How can a marketing agency run a free AI visibility audit to win new clients?
How can a marketing agency run a free AI visibility audit to win new clients? A step-by-step method, plus the tools that make audits fast and repeatable.
A free AI visibility audit works as a sales tool because it shows a prospect something they have never seen: what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers say about their brand, next to what they say about the competitor they worry about most. It is concrete, it takes a few minutes to explain, and it leads naturally to a paid program.
The catch is that a good audit has to be quick for you to produce and credible for the prospect to read. This guide covers the method, then compares tools by how well they suit agency audits. For pitch work, Promptwatch is the one we would start with, mostly because of its agency plans and pitch projects.
Step 1: choose the prompts before the prospect sees anything
An audit is only as good as its prompts. Spend time here.
- Write 20 to 40 prompts per prospect, grouped into three types: category discovery ("best [category] for [use case]"), competitor comparison ("[prospect] vs [rival]"), and brand ("is [prospect] good for...").
- Phrase them the way a buyer would, not the way the prospect's marketing team would.
- Include the prospect's top two or three competitors, so share of voice means something.
- For local or regional prospects, add the location to the prompt, and track by country at least.
Keep the prompt list in the audit appendix, so the prospect can see and challenge it. That transparency is what makes the result credible.
Step 2: run the panel across several engines
Check at least ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini. A prospect strong in one and absent in another is a useful story. Running prompts by hand works for a first look, but answers vary from run to run, so a single manual check proves little. Repeat each prompt several times, or use a tool that samples daily, and report ranges instead of single outcomes.
Step 3: capture four things
For each prospect, record:
- Appearance. In what share of answers does the brand show up, and where?
- Competitor comparison. Who shows up instead, and how often?
- Sources. Which pages and domains are cited, including Reddit and YouTube, and whether any are the prospect's own.
- Access. Whether AI crawlers can reach the prospect's site. You can check robots.txt and llms.txt without any login, and a no-login scan helps.
Step 4: turn findings into three recommendations
A free audit should not try to fix everything. End with a short list: one content gap to fill, one technical or access issue, one off-site opportunity. Keep each recommendation tied to evidence in the audit.
Be careful with promises. No audit can say the prospect will be recommended after your work. State what the data shows and what you would test.
Tools for running agency audits
Promptwatch fits agency audits for several reasons. Agency plans (Kick-off $199 a month, Growth $399, Scale $799) include unlimited projects, unlimited pitch projects, unlimited prompts, ten seats, all models, Agent Chat, country, state and city tracking, visitor analytics, crawler logs, site audit, content gap analysis, custom reports and the Looker Studio connector. Pitch projects let you build an audit for a prospect without using up a client slot. Promptwatch also publishes free tools: an AI Visibility Report that scans without login, an Agentic Readiness Check, and the GEO Inspector Chrome extension, which shows ChatGPT fan-outs and fetched versus cited sources. A white-label workspace and client portal are listed for agencies, and PDF exports can carry white-label branding. We do not tie white-label to a specific plan, so check that before you promise it.
Agency plans do not include AEO articles, the knowledge base, the 360 Insights dashboard, Shopping Insights or the automated Content Agent. If you want those for a client later, you would need a brand plan for that client.
AthenaHQ has a free Essential tier with 300 credits, which is workable for a couple of manual prospect checks, and Starter is $295 a month. Scrunch AI Core is $250 a month, and its brand workspace model suits one brand at a time. Rankscale Growth ($385 a month) lists white-label options and is cheaper to start with at $20 a month on Essentials. Foglift has unlimited free technical audits and a free tier, with a branded client portal on Growth at $129 a month. LLMrefs lists unlimited projects, which suits many small audits, though no dollar figure showed when we read the page.
Comparison table
| Tool | Free audit support | Prospect or pitch workspaces | Agency pricing | Crawler logs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Promptwatch | No-login AI Visibility Report; Agentic Readiness Check | Unlimited pitch projects on agency plans | $199 to $799/mo | Yes, on agency plans |
| AthenaHQ | Free Essential, 300 credits | Not stated | $295/mo Starter | Not published |
| Scrunch AI | Not stated | One brand workspace on Core | $250/mo Core | Bot traffic reporting |
| Rankscale | No | Brand dashboards by plan | $20 to $385/mo | No |
| Foglift | Free technical audits | Client portal on Growth | $129/mo Growth | AI Crawler Analytics on every plan |
Who should pick which
An agency pitching several prospects a month: Promptwatch agency plans, because pitch projects and unlimited prompts remove the per-prospect friction.
A freelancer running a handful of audits: use a free tool plus a manual check to start, then move up when volume justifies it.
An agency that already sells technical audits: Foglift's free audits fit, with AI monitoring added.
Turning the audit into a meeting
Send the audit as a short PDF with the prompts in an appendix. Lead with one finding the prospect can verify themselves in thirty seconds, such as a competitor named in ChatGPT where they are absent. Then propose a paid first phase: a fuller prompt panel, a crawler check and a content gap analysis. Keep the language honest: you are showing the current state, not promising a ranking.