Searchly vs Brandlight
Searchly starts at a published $99 a month, tracks the prompts you choose and puts AI crawler logs (after you connect a source), GA4 AI visits and Search Console beside the answers for each page on every plan. Brandlight sells global brands a managed program, beginning with a paid 3-month pilot at no public price.
Compared from Brandlight's own pricing and documentation, checked Oct 21, 2026. How we compare
Our verdict
Our pick: Searchly
Searchly is the better choice for most teams. Its prices are published, from $99 a month, and Pro comes with a 14-day trial; Brandlight sells a paid 3-month pilot, then an annual contract, at no public price. Every Searchly plan includes AI crawler logs, the REST API, the MCP server and an Agent that answers questions about your data in plain language; Brandlight's public pages document no crawler logs, API, MCP server or in-app assistant.
| Searchly | Brandlight | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $99 a month (Starter) | Paid 3-month pilot, no public price |
| 50 prompts, 3 engines, daily | $99 a month | Quote; weekly runs |
| Engines on the entry plan | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity | 12 engines across 10 markets |
| Site data on the entry plan | AI crawler logs once you connect a source, GA4 AI visits and Search Console | AI referrals with your own analytics data and a Search Console export at onboarding; crawler logs not documented |
| Free trial | 14 days on Pro | None; the pilot is paid |
strengths
Where Searchly comes out ahead.
From each company's own pricing pages and documentation, checked Oct 21, 2026. Each point links to its source.
Where Searchly is stronger
- Published prices: Starter $99, Pro $239 and Business $499 a month, with a 14-day Pro trial. Brandlight publishes no price and sells a paid 3-month pilot, then an annual contract. Source
- The REST API and MCP server on every plan, Starter included; the API comes with an OpenAPI spec and scoped keys that expire. Brandlight's public pages document neither. Source
- AI crawler logs and GA4 AI visits with no extra script, plus Search Console clicks and impressions for each page, all on the $99 Starter plan. Crawler logs start once you connect Cloudflare, Vercel, Netlify, WordPress, Next.js or the HTTP API. Brandlight does not document crawler logs on its current pages and uses a Search Console export at onboarding. Source
- Each prompt you choose runs once a day on every engine in your plan; a prompt you add is tracked at once. Brandlight runs its question set weekly and refreshes the set quarterly. Source
Where Brandlight focuses
- 12 engines across 10 markets, each in its own language, on a question set Brandlight builds for you and runs weekly, priced by quote within an annual contract. Source
- A managed team with a strategist, an analyst and a customer success lead, plus writer agents that deliver Markdown drafts checked against brand and claim rules; CMS publishing is "Not today". Source
capabilities
Feature by feature, with sources.
The same capabilities, in the same words, for both tools. A tag beside the status names the plan or the limit, and each note links to the page it came from. Not documented means we could not find it in Brandlight's public pages.
| Capability |  Searchly |  BrandlightPaid pilot, then contract |
|---|---|---|
| TrackingWhat is tracked, how often and for how many brands. | ||
| AI enginesIncluded means five or more named engines on a published plan, counting paid add-ons. | Included3 included, 2 add-ons ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity on every plan; Gemini and Claude as paid add-ons (Starter +$50 and +$100 a month, Pro +$150 and +$300, Business +$250 and +$500, Custom included); Copilot, DeepSeek, Google AI Mode and Grok coming soon. Source | Sales plan only12 engines 12: ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral, Naver. Source |
| Tracking cadenceIncluded means a daily run is available on a published plan. | Included Each tracked prompt runs once a day on every engine in the plan. Source | Sales plan onlyWeekly Weekly; question set refreshed quarterly. Source |
| Prompt suggestions and researchSuggested prompts or a prompt database; the note says whether volume data is shown. | IncludedNo volume data Buyer prompts suggested from your site and topics, tracked only after you accept them, or typed, pasted or uploaded as CSV and tracked at once; no search volume or difficulty. Source | Sales plan onlyBuilt for you Brandlight builds and maintains the question set from five sources. Source |
| Competitor benchmarkingCompetitors measured on the same answers. | Included Benchmark the competitors you choose on visibility, share of voice, position and citations. Source | Sales plan only No stated limit on competitors. Source |
| Several projects or brandsTwo or more projects, brands or workspaces on one published plan. | Included2 on Pro, 3 on Business 1 project on Starter, up to 2 on Pro and up to 3 on Business, sharing one prompt budget; more on Custom. Source | Sales plan onlyMulti-brand Multi-brand roll-up; no stated limit on brands or markets. Source |
| Answer evidenceWhat you can open and take away from each answer. | ||
| Full answer textThe full answer behind each result, exportable or available through an API. | IncludedAPI fallbacks labelled Open the answer behind every score with its date and citations; API fallback answers are labelled and kept out of headline metrics, and Claude is collected through Anthropic's API; answers export as CSV. Source | Sales plan only Every answer keeps its sources and run details. Source |
| Citations and sourcesCited pages and domains for each answer, with source analysis. | Included Cited domains and pages per answer, the sources that cite competitors but not you and content types including Reddit threads and YouTube videos. Source | Sales plan only Sources kept per answer. Source |
| SentimentHow answers describe the brand, per answer or per brand. | Included How AI answers describe you, positive, neutral or negative, and why. Source | Sales plan only Visibility, sentiment and share of voice. Source |
| Data exportsCSV or spreadsheet exports of answers, prompts or citations. | IncludedCSV CSV exports of answers, prompts, page evidence and crawler logs on every plan; articles export as Markdown, HTML or text on Pro and up. Source | Sales plan onlyCSV, JSON CSV or JSON (stated for contract end); export to BI. Source |
| Site evidenceWhat your own site data adds. | ||
| AI crawler logsAI crawler requests read from server, CDN or edge logs. | Included Requests from AI crawlers, verified or declared, after you connect Cloudflare (Logpush or Worker), Vercel, Next.js, Netlify, WordPress or the HTTP API; 90-day retention; CSV export. Source | Not documented Not documented on Brandlight's current pages. Source |
| AI referral visitsHuman visits from AI assistants, from GA4 or the vendor's own script. | IncludedVia GA4 Visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and other AI assistants, read from Google Analytics 4 through a read-only connection, with no extra script. Source | Sales plan onlyWith your analytics data Impact Tracker combines AI referral traffic with your analytics team's data. Source |
| Google Search ConsoleSearch Console data inside the product. | Included Search Console clicks, impressions, CTR and position by query, page, country and device beside the AI evidence for each page; no indexing data. Source | Sales plan onlyOnboarding export A Search Console export is used at onboarding. Source |
| Site auditIncluded means a multi-page technical or AI-readiness audit. | LimitedHomepage only Site Health checks your homepage and selected root files, including AI crawler access in robots.txt, llms.txt and structured data, with a fix for each; not a whole-site crawl. Source | Sales plan onlyWithin content checks Flags blocked crawlers and missing schema within content optimisation. Source |
| Taking actionWhat happens after a finding. | ||
| Recommendations or action queueA ranked list of next steps or tasks. | Included Opportunities: a ranked list of next steps tied to the evidence, from setup and on-page fixes to sites worth pitching; outreach is drafted, nothing is sent. Source | Sales plan onlyExpert-reviewed edits Agent-drafted page edits reviewed by experts. Source |
| Content generationIncluded means article generation that is generally available. | IncludedPro and up Content Studio on Pro, Business and the Pro trial: full articles or writer briefs in 8 formats from verified sources, readiness checks and accept or reject revisions; English only, hourly generation caps, no monthly article quota. Source | Sales plan onlyStrategist and writer Strategist and writer agents with brand and claim checks; Markdown output. Source |
| CMS publishingIncluded means content sent to two or more CMSs, as drafts or live. | LimitedWebflow drafts, Pro and up Approved articles go to your Webflow CMS as drafts on Pro and up; WordPress, Framer and Shopify publishing are not built. Source | Not offered Brandlight: CMS publishing 'Not today'. Source |
| AI agent or assistantAn in-app agent that works on the product's own data. | Included Agent on every paid plan and the Pro trial: ask about your AI visibility in plain language; it reads your Searchly data, opens the right page and proposes changes such as new prompts or competitors that you confirm; it does not write or publish articles. Source | Sales plan onlyContent agents Content agents draft edits for expert review; no in-app assistant described. Source |
| Access and teamsHow data leaves the tool and who can sign in. | ||
| REST APIA documented API for the visibility data. | Included REST API with an OpenAPI spec and scoped, expiring keys on every plan; operations that generate content need an active subscription or the Pro trial. Source | Not documented Not documented. Source |
| MCP serverA documented MCP server for the visibility data. | Included MCP server on every plan for AI tools that support Streamable HTTP and a custom Authorization header (bearer key, no OAuth). Source | Not documented Not documented. Source |
| Agency plans and client reportingAn agency plan, client workspaces or branded or shareable client reports. | Not offered No agency plan, white label, scheduled or PDF reports or share links; client data leaves as CSV or through the API. Source | Sales plan onlyMedia agencies 'Media agencies' solution and portfolio roll-up; white label not documented. Source |
| SSO (SAML or OIDC)Company identity-provider sign-in; Google sign-in does not count. | Not offered No SSO, SAML, SCIM or audit log; customers sign in with email and password or Google. Source | Sales plan onlySAML or OIDC SAML and OIDC; SOC 2 Type II; role-based access. Source |
| Shopping and adsProducts and ads inside AI answers. | ||
| AI shopping visibilityIncluded means the products AI answers show are captured and tracked; the tag names the engines. | IncludedChatGPT AI shopping on every plan: the products ChatGPT shows for your prompts, whose they are, their price, rating and retailer and where they rank. Source | Sales plan only3 engines AI Commerce: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode. Source |
| AI ads trackingIncluded means ads inside AI answers captured on two or more surfaces. | Not offered AI ads tracking is not built. Source | Sales plan onlyChatGPT ads AI Ads: ChatGPT Ads intelligence. Source |
| BuyingPublic prices and free trials. | ||
| Published priceA public price for a paid plan that tracks AI answers, listed on the vendor's pricing page. | Included Starter $99, Pro $239 and Business $499 a month; yearly billing is 10 times monthly; Custom is quoted. Source | Not offeredNo public price No public price; /pricing returns 404. Source |
| Free trial or free tierA documented free trial or free tier that includes AI-answer tracking. | IncludedOn Pro, 14 days 14-day trial on Pro ('Start for free'); Starter and Business have no trial; the free AI visibility report is a one-off sample, not a trial. Source | Not offeredPaid pilot Sold as a paid 3-month pilot. Source |
pricing
The same workload, priced on both.
One brand, 50 buyer prompts on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, checked once a day in one country: a common base for AI visibility tracking. Every Searchly plan includes all three engines; where Brandlight counts or includes engines differently, the note says so.
| Item | Searchly | Brandlight |
|---|---|---|
| Covers the workload | Covers it | Not as specified |
| Plan | Starter | Paid 3-month pilot, then an annual contract |
| Monthly price | $99 | Quote |
| Billed yearly | $990 a year ($82.50 a month) | Annual contract |
| The three engines | All three included | 12 engines, including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity |
| Extra cost | None | Not published |
| Free trial | None on Starter; a 14-day trial of Pro ($239 a month after) | None; the pilot is paid |
| What the plan counts | 50 prompts on 3 engines once a day: up to 4,500 runs in 30 days, the whole Starter allowance | Weekly runs of a question set Brandlight builds, scoped in the quote |
Brandlight runs weekly, so the daily workload is not offered as specified.
Prices before tax, in each company's own currency, as published on Oct 21, 2026. est. marks our arithmetic from published units. Units differ: Searchly counts runs, up to 4,500 in 30 days on 50 prompts.
Sources: Searchly: Searchly pricing; Brandlight: AI visibility, Brandlight vs Profound (Brandlight blog)
fit
Which one to choose.
Choose Searchly if…
you want a published price and prompts you choose or accept from suggestions based on your site, with the Agent, AI crawler logs, GA4 AI visits, Search Console, the REST API and the MCP server from the first plan.
Brandlight may suit you if…
you are a global enterprise brand that wants a strategist and a question set built for you across many markets and can commit to a paid pilot followed by an annual contract.
sources
Sources and scope.
How we compare. We read each company's own pricing page, documentation and changelog, noting the day we checked each one. A capability we could not find is marked Not documented; Not offered means the company's own pages say it is not part of the product. Both columns follow the same rules. We do not compare visibility scores between tools: engines, collection methods and formulas differ.
Brandlight sources
- Brandlight home
- AI visibility
- AI commerce
- AI ads
- Content creation
- Content optimization
- Impact tracking
- Brandlight vs Profound (Brandlight blog)
- Brandlight pricing URL (no page published)
Searchly sources
Spotted an out-of-date detail about Brandlight? Email piotr@trysearchly.com and we will check it against Brandlight's pages.
The positioning map and its methodrelated
Also on your shortlist?
get started
Make the comparison with your own brand.
Start a 14-day free trial of Pro. Track your own buyer prompts, open the answers and sources behind them and decide with evidence.