My Scalenut review for AI Search Visibility

12 min read
Sep 29, 2025 7:21:20 AM

The bottom line about ScalenutAI search visibility for your business

Scalenut is a simple and low-cost tool to track how your brand shows up in AI search. It works with four AI search engines: Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT, and Claude (not Copilot).

The dashboards are clear and easy to read. You can see if your brand is mentioned, what prompts you appear for, who your competitors are, and which websites AI engines are using as sources.

Scalenut’s AI Traffic Monitor also shows how much traffic you get from AI tools. It separates visits from bots and real users. To use this, you need to connect your site to Cloudflare. For brand sentiment, Scalenut tracks real conversations on Reddit and labels them as positive, neutral, or negative.

You can choose how often the data updates: daily, weekly, or monthly. This tool is better for tracking trends over time, not for checking quick changes.

Unlike Writesonic, it doesn’t give step-by-step actions. But it does show gaps and helpful ideas, and you can use GA4 to track deeper results.

For small to mid-sized teams (up to €20M revenue) that want clear AI visibility at a fair price. Scalenut is a smart and simple choice.

Feature Rating Notes
Multi-AI Engine Coverage ★★★★☆ (4/5) Monitors 4 engines (AI Overviews, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude) but missing Copilot
User Experience ★★★★★ (5/5) Simplest interface among competitors; easy to navigate once you understand GEO Core & Watchtower
Data Accuracy ★★★★☆ (4/5) Trustworthy measured data, but the "daily updates" claim vs the monthly reality is misleading
AI Traffic Attribution ★★★★☆ (4/5) Works well but requires Cloudflare setup (mandatory friction point)
Actionable Insights ★★☆☆☆ (2/5) Provides data but minimal execution guidance; Source Domains offers some action points
Lead/Conversion Tracking ★★☆☆☆ (2/5) Shows traffic only; cannot correlate to clients without GA4 integration
Brand Sentiment Tracking ★★★☆☆ (3/5) Reddit-only monitoring; no comprehensive sentiment charts, just raw conversations
Brand Presence Overview ★★★★☆ (4/5) Straight to the point with visibility & competitor data, but minimal depth
Competitor Analysis ★★★★☆ (4/5) Shows who's winning in your niche with content ideas to catch up
Pricing Value ★★★★★ (5/5) $78/month for 150 prompts is highly competitive vs $249 alternatives; usage-based flexibility
Data Freshness ★★★★☆ (4/5) Claims daily but actually monthly refresh available; can choose frequency
Setup Complexity ★★★★☆ (4/5) Initial setup is straightforward, but Cloudflare integration is required for full features

✓ Best for:

  • Small to mid-sized businesses (€0-20M revenue)
  • Teams wanting simple, affordable AI visibility monitoring
  • Brands needing competitor benchmarking without overwhelm

✗ Not ideal for:

  • Large enterprises needing thousands of prompts (costs scale up)
  • Teams requiring deep, actionable guidance beyond data
  • Businesses needing comprehensive sentiment tracking beyond Reddit

Overall rating: (3.75/5)

 

What is Scalenut? Scalenut’s core features

Choosing the right AI search engine visibility software is a critical decision for businesses looking to capitalize on a rapidly growing new marketing channel like AI Search. Scalenut is one platform that could come up in discussions about AI visibility, sentiment tracking, and actions beyond insights.

I wrote this article based on my personal experience with Scalenut, as well as trusted sources like G2, summarizing what other marketers and business founders have to say about Scalenut's strengths and limitations.

We'll break down Scalenut's features, pricing, and common pain points, using honest user feedback to highlight whether it's the right choice for businesses looking to monitor their AI search visibility.

If you're considering Scalenut, this review will help you assess whether it meets your needs,  or if its data quality, cost, or usability could be a drawback.

Scalenut landing page

Scalenut's home page and key features

How did I test Scalenut? 

I tested Scalenut because their team contacted me on LinkedIn and asked me to do a platform test 3 months ago. I've been using Scalenut ever since.

This does not mean that this review will be biased, as I'm writing it on behalf of a marketing agency. I aim to provide an objective review to help businesses and freelancers make informed decisions about the vast array of AI search visibility tools. 

Can Scalenut provide you with relevant metrics? 

To give you a helpful answer, I will be focusing on a few aspects that I consider essential as a marketer working for businesses that need to monitor their AI search visibility: 

- Does Scalenut have multi-AI-engine coverage?

Yes, Scalenut monitors 4 AI search engines: AI Overviews, Perplexity,  ChatGPT, and Claude. Scalenut does not monitor Copilot. 

- Does Scalenut offer a good user experience? 

Of all the AI search visibility tools I tried, Scalenut has the simplest user experience.

Once you understand what the GEO Core and GEO Watchtower are, navigating Scalenut becomes easy. Scalenut is simple also because it has a limited number of features. Unlike with Writesonic, Semrush, or SE Ranking, you won't get lost. Scalenut does three things compared to the tens of things done by other software solutions. 

- Does Scalenut offer a good amount of data for its price?

However, the decision was not easy, as the interface of GEO Watchtower is significantly more minimal compared to Writesonic, making me unsure about what to say. But then I asked a few questions:

- Does Scalenut offer business managers a quick brand visibility report? Yes, it does. 
- Does Scalenut give you an idea of what prompts you're getting mentioned, and what you're not? Yes, it does. 
- Does Scalenut offer an overview of how other competitors are doing? Yes, and it also provides content ideas to catch up with companies that have high visibility in your chosen niche.

All this for a total of $79/month. 

- Does Scalenut give accurate and trustworthy data? 

This is what Scalenut writes on their help center: 

<<Scalenut scans AI-generated responses across models like ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, Perplexity, and Claude every day. This means you'll receive daily updates [...]>>

This is what I think about Scalenut data: 

They're accurate because Scalenut runs a set of prompts based on your business details (more about how this works in the paragraph "How Scalenut works"). 

However, in my case, the process was not performed daily, but rather every month. Even if the customer service tells me the prompts could be run either daily or weekly. You can read this in the screenshot below:

Screenshot 2025-09-24 at 12.59.29

Does this monthly process make Scalenut inadequate for your AI search visibility needs? Not at all. You still have an overview, but the fluctuations in 30 days could be significant, and you may experience some delay in decision-making. 

- Does Scalenut offer an AI referral attribution that actually works? 

Yes, Scalenut has an AI referral attribution system, which they call AI Traffic Monitor. It displays both the top AI sources of traffic and the most visited pages. 

But, here is the but: You need to connect your domain to GEO Watchtower through Cloudflare. 

To set everything up correctly, follow this tutorial

AI traffic monitor Scalenut

Scalenut's AI traffic analytics overview 

- Does Scalenut offer actionable tips beyond just data? 

When it comes to Scalenut, it provides you with data, but you still need to interpret it. There is no assistance in "executing" those tips. 

Let's take Writesonic as a reference point. Writesonic offers the "Action center," which provides clear issues and explains how to solve them. None of this is available in Scalenut. 

But I also want to highlight that if you go to the "Source Domains" tool, you can get some action points: 

- Click on the leading competitors
- You will see the pages that are helping them to gain AI search visibility 
- You can create your own content to gain AI search visibility.  

Source domains

Source domains' page to get content ideas

- Can you connect those citations to the number of clients you receive? 

No, Scalenut does not indicate how many clients you will receive. It can show you the traffic that comes from AI search engines, but the analysis stops here. To get more granular analytics, you need to connect GA4. 

- Does Scalenut offer a brand's sentiment tracking? 

Yes, and no. Scalenut offers brand-sentiment tracking via its Social UpReach module (but it's focused on Reddit). You won't have a chart with lines and curves. What you will see instead are real conversions happening about your brand on Reddit. You can filter them based on "positive", "negative", or "neutral".

Scalenut online sentiment

Reddit social UpReach monitoring tool

But you won't find a "brand sentiment" tracker based on hundreds of AI search engines' prompts. 

You can find a quick overview of how the Scalenut brand monitor works in the video below (sorry for the missing thumbnail). 

 

- Does Scalenut offer a good brand presence overview? 

Yes, Scalenut offers a brand presence overview. Straight to the point and helpful information. Don't expect to be overwhelmed by a massive amount of data, however. Scalenut tells you 2 things only: 

1. How is your brand presence across LLMs?
2. How are your competitors doing?  

Brand presence overview by Scalenut

Brand presence overview

- Does Scalenut show you the estimated traffic from AI search engines to your business?

Yes. Scalenut shows measured (not just estimated) traffic coming from AI search interfaces, once you enable its Cloudflare-based tracking. Here is Scalenut's guide in case you need it. Am I satisfied with Scalenut's AI search traffic monitor? Yes, I'm satisfied, but I always keep in mind that these are estimates. And I would rather set up my GA4 to track AI search traffic. 

 

How does Scalenut's AI search visibility work?

The first step in understanding how Scalenut works is setting up the tool. When you log in for the first time, Scalenut will request your business domain. 

Then, Scalenut will provide a brief AI-generated description of your business based on the information on the website. You can (and should) review this AI-generated description, as it will significantly impact how Scalenut helps your site. 

Once you do all the steps, you're ready to start monitoring your AI search visibility. 

Scalenut interface

Scalenut's GEO Watchtower initial interface

What data does Scalenut AI search visibility collect?

Scalenut's GEO Watchtower runs brand- and topic-specific prompts across major AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Overview, Perplexity) and logs whether/how your brand is mentioned. This visibility dataset is refreshed daily or weekly. 

AI brand visibility

GEO Watchtower extracts the domains cited inside AI answers. It aggregates them in a Sources view (with counts, categories, and an "impact" signal). I find this part quite useful, as it shows which websites are shaping AI answers in your niche and where to focus content to increase the number of citations.

Scalenut sourcesScalenut's competitors' AI search visibility

AI traffic analytics

Scalenut can also monitor the traffic coming from AI search engines to your website. Traffic Monitor needs a one-time Cloudflare setup. Once up and running, Scalenut reads server-side logs to:

  • Identify AI crawlers visiting your pages (e.g., GPTBot, Claude, Perplexity, etc.)
  • Separate human visits from bot hits. You also get top pages/bots and trend graphs to see whether AI answers are actually sending people to your site.
  • Scalenut AI traffic analysis
    Scalenut's AI traffic analysis

Brand sentiment tracking on Reddit

With Social UpReach, Scalenut tracks Reddit threads and sentiment about your brand/keywords, which is valuable because Reddit is frequently mentioned in AI search results and influences AI answers. 

What would I improve in Scalenut's analytics?

I would include a list of actions to take to increase the AI search visibility of a brand. A quick action plan will speed up the implementation, and your business will achieve results more quickly. 

Where does Scalenut take the information? 

Here is where Scalenut gets the data it uses for AI search visibility: 

1. AI engines (prompt runs): GEO Watchtower programmatically runs brand-/topic-specific prompts on major AI models (OpenAI/ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google "AI Overview/Gemini") and logs whether your brand/domain is mentioned. From each tracked prompt, Scalenut parses domains cited by the AI and aggregates them in the Sources tab. 

2. Server-side AI traffic analytics: To attribute traffic from AI, Scalenut integrates with Cloudflare. The AI Traffic Monitor then classifies:

  • AI bot visits (e.g., GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, BingBot, Googlebot, etc.)
  • Human visits that come for AI search are shown separately on the timeline (e.g., clicks from ChatGPT/Perplexity/Google AI Overview) 

What I think about Scalenut's data quality:  

- AI search traffic is measured, and not guessed, once you connect to Cloudflare.
- It shows the exact AI answers it checked and who they cited.
- Data are fresh as you can get a daily, weekly, or monthly report based on your needs. 

This being said, I think Scalenut's data is trustworthy for decision-making.

How is Scalenut's user experience?

Scalenut is one of the simplest AI search visibility tools to use. This is also because it has a limited set of tools (the opposite of Semrush and Ahrefs). 

Here is a more detailed breakdown of Scalenut's UX: 

  • Clean sidebar navigation;
  • Clear dashboards for AI visibility and AI traffic
  • Easy Cloudflare connection flow;
  • Filtering by AI model/topic/geo; focused
  • Helpful Reddit sentiment view.

Here are some frictions to expect:

  • Cloudflare is mandatory for AI-traffic attribution (one-time setup);

  • Social listening is Reddit-only in-product (by design).

How much does Scalenut cost?

This answer was a trickie one. On Scalenut's website, they write, "Starting from 1$ a month." 

I dont trust it

My face when I read "1$/month"

So, I decided to write to Scalenut for assistance, and they replied within a few minutes (thank you for your help!).

Here is the detailed answer regarding Scalenut's AI search visibility pricing, as extracted from our conversation. 

<<The pricing for Scalenut's AI Search Visibility (GEO Watchtower) is based on 3 main factors:

1. Number of prompts

2. Number of AI engines you're tracking on (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, AI Overview, Perplexity)

3. Frequency of refresh –  either daily or weekly

Example:

If you track 10 prompts across 2 search engines with daily refreshes, the pricing would be higher than the base rate — and calculated based on that usage combination.>>

Then, the customer service asked me to provide precise numbers for each of those 3 parameters, and so I did it

1. Number of prompts to monitor: 150

2. Number of AI engines: 3 (AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity)

3. Frequency of refresh: Weekly refresh. 

And within 10 minutes, the customer service got back to me with this calculation: 

<<It will cost you around $78 per month. Please refer to the attached screenshot.>>

Scalenut pricing (2)

The answer directly from Scalenut's customer service

Here's also what the customer service writes about their pricing: 

<<We’ve intentionally designed our pricing model to be completely usage-based, so that brands of all sizes can take advantage of Scalenut’s AI-powered search visibility monitoring without unnecessary overhead. This flexibility ensures you're only paying for what you need, while still accessing powerful insights.>>

Here's what I think about Scalenut's pricing:

In case I need a platform to monitor my business's AI search visibility, provide reports to my clients or managers, and do so without incurring significant costs. In that case, Scalenut is the most convenient option, and I would choose it. $78 is significantly less than $249/month for Writesonic and $249 for Semrush. 

It is also true that if you're a big corporation that needs to monitor thousands of prompts, then the price will skyrocket quickly. 

However, while writing this blog post, I'm targeting companies with annual revenues of €0-20M, and 150 prompts should be more than enough to provide a clear AI visibility overview.  

Here's what users mention about Scalenut's pricing: 

Some positive feedback about Scalenut's pricing (although they're not mentioning the AI search visibility):

Scalenut positive review 2

Scalenut Pricing

And here's a negative feedback about Scalenut's pricing: 

Scalenut negative review on pricing

Scalenut positive pricing review

What is my conclusion on Scalenut?

My conclusion about Scalenut as an AI search visibility is the following: 

If you need an AI search visibility tool that:

  • Provides you with straight-to-the-point analytics
  • Cost is based on how much you use it 
  • Has a straightforward user interface 

Then Scalenut is the choice. It costs quite a little for an average business case, and it provides all the accurate information you need.