Unlimited seats; unlimited client brands on Growth
Entry price for AI search
$328/month (Lite + Brand Radar)
Ongoing AI search tracking
$328/month, plus prompt packages from $50/month
Clients & seats
1 seat per plan; extra seats $40-$80/month
Ahrefs is an SEO platform. Its backlink index was built for Google's ranking signals, and backlinks have a weak link to AI visibility.
Temso is built only for AI search. It tracks the signals that shape AI answers (mentions, citations, the sources AI trusts, how it describes a brand) and gives you the tools to move them, for every client you manage, on one plan.
This page compares what each platform measures, what AI search really costs once you add Ahrefs' add-ons, and what happens to your margin every time you sign a new client.
How they're built.
Temso is the AI search platform built for agencies. Agencies win clients with branded audits, track every client brand and report under their own brand.
Temso operates an agency-only model and has no direct-to-brand plans
Reports, dashboards and pitches are white-labeled under the agency's brand
Unlimited client projects and pitches on one plan
Unlimited seats at no extra cost
Covers the whole client lifecycle: pitch, onboarding, monthly work and reporting
Built only for AEO, with 5 AI engines included and tools that act on the signals AI answers use
Brand Radar is Ahrefs' AI visibility module, sold on top of an SEO plan. It tracks how often a brand appears across six AI platforms, benchmarks it against competitors, and shows which sources the answers cited.
Ahrefs sells directly to brands as well as to agencies
Branded PDFs only: no client portal or custom domain
Projects capped per tier for unverified sites
1 seat per plan; extra seats $40-$80/month each
Tracks visibility only, with no pitching tools or execution
Built for SEO: AI tracking starts at $199/month on top of an SEO plan, plus prompt packages, which eats into an agency's margin
What an agency gets.
Row label
Entry price
Starting at $10/month
Starting at $328/month
Ongoing tracking for clients
Starting at $199/month
Starting at $328/month
AI engines covered
9 (5 included, 4 as add-ons)
6, through the Brand Radar add-on
Dedicated to AEO
SEO suite with an AI add-on
Your own prompts
Included
Extra cost
White-label dashboards
Included
Client pitches
Unlimited
Ahrefs is built for SEO, and AI search is one module inside it.
Temso is built around how agencies work with clients, from the first pitch to the monthly report. Agencies send prospects a branded audit and proposal and see when they're opened, add teammates to the client accounts they handle, and send every report under their own brand. The agent gives every strategist 10x leverage, so the same team can serve more clients and run a profitable AI search service.
Built for agency work.
Row label
Does the client appear?
Visibility, mentions, citations, share of voice
Visibility, mentions, citations, share of voice
How is the client described?
Sentiment, perception and attribute analysis
Not part of Brand Radar's documented metrics; the product is framed around how often a brand shows up
Is the answer accurate?
Accuracy tracking flags what AI gets wrong about the client
Whose prompts get tracked
The client's own, plus suggestions based on their site and goals
Mostly from Ahrefs' own prompt database; 150 to 600 custom prompt checks included, more as paid packages
Engines covered
ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini and Copilot included; Claude, Perplexity, Grok and Muse as add-ons
Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Claude, through the Brand Radar add-on from $199/month
What to do next
Prioritized recommendations, and the tools to act on them
Data and dashboards; the plan and the work are yours
Website audits
Technical AEO audits, plus which AI bots visit the site and what they read
SEO site audits, built for Google's crawler
Off-page opportunities
The sources AI cites, and the links competitors have that the client doesn't
Backlink gaps, built for SEO rankings
Content execution
Briefs, drafts, optimizes and publishes to the client's CMS ($149/month per client)
Content Kit sold separately, from $89/month
Projects
Unlimited client brands
Capped per tier for unverified sites
Seats
Unlimited, free
1 included; $40-$80/month per extra seat
Reporting
Automated, white-labeled reports per client
Report Builder add-on from $99/month
Cost of adding a client
$0 within the plan's prompt limit
Project caps and seat fees grow with every client
“Temso's support is exceptional and their pace of shipping new features is unmatched in the AI visibility space. That frees our team to focus on strategic thinking, while the platform takes care of the measurement and keeps evolving with new capabilities all the time.”
Still deciding? Talk to our team and we'll walk you through both options honestly.
More than the $129/month headline suggests, because Brand Radar's AI tracking is an add-on, not part of a plan. The cheapest way in is about $328/month: a $129 Lite plan plus Brand Radar from $199. Lite includes 150 custom prompt checks a month; more come in prompt packages from $50 to $250/month. Temso starts at $10/month for unlimited pitches, so an agency can win its first retainer before paying for tracking. Client tracking starts at $199/month, with five engines and 125 prompts included.
Yes. Ahrefs sells its plans directly to brands and agencies alike, so an agency's client can buy the same product. Temso works only with agencies and has no plans for brands, so it never competes with an agency for its clients.
No. Ahrefs can stay the SEO tool for backlinks, keyword research and technical SEO. Temso runs the AI search service on top of it: pitches, client tracking, white-labeled reporting, and the tools to do the monthly work.
Temso covers 9: 5 included on Growth and 4 more as add-ons. Ahrefs covers 6 through Brand Radar, an add-on from $199/month on top of a plan.
Brand Radar is built around visibility: how often a brand appears, against which competitors, and which sources the answer cited. Perception and attribute analysis are not among its documented metrics. Temso measures visibility, perception and accuracy, so agencies can show clients when AI gets their brand wrong.
For SEO, yes: keyword research, technical SEO and backlink analysis. Temso doesn't try to replace it. An agency can run Ahrefs for SEO and Temso for AI search.
Minutes. Connect the client's domain, confirm the brand and competitors, and Temso starts collecting AI answers straight away. There is no crawl budget to allocate and no index to wait on, so a new client can be set up on the same call where the agency wins them.
Temso. Seats are unlimited, client brands are unlimited on Growth, and pitches, reports and dashboards are white-labeled under the agency's brand. Adding a colleague costs nothing, and adding a client costs nothing within the plan's prompt limit. Ahrefs includes one seat per plan, charges $40-$80/month for each extra one, caps projects by tier, and puts client reporting behind a separate Report Builder add-on.
AI search changes month to month: engines launch, answer formats shift, citation behavior moves. For Ahrefs, AI search is one module among dozens of SEO tools competing for roadmap. Temso builds only for AEO and only for agencies, so changes in how AI answers get built show up in the product quickly.
Still deciding? Talk to our team and we'll walk you through both options honestly.
About the Author
Laura Kowalski
Laura is a content strategist at Temso AI, working at the intersection of content marketing, SEO, and AI search. She helps brands figure out how they show up in AI-generated answers, and what to actually do about it. Before Temso AI, she spent several years at digital marketing agencies in the UK.
Ready to decide?
See it on a client you actually manage.
Tell us where you want to grow brand visibility in AI search, and we'll follow up with a tailored walkthrough of Temso.
