AEOCheck vs. BrightLocal

A monitoring subscription for someone already doing local SEO, or a one-off diagnosis for someone who isn't. Different jobs — here is how to tell which one you have.

By Tyson McKay · Published 2026-09-01 · Last verified 2026-09-04 · 9 min read · How we review

Disclosure: AEOCheck sells a competing product. We write these pages under a published method, we say what the other tool does better than us, and every claim about them is read from their own material and dated.

The honest difference

Start with the fact this page used to get wrong. BrightLocal has shipped AI visibility measurement — their Local AI Visibility feature — and it is included at no extra cost on all three plans (Track, Manage and Grow) for every active location. It shows how a business comes up when people ask ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode for a recommendation, broken down by platform, prompt type and individual prompt, with a competitor comparison and a trend chart from your second check onward. That is a real product from a company that has been doing local SEO software for a long time, and pretending otherwise would make everything else on this page worthless.

So the honest question is not whether BrightLocal measures AI visibility. It is what kind of purchase each of these is.

BrightLocal is a monitoring subscription. You set up a location, it re-checks on a schedule, the chart moves, and someone — you, your marketing person, your agency — reads the chart and decides what to do about it. Everything about it assumes there is an ongoing local SEO effort for the numbers to feed. If you are already doing that work, a dashboard that adds AI answers alongside rankings, citations and reviews for the same subscription is a genuinely good deal, and a 14-day trial with no card is the right way to find out whether you will actually open it.

AEOCheck is a diagnosis. You pay once, we run the actual buyer searches for your trade and your town — "who is the best roofer in Phoenix", not "tell me about Smith Roofing" — across ChatGPT/OpenAI, Perplexity, Google Gemini and Google organic, and you get a report that says where you stand, why, the names of who gets recommended instead of you, and five specific fixes in order of impact. A dashboard tells you your score every week. A diagnosis tells you what to do on Tuesday.

Two other differences matter for a small business. First, engine coverage: BrightLocal's help centre names ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode; Perplexity and Gemini are not named there, and we mark them unknown rather than absent. AEOCheck measures Perplexity and Gemini directly. Second, what happens after the number: the AEOCheck report ends with the fixes and, if you want them done for you, a separately scoped engagement with a 90-day re-measurement. BrightLocal's equivalent is its AI Insights list plus a Managed SEO service at $1,299 per month.

If you run local SEO as an ongoing discipline, choose BrightLocal and use the trial. If you have never done any of this, do not want a subscription, and mainly want to know whether AI is sending your customers to someone else and what to change, that is the $25 report.

What each one measures

BrightLocal's features and pricing as published on their own site, checked 2026-09-04. Their product changes without telling us — verify anything you are deciding on. Plan prices: BrightLocal's pricing page quotes plan prices by active-location count in the page itself rather than in the HTML we can read, so the only price we print is the 'from $39 per month' their help centre states. Check the exact tier price on their page before you decide.

What the numbers say

Across the 212 businesses AEOCheck has scanned so far, 192 — 91% — failed their AI visibility check. Most had the same three problems: AI crawlers blocked, no structured data, and no content for engines to cite. None of those are fixed by automating a Google Business Profile.

That number is read live from our own scan corpus when this page loads, counting the most recent scan per business — not a figure typed in once and left.

Choose BrightLocal if

BrightLocal is the better purchase when at least one of these is true:

• You already run local SEO as an ongoing effort and want AI visibility in the same dashboard as rankings, citations and reviews, for the same subscription
• You manage several locations or several clients and need the numbers per location, on a schedule, in a report you can hand to someone
• You want to watch a trend, not take a snapshot — their chart starts moving from your second check
• You need citation building or review campaigns anyway, and would rather buy one platform than two tools
• You are not sure yet — a 14-day trial with no card is a cheap way to find out whether you will open it

Their help centre puts the entry price at $39 per month, priced by active location; the exact tier prices are on their pricing page. If you would use the rest of the platform, the AI feature is effectively free.

Choose AEOCheck if

The $25 report is the better purchase when:

• You have never done local SEO in any organised way and do not want a subscription reminding you of that every month
• Your actual question is "when someone in my town asks ChatGPT who to hire, does it say my name — and if not, whose?"
• You want Perplexity and Gemini measured directly, not only ChatGPT and Google's AI features
• You want the fixes written down in order, including the technical ones — a blocked crawler, a missing business type in your schema, a page nothing can quote
• You want a fixed price, a defined deliverable and, if you go further, a scoped engagement that re-measures at 90 days

The question to ask first

Before choosing either, ask one question: when someone in your city asks ChatGPT or Perplexity who to hire for what you do, does your business get named? If you do not know, that is the thing to find out first — a subscription and a diagnosis are both wasted on a problem you have not confirmed.

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FAQ

Where this came from

• BrightLocal help centre — What is Local AI Visibility? (read 2026-09-04) — https://help.brightlocal.com/hc/en-us/articles/37989673412114-What-is-Local-AI-Visibility
• BrightLocal help centre — How much does BrightLocal cost? (read 2026-09-04) — https://help.brightlocal.com/hc/en-us/articles/12623266931730-How-much-does-BrightLocal-cost
• BrightLocal pricing page (read 2026-09-04) — https://www.brightlocal.com/pricing/

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