VisiScan vs Rankscale 2026
GEO software at $20 with 17+ engines versus a $49 local scan. Rankscale wins coverage. VisiScan wins a plumber PDF. Promptwatch still owns logs.
If the shopping query was "cheap GEO," Rankscale at $20/mo with 17+ engines is the catalog answer. VisiScan at $0 / $49 / $29 is a local named-rate scanner. Putting them in one table stops people from treating a 40-answer scan as engine coverage. Promptwatch stays in the grid because cheap and complete are different SKUs.
The two products get compared because both sit in a "GEO tool" tab and both print a number. The number means something different in each case. Rankscale sells breadth of engines at a credit price a careful buyer can model. VisiScan sells depth on one URL at a fixed question count. Confusing the two is the most expensive mistake on this list, because you end up either overpaying for a scan you wanted as a tracker or underbuying coverage you assumed was included.
Rankscale: Vienna, 4.6/5 OMR, Essentials 120 credits all engines, Pro $99 / 1,200, Growth $385 with API. Credit burn ~8x by engine. Audits need 30-day averages. No PDF. Attribution is a 4-8 week lag with proxy linkage, per their docs.
The Rankscale row reads like a tracker that wants to be a platform. The Vienna office and the 4.6/5 OMR rating are the credibility markers the listing carries. Essentials gives 120 credits across all engines, which sounds generous until you notice that credit burn runs about 8x by engine, so a credit is not a flat unit of work. One engine eats more credits per check than another, and the math has to be done before the seat is bought, not after the invoice arrives. Pro at $99 buys 1,200 credits, and Growth at $385 adds the API, which is the tier where a programmatic weekly job becomes possible. The 30-day average requirement for audits matters because a single snapshot is not stable enough to grade against, so the audit use case commits you to a month of data before the first report. There is no PDF, so client decks are screenshots. Attribution carries a 4-8 week lag with proxy linkage, per their docs, which is the line to read before promising a client that a citation drove a session. That lag is not a defect, it is a stated limitation, and it belongs in the proposal.
VisiScan: four engines, 5 or 12 questions, paste-in schema on $49, weekly Monitor. Mike Holp. pricing.md 24 August 2026. 1 free scan per URL.
The VisiScan row is narrower on purpose. Four engines, not 17. Five or twelve questions per run, not a credit pool. The $49 tier hands back a paste-in schema, which is the artifact a local site owner can act on without a developer. Weekly Monitor is the standing option. The founder is named, Mike Holp, and the pricing.md date is 24 August 2026, which is the provenance for every number on this row. One free scan per URL is the hard limit that separates a free taste from a free tracker.
Grid
| GEO question | VisiScan | Rankscale | Promptwatch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engine count | 4 | 17+ | Long list on the sheet |
| Free | Yes, capped | No forever-free tracker | Explore |
| Standing meter | Only $29 weekly | Yes from $20 | Yes from $95 |
| Logs | No | No | Professional |
| Local PDF | $49 | No | Not the SKU |
| Conversions | Beacon on Monitor | No | Visitor analytics |
The grid is the part to read row by row. Engine count is where most buyers stop, and it is the row that misleads the most. Rankscale lists 17+ engines, VisiScan lists four, Promptwatch carries a long list on the sheet. A bigger engine count is more coverage, but only if you run those engines, and only if the data behind them is fresh. The free row separates the three products cleanly. VisiScan has a capped free scan, Rankscale has no forever-free tracker, and Promptwatch has Explore. The standing meter row is the one that decides whether the tool replaces a spreadsheet. VisiScan only meters weekly on the $29 Monitor, Rankscale meters from $20, and Promptwatch meters from $95. Logs are the row that neither VisiScan nor Rankscale fills, and the row that puts Promptwatch Professional in a different category. Local PDF is VisiScan's $49 deliverable, absent on Rankscale, and not a Promptwatch SKU. Conversions are a beacon on VisiScan Monitor, absent on Rankscale, and full visitor analytics on Promptwatch.
Who should pay which sticker
Pay Rankscale if you will model credits and you wanted the long tail this month. Pay VisiScan free or $49 if the URL is a dentist in one city. Pay Promptwatch Essential when citations and visitor events are the job, Professional when logs are.
The recommendation splits on what you do with the tool. Rankscale earns its seat when someone on the team is willing to sit down and model credit burn by engine, and when the goal this month is long-tail coverage across many engines. Without that modeling, the 120 credits run out faster than the headline suggests. VisiScan earns its free scan or its $49 report when the subject is a single local URL, a dentist in one city, where four engines and twelve questions is already more than the business needs. Promptwatch Essential is the buy when the job is citations and visitor events, and Professional is the buy when crawler logs are the missing piece.
Do not pick Rankscale as "the platform" because 17 is bigger than 4. Bigger sample of assistants is not crawl-to-citation. Do not pick VisiScan Monitor because $29 undercuts $20. $20 is daily-ish tracking with credits. $29 is twelve questions a week.
Two traps sit in this comparison. The first is treating engine count as platform quality. A bigger sample of assistants tells you more about mentions across surfaces, but it does not give you the crawl-to-citation path that explains why a mention appeared or did not. The second is the price-comparison trap. VisiScan Monitor at $29 undercuts Rankscale at $20 only if you ignore what the two numbers buy. Rankscale at $20 is daily-ish tracking paid in credits. VisiScan Monitor at $29 is twelve questions a week. They are priced close, but they are not the same product, and the cheaper one is not the better one just because the sticker is lower.
Explore Promptwatch if you only needed ChatGPT. Then the $20 Rankscale seat is optional coverage, not a Promptwatch replacement.
The Promptwatch Explore tier is the one to reach for if the only engine that matters to the account is ChatGPT. It is free, it carries ten ChatGPT prompts, and it does not pretend to be a full platform. Once Explore is the standing ChatGPT log, the Rankscale seat at $20 becomes optional coverage for the engines Explore does not touch, not a replacement for the platform that holds the prompt history and the citation breakdowns.