Ahrefs Brand Radar vs Promptwatch: Index-Scale Research or Prompt-Level Tracking With Actions?
Comparing Ahrefs Brand Radar's index and custom prompts with Promptwatch's tracking, crawler logs, and publishing, and who should pick which.
Ahrefs and Promptwatch measure AI visibility from two different directions. Ahrefs Brand Radar leans on scale: a large pre-collected database of prompts and the strength of Ahrefs' crawl index. Promptwatch leans on precision and follow-through: tracking the specific prompts you choose, then connecting results to crawler logs, traffic, and actions. Neither approach is wrong. They answer different questions.
What Ahrefs Brand Radar offers
Per our directory entry, Brand Radar has two ways in. Custom Prompts lets you track the exact questions your buyers ask. The AI Visibility Index is a pre-collected database of more than 496 million prompts modeled from Ahrefs keyword data, covering AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Copilot. It also reports on AI crawler activity, YouTube, and Reddit sources.
Pricing read on 24 October 2026: Custom Prompts is free for every paid Ahrefs plan from Lite up, with daily quotas of 5 prompts on Lite, 10 on Standard, and 20 on Advanced. The AI Visibility Index starts at $199 a month, and the page shows $699 a month for all models. Claude is available for Custom Prompts only. Index question sets are retested monthly.
Our directory describes the best fit as Ahrefs users who want directional AI mention research at index scale, not precise prompt-level tracking.
What Promptwatch offers
Promptwatch tracks prompts you choose, daily per model, country, and language, with Visibility Score, Share of Voice, Sentiment, and Position in Answer. Beyond tracking, it provides Agent Analytics (IP-verified AI crawler logs), citation analytics, visitor analytics, an Action Board, and content generation with publishing to WordPress, Webflow, and Framer.
Plans: a free Explore tier, then Essential at $95, Professional at $245, and Business at $579 a month, with agency plans from $199.
Where they differ
Data collection. Ahrefs' index gives breadth. You can explore many prompts you never thought of, and the monthly retest keeps the cost of coverage low. Promptwatch gives you daily data on a chosen panel. Breadth versus cadence is the main trade.
Question type. If you ask, "what are people asking about our topic across AI engines?", the index is useful. If you ask, "did our page lose its citation this week, and why?", you need daily tracking tied to pages and logs.
Diagnosis. Ahrefs reports on AI crawler activity at the index level. Promptwatch's Agent Analytics reads your own crawler logs, IP-verified, and follows the crawl-to-citation path with a citation rate per page.
Action. Brand Radar sits in a research suite and hands you data. Promptwatch adds a queue and publishing: the Action Board, Content Refresh, and, on Business, the Content Agent.
Side by side
| Question | Ahrefs Brand Radar | Promptwatch |
|---|---|---|
| Primary approach | Index scale plus custom prompts | Chosen prompts tracked daily |
| Refresh cadence | Index question sets retested monthly | Prompt panels run daily |
| Own crawler logs | Not in our entry | Agent Analytics |
| AI-referred traffic and conversions | Not in our entry | Visitor analytics |
| Actions and publishing | Not in our entry | Action Board, Content Refresh, publishing |
| Entry price | Free with paid Ahrefs plans for Custom Prompts, Index from $199 | Free Explore, paid from $95 |
"Not in our entry" means we have not seen it documented in our directory, so check with the vendor if it matters.
Who should pick which
Pick Ahrefs Brand Radar if you already pay for Ahrefs, you want exploratory research on what people ask across AI engines, and you can live with small daily quotas for custom tracking. The free Custom Prompts is a cheap way to start.
Pick Promptwatch if you want to track a defined prompt set daily, see why pages are or are not cited, attribute AI-referred visits, and act from one workspace.
Use both if you value the index for topic research and need a platform for tracking and fixing. The two do not conflict.
A short test
Choose ten prompts. Track them in Brand Radar Custom Prompts and in a Promptwatch trial for two weeks. Then pick one page where you are not cited and ask each tool to help you find out why. See which one shows you bot requests, competitor pages, and a next step.
Pricing notes
Quotas matter. Brand Radar's Custom Prompts on Lite is five prompts a day, which is little for a program, and the Index jumps to $199 a month and $699 for all models. Promptwatch's Essential includes 50 prompts and 6,000 responses at $95, though it has no crawler logs, which start on Professional at $245. Compare cost against the prompts, responses, and logs you actually need.
What neither does for you
Neither makes your pages better by itself. Both depend on the quality of your prompts, your pages, and your access setup. A tool that shows you a gap does not close it. The advantage of an action-oriented platform is a shorter path from gap to fix, not a guarantee of a result.
The recommendation
For index-scale research inside a suite you already use, Ahrefs Brand Radar is a sensible addition. For tracking, diagnosis, and publishing in one workspace, Promptwatch is the better fit, and it is the one to trial first if you want actions rather than only data. Run the ten-prompt test and compare what each shows you about one uncited page.