Peec AI vs Ahrefs Brand Radar: a prompt set you write against an index of 492 million prompts somebody already ran

Choose Ahrefs Brand Radar if the first question is who gets mentioned in your market, because its index has already run 492 million prompts and returns a market view with no setup, and its custom prompt quota comes free with any paid Ahrefs plan from Lite upward. Choose Peec AI if the first question is what AI answers say about the specific things your buyers ask, because every one of its tiers is built on prompts you define, on models you select, refreshed daily. That is an architectural difference, not a feature difference, and it decides which of the two can measure your business at all.

The two architectures, in each company's own words

From ahrefs.com/brand-radar, HTTP 200 on 20 October 2026: Brand Radar "measures AI visibility by running 492 million+ search-backed prompts through AI platforms (AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot) and storing every response". The same page explains how the index is built: "Ahrefs takes real queries from its keyword database, expands them into natural questions via People Also Ask and semantic fanout, then runs the resulting 492 million+ prompts through each AI platform and stores the responses." It says the index view is "best once your brand already appears in AI search", and it offers Custom Prompts separately for the other case: "great if your brand is not well-known, or you have uncommon queries to track", with the data accumulating from the moment you start.

From peec.ai/pricing, HTTP 200 the same day: three tiers at 50, 150 and 350 prompts, "Choose 3 models" on each, unlimited users, daily tracking frequency, and 1, 2 and 5 projects. Enterprise publishes fully customisable prompt tracking, a choice from all models, daily or weekly frequency, unlimited projects, custom prompt setup, API access, single sign on and up to 13 LLM models tracked. Its coverage panel publishes monthly AI answers as "calculated by multiplying tracked prompts by active models and tracking frequency". There is no index of prompts somebody else wrote. The prompt set is the product.

Why the architecture is the decision

An index built from a keyword database can only hold questions somebody has searched. That is a strength for a consumer category with real search volume behind it, because Ahrefs can weight results by the demand behind each prompt and publishes an estimated impressions metric that does exactly that. It is a limitation for a business whose buying question nobody types into a search engine. A specification shaped question, a jurisdiction and service combination, a procurement question in a niche market: those questions are asked of an assistant in a sentence and have never been a keyword.

That is the case Peec's shape handles natively and Ahrefs handles through Custom Prompts, which its own page describes in those terms. So the real comparison is not index against no index. It is whether the questions that matter to you exist in a keyword database, and how much of your measurement therefore has to be prompts you write yourself.

There is a third outcome worth planning for: the assistant answers your category question and names nobody at all. We counted how often an answer names no business at all, and a tool with no column for that result will show you a flat zero and let you read it as a failure of your content.

What our own readings say about the two names

On 16 October 2026 we put 630 buying questions to ChatGPT and Gemini across three markets, took 1,260 readings and saved the answer text. Counting one naming per reading, Ahrefs appeared in the answer text of 253 readings and Peec AI in 198.

394 readings named at least one. 57 named both in the same answer, 196 named Ahrefs alone and 141 named Peec alone. Gemini produced 41 of the joint appearances and ChatGPT 16. The low overlap for two names of similar frequency fits the architecture point: assistants tend to offer the suite and the specialist as answers to different questions.

A name in answer text and a domain in a source list are two different events, counted apart here and never added.

The criterion this page uses

We make a competing product, we have tested neither of these and nothing here is scored. The criterion is each company's own published description of where its measurement comes from and what one unit of it costs, read on a stated date. That is checkable by you on two pages and it is the field that decides whether a tool can see your market at all.

The two documents side by side

Field	Peec AI	Ahrefs Brand Radar
Where the prompts come from	You write them. The prompt set is the product	An index of 492 million prompts modelled from its keyword database, plus Custom Prompts you write
The unit	A tracked prompt, times active models, times frequency	A check: one prompt, one platform, one location, one update
Included at entry	50 prompts, three models of your choice, daily	5 custom prompts a day and 150 checks a month on a paid Ahrefs Lite plan
Engines	Choose 3 models per published tier, up to 13 on enterprise	Index covers six platforms; Custom Prompts adds Claude for seven
Cadence	Daily on published tiers, daily or weekly on enterprise	Daily, weekly or monthly, chosen per platform
Demand weighting	Not published. Every prompt you track is equally weighted	Estimated impressions, weighted by the real search volume behind each prompt
Who it is sold to	Anyone, as a standalone product	Existing paid Ahrefs customers, as part of the platform
Data out	API access and single sign on on enterprise, Looker Studio from the third tier	Export is named on its own page as part of the workflow; confirm the format

No price figures from either company appear here. Both publish their own, and those pages are current in a way a copy on ours would not be.

One number that is easy to misread

492 million prompts is an index size, not a measurement of your business. It tells you the breadth of questions Ahrefs has already asked and stored, which is a genuinely large asset and the reason the no setup view works. It does not tell you that your own buying question is among them. The test takes five minutes: open the index view, search your own market, and see whether the questions it returns are the ones your customers actually ask. If they are, the index is doing most of the job. If they are not, you are buying Custom Prompts, and the comparison with Peec becomes a straight one between two prompt allowances on named engines.

Who each one suits

• You already pay for Ahrefs. Use the included quota first. Five custom prompts a day for a month will tell you whether the index or your own prompt set is the part you need.
• Your buyers ask questions no keyword tool has heard. Peec's whole ladder is prompts you write. Ahrefs answers the same need through Custom Prompts. Compare the two allowances rather than the two products.
• You want demand weighting. Ahrefs publishes estimated impressions weighted by the search volume behind each prompt, which is a view Peec does not publish.
• Your team is more than a handful of people. Peec publishes unlimited users on every tier. For Ahrefs the constraint is the plan the quota is attached to.
• You need Claude. At Ahrefs, Claude is in Custom Prompts rather than the index, and its own page states Claude consumes eight checks per update. At Peec, Claude is one of the models you may select, with three per published tier and up to thirteen on enterprise.

Questions buyers ask when choosing between Peec AI and Ahrefs Brand Radar

Can Brand Radar track a brand nobody searches for yet?

Its own page answers this directly: the index view is best once your brand already appears in AI search, and Custom Prompts exist for brands that are not well known or have uncommon queries. So the answer is yes, through the custom side, with a daily quota set by your Ahrefs plan.

Is the 492 million prompt index better than 50 prompts I wrote myself?

They answer different questions. The index tells you who gets mentioned across a market. Fifty prompts you wrote tell you what happens on the fifty questions your pipeline depends on. Most teams want the second and are glad to have the first.

Which covers more engines?

Ahrefs names six platforms in the index and seven with Custom Prompts. Peec publishes three models per buyable tier and up to thirteen on enterprise. The list length is less useful than the question of which engines sit in the tier you are quoted, so ask for that by name.

Do the assistants prefer one of them?

Across our 1,260 readings, Ahrefs was named in 253 and Peec in 198, with both in 57 of the same answers. Mention counts follow how much the web repeats a name. Our own count on the same run was zero, which is the clearest available reminder of what that number is and is not.

Why are no prices printed here?

We record prices and do not restate them, competitors' included. Both companies publish their own figures on pages that stay current, and a restated price becomes a false statement the day a plan changes.

The five minute test that settles this one

Write the ten questions a buyer asks before they know your company exists, leaving your name out of every one of them. Search those ten in Brand Radar's index and see how many come back. Whatever fraction is missing is the part of your measurement that has to be prompts you write, and that fraction is the whole comparison. We run that exercise on our own category and publish what it returns, including the run in which our own name appeared in none of 1,260 readings.