Ahrefs Brand Radar is the AI visibility product from Ahrefs, the bootstrapped Singapore software company founded in 2010 by Dmitry Gerasimenko. It counts how often AI answers mention or cite a brand across Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, with Claude and Grok available in custom prompts. Third-party reviews list pricing from $199 a month per index.
Last updated: November 3, 2026
This profile covers who owns Ahrefs, what Brand Radar measures, which engines it covers, what it costs according to public reviews and where it falls short. It is a single-company profile. For a comparison of Brand Radar with other AI visibility platforms, see EPR's guide to tracking brand visibility in AI search.
Who owns Ahrefs and who runs Brand Radar?
Ahrefs is owned by its founder and operated by Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. in Singapore. Dmitry Gerasimenko, a software developer from Ukraine, started the company in July 2010 and moved it to Singapore in 2012, according to Ahrefs' own blog. Igor Pikovets is listed as co-founder and chief technology officer in company directories.
Ahrefs describes itself as bootstrapped and has announced no venture funding. Third-party estimates of its revenue vary and are not company statements, so this profile does not use them. Brand Radar sits inside Ahrefs as a product line, not as a separate company, which means its financials and ownership are those of Ahrefs.
How is Ahrefs funded?
Ahrefs has not raised outside capital. The company's own growth story says it grew without investors or a sales team, and Gerasimenko has said he preferred to grow step by step instead of taking outside funding. That contrasts with venture-backed rivals listed in EPR's AI Visibility Directory, including Profound, which has announced $334.5 million across five rounds.
The practical effect for buyers is that Brand Radar is funded by the revenue of Ahrefs' SEO subscriptions, so the product can be priced and updated without a venture timeline. The same fact means there are no public funding announcements to track.
What does Ahrefs Brand Radar measure?
Ahrefs Brand Radar measures how often a brand appears in AI-generated answers and which pages those answers cite. According to a 2026 review by AEO Eye, it counts mentions, citations, AI share of voice and estimated impressions for any brand a user types in, with no setup required.
Ahrefs built Brand Radar on a large index of prompts and answers, not only on the prompts a customer types in. A February 2026 summary by Ekamoira reports a database of more than 260 million prompts a month, and that figure comes from Ahrefs' own claims, not an audit. The main features described in company announcements and reviews are:
- AI answer views, cited domains and cited pages, added with Brand Radar 2.0 in August 2025.
- Entities, topics, saved reports, exports and API access, added in September 2025.
- Custom prompt tracking, which lets a team monitor its own question set.
- Tracking of YouTube, Reddit and TikTok mentions alongside AI answers.
- Combined visibility reports across AI and search platforms, announced in June 2026.
Which AI engines does Ahrefs Brand Radar cover?
Ahrefs Brand Radar covers six surfaces in its core index: Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. Claude and Grok are available in custom prompts, according to a 2026 AEO Eye review of Ahrefs' help pages.
| Surface | In the core index | In custom prompts |
|---|
| Google AI Overviews | Yes | Yes |
| Google AI Mode | Yes | Yes |
| ChatGPT | Yes | Yes |
| Perplexity | Yes | Yes |
| Gemini | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Copilot | Yes | Yes |
| Claude | No | Yes, added July 2026 per DeepSmith |
| Grok | Listed in help article | Not stated; Ahrefs said it could not gather new data temporarily |
Refresh rates differ by surface. The same AEO Eye review says Google AI Overviews data refreshes every few days, while question sets in the chatbot indexes are re-tested monthly. A separate DeepSmith review also says the core chatbot index refreshes monthly. Check current refresh cadence with Ahrefs before using the data for fast-moving questions.
How much does Ahrefs Brand Radar cost?
Third-party reviews put Ahrefs Brand Radar at $199 a month per AI index and $699 a month for all platforms, with custom prompt packages from $50 a month. Sources disagree on whether a paid Ahrefs plan is also required, so confirm the total on Ahrefs' pricing page.
| Item | Reported price | Source |
|---|
| One AI index | $199 a month | AEO Eye, DeepSmith |
| All platforms | $699 a month, including 2,500 custom-prompt checks | DeepSmith, AEO Eye |
| Custom prompt packages | $50, $100 or $250 a month | DeepSmith |
| Ahrefs plans: Lite, Standard, Advanced | $129, $249 and $449 a month, with 5, 10 or 20 tracked prompts a day | AEO Eye, DeepSmith |
Some reviews describe Brand Radar as an add-on on top of a base plan, which would bring the minimum to $328 a month for one index. Others say Ahrefs now sells Brand Radar standalone with no base plan. Ahrefs has also said that indexes become chargeable after beta. Treat all of these figures as third-party reports and verify them before budgeting.
Who is Ahrefs Brand Radar built for?
Ahrefs Brand Radar is built for SEO teams and agencies that already use Ahrefs and want AI visibility data next to their search data. A DeepSmith review says it makes the most sense for teams that already pay for Ahrefs, care most about Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and can absorb the cost as a separate line item.
For PR and communications teams, the useful features are the cited-page and cited-domain views, which show which publications and sites AI engines draw on for a category. The mention tracking for Reddit and YouTube also matters because those sources appear in AI answers. EPR's research on which sources AI platforms cite shows why source patterns matter more than any single mention count.
How does Ahrefs Brand Radar differ from other AI visibility platforms?
Ahrefs Brand Radar differs by starting from a large pre-built index and from an SEO data suite, while many rivals start from a customer's own prompt list. Otterly.AI monitors prompts a customer chooses and reports on a schedule. Profound, covered on EPR's Profound valuation page, sells an enterprise platform with agents and consumer panel data, and Rankscale sells credit-based tracking across 17 or more engines.
Semrush is the closest counterpart because it also folds AI visibility into an SEO suite, as described on EPR's Semrush ownership page. The difference is mainly pricing structure and the depth of the underlying index. EPR's comparison of SEO suites and GEO startups covers how incumbents responded to funded newcomers.
What are the limitations of Ahrefs Brand Radar?
The limitations most often cited in reviews are price, add-on engine coverage and thinner AI-specific analysis than dedicated platforms. A review published by Profound, a direct competitor, says Brand Radar offers only surface-level AI insights and no sentiment analysis. That is a competitor's view, and Ahrefs may have added features since.
Other cautions apply to this profile:
- Pricing details come from third-party reviews that disagree with each other on the base-plan requirement.
- The prompt-database size is an Ahrefs claim reported by a reviewer, not an independent measure.
- Index-based counts estimate visibility for typical prompts, and may not reflect the exact questions a brand's own buyers ask.
- Coverage of Claude and Grok depends on custom prompts, and Grok data was temporarily unavailable, according to Ahrefs' help article as reported by AEO Eye.
What has Ahrefs announced for Brand Radar through November 2026?
Ahrefs has expanded Brand Radar steadily since its 2025 beta. The dated items below come from third-party company summaries and product reviews, and some release dates were not independently confirmed.
- March 2025: Brand Radar launched in beta, according to Vantaige.
- August 2025: Brand Radar 2.0 added views for AI answers, cited domains and cited pages and extended coverage to Google AI Mode.
- September 2025: entities, topics, saved reports, exports and API access were added.
- May 2026: Grok visibility data and broader Brand Radar reporting were added.
- June 2026: Brand Radar visibility reports were combined across AI and search platforms, and Brand Radar entity data was expanded in the API.
- July 2026: Ahrefs began supporting Claude in custom prompts, according to DeepSmith.
- October 2026: reviews list the product at $199 a month per index, $699 for all platforms and $50 a month for custom prompts.
What should PR teams do with Ahrefs Brand Radar?
PR teams should use Brand Radar to find which publications and sites AI engines cite for their category, then compare that list with their earned media. Pull the cited-domain view for a competitor and a category term, note which outlets appear repeatedly, and check whether the brand has coverage in them.
Keep dated snapshots, because AI answers and citation sources change. EPR's guide to generative engine optimization explains how to turn those source lists into a media plan, and the GEO services cost guide shows what agencies charge to run that work.
Continue with the AI visibility section, the AI Visibility Directory, Best AI Visibility Tools, the Peec AI profile, the AirOps profile, Best AI Visibility Agencies and Best GEO Agencies 2026.
Sources
Company history comes from a case study of Ahrefs' growth and the company summary at Craft. Brand Radar features, pricing and engine coverage come from reviews by AEO Eye, DeepSmith, Ekamoira and Profound, a competitor. Release timeline items come from a company profile summary and Vantaige.
