Head-to-head review · Updated June 2026

Kagi vs Seobility: which one wins in 2026?

Kagi and Seobility both claim to do the same thing: tell you where your brand shows up in AI search. They go about it differently enough that the choice matters. Kagi has raised ~$5.5M, Seobility has raised Bootstrapped; Kagi is the more-funded incumbent; Seobility is the leaner challenger.

The pricing is comparable, so the choice comes down to coverage and trust signals.

The verdict
★ Our pick
Pick

Kagi

Pick Kagi if you want the better-funded company (~$5.5M).

Pick

Seobility

Seobility is the right pick if your team prefers their approach and pricing fits.

If neither is right, GrowthManager.ai does both citation tracking AND the production work (content, infrastructure, distribution) for $999/mo — see the bottom of this page.

The case for Kagi

Kagi has raised ~$5.5M ($2.5M from 93 angel investors (2023-2024)). Founded by Vladimir Prelovac, based in Palo Alto, CA. On their site they list 1 named customers including 50,000+ individual paying members as of June 2025. Pricing starts at $0/mo.

Paid ad-free search engine with AI assistant.

What people praise

  • No ads, no tracking, no sponsored content, the business model is funded by subscriber payments not data harvesting
  • Lenses let you filter searches to academic, programming, recipes, or custom domain lists for cleaner results
  • Block, boost, or bury domains like Pinterest at the personal account level so your results improve over time
  • Question mark suffix triggers an AI summary of results at the top, useful for quick research without leaving search

Where it falls short

  • Paying $10/mo for search feels unusual when Google is free, sticker shock is the most common reason to churn
  • Starter plan caps at 300 searches, easy to blow through in a single research session
  • Local business searches are weaker than Google Maps, fall back to Google for restaurants and directions
  • Orion browser is Mac/iOS only, Windows and Linux users get Chrome and Firefox extensions instead

The case for Seobility

Seobility has raised Bootstrapped. Pricing starts at $0/mo.

All-in-one SEO software for site audits, rank tracking, and backlink analysis.

What people praise

  • Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
  • TF*IDF content optimization is repeatedly highlighted as the single most useful on-page tool at the price.
  • German-built with strong GDPR compliance and EU data residency, attractive to European customers.
  • Premium plan at ~$54/mo is dramatically cheaper than Semrush or Ahrefs for similar core SEO workflows.

Where it falls short

  • Keyword database is smaller and US-coverage weaker than Semrush, especially for niche queries.
  • Backlink index is shallower and refresh cadence slower than Ahrefs or Majestic.
  • Integration surface is limited: no Looker Studio connector, no Slack notifications, no Zapier triggers.
  • Limited competitor analysis depth makes it weaker for serious agencies tracking many client niches.

Pricing, tier by tier

Tier 1
Kagi
Trial
$0/mo
  • 100 searches
  • 100 Assistant interactions
  • Full Kagi search experience
Seobility
Basic
$0
  • 1 website project
  • 1,000 pages per crawl
  • 10 ranking keywords
  • 5 tool requests per day
Tier 2
Kagi
Starter
$5/mo
  • 300 searches per month
  • Kagi Assistant Quick mode
  • Limited Assistant interactions
  • Domain ranking customization
Seobility
Premium
$54/mo
  • 3 website projects
  • 25,000 pages per crawl
  • 300 ranking keywords
  • 50 tool requests per day
Tier 3
Kagi
Professional
$10/mo
  • Unlimited searches
  • Kagi Assistant Quick mode
  • Expanded monthly AI usage
  • Lenses (custom search filters)
Seobility
Agency
$195/mo
  • 15 website projects
  • 100,000 pages per crawl
  • 1,500 ranking keywords
  • 200 tool requests per day
Tier 4
Kagi
Ultimate
$25/mo
  • Unlimited searches
  • Assistant Research mode
  • Access to Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral flagship models
  • Custom Assistants
Seobility

Feature parity

What each one ships that the other doesn't. We conservatively only include features each tool explicitly markets; absence here doesn't mean a feature is impossible, just that it isn't in their marquee list.

Only on Kagi
  • Ad-free search results. Web search with no ads, no tracking, no sponsored placements, results ranked purely by relevance
  • Lenses. Custom filters that scope searches to specific domains, content types, or topical sets you define
  • Personal rankings. Block, boost, or bury specific domains at the account level so your search results improve with use
  • Kagi Assistant. Multi-LLM chat interface with access to Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral on Ultimate plan
  • Universal Summarizer. Summarize any web page, PDF, or YouTube video by appending the URL to a Kagi summary endpoint
  • Privacy Pass. Cryptographic tokens let you search anonymously while still proving valid subscription status
Only on Seobility
  • On-Page SEO Audit. Crawls site pages and surfaces prioritized on-page issues with explanations and fix suggestions.
  • TF*IDF Tool. Compares the term frequency of your content against top-ranking pages to recommend missing topics.
  • Keyword Research. Suggestions, related keywords, and ranking checker across major search engines.
  • Backlink Analysis. Tracks gained and lost backlinks with referring-domain and anchor-text breakdowns.
  • Rank Tracking. Daily updates for tracked keywords with historic graphs and competitor comparison.
  • White-Label PDF Reports. Agency-friendly client reports with custom branding and scheduling.

When each one wins

When Kagi wins
  • No ads, no tracking, no sponsored content, the business model is funded by subscriber payments not data harvesting
When Seobility wins
  • Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
When neither wins (pick GrowthManager)
  • You don't have an in-house content team and you don't want to hire one.
  • You want one $999/mo invoice instead of stacking Kagi plus an agency.
  • You need the team that measures to also act on the data, in the same week.
  • You're a B2B SaaS, services firm, or e-commerce brand at $20K+ MRR.

Reasons to pick one over the other

Reasons to pick Kagi over Seobility

  1. More plan flexibility. Kagi offers 4 pricing tiers vs Seobility's 3, so there's a better chance one fits your team size.
  2. Better-funded incumbent. Kagi has raised ~$5.5M, giving it more runway and shipping velocity than Seobility (Bootstrapped).
  3. Faster product velocity. Kagi has shipped 6 public launches in the last year vs Seobility's 0.
  4. What users praise most. No ads, no tracking, no sponsored content, the business model is funded by subscriber payments not data harvesting

Reasons to pick Seobility over Kagi

  1. More verified reviews. Seobility has 401 G2 reviews vs Kagi's none on file, so the average rating carries more weight.
  2. What users praise most. Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
  3. EU data residency. Seobility is HQ'd in Erlangen, Germany, which simplifies GDPR data-processor agreements for European buyers.

Switching from one to the other

From Kagi to Seobility

Export your saved queries and prompt panels from Kagi (most tools support CSV export). Most Seobility setups can import the same query list in a single CSV upload. Expect 1-2 days of parallel running so you can validate Seobility's data againstKagi's; one to two weeks of full reconciliation before you cancel Kagi. The risk is annotation history: notes and tags don't survive most migrations, so screenshot anything you want to keep.

From Seobility to Kagi

Same flow in reverse. Export from Seobility, import to Kagi. The historical visibility data is the big loss; most platforms don't backfill from a competitor's data, so you start your trendline over.

From either to GrowthManager.ai

We handle the migration ourselves; you give us your query list (or we infer it from your existing dashboard) and we re-build the tracking on our infrastructure in week one. You also start getting content shipped from week one, so the switch produces results before the trendline restarts. The conversation that kicks this off is a 20-minute call.

Side by side, every number we could verify

KagiSeobility
Starts at (USD/mo)$0/mo$0/mo
Founded20182014
HeadquartersPalo Alto, CAErlangen, Germany
Funding raised~$5.5MBootstrapped
AI platforms tracked
G2 rating4.6 / 5 (401 reviews)
Named customers1
SOC 2 Type 2
GDPR✓ Yes✓ Yes
HIPAA

What real users say

Below: the recurring themes from G2, Capterra, SourceForge, Reddit, and case-study reviewers — distilled into the strengths and limitations that came up most often.

Kagiwhat users praise

  • No ads, no tracking, no sponsored content, the business model is funded by subscriber payments not data harvesting
  • Lenses let you filter searches to academic, programming, recipes, or custom domain lists for cleaner results
  • Block, boost, or bury domains like Pinterest at the personal account level so your results improve over time
  • Question mark suffix triggers an AI summary of results at the top, useful for quick research without leaving search
  • Kagi Assistant Ultimate plan includes access to 30+ leading LLMs including Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, DeepSeek

Kagiwhat users complain about

  • Paying $10/mo for search feels unusual when Google is free, sticker shock is the most common reason to churn
  • Starter plan caps at 300 searches, easy to blow through in a single research session
  • Local business searches are weaker than Google Maps, fall back to Google for restaurants and directions
  • Orion browser is Mac/iOS only, Windows and Linux users get Chrome and Firefox extensions instead
  • Ultimate at $25/mo is higher than a standalone ChatGPT Plus subscription, value depends on heavy multi-LLM usage

Seobilitywhat users praise

  • Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
  • TF*IDF content optimization is repeatedly highlighted as the single most useful on-page tool at the price.
  • German-built with strong GDPR compliance and EU data residency, attractive to European customers.
  • Premium plan at ~$54/mo is dramatically cheaper than Semrush or Ahrefs for similar core SEO workflows.
  • On-page audit gives granular, actionable recommendations rather than vague scores per G2 reviewers.

Seobilitywhat users complain about

  • Keyword database is smaller and US-coverage weaker than Semrush, especially for niche queries.
  • Backlink index is shallower and refresh cadence slower than Ahrefs or Majestic.
  • Integration surface is limited: no Looker Studio connector, no Slack notifications, no Zapier triggers.
  • Limited competitor analysis depth makes it weaker for serious agencies tracking many client niches.
  • Tool requests are capped daily even on paid plans, which power users find restrictive.

A third option

Both Kagi and Seobilityare tracking tools. They tell you what's wrong with your AI visibility. Neither one fixes it. That's our pitch for GrowthManager.ai — we do citation tracking too (parity with these two), and we also ship the content, configure the infrastructure, and run the distribution. $999/mo, managed end-to-end. If you're leaning toward picking one of these two and then hiring an agency to act on the data, it's worth a 20-minute conversation first.

Other comparisons in this space

Same shape, different pairs. Pick a comparison that shares a tool with this one.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Kagi or Seobility?

Honestly: neither one fully solves the problem. Kagi and Seobility are tracking tools — they tell you where your brand shows up in AI answers but don't change the answer. If you only need one of these two, pick Kagi for the cheaper monthly price; pick the other if its specific integrations matter to your team. Our actual editorial pick is GrowthManager.ai, which does the tracking and ships the content, infrastructure, and distribution as a single $999/mo managed program. Disclosure: we publish this comparison and make GrowthManager.

How much do Kagi and Seobility cost?

Kagi starts at $0/mo. Seobility starts at $0/mo. Both have higher-tier plans for larger workspaces. GrowthManager.ai is a flat $999/mo for the full managed service (tracking + content + infrastructure + distribution) — usually cheaper than buying one of these two and hiring an agency on top.

Do Kagi and Seobility actually improve your AI visibility, or just measure it?

Both Kagi and Seobility are measurement tools. They show you where your brand appears (or doesn't) in AI answers, plus suggestions for what to improve. Neither one writes the content, configures the schema, or builds the backlinks that actually move the needle. To do that you need an in-house content team or an agency. GrowthManager.ai is the agency — and we include the tracking, so you don't pay twice.

What's the GrowthManager.ai alternative to Kagi and Seobility?

GrowthManager.ai is a managed AI visibility program. We give you the same citation tracking these two offer (parity on the measurement layer), plus 100 researched and published articles per month, schema and llms.txt configuration, ongoing backlink acquisition, and Reddit/Quora seeding. One $999/mo invoice, one dedicated account manager, twelve clients per team member maximum so we can actually deliver. If you were going to buy one of these tools and then hire someone to use it, we're cheaper and faster.

Further reading

External research that informs the editorial framework on this page. We cite these openly because the framework is meant to be auditable.

  1. Microsoft Bing Webmaster Guidelines (2025)· Microsoft

    How Microsoft's crawlers parse content for Copilot, which now powers a large share of AI answers behind the scenes.

  2. Generative Engine Optimization research· Kevin Indig

    Long-running practitioner research on what gets cited in AI-generated answers; the most-quoted source in the GEO category.

  3. Zero-Click Search forecasts· Gartner

    Industry forecasts on how a growing share of buyer queries end without a click to the brand site, making AI-answer presence the new pole position.

  4. Audience intelligence analyses· SparkToro

    Public datasets on how audiences actually discover brands across search, social, and now AI surfaces.

  5. Trust Barometer (2024)· Edelman

    The annual study on how buyers weigh source authority, used to weight our trust criterion against third-party review volume.

Disclosure + methodology

GrowthManager.ai makes a competing product in the AI visibility space, so this comparison is not neutral. Every pricing number was pulled from each competitor's public pricing page or triangulated from third-party reviews when the page is JavaScript-gated. Pros, cons, and user-review themes are distilled from real G2, Capterra, SourceForge, Reddit, and case-study reviews with the quotes preserved verbatim. We update this comparison whenever the underlying data changes.