Known Agents review (2026): is the free plan enough?
Analytics and access control for the AI bots that visit your site
Known Agents report card
Good · out of 4.0 · graded Oct 23, 2026
Best for seeing which AI bots visit your site
Known Agents, once called Dark Visitors, shows which AI crawlers and agents hit your site, what they read and whether they ignore robots.txt, and counts the people AI chats send you. The free plan covers 1 project and 100,000 events a month. But it doesn't check what AI answers say about you, every API call counts as an event, the free cap is hard, and it needs a server, CDN or WordPress hookup to collect anything.
Who Known Agents is for
- Fits if you publish online and want to choose which AI crawlers can read your site
- Works for developers who need to verify AI agents in their own code through an API
Who Known Agents is not for
- Skip it if you want to know what ChatGPT says about your brand, as it doesn't check answers
- Tight if your site is busy: every API call and batch item counts, so budget about twice your human visits
- Not for you if you can't touch your server, CDN or WordPress setup, as there's no pasted script
- Watch out: the free plan stops at 100,000 events a month, with 1 project and only the basic features
- Watch out: custom features, a custom API and live support are on Enterprise, arranged through a demo
Why Known Agents gets a 2.6
Five grades, each with its reason. The GPA is their average: an A is 4 points, an F is none.
- BValue for moneyStartup is $25 a month billed yearly, or $29 monthly, for 3 projects and 1 million events. That's inside the cheaper quarter of this category, which starts at $29, and well under Siteline's $49.
- BFree plan and trialFree with no card and no time limit: 1 project and 100,000 events a month, which the vendor says covers most websites. It's a hard cap, though, and the premium features are paid.
- CFeaturesBot and agent analytics, AI chat referrals, a robots.txt that updates itself and an API to verify agents. It does that job fully, but it's a smaller one: it doesn't check what AI engines say about your brand.
- CEase of useNo rating on record. Data comes from your server, CDN or WordPress rather than a pasted script, so there's a bit of plumbing before anything shows up.
- BPlatforms and integrationsWeb only, with no desktop or phone app. It hooks into WordPress, Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, AWS, Google Cloud, Vercel and Node.js, and has an agent identification API.
What these grades rest on. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Known Agents' own pages on 23 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. How we review and grade.
Make Known Agents? Put this grade on your site
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<a href="https://toolgpa.com/tools/known-agents#review"><img src="https://toolgpa.com/badge/known-agents.svg" alt="Known Agents: 2.6 GPA on ToolGPA" width="196" height="56"></a>Where Known Agents stands among AI search visibility tools
Known Agents's GPA of 2.6 is higher than 146 of the 157 other AI search visibility tools we grade, and level with 6.
It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 152 of 157) and worst on ease of use (C, above 0).
Its paid plans start at $25 a month, against a middle price of $59 for the category: 17 of the 128 others that charge start lower.
On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.3 out of 4. 4 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. Known Agents’s own letter is outlined.
- BValue for moneyAbove 120 of 157, level with 25
- BFree plan and trialAbove 152 of 157, level with 2
- CFeaturesAbove 6 of 157, level with 118
- CEase of useAbove 0 of 157, level with 145
- BPlatforms and integrationsAbove 51 of 157, level with 106
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 Known Agents, or make your own?
Keep it
Nothing Known Agents does is plain enough to make in a weekend. The 3 things listed below take a company.
It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.6 is higher than 146 of the 157 other AI search visibility tools we grade. It costs $300 a year.
What you could not
- A tracking script and a database that counts every visit.
- The same prompts asked of ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google's AI answers every day, and the answers kept.
- It plugs into other products, WordPress, Cloudflare and Fastly among them, and has an API.
What this rests on. Known Agents’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 Known Agents?
Known Agents shows which AI crawlers, scrapers and agents visit a website, what pages they read and whether they break robots.txt rules, and it counts the human visits that arrive from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and other AI chats. It also serves a robots.txt that updates as new bots appear, and an API that identifies and verifies agents. It was called Dark Visitors until it took its current name.
Worth knowing
- It measures bot visits and AI referrals to your site; it does not check what AI engines say about your brand in their answers.
- Events include every API call and each item in a batch; the vendor suggests budgeting about twice your monthly human visits.
- The free plan stops at its monthly event limit; paid plans get an email suggesting an upgrade when they run over.
- It needs a server, CDN or WordPress integration to collect data, rather than a script pasted into the page.
Key features
- Agent Analytics
- Lists the crawlers, scrapers and AI agents visiting a site in real time, with traffic trends, pages visited, sessions, errors and robots.txt violations per agent.
- AI chat referral tracking
- Counts human visits that come from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, DeepSeek and other AI chats, kept apart from bot traffic.
- Automatic robots.txt
- Serves a robots.txt that blocks or allows agents by category and updates itself as new bots are found; the WordPress plugin can block bots that ignore it.
- Agent Identification API
- Identifies and verifies the agent behind an incoming request from your own code, for setting access rules by verified identity.
- Server-side collection
- Data is sent from the server, CDN or backend rather than a browser script, so it still works when browser analytics are blocked.
- Agent Directory
- A public directory of thousands of agents and bots that says who runs each one, what it does and how to manage its access.
Known Agents pricing
As of Oct 23, 2026, Known Agents has a free plan, and paid plans start at $25 per month for 1M events, billed yearly ($29 billed monthly).
- Starts at
- $25 per month for 1M events, billed yearly ($29 billed monthly)
- Free plan
- 1 project and 100,000 events a month with the basic features; the event limit is a hard cap. No credit card needed.
- Free trial
- None listed
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1 project and 100,000 events a month, with basic features. The vendor says this covers most websites. |
| Startup | $25per month for 1M events, billed yearly ($29 billed monthly) | 3 projects, 1 million events a month, the premium features and priority support. |
| Growth | $250per month for 10M events, billed yearly ($299 billed monthly) | 10 projects, 10 million events a month, the premium features and high-priority support. |
| Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited projects, usage-based events, custom features and API, and dedicated live support. Arranged through a demo. |
Read from knownagents.com on Oct 23, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Known Agents before you buy.
Ways to pay less
- Annual discountSave up to 16% with yearly billing
Known Agents lists Startup at $25 a month billed yearly instead of $29 (14% less) and Growth at $250 instead of $299 (16% less).
Stated on knownagents.com
Works with
- WordPress
- Cloudflare
- Fastly
- Akamai
- AWS
- Google Cloud
- Vercel
- Node.js
Known Agents alternatives
- Known Agents vs Profound
Free trial · from $99/mo
- Known Agents vs Promptwatch
Free trial · from $95/mo
- Known Agents vs Scrunch
Free trial · from $250/mo
- Known Agents vs Siteline
Free plan · from $49/mo
- Known Agents vs Otterly.AI
Free trial · from $25/mo
Common questions
Does Known Agents have an Android app?
No Android app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 23, 2026. Known Agents is listed for Web.
Does Known Agents have an iPhone app?
No iPhone app was listed when its pages were read on Oct 23, 2026. Known Agents is listed for Web.
Is Known Agents open source?
Known Agents is not described as open source on its own site, as read on Oct 23, 2026.
Does Known Agents have an API?
Yes. Known Agents offers a public API, according to its own site.
Sources for this page
The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 23, 2026.