> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theaidirectory.com.au/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # HubSpot AI Search Grader Review Australia 2026: The free way to see how AI describes your brand - URL: https://www.theaidirectory.com.au/hubspot-ai-search-grader-review-australia/ - Published: 2026-06-22T23:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-09T06:31:15.000Z - Description: HubSpot's AI Search Grader is a free, no-cost check of how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini describe your brand. It's the easiest first step into AI search visibility — but it's a one-time snapshot, not a monitoring tool. Here's the honest read for Australian businesses. - Author: Adam - Tags: Marketing & SEO, AI Search & Visibility (AEO/GEO), HubSpot AI Search Grader, HubSpot, #review, Free **20**/25 ★★★★☆ Very Good HubSpot AI Search Grader · HubSpot Verified 21 Sep 2026 Reviewed 23 Jun 2026 Value for Money**5**/5 Ease of Use**5**/5 Feature Depth**2**/5 Australian Fit**4**/5 Reliability & Support**4**/5 Your data None specific to the grader — it's processed under HubSpot's standard (offshore) privacy policy. Don't enter anything confidential. **The gate:** Five stars need 21+ and Australian Fit of at least 4/5. [Skip to the verdict ](#verdict) > **Verdict (TL;DR):** When your customers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini *"who's a good \[accountant / SaaS / trade\] in \[city\]?"*, do you get named — and is what the AI says about you accurate? That's the question this new category answers, and HubSpot's **AI Search Grader** (now branded the **AEO Grader**) is the cheapest possible way to start: it's free, with no credit card and no usage limit. You enter your brand, location and industry, and it asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini how they characterise you, then scores the result out of 100 across five dimensions — sentiment, presence quality, brand recognition, share of voice and market competition — with written recommendations. It is the easiest on-ramp into AI search visibility we've found. The honest catch: it's a **one-time snapshot, not a monitoring tool.** There's no tracking over time, no prompt-level control, and no citation detail — for that, HubSpot wants you on its paid **AEO** product (US$50/month) or a deeper pure-play. The grader is a lead magnet, and it's a good one. For an Australian business that has never checked how AI describes it, run this first. Just don't mistake the snapshot for the whole job. > > *Last reviewed: 23 June 2026 by Adam.* --- ## What HubSpot's AI Search Grader is This is the free diagnostic at the front door of a whole new discipline. SEO was about ranking on Google. **AEO — answer engine optimisation, also called GEO (generative engine optimisation)** — is about whether AI assistants name you when someone asks them a question, and what they say. As Australians increasingly ask ChatGPT or Gemini instead of searching, that's a real, answerable question for any business. HubSpot launched the tool in **February 2025** as the "AI Search Grader" — billing it as the first free tool for AI discovery, part of a pitch about marketers moving "from SEO to LMO" (language model optimisation). It has since been rebranded the **AEO Grader**, and it now sits alongside a paid product, **HubSpot AEO**, plus a free industry-trends dashboard called the **AEO Sensor**. The grader is the free taste; HubSpot AEO is the paid meal. Worth knowing the names have moved, because you'll see both "AI Search Grader" and "AEO Grader" in the wild for the same tool. Here's what the free grader actually does. You give it your brand name, location, industry and products. It then runs pre-set queries against three AI engines — **ChatGPT (currently the GPT-5.4 mini model), Perplexity and Gemini** — and asks each how it characterises your brand. ChatGPT and Gemini answer from their training data; Perplexity pulls from live search. The results are cross-checked across all three and rolled into a single composite score out of 100, built from five weighted dimensions: - **Sentiment** (up to 40 points) — is the tone positive or negative when the AI talks about you? - **Presence quality** (up to 20 points) — how deep and well-sourced the mentions are. - **Brand recognition** (up to 20 points) — how widely you're recognised across AI training data. - **Share of voice** (up to 10 points) — where you rank against competitors in AI answers. - **Market competition** (up to 10 points) — how you stack up against competitors' market position in AI answers. You also get a written interpretation and improvement recommendations. The whole thing takes minutes, and it costs nothing. ## What it does well - **It's genuinely free, with no credit card and no usage limit.** HubSpot's own comparison pages state the grader is "completely free to use" and can be "run unlimited times." Most rivals gate this behind a trial or a paywall. This is the rare AI tool where the free tier is the whole tool, not a teaser. - **It answers a 2026 question most businesses haven't asked.** Whether AI assistants name you, and whether they're flattering or wrong, is becoming as important as a Google ranking. The grader makes that visible in one report. - **Three engines, not one.** It checks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini and reconciles them. For comparison, HubSpot's own teardown notes that Otterly.ai covers ChatGPT and Perplexity but not Gemini, so the grader's three-engine spread is broader than at least one paid rival. - **It's effortless.** Enter brand, location, industry; read the report. No tag to install, no account to configure, no learning curve. A non-technical owner can run it in a tea break. - **A serious, audited vendor stands behind it.** HubSpot is a large, NYSE-listed company with an established Australian entity (HubSpot Australia Pty Ltd) and a SOC 2 Type II programme — not a weekend AEO startup that might vanish. ## Watch out for - **It's a one-time snapshot, not monitoring.** HubSpot itself describes the grader as "a free, one-time diagnostic" and steers ongoing tracking to the paid product. There's no trend line, no alert when your AI sentiment slips, no historical record. You get a photo, not a film. - **It's a lead magnet, and it acts like one.** To get your full results you complete a short HubSpot form. The grader page lists four required fields — company name, location, product or services, and industry ("All fields are required") — and you complete "a short form to access your full results" ([hubspot.com/aeo-grader](https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader?ref=theaidirectory.com.au)). So while you don't need a HubSpot account to run it, you do hand over your business details, which lands you in HubSpot's funnel. That's the deal: free tool, your details as the price. - **Shallow next to the pure-plays.** Five scored dimensions and a written summary is a fine diagnostic, but it's nowhere near the depth of Profound, Peec AI or HubSpot's own paid AEO product — no prompt-level customisation, no citation/source breakdown, no competitor prompt tracking over time. It tells you *that* there's a problem, not the granular *why*. - **The data is global, not Australian-tuned.** Two of the three engines answer from training data, which skews to large, US-centric sources. A small Australian firm may simply not appear, and a low score can reflect thin global data rather than a fixable AEO problem. Read an Australian result with that grain of salt. - **No Australian data-residency story.** This is a US tool governed by HubSpot's standard privacy policy; what you enter is processed offshore. Fine for a brand-name lookup, but don't feed it anything sensitive. ## What it costs The grader is **free** — no cost, no credit card, no usage cap, no feature locked behind a paid plan, according to HubSpot's own pages. The only "payment" is the contact details you enter to see the full report. The upsell sits one step beyond it. **HubSpot AEO**, the continuous-monitoring product, is **US$50/month** (about **AUD$70** at our ≈1.40 rate (third-party estimate — not published by the vendor)), or **US$45/month** billed annually, with a free 28-day trial and no credit card to start. It includes 25 tracked prompts, multi-engine coverage (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity), brand visibility and sentiment analysis, competitor share-of-voice and citation analysis, prompt tracking and suggestions, and prioritised recommendations. It's also bundled into Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise. So the grader is the free hook; if you want tracking, you pay — and at that point you should compare HubSpot AEO against the pure-plays rather than buy on reflex. **Value verdict:** As a free diagnostic, it's unbeatable on price — there's nothing to lose by running it. The honest framing is that the grader's job is to make you want HubSpot AEO. That's fine; it just means you should treat the free report as a starting line, not a finish line. ## How it works in practice You point it at your brand, tell it where you operate and what you sell, and a few minutes later you have a 100-point scorecard and a short written read on how the three big answer engines describe you. The useful moment is the first run: most Australian business owners have genuinely never seen what ChatGPT says about them, and the report often surfaces something actionable — an outdated description, a competitor named ahead of you, a category the AI doesn't associate you with. Where it stops is repetition. Because there's no monitoring, you can re-run it manually whenever you like, but you're eyeballing snapshots and comparing them yourself. The instant the question becomes *"is my AI visibility improving month on month, and which prompts moved?"*, you've outgrown the free grader — which is, of course, exactly the moment HubSpot AEO or a pure-play earns its fee. ## Australian fit - **Available in Australia:** Yes — web-based, English, no regional lockout. HubSpot operates a local entity (HubSpot Australia Pty Ltd). - **Pricing in AUD:** Not applicable — the grader is free. The paid HubSpot AEO upsell lists in **USD** (US$50/mo); no native AUD list price. - **GST:** Not applicable to the free grader. For paid HubSpot products, AU customers contract with HubSpot Australia Pty Ltd and GST is disclosed before purchase. - **Location input:** Yes — you enter your location and industry, so the analysis can be pointed at an Australian business. But two of three engines answer from global training data, so Australian-specific accuracy isn't guaranteed. - **Data residency:** None specific to the grader — it's processed under HubSpot's standard (offshore) privacy policy. Don't enter anything confidential. - **Local support:** None for the free tool. HubSpot has an APAC presence, but the grader is self-serve with no support attached. - **AU-aware outputs:** Partial. It accepts an AU location, but results lean on US-centric training data; read low scores for small AU brands with caution. It clears our Australian Fit gate at 4/5 — chiefly because *free* removes the USD-billing and GST friction that drags down every paid tool in this category, and because Australia's large HubSpot user base makes it a natural first stop. It loses the fifth mark for the global-data skew and the lack of any onshore data story. ## Alternatives | Tool | Why you might prefer it | | ---------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **HubSpot AEO** (US$50/mo) | The paid step up from the same vendor — continuous monitoring, prompt tracking, citation analysis. Buy this when you've outgrown the free snapshot, but compare it against the pure-plays first. | | **Otterly.AI** | A cheap, ongoing monitor for AI mentions. Covers ChatGPT and Perplexity (no Gemini, per HubSpot's own comparison). Better than the grader if you need tracking, not a one-off. | | **Profound** | The category benchmark — deepest prompt and citation analytics across the major engines. For businesses serious enough to invest in AEO as a discipline. USD-billed, US-hosted. | | **Peec AI** | EU-built pure-play with transparent pricing and multi-country tracking, including Australia. A continental alternative to the US tools. | | **Semrush AI Visibility / Ahrefs Brand Radar** | If you already pay for an SEO platform, check whether AEO tracking is now bundled in before paying twice. See our [Semrush AI review](https://www.theaidirectory.com.au/semrush-review-australia-2026/). | ## Bottom line If you've never checked how AI describes your business, run the HubSpot AI Search Grader today. It's free, it takes minutes, it covers three engines, and it answers a question that's only getting more important as Australians ask assistants instead of searching. As an on-ramp into AEO, nothing beats it on price or effort, and it comes from a serious, audited vendor with an Australian entity — not a fly-by-night. It scores **20 — Very Good, but not Excellent** — for honest reasons. The free price and zero-friction experience earn full marks on value and ease of use. But it's deliberately shallow: a one-time snapshot with five scored dimensions, no monitoring, no prompt control, no citation detail. It is a lead magnet for HubSpot AEO, and it behaves like one — you'll hand over contact details, and the report nudges you toward the paid product. Its outputs also lean on global, US-centric training data, so an Australian small business should read a low score with care rather than panic. We cannot call it the category's best tool, because it isn't built to be — it's built to be the best *first* tool, and at that it succeeds. The verdict for Australian businesses: **the best free starting point in AI search visibility.** Run it to see where you stand, act on the obvious wins, and only then decide whether ongoing monitoring — HubSpot AEO or a pure-play like Otterly or Profound — is worth paying for. We'll refresh this if HubSpot changes the engines covered, adds monitoring to the free tier, or introduces an Australian data option. ## Score | Criterion | Score | Notes | | --------------------- | --------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Value for Money | 5/5 | Genuinely free — no credit card, no usage limit, no paywalled core. Unbeatable for a diagnostic | | Ease of Use | 5/5 | Enter brand, location and industry; get a 100-point report in minutes. No setup, no learning curve | | Feature Depth | 2/5 | A one-time snapshot across three engines and five dimensions. No monitoring, prompt control or citation detail — far shallower than the paid product or the pure-plays | | Australian Fit | 4/5 | Free removes USD/GST friction; accepts an AU location; large AU HubSpot base. Loses a mark for global-data skew and no onshore data story | | Reliability & Support | 4/5 | Large NYSE-listed vendor, SOC 2 Type II, AU entity, mature tool (launched Feb 2025). No dedicated support on the free tool, and engine coverage can shift | | **Total** | **20/25** | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Good | Update history - **21 Sep 2026 (2)** — **Directory classification corrected: `pricing: Free`.** The manifest had this tool as **Freemium**, which is what made the currency sentry flag it: a Freemium tool bills somebody, so the check asks which currency, and neither answer is honest here. The Grader is **free outright** — the title, the excerpt, the tags and the verdict all say so, and the note above records that the currency question does not apply. With the classification right, the tool is exempt by its own facts rather than by a flag that asserts something untrue. The `aud_native` field is deliberately left **unset**: `false` would assert that HubSpot bills Australians in a foreign currency for this product, and `true` would assert it bills them in ours. It bills them nothing. **No price, claim or score changes.** - **21 Sep 2026** — *Currency re-checked — not applicable, and that is the point.* The AI Search Grader is free, so there is no currency to bill in; this review already says the free price "removes USD/GST friction". Verified by browser from an Australian IP on 21 September 2026 that HubSpot's paid products still default an Australian visitor to **USD ($)** with `priceCurrency: "USD"` in the page's structured data — which is what the Australian Fit mark-down refers to. `aud_native` is deliberately **left unset** here, and that is a correction to my own first attempt: pinning it to `false` asserts "does not bill in AUD", which the score-rubric sentry correctly reads as "bills Australians in a foreign currency" — a claim about a tool that bills nothing at all. For a free tool the honest frontmatter is silence, and `aud_verified` carries the date instead. This review had **no Update history section at all** until today; one is added here. Wayback capture pending (archive.org unavailable 21 Sep 2026). ## Frequently asked questions ### Is the HubSpot AI Search Grader free? Yes — completely free, with no credit card and no usage limit, per HubSpot's own pages. You do complete a HubSpot form to unlock the full report, so expect to provide contact details and to land in HubSpot's marketing funnel. The free tool is a one-time diagnostic; ongoing monitoring sits in the paid HubSpot AEO product (US$50/month). ### What AI engines does it check? Three: ChatGPT (currently the GPT-5.4 mini model), Perplexity and Gemini. ChatGPT and Gemini answer from their training data; Perplexity pulls from live search. The results are cross-checked across all three into one composite score out of 100. ### Does it work for Australian businesses? Yes — it's web-based, English, with no regional lockout, and you can enter an Australian location and industry. The caveat: two of the three engines answer from global, US-centric training data, so a small Australian brand may score low simply because there's thin data about it, not because of a fixable problem. Read AU results with that in mind. ### Is the AI Search Grader the same as the AEO Grader? Yes. HubSpot launched it as the "AI Search Grader" in February 2025 and has since rebranded it the "AEO Grader." You'll see both names for the same free tool. It's separate from the paid "HubSpot AEO" monitoring product and the free "AEO Sensor" trends dashboard. ### Should I pay for HubSpot AEO instead? Only once you've outgrown the free snapshot. HubSpot AEO (US$50/month, or US$45 billed annually, 28-day free trial) adds continuous monitoring, prompt tracking and citation analysis, and is bundled into Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise. Before buying, compare it against pure-plays like Otterly.AI, Profound and Peec AI rather than purchasing on reflex. ## Read next - Category guide: Best AI Search & Visibility (AEO/GEO) Tools in Australia 2026 *(coming soon)* - [HubSpot Breeze AI review](https://www.theaidirectory.com.au/hubspot-breeze-review-australia-2026/) — the AI inside HubSpot's CRM, with onshore Sydney data hosting - [Semrush AI review](https://www.theaidirectory.com.au/semrush-review-australia-2026/) — whether your SEO platform already covers AI visibility ## Sources 1. HubSpot AEO Grader (free one-time diagnostic; no HubSpot account required, but a short form requires four fields — company name, location, product or services, industry, "All fields are required" — to access full results; scores sentiment (40), presence quality (20), brand recognition (20), share of voice (10), market competition (10); engines GPT-5.4 mini (OpenAI), Perplexity, Gemini (Google); composite score out of 100; paid HubSpot AEO from US$50/mo, no HubSpot subscription required, or included in Marketing Hub Pro and Enterprise) — [hubspot.com/aeo-grader](https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader?ref=theaidirectory.com.au) — Wayback: [archived 23 Jun 2026](https://web.archive.org/web/20260623084554/https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader) — checked 23 June 2026 2. HubSpot AEO grader / AI search tool (free one-time diagnostic; ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini; paid HubSpot AEO US$50/mo, US$45 annual, 28-day free trial, no credit card, 25 prompts, multi-engine coverage, competitor share-of-voice and citation analysis, prompt tracking, prioritised recommendations) — [hubspot.com/aeo-grader/ai-search-tool](https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader/ai-search-tool?ref=theaidirectory.com.au) — Wayback: [archived 9 Mar 2026](https://web.archive.org/web/20260309122123/https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader/ai-search-tool) — checked 23 June 2026 3. HubSpot company news — "From SEO to LMO: HubSpot launches the first free tool for AI discovery" (launch as AI Search Grader, February 2025; overall grade, brand sentiment score, share of voice, recommendations; free, globally available in English) — [hubspot.com/company-news/from-seo-to-lmo-hubspot-launches-the-first-free-tool-for-ai-discovery](https://www.hubspot.com/company-news/from-seo-to-lmo-hubspot-launches-the-first-free-tool-for-ai-discovery?ref=theaidirectory.com.au) — Wayback: [archived 16 Mar 2026](https://web.archive.org/web/20260316032421/https://www.hubspot.com/company-news/from-seo-to-lmo-hubspot-launches-the-first-free-tool-for-ai-discovery) — checked 23 June 2026 4. HubSpot AEO Grader vs Otterly.ai (AEO Grader completely free, unlimited runs, no credit card, covers ChatGPT/Perplexity/Gemini; composite score out of 100 across five dimensions; Otterly covers ChatGPT and Perplexity only, free trial then US$189/mo) — [hubspot.com/aeo-grader-aeog-vs-otterly](https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader-aeog-vs-otterly?ref=theaidirectory.com.au) — Wayback: [archived 23 Jun 2026](https://web.archive.org/web/20260623084900/https://www.hubspot.com/aeo-grader-aeog-vs-otterly) — checked 23 June 2026 5. HubSpot AEO guide (answer engine optimisation context; prompt tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini) — [hubspot.com/products/marketing/aeo-guide](https://www.hubspot.com/products/marketing/aeo-guide?ref=theaidirectory.com.au) — Wayback: [archived 23 Jun 2026](https://web.archive.org/web/20260623085015/https://www.hubspot.com/products/marketing/aeo-guide) — checked 23 June 2026 6. HubSpot privacy policy (data processed under HubSpot's standard privacy terms; no grader-specific Australian data-residency provision) — [legal.hubspot.com/privacy-policy](https://legal.hubspot.com/privacy-policy?ref=theaidirectory.com.au) — Wayback: [archived 23 Jun 2026](https://web.archive.org/web/20260623085000/https://legal.hubspot.com/privacy-policy) — checked 23 June 2026 *Secondary (context only): Stackmatix, RedPandas Digital, Concept, cmotech.asia commentary on the AEO Grader — background only; the five-dimension scoring breakdown, the GPT-5.4 mini engine, the form fields, and the rebrand from "AI Search Grader" to "AEO Grader" are all now confirmed against HubSpot's own pages (sources 1–3) and not relied on from these. The grader's fifth dimension is named "Market Competition" on HubSpot's page (some secondary write-ups call it "market position"); we use HubSpot's term.* --- *The AI Directory Australia is an independent editorial publication. We don't accept payment for positive reviews. Read our Methodology and Affiliate Disclosure pages.* *Reviewed by* [*Adam*](mailto:adam@theaidirectory.com.au) *for* [*The AI Directory Australia*](https://www.theaidirectory.com.au/)*. First published 23 June 2026.* ---