The short answer
They are different classes of measurement.
What the free check covers
The free AI visibility check — requested with your scope through the contact page and started the same business day — is a preliminary automated read of roughly 18 observations, taken on one to three buyer questions across six places where AI answers show up. It comes back with the source addresses those answers cited, so you can see where AI places your brand today and what the delivered format looks like on your own name.
What a paid audit adds
Paid audits answer the questions that follow, with numbers: Compass runs 20 buyer questions and Panorama 50, adding full status disclosure and statistics, the technical gate audit, the AI brand-recognition read, win/loss and kickoff cards, citation gaps, the SEO×AI quadrant and entry priorities — and Panorama layers on the misinformation scan, the expert-written narrative and the 15-slide executive brief. The paid read is the measured basis for next-quarter budget priorities. Compare the real deliverables on the sample reports.
Why this matters
Treat the free read as the audit and a decision gets made on a handful of observations. It shows direction. It does not show size.
The free read hands back the addresses those answers cited, so you can check our call yourself. A paid round carries confidence intervals because it has the repeats to support them.
Questions buyers read next
Where this answer comes from — Published pricesHow we measureTerms, defined