Clearscope

Clearscope

Clearscope is an AI SEO content optimization platform used by large editorial teams. Clearscope grades a draft against the top-ranking content for a keyword, recommends the terms and topics the page is missing, and assigns a content grade writers can work toward. The 2026 product has widened from content grading into discoverability across both classic search and AI answers: Clearscope now tracks brand mentions in ChatGPT and Gemini responses and surfaces the background web searches AI platforms run when composing an answer.

Production credibility: Founded 2016 by Bernard Huang and Kevin Su; bootstrapped with no outside funding. Customer logos displayed on clearscope.io include Adobe, Shopify, IBM, Intuit, Condé Nast, Webflow, and HubSpot (vendor-displayed). Pricing starts at $129/month with no free tier — a deliberate premium position.

Key Features

• AI/NLP content reports that grade drafts against top-ranking pages with term recommendations
• Prompt Tracking: monitors brand mentions across ChatGPT and Gemini responses
• Query fan-out visibility — shows the web searches AI platforms run behind an answer
• Content decay monitoring and refresh recommendations (Protect)
• Topic discovery and content clustering for editorial planning (Discover)
• Internal linking recommendations tied to the content inventory

Ideal Use Case

Content and SEO teams at brands with large editorial libraries who want every article graded against the current SERP before publish, and who now need to know whether ChatGPT and Gemini mention their brand when answering questions in their space.

How Clearscope differentiates

Versus SurferSEO and Frase, Clearscope sits at the premium end of content optimization: a higher price floor, adoption inside large editorial organizations, and no one-click AI article generation by design. Its bet is optimization plus visibility measurement — including prompt tracking across AI assistants — rather than volume content production.

FAQ

Q: What is Clearscope? A: Clearscope is an AI SEO content optimization platform. It analyzes the top-ranking content for a keyword, recommends terms and topics your draft should cover, and grades the draft so writers can optimize before publishing.

Q: How much does Clearscope cost? A: Clearscope starts at $129/month on the Essentials plan, with Business at $399/month and custom enterprise pricing. There is no free tier.

Q: How is Clearscope different from SurferSEO? A: Both grade content against top-ranking pages. Clearscope is the premium, editorial-team pick — cleaner reports, no auto-generated articles, and prompt tracking for AI answers — while Surfer is cheaper and bundles AI writing features aimed at solo marketers and small teams.

Q: Does Clearscope track AI search visibility? A: Yes. Clearscope's prompt tracking monitors whether ChatGPT and Gemini mention your brand in their answers, and shows the background searches those systems run — extending optimization from Google rankings to AI answers.

Q: Who uses Clearscope? A: Content teams at large brands — vendor-displayed customers include Adobe, Shopify, IBM, Intuit, and Condé Nast. It fits teams that publish at volume and want a shared quality bar for every article.

tl;dr

Clearscope is the premium AI content optimization platform: grade drafts against the live SERP, keep aging content fresh, and track whether ChatGPT and Gemini mention your brand. Bootstrapped since 2016, used by Adobe-and-Shopify-tier editorial teams, from $129/month. The editorial-grade alternative to SurferSEO and Frase.

Related

Looking for more options? Browse the Marketing & SEO directory or read our best AI marketing tools listicle. Clearscope is also tracked on Crunchbase.