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Tool comparisons

The Best GEO Tools for Tracking AI Search Visibility, Compared

The best GEO tool for an indie hacker in 2026 is a cheap one you will actually check: Otterly.AI at $29 a month, or a free spot check first with HubSpot's AI Search Grader. Peec AI suits teams that want more prompts, and Ahrefs Brand Radar suits anyone already paying for Ahrefs. Enterprise trackers such as Profound start with a sales call.

Last updated October 2026

The comparison table

GEO, short for generative engine optimization, is the practice of getting your product named and cited in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews. The tools in this guide do the measuring half of that job: they send a fixed set of prompts to one or more AI engines on a schedule, record whether your brand appears, which competitors appear instead, and which sources the answer cites. None of them can make an engine mention you. What they give you is a baseline and a trend, so you can tell whether the pages and mentions you earn are changing anything.

Two numbers decide most of the price: how many prompts you track, and how many engines each prompt runs on. A small product needs fewer prompts than vendors suggest. Twenty to fifty well chosen buyer questions, checked weekly, tell you more than five hundred generic ones.

Pricing checked on each tool’s own pricing, feature or help pages. Prices change; confirm on the vendor’s page before you buy.

Nine GEO and AI search visibility tools compared on engines, prompts and starting price.
#ToolBest forFree planPaid fromNotes
1Otterly.AICheapest self-serve trackingFree trial (length not stated on the pricing page)$29 per month, or $25 billed yearly (Lite, 15 prompts)ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot; other engines are add-ons
2Peec AIDaily tracking with published prompt countsFree trialStarter: 50 prompts, 3 engines (price shown on its pricing page)Choose 3 engines from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity and more
3HubSpot AI Search GraderA free one-off baselineFree, no account needed for the checkOngoing tracking (HubSpot AEO) is $50 per monthChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini; based on model knowledge
4Ahrefs Brand RadarTeams already paying for Ahrefs5 custom prompts included with a paid Ahrefs Lite planCustom prompts add-on from €47 per monthAI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, ChatGPT
5Semrush AI Visibility ToolkitCombining AI visibility with SEO dataNo trial for the standalone toolkit$99 per month (25 prompts)Tracks Google AI Mode, ChatGPT and other engines; extra domains $99 each
6TimeToPostA free spot check, then content built to be citedFree GEO visibility check, 1 probe per day; SEO and GEO auditAutoSEO on Growth at $99 per monthOne configured model, no live web search; AI mentions monitoring in the app
7AthenaHQWide engine coverage with a free planEssential: free, 300 credits (1 credit is 1 AI answer)$295 per month (Starter, 3,600 credits)Starter covers 11 engines including Claude, Grok and DeepSeek
8ScrunchBrands that also want AI bot traffic data7-day trial on Core$250 per month (Core, 125 prompts)Core tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot
9ProfoundEnterprise brands7-day trial: 50 fixed prompts on 3 enginesNo public price (Enterprise, by demo)Enterprise tracks up to 9 engines

Which one to pick

  • You want a free baseline today: HubSpot AI Search Grader. One free snapshot across three engines, no account needed.
  • You want cheap ongoing tracking: Otterly.AI. $29 a month for daily tracking on four major engines.
  • You need 50 or more prompts: Peec AI. Published prompt allowances and unlimited users.
  • You already pay for Ahrefs: Ahrefs Brand Radar. Free custom prompts come with the plan you have.
  • You want to act on the result, not only measure it: TimeToPost. A free spot check plus AutoSEO articles shaped for citation, if you accept a single-model check.

Measure, then publish. The tools above tell you whether you are mentioned; they do not change it. What changes it is the same work that helps search: clear pages that say what the product is and who it is for, honest comparison pages, and independent mentions in places the engines read. Our guide to getting your software cited by AI assistants covers that half, and the llms.txt explainer covers a small, cheap file that some tools read.

A caution on reading results. AI answers vary between runs, accounts, locations and model versions. Treat a single answer as a sample and a daily series as a trend, and do not report a visibility percentage built on a handful of prompts as market share.

Every tool, one by one

Each entry links to the tool’s own site, the primary source for every price above. How we source facts is on the methodology page.

1. Otterly.AI

Otterly.AI has the lowest published self-serve price of the trackers here and covers the four engines most buyers use: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Daily tracking and unlimited team members are included. The entry plan is small at 15 prompts, and the next step up is a big one. Its live site served us a captcha, so these prices come from the Internet Archive's copy of its pricing page.

Pros

  • Lowest published self-serve price for ongoing tracking
  • Four major engines on every plan, tracked daily
  • GEO audits and unlimited team members included

Cons

  • Lite tracks only 15 prompts
  • Claude, Gemini and Google AI Mode are paid add-ons
  • API access and 100 prompts start at $189 a month

Visit: otterly.ai

2. Peec AI

Peec AI is a self-serve tracker that publishes what each plan includes: 50 prompts on Starter, 150 on Pro, 350 on Advanced, daily tracking and unlimited users on all of them. You pick three engines per plan below Enterprise. Its prices render in the browser and were not readable in the page source we fetched, so check the figure on its pricing page.

Pros

  • Clear prompt allowances per plan, tracked daily
  • Unlimited users on every plan
  • Wide engine choice, including AI Mode and Naver

Cons

  • Only 3 engines at a time below Enterprise
  • Starter is one project
  • We could not confirm the price in a form we could cite

Visit: peec.ai

3. HubSpot AI Search Grader

HubSpot's grader is the quickest free baseline: enter your brand and it scores how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini describe you, on sentiment, presence, recognition and share of voice. It is a one-time snapshot based on what the models already know, not live answers tracked over time. HubSpot sells ongoing tracking separately as HubSpot AEO at $50 a month.

Pros

  • Free, fast, no signup for the check
  • Scores sentiment, not only presence
  • Paid tracking is cheap at $50 a month

Cons

  • One-time snapshot, no history
  • Three engines only, no Google AI Overviews
  • The paid product's prompt allowance is not stated on the grader page

Visit: hubspot.com/aeo-grader

4. Ahrefs Brand Radar

Brand Radar adds AI visibility to an Ahrefs account. Paid Ahrefs plans include a few custom prompts for free, 5 on Lite and 20 on Advanced, and a large prompt index built from Ahrefs keyword data shows how often your brand comes up across many queries you did not write. Prices were shown to us in euros; the US price may differ.

Pros

  • Free custom prompts with any paid Ahrefs plan
  • A large prompt index from real keyword data
  • Also tracks YouTube, TikTok and Reddit visibility in beta

Cons

  • Needs an Ahrefs subscription for the free prompts
  • Only 5 custom prompts on Lite
  • The full AI Visibility Index starts at €179 a month

Visit: ahrefs.com/brand-radar

5. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Semrush sells AI visibility as a standalone toolkit at $99 a month and also bundles it into its newer SEO plus AI plans. The toolkit tracks prompts across AI engines including Google AI Mode and ChatGPT and adds AI search checks to Site Audit. For a small product it is expensive per prompt, and each extra domain or user adds another $99.

Pros

  • AI visibility next to keyword and site audit data in one account
  • Self-serve checkout
  • AI search health checks in Site Audit

Cons

  • Only 25 prompts for $99 a month
  • Each extra domain or user costs $99 a month
  • No free trial for the standalone toolkit

Visit: semrush.com/ai-seo

6. TimeToPost

TimeToPost is not a dedicated tracker. Its free GEO Visibility Check asks one configured AI model a neutral category question and reports whether your brand appears, one probe per day, with a five-prompt report by email. Its free SEO and GEO audit scores a page's AI readiness. The paid app adds AI mentions monitoring, keyword research and rank tracking, and the Growth plan's AutoSEO engine publishes articles shaped for citation, with FAQ markup and short answers, to your own site.

Pros

  • Free check with a published method and stated limits
  • Pairs measurement with a way to act: AutoSEO articles on your own domain
  • Free SEO and GEO readiness audit

Cons

  • The free check covers one model with no live web search, so it is a sample, not a share of voice
  • Not a multi-engine daily tracker like Otterly.AI or Peec AI
  • The pricing page does not say which plan includes AI mentions monitoring

Visit: timetopost.co · TimeToPost on Toolfound

7. AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ has a free plan with 300 credits, where one credit is one AI answer, across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter widens that to 11 engines including Claude. Credits rather than prompts make the real allowance depend on how often you check, and the first paid step is steep for a small product.

Pros

  • A free plan to test before paying
  • 11 engines on Starter, including Claude
  • Content optimisation agent included

Cons

  • $295 a month to start paying
  • Credit based, so prompt count depends on frequency
  • API and extra credits are priced by sales

Visit: athenahq.ai

8. Scrunch

Scrunch tracks 125 prompts on its Core plan across four engines, adds site audits and shows AI agent and bot traffic to your site. It is a serious tool priced for marketing teams. Claude, Gemini and AI Mode are Enterprise only, and Core has no API.

Pros

  • 125 prompts at entry, more than most self-serve plans
  • AI bot and agent traffic reporting
  • Self-serve trial

Cons

  • $250 a month entry
  • No Claude or Gemini below Enterprise
  • No API, MCP or Looker Studio on Core

Visit: scrunch.com

9. Profound

Profound is the enterprise end of the market: up to nine engines, AI traffic attribution, prompt volume data, SSO and an API. The free trial runs a fixed set of 50 prompts for 7 days on three engines. Beyond that there is no published price, and paid access starts with a demo, which puts it outside most indie budgets.

Pros

  • Widest engine coverage listed, up to 9
  • Prompt volume and AI traffic attribution
  • Free trial without a sales call

Cons

  • No published paid price
  • Trial prompts are fixed and cannot be customised
  • Trial covers only ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews

Visit: tryprofound.com

Common questions

What is a GEO tool?

A GEO (generative engine optimization) tool sends a set of prompts to AI engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Google AI Overviews, then records whether your brand is mentioned or cited, which competitors appear, and which sources the answers use. Most run on a daily or weekly schedule.

Is there a free AI visibility checker?

Yes. HubSpot's AI Search Grader gives a free one-time score across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini. TimeToPost's GEO Visibility Check runs one free probe per day on one model. AthenaHQ has a free plan with 300 credits, and Profound and Otterly.AI offer free trials.

How many prompts should a small product track?

Twenty to fifty, written as the questions your buyers actually ask: best tool for a job, alternatives to a known product, and comparisons. More prompts cost more and add noise. Keep the set stable so changes over time mean something.

Which engines matter most?

For most software products, ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews reach the most people, followed by Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Check where your own AI referral traffic comes from in your analytics before paying to track every engine.

Can a GEO tool get my product cited?

No. It measures. Citations come from what the engines can read about you: clear product pages, factual comparisons, documentation, reviews and independent mentions. Use the tool to see whether that work is moving the numbers.

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