Gumshoe review (2026): is it worth $99 a month?
AI visibility audits that ask questions as your buyer personas
Gumshoe report card
Fair · out of 4.0 · graded Oct 23, 2026
Best for AI visibility broken down by buyer persona
Gumshoe builds buyer personas for your market and the prompts each would ask, then shows how AI answers change depending on who's asking. You can see one free sample audit first. After that it's $99 a month per project, billed monthly with no yearly option listed, sentiment, citation and content audits wait on Pro at $299, and there's no API or integration at all.
Who Gumshoe is for
- Fits if you sell to several kinds of buyer and want AI results split by each one
- Works for teams that want to see a sample audit of their brand before paying
Who Gumshoe is not for
- Pricey if you have several product lines, as each one is its own $99 project
- Skip it if you want to see which sites AI cites or how it describes you, as those audits are on Pro at $299
- Not for you if you want an API, integrations or exports into your own reports, as none are listed
- Watch out: both plans bill monthly with no yearly option listed, and many brands or clients need a sales quote
- Tight if you want daily numbers on Starter, which gets weekly snapshots and one Visibility Audit a month
Why Gumshoe gets a 2.0
Five grades, each with its reason. The GPA is their average: an A is 4 points, an F is none.
- CValue for moneyStarter is $99 a month per project, billed monthly, with unlimited seats. That's at the dearer quarter of this category, and a project is one product line, so three lines means three plans. Citations and sentiment need Pro at $299.
- CFree plan and trialOne free sample audit with no card: 4 personas, 5 prompts each, on 4 models, and it doesn't expire. It's a one-time look, though. Tracking over time is paid.
- CFeaturesPersona-based prompts, a leaderboard against up to 30 rivals, 12 models tracked with 6 per audit, and AI readability checks per page. The listing's own gap: Starter has only the Visibility and Technical Audits, so sentiment, citations and content need Pro.
- CEase of useNo rating on record. It builds the personas and their questions for you, and there are still audits to run and read.
- CPlatforms and integrationsWeb only, with no integrations or API listed.
What these grades rest on. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Gumshoe's own pages on 23 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. How we review and grade.
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<a href="https://toolgpa.com/tools/gumshoe#review"><img src="https://toolgpa.com/badge/gumshoe.svg" alt="Gumshoe: 2.0 GPA on ToolGPA" width="196" height="56"></a>Where Gumshoe stands among AI search visibility tools
Gumshoe's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 29 of the 157 other AI search visibility tools we grade, and level with 38.
Its paid plans start at $99 a month, against a middle price of $59 for the category: 99 of the 128 others that charge start lower.
On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.0 out of 4. 80 tools score higher and cost less.
Each grade against the category
Every bar is all 158 AI search visibility tools we grade, cut by the letter each got. Gumshoe’s own letter is outlined.
- CValue for moneyAbove 19 of 157, level with 100
- CFree plan and trialAbove 63 of 157, level with 88
- CFeaturesAbove 6 of 157, level with 118
- CEase of useAbove 0 of 157, level with 145
- CPlatforms and integrationsAbove 0 of 157, level with 50
Price against what you get
Each dot is one of 131 AI search visibility tools. Further left costs less, and higher up scores better on features, ease of use and platforms. Point at a dot to see which tool it is.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Keep Gumshoe, or make your own?
Keep it
The plain part of Gumshoe you could make: reports. What surrounds it you could not. The 3 things listed below take a company, not a weekend.
That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 90 of the 157 other AI search visibility tools grade higher. It costs $1,188 a year.
What you could make
- Reports: an app builder makes this well.
What you could not
- The same prompts asked of ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI answers every day, and the answers kept.
- A score built from what the top results for each keyword cover.
- AI features, unless you pay a model provider for each request yourself.
What this rests on. Gumshoe’s listing: what it does, where it runs, what it plugs into and what it costs. It is a judgement about the kind of software this is. We have not built a replacement for it, and making your own means looking after it too. How we decide, and every tool’s verdict.
What is Gumshoe?
Gumshoe builds the buyer personas in a market and the questions each would ask, then puts them to AI models and reports how often your brand comes up against competitors, by persona, topic and model. Further audits cover sentiment, the sources models cite, content gaps and how readable your pages are to AI. Plans are priced per project, meaning one brand plus one product or service line.
Worth knowing
- Prices are per project, so a brand tracking three product lines pays for three plans.
- Starter has only the Visibility and Technical Audits; sentiment, citation and content audits need Pro.
- Both plans bill monthly with no annual option listed; many brands or clients need a sales quote.
- There is no free plan, only a one-time sample audit; a paid plan is needed for tracking over time.
Key features
- Persona-based prompts
- Builds buyer personas for your market and the prompts each would ask, so results show how answers change with who is asking.
- Visibility Audit
- Brand leaderboard, visibility by persona, topic and model, and up to 30 competitors side by side, with change since the last audit.
- Model coverage
- Each audit uses 6 models drawn from 12 tracked, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok and Google AI Overviews.
- Sentiment and Citation Audits
- On Pro: how models describe your brand, and which domains they cite when answering questions in your category.
- Technical and Content Audits
- Scores each page on how readable it is to AI, flagging schema, JSON-LD, structure and metadata, and finds content gaps (Content Audit on Pro).
Gumshoe pricing
As of Oct 23, 2026, Gumshoe is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $99 per project / month, billed monthly.
- Starts at
- $99 per project / month, billed monthly
- Free plan
- None
- Free trial
- One free sample audit: 4 personas, 5 prompts each, 4 models; no card, does not expire
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | $99per project / month, billed monthly | A monthly Visibility Audit, weekly snapshot audits, 10 Technical Audit runs and 3 content generation runs. Unlimited seats. |
| Pro | $299per project / month, billed monthly | Adds the Sentiment, Citation and Content Audits, daily snapshots, 50 Technical Audit runs and 10 content generation runs. |
Read from gumshoe.ai on Oct 23, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Gumshoe before you buy.
Gumshoe alternatives
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- Gumshoe vs Otterly.AI
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- Gumshoe vs AthenaHQ
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Common questions
Does Gumshoe have an Android app?
No Android app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 23, 2026. Gumshoe is listed for Web.
Does Gumshoe have an iPhone app?
No iPhone app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 23, 2026. Gumshoe is listed for Web.
Is Gumshoe open source?
Gumshoe is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Oct 23, 2026.
Sources for this page
The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 23, 2026.