12 best AEO tools and AEO trackers compared, 2026 edition.

Honest, opinionated buyer's guide to the AEO tracking software that actually exists in 2026. Real starting prices, real engine counts, real weaknesses. Trakkr places itself on this list, so we name where every rival genuinely wins below.

12 tools reviewed 17 min read Verified July 2026

Quick answer/ the whole page in five lines

The best AEO tool overall in 2026 is Trakkr (from $100/mo: 8 engines, prompt-level tracking, citation sources, perception, 14-day trial). The best picks by situation:

• Best enterprise AEO platform: Profound (published Starter and Growth plans, Fortune 500 trust signals, Prompt Volumes panel data on Enterprise)
• Best budget AEO tracker: Otterly.AI ($29/mo Lite, 4 engines, published pricing)
• Best for technical AEO fixes: Scrunch AI ($250 annual equivalent, 7 surfaces plus site audits)
• Best for EU agencies: Peec AI ($95 brand Starter, unlimited users)
• Best in an SEO suite: SE Ranking / SE Visible (from $99/mo standalone)
• Best free option: Trakkr's free AEO Checker for a snapshot, or the 14-day trial for real data

Evidence checked

Tools 12 reviewed

Pricing Verified July 2026

Criteria Coverage, price, fit

Updated July 3, 2026

We compared public pricing, engine coverage, free-trial access, product positioning, published review pages, and where each vendor genuinely wins. The methodology section below explains the scoring logic and source set.

June 2026 AI consensus check

The AEO tools query is messy in AI answers too. In the June 14, 2026 AI Search Tools Index run, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity agreed on only 16% of AEO-tool picks. That is why this page uses a buyer rubric instead of blindly repeating the assistants' lists.

Consensus set

• Tools: 12
• Model agreement: 16%
• Assistants checked: 4
• Asked: June 14, 2026

Definition / What an AEO tool actually is

An AEO tool (or AEO tracker) monitors how AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews mention, cite, and recommend your brand. It runs thousands of prompts against the models on a schedule, parses the responses, and reports which prompts surfaced you, which surfaced competitors, what URLs the model cited as sources, and how the AI described you.

Functionally it is rank tracking for AI search. You will also see the same software called AEO software, an AEO platform, a GEO tool (Generative Engine Optimization), or an AI visibility platform; the names differ, the product category is the same.

In practice, AEO tools fall into three groups: measurement tools that track prompts, mentions, and citations (most of this list), content tools that generate or optimize pages for AI answers (Writesonic, AIClicks, AirOps), and technical tools that fix how AI crawlers read your site (Scrunch's audit layer, llms.txt generators). Most buyers need measurement first: you cannot fix what you cannot see.

The reason there are twelve vendors below and not three is that the category is young, the engines are moving, and every vendor is making a different bet about which signal matters: share of voice, citations, perception, prompt-level competitive coverage, or content output. The comparison below is built around the bets each tool is actually shipping in July 2026, not the bets their landing pages talk about.

The 12-tool table

Comparison table / 12 AEO tools side by side

Engine counts taken from each vendor's published plan pages, verified July 2026.

Tool-by-tool review / One honest paragraph each

01

Trakkr

This is our page, so take the placement with that in mind. What Trakkr actually does: tracks how 8 AI answer surfaces (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, and Google AI Overviews) mention and recommend your brand at the prompt level, plus the citation sources behind each mention, plus a perception layer that watches how the AI describes you. There is a Reddit intelligence pipeline, an AI crawler analytics view, agency white-label portals on the Scale plan, and a 14-day trial that does not require a sales call. Honest weakness below.

• Best for: Brands and agencies that want prompt-level data across every major engine, citations, perception, and white-label portals on one bill.
• Honest weakness: Newer category brand than Profound or the established SEO suites. No bundled traditional SEO; if you need rank tracking and link analysis on the same dashboard, you still need Ahrefs or Semrush alongside.
• Starting price: $100/mo
• Engines tracked: 8
• Free option: Free trial

02

Profound

Profound is one of the most enterprise-shaped AI visibility platforms on this list. Its headline product is share-of-voice reporting, with Prompt Volumes panel data for category-level intelligence. The official pricing page now lists a $99 Starter plan for ChatGPT and a $399 Growth plan for three answer engines, both billed annually. Buyers still need Enterprise for the broadest coverage, Prompt Volumes, API access, and procurement terms.

• Best for: Fortune 500 marketing teams that need full prompt-volume panel data, SOC 2 Type II, and a dedicated CSM on day one.
• Honest weakness: Starter covers only ChatGPT, Growth covers three answer engines, and the broadest coverage requires Enterprise. Strong research tool, but less direct for buyers that want Reddit intelligence and broad self-serve coverage.
• Starting price: $99/mo annual
• Engines tracked: 1-10
• Free option: 7-day trial

03

AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ combines an Action Center with a permanent free Essential tier and a $295 Starter plan. Essential includes 300 credits, five named engines, and unlimited members. Starter includes 3,600 credits, visibility across nine models, unlimited seats, API access, and CSV export. Multi-region controls, SSO, audit logs, and BI dashboards remain Enterprise.

• Best for: Teams that want assigned GEO tasks, not just dashboards, and are happy with credit-style billing.
• Honest weakness: Credit pricing makes spend variable. Starter is single-country and the ACE Citation Engine remains Enterprise. The free Essential tier is permanent but limited to 300 credits.
• Starting price: Free tier; $295/mo Starter
• Engines tracked: 5 free / 9 Starter
• Free option: Free tier

04

Scrunch AI

Scrunch covers seven named surfaces on every public plan: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, and Meta AI. The differentiator is the audit-and-serve layer: site audits plus an Agent Experience Platform for AI crawlers. Starter is $250/month billed annually or $300 month-to-month, with a 7-day no-card trial.

• Best for: Teams that want monitoring plus a technical fix layer — site audits and AI-crawler page serving — from one vendor.
• Honest weakness: $250/mo billed annually is a meaningful entry point. SAML/OIDC and the Data API are Enterprise, while agency white-label entitlement is sales-led.
• Starting price: $250/mo
• Engines tracked: 7 (all public plans)
• Free option: Free trial

05

AIClicks

AIClicks publishes $59 Starter, $189 Pro, $499 Business, and custom Enterprise plans. The plans include 30, 150, and 300 prompts and a choice of 3, 4, or 6 models. Pro and Business list API and MCP access. The site publishes a 3-day trial. One unresolved inconsistency remains: the Starter card says one website while the comparison table says three, so this page uses the plan-card limit.

• Best for: Small teams that want a single bill for prompt tracking + monthly AI content output, or buyers shopping for a managed AI SEO service.
• Honest weakness: Engine count ladders aggressively by tier. AI-generated blog output is interesting but raises the usual quality/originality questions. The 3-day trial is short for a category where the data takes a week to look representative.
• Starting price: $59/mo
• Engines tracked: 3–6 by tier
• Free option: Free trial

06

Otterly.AI

Otterly publishes true monthly prices of $29, $189, and $489, plus annual equivalents of $25, $160, and $422. Lite has 15 prompts, Standard 100, and Premium 400. The 7-day no-card trial includes 50 prompts and temporary API/MCP allowances. Four base engines are included; Claude, Google AI Mode, and Gemini are paid add-ons.

• Best for: Small teams and agencies that want clear pricing, daily tracking, and a Looker Studio reporting flow without an enterprise sales cycle.
• Honest weakness: Gemini and Google AI Mode are paid add-ons, not core. No prompt-level perception layer, no Reddit intelligence, no crawler analytics. Built more for reporting than optimization.
• Starting price: $29/mo
• Engines tracked: 4 (Google AIOs, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot)
• Free option: Free trial

07

Peec AI

Peec publishes $95, $245, and $495 brand plans plus $245, $495, and $795 agency plans. Brand self-serve tiers choose three of six default engines; agency plans include all six defaults. Unlimited users, CSV, MCP, pitch projects, and client-seat allowances are public. API and SSO require the custom top tier. Peec says it is pursuing SOC 2, not certified.

• Best for: European agencies with GDPR as a hard requirement, lots of seats, and a pitch-driven sales motion.
• Honest weakness: Brand self-serve tiers include only three selected engines. API and SSO are custom-tier features, native white labeling is unconfirmed, and the Try for free CTA has no published duration.
• Starting price: $95/mo brand; $245/mo agency
• Engines tracked: 6 defaults; choose 3 on brand self-serve
• Free option: Try for free; duration not published

08

Writesonic

Writesonic combines content workflows with GEO tracing. Current annual equivalents are $79 Starter, $199 Basic, and $399 Growth; true month-to-month prices are $99, $249, and $499. Self-serve plans cover ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews with 50, 100, or 200 prompts. Enterprise expands to ten platforms. A no-card free trial is published, but no official duration is stated.

• Best for: Content teams that already use Writesonic for AI content and want a GEO module on the same bill.
• Honest weakness: Not a pure-play AEO tool. Lower tiers ship lighter visibility depth than the headline pricing implies. Plan packaging keeps changing.
• Starting price: $79/mo billed annually
• Engines tracked: 3 self-serve / 10 Enterprise
• Free option: Free trial

09

HubSpot AEO (Brand Visibility in AI Search)

HubSpot rolled out an AI Search Grader and an AEO/brand-visibility module inside Marketing Hub during 2025. It is a real, working feature — it tracks brand mentions in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews and ties them back to HubSpot's content workflow. The honest reading: if you already run HubSpot, turn it on, it's free in the stack you have. As a standalone AEO product it does not stand up. You cannot buy it without buying Marketing Hub Professional, the engine coverage is narrower than purpose-built tools, and the depth (prompt-level competitor analysis, citation source attribution, perception) is shallower.

• Best for: HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional customers who want a free-with-stack first look at AI visibility before paying for a dedicated platform.
• Honest weakness: Not sold standalone. Three engines, no perception or Reddit layer, no agency portals. Best treated as a tripwire that surfaces the problem, not the tool that solves it.
• Starting price: Bundled with Marketing Hub
• Engines tracked: 3 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews)
• Free option: No

10

SE Ranking / SE Visible

SE Visible publishes $99, $189, and $355 plans with 200, 450, and 1,000 prompts and a 10-day trial. It covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. The wider SEO suite starts at €109 month-to-month or €87.20 as an annual equivalent. API plans are separate and have their own 14-day trial.

• Best for: Existing SE Ranking customers who want AEO inside the suite they already pay for, or budget buyers who want a 10-day trial and predictable monthly pricing.
• Honest weakness: The split between SE Visible, the SEO suite, its AI Search add-on, and separate API plans makes the commercial story easy to collapse incorrectly.
• Starting price: $99/mo (SE Visible)
• Engines tracked: 5 (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, Perplexity, AI Overviews)
• Free option: Free trial

11

AirOps

AirOps is a content-operations platform first and a visibility tracker second: the pitch is closing the loop from AI search insight to governed, on-brand content production at scale, and for enterprise content teams that loop is real. It also has the only genuine free tier on this list: the Insights plan costs $0, and the Solo plan is free to start with 100 tracked prompts. Read the fine print, though: the entry tiers track ChatGPT only, billing is per-task ($0.025 each over the allotment) so spend moves with usage, and the plans with real multi-engine measurement are custom-quoted. As a standalone AEO tracker it is the wrong shape; as a content engine with visibility data attached it is a serious product.

• Best for: Enterprise content teams that want visibility insights feeding a content production workflow, not a standalone dashboard.
• Honest weakness: Entry tiers are ChatGPT-only. Task-based billing makes spend unpredictable at scale. Multi-engine tracking depth sits behind custom quotes, and the measurement layer is thinner than the dedicated trackers above.
• Starting price: Free tier
• Engines tracked: 1 on entry (more on custom plans)
• Free option: Free tier

12

Mentions.so

Mentions.so publishes $49, $99, $199, and $399 monthly plans with 25, 50, 100, and 300 prompts. Seats are unlimited on every plan. Starter tracks three LLMs, while Pro and above include all supported engines. Agency adds unlimited sites, white labeling, a custom domain, and a pitch workspace. No official trial duration, API entitlement, or security certification was confirmed.

• Best for: Agencies and lean growth teams that want a single tool for "find the citation, run the outreach, ship the content."
• Honest weakness: API access, export support, enterprise SSO, and a product-trial duration are not publicly confirmed.
• Starting price: $49/mo
• Engines tracked: 3 on Starter; all supported on Pro+
• Free option: No published duration or permanent free tier

Also evaluated, not ranked

Tools we checked during research that did not make the ranked list, and why.

• Ahrefs Brand Radar: AI visibility module inside Ahrefs (from $129/mo). Aggregate mention data across a few engines, not prompt-level tracking. If you already pay for Ahrefs, turn it on as a tripwire; it is not a standalone AEO tracker.
• Semrush AI SEO Toolkit: AI visibility layered onto the Semrush suite (from $139/mo), strongest on Google AI Overviews via Position Tracking. Same verdict as Ahrefs: useful in-suite signal, not a dedicated tracker.
• Gauge, Qwairy, Rank Prompt: Young pure-plays that show up in 2026 roundups. We have not verified their pricing, engine coverage, or data quality first-hand, so they are not ranked. Shortlist them only if you are comfortable being an early adopter.
• AEO Track, Vizup, and other checker-style sites: A wave of small AEO tracker and checker products launched in 2025-26. We could not verify engine counts, prompt volumes, or pricing stability for most of them. Ask two questions before paying any of them: how many engines, and how many prompt runs per day.

Pricing snapshot

What every tier actually costs in 2026

Tool by use case

Which AEO tool for which buyer

D2C & eCommerce

• Primary pick: Trakkr
• Why: Prompt-level data across 8 engines plus citation source tracking means you can find the exact product query you are missing on and the exact URL the model cited instead.
• Fallback: Otterly if budget is genuinely tight and 4 engines is acceptable.

Enterprise B2B

• Primary pick: Profound (Enterprise) or Trakkr (Enterprise)
• Why: Profound owns Fortune 500 trust signals and ships Prompt Volumes panel data at the top tier. Trakkr Enterprise ships the same data structure plus perception, Reddit intelligence, and crawler analytics for less. Run both through procurement.

Agencies

• Primary pick: Trakkr (Scale)
• Why: $500/mo for 10 brands with full white-label client portals and API access. AthenaHQ does not ship portals; Profound charges enterprise rates per brand; Otterly's $489/mo Premium is single-tenant.
• Fallback: Peec AI if you are an EU agency with GDPR as a hard requirement; AIClicks if you want done-for-you AI SEO bundled with the platform.

Startups & SMBs

• Primary pick: Otterly Lite ($29/mo) or Trakkr Growth ($100/mo)
• Why: Otterly is the cheapest published self-serve plan in the category. Trakkr Growth adds 4 more engines and a perception layer. If you are budget-constrained, start with Otterly; if you want the full picture, start with Trakkr's 14-day trial.

Coaches, consultants & personal brands

• Primary pick: Trakkr Growth or Otterly Lite
• Why: Both will track a single brand cleanly. Trakkr covers more engines and tracks Reddit, which matters for personal-brand queries; Otterly is half the price if your tracking needs are minimal.

Already on HubSpot Marketing Hub

• Primary pick: HubSpot AEO (in-stack)
• Why: It is free in the stack you already pay for and will confirm or rule out the problem in a week. If it surfaces gaps, move to Trakkr or Profound — HubSpot is not deep enough to act on long-term.

Best free AEO tracker

What you can actually use for $0

Option A

Free one-shot snapshot: Trakkr's free AEO Checker runs your domain through a sample of prompts across the major engines and returns a visibility score and a list of where you do and do not appear. No signup, no card. Use this to confirm there is a problem before you spend.

Option B

Free trial of a real tracker: Three tools above ship a self-serve free trial: Trakkr (14 days), Otterly (free trial), and SE Visible (10 days). A week of trial data beats a one-shot snapshot for any decision with budget attached. Avoid anything that requires a sales call to start the trial.

What "free" does not include in 2026

• No major vendor ships a permanent free tier with prompt-level tracking and citation source attribution. The economics do not work — every prompt run is a real LLM API call. Anything advertising "free forever AEO tracking" is either rate-limited to the point of uselessness or running on top of a free tier of someone else's API. Treat it accordingly.

Methodology / How this list was built

The twelve tools above are the AEO/GEO trackers that, as of July 2026, are either publicly billed as such (Trakkr, Profound, AthenaHQ, Scrunch, AIClicks, Otterly, Peec, Mentions.so), ship a dedicated AEO module inside a broader product (Writesonic, SE Ranking/SE Visible, AirOps), or bundle the capability inside a CRM platform we hear named in real buying conversations (HubSpot). Tools whose AEO surface is a single dashboard widget inside an SEO suite (Ahrefs Brand Radar, Semrush AI SEO Toolkit) sit in the "also evaluated" block above the pricing table: they are tripwires, not standalone trackers, and ranking them against dedicated platforms would flatter neither.

Each tool is scored across the same criteria: engine coverage on the published plans, prompt-level granularity, citation source attribution, perception or sentiment layer, competitor benchmarking, agency/multi-brand workflows, transparent self-serve pricing, free trial accessibility. Trakkr places at #1 against those criteria because no rival currently ships the full set on a single bill, and the criteria are biased toward the buyer who wants to operate the platform themselves rather than buy a managed service. If your criteria are different — for example, you weight Fortune 500 trust signals or in-stack convenience above feature depth — your top three will reorder. The use-case section above is built around that.

Pricing was verified against each vendor's public pricing URL, most recently in July 2026. Where a vendor does not publish stable pricing (Mentions.so) we say so on the row. We do not accept vendor sponsorship for placement on this list, and the per-tool reviews link to our standalone editorial review pages — which are written and dated independently of this roundup.

If a vendor on this list moves prices or changes engine coverage and we have not updated, email support@trakkr.ai and we will fix it inside a week.

FAQ / The questions we get most

What is an AEO tool?

An AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) tool monitors how AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews mention, cite, and recommend your brand. Concretely, the tool runs thousands of prompts against the models on a schedule, parses the responses, and reports which prompts mentioned you, which mentioned competitors, what URLs the model cited as sources, and how the AI described you. It is the equivalent of rank tracking for AI search.

How is an AEO tracker different from a traditional SEO tool?

SEO tools track Google rankings — they ask 'where do I rank for keyword X?'. AEO tools track AI answers — they ask 'when someone asks ChatGPT or Perplexity X, does my brand appear in the answer, and which URLs does the model cite?'. Both matter, but the measurement problem is different: an SEO tool is checking a public index, an AEO tool is making thousands of real API calls to LLMs to sample their behavior. That is also why AEO tools cost more than the entry SEO suites — the underlying model calls are not free.

What is the best free AEO tracker?

There are two honest answers. (1) Free, one-shot snapshot: Trakkr's free AEO Checker runs your domain through a sample of prompts and gives you a visibility score with no signup. Use this to validate the problem. (2) Free trial of a real tool: Trakkr's 14-day trial, Otterly's free trial, and SE Visible's 10-day trial all let you operate the full product before paying. Trial trumps snapshot if you have a week. Avoid any tool that requires a sales call to start a trial.

How many AI engines should an AEO tool monitor?

Four is a practical floor for useful coverage: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and either Microsoft Copilot or Google AI Overviews. Trakkr covers eight models, AthenaHQ Starter publishes nine-model visibility, Scrunch covers seven named surfaces, and Profound Enterprise lists up to ten. Peec brand self-serve plans choose three of six defaults, while its agency plans include all six defaults.

How much do AEO tools actually cost in 2026?

Published entry plans include Otterly Lite at $29 month-to-month, Mentions Starter at $49 month-to-month, AIClicks Starter at $59 month-to-month, Writesonic Starter at a $79 annual equivalent or $99 month-to-month, Peec brand Starter at $95 month-to-month, Profound Starter at $99 billed annually, SE Visible Basic at $99, Trakkr Growth at $100/mo, Scrunch Starter at a $250 annual equivalent or $300 month-to-month, and AthenaHQ Starter at $295 after its free Essential tier. Enterprise plans without a published price are labeled custom quote.

Are AEO tools, GEO tools, and AI visibility tools the same thing?

Functionally yes: the category has three names and vendors pick whichever one their buyers search for. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) tools both mean software that tracks and improves how AI answer engines represent your brand; 'AI visibility platform' is the vendor-neutral umbrella term. Some people draw a finer line: AEO for answer-style surfaces (AI Overviews, featured answers) and GEO for generative chat (ChatGPT, Claude), but in practice, every tool on this list monitors both. When you evaluate, ignore the label and check the three things that actually differ: engine coverage, prompt-level granularity, and citation source attribution.

What is the best AEO tool for agencies?

Trakkr Scale is the strongest agency option in the category: 10 brands, full white-label client portals that hide the tool from clients entirely, and API access on one bill. Peec AI is the best European alternative if GDPR and EU data residency are hard requirements (unlimited seats and Pitch Workspaces are genuinely agency-shaped features), but you give up citation tracking and API access, and pay per-engine add-on fees. AIClicks fits agencies that want to resell done-for-you AI SEO rather than operate a platform. Profound and AthenaHQ price per brand at enterprise rates, which breaks most agency margin models.

Can I just use Ahrefs or Semrush AI features instead of buying a dedicated AEO tool?

You can, and it costs nothing extra if you already pay for those suites. The trade-off is depth — Ahrefs Brand Radar and Semrush AI features ship aggregate visibility numbers and 2–3 engines, not prompt-level data across 8 engines with citation source attribution and perception. They are fine as a tripwire. They are not a replacement for a dedicated AEO platform if you need to act on the data.

Why does Trakkr appear at the top of its own listicle?

Fair question. The honest answer is that this is our page, and you should weight the ranking accordingly. The reason Trakkr places at #1 against the criteria used here — 8-engine coverage, prompt-level data, citation source tracking, perception layer, agency portals, transparent self-serve pricing, real free trial — is that no rival currently ships all of those on one bill. Profound is more enterprise-grade but pricier and reporting-only. AthenaHQ is comparable on engines but uses credit billing and gates the most useful feature to Enterprise. We name where each rival genuinely wins above, and we publish a methodology section at the bottom of this page so you can audit the framework.