Proofsource vs Ahrefs Brand Radar
Pick Ahrefs Brand Radar if you want a market-wide view from a 449M-prompt index built from search keywords, with no setup, inside a tool your SEO team already uses. Pick Proofsource if you want your buyers' own questions asked on four engines daily if you choose, a 95% interval on every figure, and a draft fix for each gap. Brand Radar's index re-tests its question sets monthly; its custom prompts can run daily.
Proofsource and Ahrefs Brand Radar in four facts
Price to start
- Proofsource
- Free trial, then plans from $9 a month (5 questions on ChatGPT, weekly)
- Ahrefs Brand Radar
- Custom Prompts from £40/mo; AI Visibility Index £159/mo (prices shown to us in GBP)[1]
Free trial
- Proofsource
- 2 days free, 4 engines, no card
- Ahrefs Brand Radar
- Not published; 5 to 20 daily custom prompts are included with paid Ahrefs plans[1]
Engines covered
- Proofsource
- 4 on the trial, up to 4 on a paid plan
- Ahrefs Brand Radar
- Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot; Claude through Custom Prompts[1]
Re-read cadence
- Proofsource
- Daily, weekly or monthly, you choose
- Ahrefs Brand Radar
- Custom Prompts daily, weekly or monthly per platform; the Index re-tests its question sets monthly[1]
Ahrefs Brand Radar or Proofsource: which should you pick?
Ahrefs Brand Radar is aI visibility inside Ahrefs: an index of 449M+ prompts modeled from search keywords, plus custom prompts you define. Proofsource is an AI intelligence platform that shows which buyer questions name your brand in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, who gets named instead, and exactly what to fix.
Choose Ahrefs Brand Radar if
- You want to look up any brand or category instantly, including history back to 2025, without writing prompts.
- You already pay for Ahrefs: paid plans include 5 to 20 daily custom prompts.
- You want YouTube, TikTok and Reddit visibility next to AI answers.
Choose Proofsource if
- Your category is too new or specific for a keyword-built index; Ahrefs says its index works best where there is search demand.
- You want every figure with its interval, and alerts that wait for a real change.
- You want each gap tied to the pages the engines cited and a draft fix.
Proofsource and Ahrefs Brand Radar on the 9 questions buyers ask
Every Ahrefs Brand Radar cell was read from Ahrefs Brand Radar's own pages on Oct 5, 2026 and is footnoted to the page it came from. Prices are theirs, as shown to us; they change, so check the source before you buy.
| Question | Proofsource | Ahrefs Brand Radar |
|---|---|---|
| Price to start | Free trial; then from $9 a month (5 questions on ChatGPT, weekly) | Custom Prompts from £40/mo; AI Visibility Index £159/mo (prices shown to us in GBP)[1] |
| Free trial | 200 answers. 25 Prompts/Question. Top AI engines. 2 days. Free. No card, no sales call | Not published; 5 to 20 daily custom prompts are included with paid Ahrefs plans[1] |
| Questions tracked | 25 buyer questions in the trial; paid plans pick their questions per brand, each priced per engine. Questions above 50 per brand are 20% off. | 5, 10 or 20 custom prompts on Ahrefs Lite, Standard or Advanced; the Index plan includes 83 prompts a day[1] |
| Engines covered | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews on the trial; paid plans pick from those 4, each priced per question, and Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI are enabled on a call |  Google AI Overviews   Copilot Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot; Claude through Custom Prompts[1] |
| Re-read cadence | Daily or weekly, chosen per plan; answer sets move 9-27% day over day in our sampling, so daily catches the most; the trial runs 2 scans a day apart[3] | Custom Prompts daily, weekly or monthly per platform; the Index re-tests its question sets monthly[1] |
| How you buy | Self-serve: the trial gives answers the day you sign up, and checkout takes up to 1000 brands; above that, or for Managed where our team does the work, book a demo | Self-serve sign-up[1] |
| Statistical confidence | 95% Wilson interval on every percentage; alerts wait until a change clears it[2] | Not published on the Brand Radar page[1] |
| Root cause and fix | Each gap names the pages the engines cited instead, with a draft fix held for your approval | Cited pages, mention gaps and Ahrefs-built skills such as mention gap analysis[1] |
| Getting your data out | Full history as CSV or JSON, any date range; a REST API with API keys; switched on per customer, our team delivers it into Looker Studio or your BI tool | Export available; Ahrefs sells its API separately[1] |
How fresh is Ahrefs Brand Radar data compared with Proofsource?
It depends which half of Brand Radar you read: its AI Visibility Index re-tests question sets monthly on a 90-day window, while custom prompts run daily, weekly or monthly per platform. Proofsource asks your questions on every engine a plan picks, on the cadence it picks (daily or weekly), and the trial runs two scans a day apart.
Does Ahrefs Brand Radar track Claude?
Through Custom Prompts, where Ahrefs says Claude uses 8 checks per update. The AI Visibility Index covers AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Proofsource asks Claude on the trial and in every plan's default four.
Should I track a prompt database or my buyers' own questions?
Both answer different questions: a database shows the market, your own questions show your pipeline. Ahrefs models its index prompts from keyword data and says it suits brands that already appear in AI search; Proofsource asks the questions your buyers ask and reports, per question and engine, who gets named instead of you.
Where Proofsource shines: 4 things it is built to do.
Each one is a mechanism: what runs, how often, and what would catch us out if it were not true.
The free trial is the real report.
The free trial asks 25 buyer questions on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, 2 scans a day apart, and hands back what a subscriber reads: which questions name you on which engine, who is named instead, and the pages each engine cited. No card, no call. One per company domain.
Every number arrives with the interval it was measured at.
Ask an engine the same question twice and you can get two answers, so one read is a draw, not a fact. We publish a 95% Wilson interval on every percentage and hold alerts until a change clears it. A tool that treats a single run as a finding will sell you progress on a day you did nothing.[2]
Four engines from the free trial, 4 on the price card.
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews run side by side from the free trial upward, each priced per question on paid plans; Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI are enabled on a call. The questions are re-asked on their own on the cadence you pick: daily or weekly. The full history leaves as CSV or JSON over any date range, or through the REST API, so the record is yours.
Each gap names the page that beat you, then drafts the answer.
A gap carries the sources the engines cited instead of you. Then a draft built on what those pages have and yours does not, held for a human to approve, because nothing should publish itself in your name.
Already using Ahrefs Brand Radar?
You do not have to choose on day one. Here is how teams run Proofsource beside Ahrefs Brand Radar and decide on their own data.
Keep Ahrefs Brand Radar running
Nothing about trying Proofsource needs you to stop Ahrefs Brand Radar. Your history and reports there stay where they are.
Bring your questions across
Export or copy the prompts you track in Ahrefs Brand Radar and add them as buyer questions in Proofsource, so both tools ask the same things.
Run both side by side
Read the two for the same days on your own domain. Where the numbers differ, Proofsource shows the answers and the pages each engine cited, so you can see why.
Keep what serves your team
Many teams keep one tool for reporting and another for fixes. Pick on your own evidence, not on a comparison page.
Proofsource or Ahrefs Brand Radar: what buyers ask
Is Ahrefs Brand Radar free?
Paid Ahrefs plans include 5 to 20 daily custom prompts. The Brand Radar page publishes no separate free trial.
Which AI platforms does Ahrefs Brand Radar cover?
AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, with Claude available on Custom Prompts.
Is there a free trial of Proofsource?
Yes. 200 answers. 25 Prompts/Question. Top AI engines. 2 days. Free. No card, no sales call. One free trial per company domain, and the report is about your own domain.
Which AI engines does Proofsource track?
ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews on the trial; paid plans pick from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview and Claude, each priced per question.
How often does Proofsource re-read the answers?
On the cadence each plan picks: daily or weekly. Answer sets move 9-27% day over day in our own sampling, so daily catches the most. The free trial runs 2 scans a day apart.
Where do the Ahrefs Brand Radar facts on this page come from?
From Ahrefs Brand Radar's own public pages, linked in the Sources list with the date we read them. We have not run Ahrefs Brand Radar on a domain of our own, so no measured number on this page is theirs. If a row is out of date, tell us and we will change it.
Where each fact on this page comes from.
- Ahrefs Brand Radar, read Oct 5, 2026. Ahrefs Brand Radar's own page; no third-party roundup is used as a source.
- Wilson score interval. The interval we put on every visibility percentage. Introduced by E. B. Wilson in 1927 and standard for binomial proportions, because it stays honest at small sample sizes and near 0% or 100% where the naive normal approximation breaks.
- Proofsource sampling: day-over-day change in which brands get named, same question one day apart. Perplexity 27%, ChatGPT 18%, Google AI Overviews 12%, Claude 9%. How we measure.
Found a Ahrefs Brand Radar row that has changed? Tell us and we will correct it here.
More sourced comparisons
A free trial settles this faster than either of us can write about it.
200 answers. 25 Prompts/Question. Top AI engines. 2 days. Free. No card, and the report is about your domain: which buyer questions name you, who is named instead, and the pages each engine cited.
Google AI OverviewsGoogle AI Mode
