Canonry is my first pick for agencies that want an open-source agency operating system. It connects AI visibility, built-in site audits, search and analytics, ads, content work, and recurring checks. Your team and agents can operate it through CLI, API, MCP, and the web app, with webhooks connecting events to your other systems.
Bing Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console, and GA4 supply data you can also connect to Canonry. OpenSEO offers another platform for SEO research and AI tracking. Ahrefs, HubSpot, and Screaming Frog are optional tools for specific checks, depending on how your team prefers to work.
The agency's job covers the full cycle: understand the client's business, measure visibility, investigate gaps, make approved changes, and report what happened. Choose tools that support that work and preserve the evidence between client reviews.
I build Canonry. This shortlist reflects the agency jobs each tool can support and its documented free offering, checked on October 23, 2026. It is not a hands-on performance benchmark or a claim that one tool measures every AI experience.
The best free agency tools at a glance
Answer engine optimization, or AEO, is the work of improving how a business appears in AI answers. This list includes agency operating platforms, connected data sources, and focused tools. Their roles overlap: Canonry, for example, already includes site crawling and audits alongside its visibility and execution workflows.
Here, free means an ongoing free service, a limited free check, or software with no license fee. The table separates those offers. Free software can still have running costs. Paid trials are excluded.
| Tool | Best agency use | What is free | Main limit or cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canonry | Agency OS for AI visibility, audits, ads, publishing, and automation | MIT software; CLI, API, MCP, web app, and webhooks | Infrastructure, provider usage, and ad spend |
| OpenSEO | Keep SEO research, AI tracking, and reports in client projects | MIT software you host | Hosting, upkeep, DataForSEO, and model usage |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Report citations on supported Microsoft AI surfaces | Hosted webmaster tools | Verified site; coverage is limited to supported surfaces |
| Google Search Console | Check Google AI impressions and indexing | Hosted search reporting | AI report availability depends on sufficient impressions |
| Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker | Get a quick brand and competitor snapshot | No-signup checker | Top-five previews; deeper tracking is paid |
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | Review how AI describes a brand | One-time diagnostic | Form required for full results; ongoing tracking is paid |
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Optional standalone desktop crawl of a smaller site | Up to 500 URLs per crawl | Advanced features require a license |
| Google Analytics 4 | Report AI visits and key events | Standard analytics service | Measures recorded visits, not all AI exposure |
1. Canonry: best open-source agency OS
Canonry is an agency operating system for AEO, SEO, and connected advertising work. It keeps client evidence, integrations, actions, and schedules in one platform. Your team can carry an engagement from the first site audit through approved changes and recurring reporting.
CLI, REST API, and MCP are core operating interfaces. Connect your own agent to investigate and act, use the web app to review the same evidence, and use webhooks to connect Canonry events to agency workflows. The MCP documentation explains how agents reach the platform's public operations.
The scope covers the work around each client account:
- Measure AI mentions and citations, inspect exact answers and sources, and compare properties or markets with defined measurement plans.
- Run built-in Site Health crawls, inspect pages and internal links, and investigate technical findings during onboarding and after changes.
- Connect Search Console, GA4, Bing Webmaster Tools, Google Business Profile, and server traffic to investigate search performance, crawler activity, referrals, and conversions. See the integration overview.
- Work with ChatGPT Ads campaign measurement, paused campaign edits, and approved activation. Connect Google Ads and Google Tag Manager for read-only conversion and tracking checks. Keep advertising results separate from organic AI visibility.
- Prepare content and WordPress changes, work with structured data and indexing submissions, and verify the result after approved publication.
- Set independent schedules and webhook notifications for checks, data refreshes, citation changes, and operational events. Export the evidence for client reporting.
For example, an agency can start with a Site Health crawl, inspect a market where competitors receive citations, bring in search and conversion data, and prepare a page update for approval. After publication, a scheduled check measures the next result and a webhook can notify the team's existing system. The client project retains the evidence for the next review.
What is free: the MIT-licensed platform. Hosting, maintenance, external provider usage, and ad spend are separate. The deployment model is one operator or team per instance; use separate instances for unrelated teams that need isolation. Managed services are a separate offering.
2. OpenSEO: best for SEO research alongside AI tracking
OpenSEO combines keyword research, rank tracking, backlinks, site audits, and AI visibility. For an agency already handling SEO retainers, it offers a way to bring that research and AI tracking into the same client workspace.
Its MCP tools let an agent use saved project context, research logs, and reports. Your team can preserve a client's goals and competitors, investigate a topic, and save a report for review.
The AI visibility workflow supports exact questions grouped by topic, engines, and market, with daily, weekly, or monthly checks. It shows an estimated cost before starting a check or schedule. Saved answers and citations give the team evidence to review between runs.
What is free: the MIT-licensed software you host yourself. Budget for hosting and maintenance, plus DataForSEO and any OpenRouter usage your workflow needs. The self-hosting guide explains the setup. The separate hosted service has paid plans and a limited trial.
Record how each answer was collected. OpenSEO documents consumer-site collection for ChatGPT and Gemini tracking, while Claude and Perplexity checks use model APIs. Its Prompt Explorer uses API answers. Those observations should retain their collection method when you compare or present them.
3. Bing Webmaster Tools: best for Microsoft citation evidence
Bing's AI Performance report shows citations across Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing, and selected partner integrations. It includes cited pages and sampled grounding queries, the searches used to retrieve supporting content. Microsoft explains the report's coverage and metrics here.
For an agency, this is useful evidence to bring into a client review. Identify the cited URLs, check which services or topics they cover, and compare periods before deciding where to investigate.
What is free: Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service. Get access to the client's verified property during onboarding.
Keep the report's scope in the slide or spreadsheet. Its citation totals do not tell you a page's position within an answer. Grounding queries are sampled, and this report does not measure every answer engine.
4. Google Search Console: best for Google AI impressions and indexing
Google Search Console is free and belongs in every agency's search toolkit. It helps investigate indexing problems and shows how a client's site performs in Google Search.
Its Generative AI performance report now reports impressions in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google says the worldwide rollout completed on August 31, 2026. You can review the data by page, country, device, and date.
Use it to find pages gaining or losing Google AI exposure, then inspect their content and indexing status. Keep that view beside the wider Search performance report so the client can see the broader search picture.
What is free: the service and its reports. You need access to the client's property. The AI report may be absent if the site has too few impressions; that absence is not proof of zero AI visibility. The dedicated report measures impressions, so do not label its totals as AI visits or conversions.
5. Ahrefs AI Visibility Checker: best for a quick prospect snapshot
The free Ahrefs checker provides a quick look at brand mentions across major AI platforms. Its limited report includes mention totals, a platform breakdown, and the top five topics, cited domains, and cited pages.
That makes it useful before a discovery call. Check the prospect and a few named competitors, save the date, and use the results to choose questions for a deeper review. A cited page can also give your content team a concrete source to inspect.
What is free: the checker requires no account or credit card, and Ahrefs says you can check unlimited brands. The free preview is limited; historical analysis and custom prompt tracking belong to paid Brand Radar.
The results reflect Ahrefs' prompt database. Its search-backed prompts come from search data, so avoid describing them as a log of what customers asked ChatGPT. Treat the report as a starting sample when defining the client's own tracking questions.
6. HubSpot AI Search Grader: best for a brand perception check
HubSpot's AI Search Grader asks how AI represents a brand and returns a scored assessment with written explanations. It covers areas such as sentiment, recognition, and competitive position across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
Use it during a brand or content workshop. Compare the descriptions with the client's actual services, markets, and positioning. Turn specific inaccuracies into research tasks: inspect the relevant pages and public sources before recommending changes.
What is free: a one-time diagnostic with no account required. HubSpot asks you to complete a short form to see the full results. Its separate HubSpot AEO product provides ongoing monitoring on paid plans.
The grade summarizes the tool's assessment. A score of 80 does not mean 80 percent of buyers see the brand, and a better grade alone does not establish more leads. Include the underlying descriptions when sharing findings with a client.
7. Screaming Frog SEO Spider: best for a standalone desktop crawl
Screaming Frog's free edition crawls up to 500 URLs per crawl. It can help find broken links, redirect issues, missing metadata, and restrictive indexing directives.
Canonry already includes site crawling and audits. Screaming Frog is an optional choice for teams that prefer a separate desktop crawler or want another view of a smaller site. Export the affected URLs and findings for the developer, keeping the crawl date and number of URLs reached with the report.
What is free: the limited desktop crawler. JavaScript rendering, saving and reopening crawls, and API integrations require the paid edition. On a large site, a 500-URL crawl is partial coverage. On a site that depends on JavaScript to display its content, the free crawl may miss important material.
Site findings help explain what to investigate. They cannot establish whether an answer engine mentioned the client. Verify that separately through answer evidence or platform reports.
8. Google Analytics 4: best for visits and business outcomes
GA4's standard service is free. Use it to report what happens after someone reaches a client's site, including the key events you have configured for inquiries, bookings, or purchases.
GA4 now has an AI Assistant default channel for visits from recognized assistant sources. Google's channel definitions keep traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode within Organic Search.
In the Traffic acquisition report, inspect Session default channel group and the AI Assistant row. Review the landing pages and key events associated with those visits. Check that the client's event setup works before treating an empty result as a lack of inquiries.
What is free: standard analytics and reporting. GA4 needs working measurement on the site, and attribution depends on the signals it receives. It does not count mentions or citations that never lead to a recorded visit.
How to use the toolkit on a client account
Start with one client and a small, repeatable scope. The goal is a report that leads to specific work and lets you check the next result.
- Connect the client project and define the brief. Connect the relevant search, analytics, and advertising accounts in Canonry. Agree on the client's services, markets, competitors, and business outcomes. Keep each client's evidence and credentials clearly separated.
- Record a starting point. Run Canonry's built-in Site Health audit and collect the initial visibility evidence. Review connected search and analytics data. Use Ahrefs or HubSpot when an additional brand snapshot would help. Label missing reports as unavailable and limited crawls as partial.
- Choose questions to track. Build a small set around the client's services and buying decisions. Separate branded questions from broader category questions. In Canonry or OpenSEO, record the chosen engines, markets, and schedule, with a provider budget the team can maintain.
- Assign a specific change. Inspect the evidence before writing a task. A broken service-page link needs a repair; an inaccurate service description needs a content review. Record the page, owner, approval, and publication date.
- Automate follow-up and report. Schedule the next checks and data refreshes, and connect webhook events to the team's workflow. Use the same scope and comparable periods. Show what changed, what stayed uncertain, and the next action. If the questions or engines changed, explain that before comparing percentages.
Keep these numbers separate in client reports
| Measure | What it tells the client | What it cannot establish by itself |
|---|---|---|
| Brand mentions in sampled answers | Whether the brand appeared in the answers collected | How often all buyers saw the brand |
| Source citations | Whether a page or domain was referenced | Visits or sales |
| Google AI impressions | Whether links appeared in supported Google AI features | Clicks or conversions from those impressions |
| Recorded AI visits | Whether identifiable AI traffic reached the site | All exposure without a click |
| Key events | Whether configured actions were recorded and attributed | That an AEO change caused the action |
For recurring agency work, start with Canonry as the operating system and connect the data sources each client needs. Add the focused tools when they answer a specific question, or evaluate OpenSEO if its SEO research workflow fits your team. Keep the software, provider usage, and advertising budgets clear from the start.
If you are replacing a paid monitoring platform, also compare collection methods, exports, and ongoing operating costs in our free Profound and Peec alternatives guide.