129, $249, $449 per month |
| Fact checks claims against sources | Yes | Not listed |
| Learns from Search Console | Yes | Not listed |
| Publishes to your site for you | Partly | Not listed |
| MCP, API or CLI for agents | Yes | Yes |
Side by side
Every cell links the page it came from, with the day we read it.
| Feature | Paperboy | Ahrefs Brand Radar |
|---|---|---|
| What it is for | Researches, writes, fact checks and publishes SEO articles to your own site, then learns from Search Console. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | AI visibility tracking: custom prompts refreshed daily, or a database of 516 million prompts, across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode (Claude available), plus YouTube, TikTok and Reddit sources. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
| Cheapest paid plan | Starter is $49 a month per site for 3 articles a week. Growth is $99 and Pro is $179. Yearly billing is two months free. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | Cheapest paid Brand Radar option is the Custom prompts Basic package at $50 per month for 2,500 checks, billed monthly with per-check overage. AI Visibility Index starts at $199 per month. Paid Ahrefs plans from Lite ($129 per month) include 150 to 600 free checks. No free Brand Radar plan. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
| Free plan or trial | Yes The first article is free, no card. Any plan then starts with a 14-day trial (card required). SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | Partly No free trial stated. Ahrefs says it never runs discounts and offers an Ahrefs Free account with limited Site Explorer and Site Audit. The Brand Radar page offers a free AI visibility check preview. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
| Publishes to your site for you | Partly Posts directly to WordPress and Ghost. Other sites use a hosted blog, a signed webhook or a prompt that builds a blog in your code. No Shopify, Webflow, Wix or Squarespace connector. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | Not listed Not stated for Brand Radar. The page describes tracking and analysis only. Elsewhere Ahrefs lists a Social Media Manager (publish and schedule social posts, beta) and AI Content Helper; no CMS article publishing found. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
| Fact checks claims against sources | Yes Every number and cited sentence is compared with the saved text of its source. An article that fails gets one rewrite, then is held for you. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | Not listed Not stated. The Brand Radar page lists an AI Fact Checker skill for Letaido, Ahrefs' agent product, without describing it. Nothing says Brand Radar checks article claims against sources. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
| Learns from Search Console | Yes Optional read-only Search Console connection. It picks topics from your impressions and reports clicks per article. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | Not listed Not stated for Brand Radar. Ahrefs has a separate GSC Insights tool for monitoring rankings from Google Search Console. The Brand Radar page does not say it uses Search Console data to pick or refresh content. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
| Open source or self-host | Yes The engine is open source under AGPL-3.0. Self-host it with Docker and your own keys. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | Not listed Not stated. Ahrefs is closed hosted software. Its GitHub org has 182 public repos, including an official ahrefs-mcp-server and ahrefs-api-skills, but not the product. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
| MCP, API or CLI for agents | Yes A remote MCP server with eight tools and a REST API with an OpenAPI file. The CLI is built in the open but not on npm yet. Agents pay with credits, $20 for 100. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 | Yes API access and an Ahrefs SEO MCP server are included on all paid plans (rows per request: 100 Lite, 250 Standard, 500 Advanced). The API docs list Brand Radar endpoints for mentions, cited pages and domains, impressions, share of voice and AI responses. The MCP page lists SEO data and does not name Brand Radar. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor. SourceRead Oct 29, 2026 |
“Not listed” means we found no statement either way on the pages linked in that cell. It does not mean the answer is no. Vendors change their pages, so confirm before you buy.
The honest verdict
Sometimes the other tool is the better fit. Here is how to tell.
Pick Ahrefs Brand Radar if
What Ahrefs Brand Radar does well, from its own pages
Pick Paperboy if
Judge it before you pay anyone
Your first article is free with its full fact check, so you can judge it before you pay anyone.
Write my first article freeWhat you get
The four that decide it for most people, each with the source for the other side.
AI visibility tracking: custom prompts refreshed daily, or a database of 516 million prompts, across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode (Claude available), plus YouTube, TikTok and Reddit sources (ahrefs.com, read Oct 29, 2026). Paperboy does not report how often AI answers mention your brand. It has a free check that shows whether AI crawlers can read your site, and nothing more on that side.
Paperboy writes the article, compares every cited claim with the saved text of its source and publishes it. On Ahrefs Brand Radar's side: The Ahrefs Brand Radar pages we read do not say (ahrefs.com, read Oct 29, 2026).
Measuring shows the gap. Fixing it takes a page that answers the question and cites sources a model can lean on, which is the part Paperboy writes. Ahrefs Brand Radar on search data: The Ahrefs Brand Radar pages we read do not say (ahrefs.com, read Oct 29, 2026).
Ahrefs Brand Radar: API access and an Ahrefs SEO MCP server are included on all paid plans (rows per request: 100 Lite, 250 Standard, 500 Advanced). The API docs list Brand Radar endpoints for mentions, cited pages and domains, impressions, share of voice and AI responses. The MCP page lists SEO data and does not name Brand Radar. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor (ahrefs.com, read Oct 29, 2026). Paperboy has a remote MCP server with eight tools and a REST API. Its CLI is not on npm yet.
Try it
You do not have to switch. Run Paperboy on one site, read the fact check, and compare it with what you get from Ahrefs Brand Radar.
Keep Ahrefs Brand Radar running. Nothing to cancel to try Paperboy.
Paste your site address. The first article is free, no card.
Read the fact check. Every number and cited sentence is compared with the saved text of its source.
Pick a plan only if you want more. Cancel with one button on the Billing page.
https://paperboyseo.com/start?url=yoursite.comThe engine is open source under AGPL-3.0. Self-hosting for your own sites is free; you pay your own model bill. Self-host docs.
About Ahrefs Brand Radar
Ahrefs tool that tracks how any brand appears in AI answers, using 516 million stored prompts or your own custom prompts. (its own description, read Oct 29, 2026)
Brand Radar is sold standalone or inside paid Ahrefs plans. Ahrefs now promotes Letaido, an AI agent product for marketing work, on the same pages. The page shows both $199 per month and $699 per month for all models near the AI Visibility Index; the exact scope of each is not fully clear.
| Plan | Price | What the page says it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Custom prompts: Basic | $50/month | 2,500 checks per month (example: 80 prompts daily on 1 platform); overage $0.020 per check billed monthly |
| Custom prompts: Growth | $100/month | 7,000 checks per month (example: 100 prompts daily on 2 platforms); overage $0.015 per check |
| Custom prompts: Scale | $250/month | 25,000 checks per month; overage $0.010 per check |
| AI Visibility Index | From $199/month (page also shows $699/month for all models) | Research across 516 million prompts; 83 prompts per day; 2,500 checks per month; overage $0.020 per check; YouTube, TikTok and Reddit data free while in beta |
| Included in Ahrefs Lite, Standard, Advanced | $129, $249, $449 per month (annual saves up to 17%) | Free AI prompt checks: 150 on Lite, 300 on Standard, 600 on Advanced (5, 10, 20 prompts); Enterprise from 2,500 checks at $1,499/month on annual commitment |
From Ahrefs Brand Radar's pricing page, read October 29, 2026. Paperboy's own prices are on our pricing page.
FAQ
As of Oct 29, 2026, Ahrefs Brand Radar lists Custom prompts: Basic $50/month; Custom prompts: Growth $100/month; Custom prompts: Scale $250/month; AI Visibility Index From $199/month. ahrefs.com is the source, so confirm there before you buy.
The Ahrefs Brand Radar pages we read do not say (ahrefs.com, read Oct 29, 2026).
The Ahrefs Brand Radar pages we read do not say (ahrefs.com, read Oct 29, 2026).
The Ahrefs Brand Radar pages we read do not say (github.com, read Oct 29, 2026).
API access and an Ahrefs SEO MCP server are included on all paid plans (rows per request: 100 Lite, 250 Standard, 500 Advanced). The API docs list Brand Radar endpoints for mentions, cited pages and domains, impressions, share of voice and AI responses. The MCP page lists SEO data and does not name Brand Radar. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor (ahrefs.com, read Oct 29, 2026).
Sources
Every cell above links the page we read, and every date is the day we read it. Facts about Ahrefs Brand Radar come from Ahrefs Brand Radar's own pages only. Facts about Paperboy come from pages on this site. If something is wrong or out of date, write to hello@paperboyseo.com and we will fix it and change the date.
Keep going
Paste your address. In under ten minutes you read a finished, fact-checked article written for your site. Free, no card.
Prefer to run it yourself? Self-host it (repo coming soon). Using an agent? Add the MCP server.