Which software detects ads inside AI-generated answers? Ads Radar and the alternatives compared
Which software detects ads inside AI-generated answers? Promptwatch Ads Radar and other tools compared on coverage, what they capture, and which plan you need.
Ads are now showing up inside AI answers, and most visibility tools were built before that happened. If your question is "which software detects ads inside AI-generated answers", the short list is shorter than you might expect, and a fair number of tools that mention "ChatGPT Ads" are about running your own campaigns, not spotting competitors'.
That distinction is worth getting right before you buy anything.
Two different jobs
Detection: a tool runs your tracked prompts, captures the sponsored units that appear in the answer, and records who paid, what the ad said and where it pointed. This is monitoring your competitive environment.
Management: a tool helps you plan or run your own ad campaign inside an AI product. This is advertising software. It does not tell you what rivals are doing on your prompts.
Most of the confusion in vendor pages comes from mixing these. When a feature is called "ChatGPT Ads", ask which one it is.
The ranking
1. Promptwatch (Ads Radar)
Promptwatch has a dedicated feature for detection. Ads Radar captures sponsored ads that appear inside ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode answers to your tracked prompts. For each ad it records the title, description, image or price, advertiser name and domain, target URL and the prompt that triggered it. Views include ads per day, top advertisers, a By Ad table and a By Prompt table showing ad count, your average visibility and the latest ad. You can filter by model, advertiser domain, prompt type and date range.
Two limits to know. It does not cover Perplexity, and it does not report on your own OpenAI campaigns, which is what OpenAI Ads Manager is for. It is detection, not management.
Plan gating matters. Ads Radar starts on Business at $579 a month and is included on every agency plan (Kick-off $199, Growth $399, Scale $799). It is not on Essential ($95) or Professional ($245). Older articles that place it lower are out of date.
It ranks first here because it records the full ad unit rather than a flag, and because you see it next to your own visibility, citations and traffic. If an advertiser is showing up on your prompts, you can check whether you are also being cited, and which pages.
2. GEO Monitor
GEO Monitor is a French-language tracker that lists ChatGPT ads among the things its dashboard shows, alongside the full text of each answer, query fan-outs, cited domains and shopping and local results. Pricing starts at €69 a month. The app and site copy are in French, which matters if your team is not.
3. Trackbase
Trackbase is a Dutch platform that lists ChatGPT Ads management, ChatGPT Shopping tracking and crawler analytics around its visibility tracker. From €49 a month, with Professional at €199. Because its listing says "management", verify whether it detects competitor ads before relying on it for that.
4. Qwairy
Qwairy lists a sponsored module among its many modules and starts at €79 a month on a credit meter. Our catalog notes that crawler analytics sit on its Business plan and that credits run down when you track many models, so check the sponsored feature's depth in a trial.
Tools listing ChatGPT ads as a campaign feature
Rank Prompt lists ChatGPT Ads management within a wide credit-metered suite, from $39.17 a month billed annually. Cognizo lists ChatGPT Ads on its Platform plan from $499 a month. Evertune builds ChatGPT ad campaigns from visibility data and sells through demos. These read as management features, so confirm what each captures before treating any as an ad detector.
Tools without a published ad feature
In our catalog, AthenaHQ, Scrunch AI and Profound do not publish an ad-detection feature, so they are not options for this job on current information.
Comparison
| Tool | Ad feature as published | Engines | Where it starts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Promptwatch | Ads Radar: full ad unit, advertiser, URL, prompt | ChatGPT Search, AI Overviews, AI Mode | Business $579/mo; all agency plans |
| GEO Monitor | ChatGPT ads shown in dashboard | ChatGPT | €69/mo |
| Trackbase | ChatGPT Ads management | ChatGPT | From €49/mo |
| Qwairy | Sponsored module | Not specified | From €79/mo |
Who should pick which
If you need to see which advertisers bid on your prompts, what they claim and where they send traffic, Promptwatch is the clearest option, with the Business plan or an agency plan as the entry point. If you are a French-speaking team watching ChatGPT only, GEO Monitor is cheaper. If you are planning your own campaign, look at OpenAI's own tooling and the management features above.
What ad monitoring cannot do
It records what appeared on sampled runs. Ads vary by prompt, location and moment, so you see a sample, not every impression. It cannot tell you what a rival paid.