SEO & AI Search

Best AEO Tracking Software for 2026: 11 Options Compared by Use Case

The best AEO tracking software compared on price, engines and prompt limits: 11 tools from $29/month, with real prices checked October 31, 2026.

Shamim Mia, Founder, SerpAstraLast verified October 31, 202615 min read

We compare pricing pages, documentation and public reviews. We never accept payment for rankings.

Key takeaways

  • Peec AI is the best fit for most teams at $95/month for 50 daily prompts; Otterly.AI is the cheapest way in at $29/month, and PromptWatch matches Peec at $95 with a free plan.
  • Dedicated AEO tools start at $29–$95/month; the suites charge $99–$229/month for AI visibility on top of, or inside, a full SEO subscription.
  • The single most important buying factor is prompt coverage per dollar: count the prompts you will track, multiply by the engines, and compare that number — not the headline price.
  • Only Athena HQ has a free plan that tracks real AI answers; every other tool here offers a free trial of 7–14 days instead.
  • Every price below was checked on the vendor's own pricing page on October 31, 2026. Ratings are G2, with review counts shown; Goodie AI has no rating because no verifiable G2 score was found.
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Quick comparison

Starting prices checked October 31, 2026 on each vendor's pricing page
ToolBest forStarting priceFree plan
Peec AIAgencies and mid-market marketing teams tracking several brands or countries who want readable share-of-voice reports$80/mo (annual)No (7-day trial)
Otterly.AISmall brands and solo marketers running a first AEO pilot on a tight budget$25/mo (annual)No (14-day trial)
PromptWatchSmall teams that want transparent limits, API and MCP access, and AEO article credits in one plan$95/moYes (free plan)
SE RankingSmall SEO teams that want AI visibility inside a full SEO suite they already use for rank tracking$103.20/mo (annual)No (14-day trial)
Semrush AI Visibility ToolkitTeams already paying for Semrush who want AI visibility in the same login$99/mo per domainYes (free account)
Scrunch AIMid-market brands that need deep citation diagnostics plus audits of how AI-ready their pages are$250/moNo (7-day trial)
ProfoundEnterprise brands running a large AEO program across many engines, countries and languagesCustom quoteNo (7-day trial)
Goodie AIBrands that want monitoring plus an action layer that writes content, fixes technical signals and does outreach$354/moNo (7-day trial)
Athena HQData-driven teams that want to test AI visibility with their own prompts before any budget conversation$295/moYes (free plan)
Ahrefs Brand RadarAhrefs users who want market-wide AI visibility research without picking prompts first$199/mo per indexYes (free account)
AccuRanker AccuLLMAccuRanker customers tracking thousands of keywords who want AI visibility in the same reporting system$206/mo (annual)No

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The best aeo tracking software

#1

Peec AI

Best for: Agencies and mid-market marketing teams tracking several brands or countries who want readable share-of-voice reports

4.7/5 on G2 (21 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit peec.ai
Starting price$95/month (Starter, billed monthly; $80/month billed annually)
Free planNo — 7-day free trial

Peec AI is the most agency-shaped tool in this list. The Starter plan tracks 50 prompts daily for $95/month, and every plan includes unlimited users, which matters when clients log in to see their own numbers. It reports the metrics a marketing manager actually reads — visibility, position, sentiment, share of voice and cited sources — across ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Perplexity and Gemini, with three of those six on each self-serve plan.

The honest limits are engine gating and execution. Extra engines are paid add-ons, and Peec shows you the gap without fixing it: there is no content or outreach layer. For an agency that pitches often, the free 7-day pitch projects are the standout feature — real prospect data before the sales call. If you need the fixes done for you, look at Goodie AI instead.

What we like

  • Starter is $95/month for 50 prompts tracked daily, with unlimited users on every plan
  • Tracks visibility, position, sentiment, share of voice and cited sources across 6 engines
  • Free 7-day pitch projects let agencies show prospects real data before they sign
  • Looker Studio connector and API on Enterprise for client reporting

Watch out for

  • Self-serve plans cover only 3 of 6 engines; Claude, DeepSeek, Qwen and Mistral need Enterprise
  • The pricing page shows EUR to some visitors, so US buyers should confirm the USD figure at checkout
  • No built-in action layer — the tool reports where you stand and leaves the fixes to your team
#2

Otterly.AI

Best for: Small brands and solo marketers running a first AEO pilot on a tight budget

4.7/5 on G2 (54 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit otterly.ai
Starting price$29/month (Lite, billed monthly; $25/month billed annually)
Free planNo — 14-day free trial

Otterly.AI is the cheapest credible way to start tracking AI visibility. Lite costs $29/month for 15 prompts tracked daily across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with unlimited team members included. That is enough for a small brand tracking its core topics, and the GEO Audit — which checks whether your pages can be crawled and cited at all — is the feature that earns the subscription.

The add-on structure is the catch. Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude each cost extra, so a Lite user who adds all three pays about $76/month before any extra prompts. Fifteen prompts also runs out fast once you track competitors. Start here to prove the channel matters, then move to Peec AI or PromptWatch when the prompt list grows past 50.

What we like

  • Cheapest entry point here — Lite is $29/month for 15 prompts across 4 engines
  • Daily tracking and unlimited team members on every plan, including Lite
  • GEO Audit checks whether your pages are crawlable and citable by AI engines
  • Named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2025

Watch out for

  • Lite covers only 15 prompts, so a real keyword set outgrows it fast
  • Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude are paid add-ons on every tier, from $9/month each on Lite
  • Reviewers note the sentiment classifier can tag neutral mentions as negative
#3

PromptWatch

Best for: Small teams that want transparent limits, API and MCP access, and AEO article credits in one plan

4.6/5 on G2 (22 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit promptwatch.com
Starting price$95/month (Essential, billed monthly)
Free planYes — free plan, plus 7-day free trial on Essential

PromptWatch is the transparent pick in this list. It publishes prompts and responses per month side by side — Essential is $95/month for 50 prompts and 6,000 responses — so you can see what you are actually buying before the invoice arrives. API and MCP access come with every paid plan, and the 12-platform roster is the widest of any self-serve tool here, even though brand plans track four of them per project.

The limits are the four-platform cap and the agent credits, which start at 500 a month and run down fast if you lean on the AI agent. Crawler logs start on Professional ($245/month), not Essential. Pick PromptWatch when you want to connect AEO data to your own stack, or when local tracking down to the city matters.

What we like

  • Essential is $95/month for 50 prompts and 6,000 AI responses a month, with the response allowance published next to the prompt count
  • API and MCP access on every paid plan, plus crawler logs from Professional
  • Tracks 12 platforms including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek and Grok
  • City and state-level tracking on every plan

Watch out for

  • Brand plans track only 4 of the 12 platforms per project; all 12 at once needs an agency plan
  • Agent credits start at 500 a month on Essential and run down fast, per G2 reviewers
  • Agency plans share one response pool across clients, so each new client cuts the others' coverage
#4

SE Ranking

Best for: Small SEO teams that want AI visibility inside a full SEO suite they already use for rank tracking

4.7/5 on G2 (1,619 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit seranking.com
Starting price$129/month (Core, billed monthly; $103.20/month billed annually)
Free planNo — 14-day free trial

SE Ranking is the suite value pick because the entry Core plan does not feel like an entry plan: 2,000 keywords tracked daily, a 250,000-page site audit allowance and AI visibility tracking across five engines, all for $103.20/month billed annually. If your team already does rank tracking and research in SE Ranking, the AI visibility is essentially free — it is bundled, not bolted on.

The cap is the thing to check. Core allows 25 AI prompts a day, which covers a small brand's core topics but not a multi-brand agency's full list. If you need hundreds of prompts, a dedicated tool gives you more per dollar. Buy SE Ranking when you want one subscription for rankings and AI answers together.

What we like

  • AI visibility tracking across 5 engines is included on every plan, including Core
  • Core also tracks 2,000 keywords daily and bundles site audit, keyword and backlink research
  • White-label reporting and guest links for client work
  • Lowest cost per daily-tracked keyword among the suites here

Watch out for

  • AI visibility is capped at 25 prompts a day on Core, so large prompt sets need a higher plan
  • Some G2 reviewers report occasional minor discrepancies in rank-tracking accuracy versus larger competitors
  • Reviewers note the interface can feel less intuitive, and complex reports take getting used to
#5

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Best for: Teams already paying for Semrush who want AI visibility in the same login

4.4/5 on G2 (4,304 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit semrush.com
Starting price$99/month per domain (AI Visibility Toolkit; same price on monthly and annual billing)
Free planYes — free Semrush account (toolkit needs a paid plan)

The Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is the add-on pick for Semrush users. For $99/month per domain it tracks 25 prompts daily and adds Brand Performance reports that show how your brand appears across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity. If you already pay for Semrush One Starter ($199/month), the toolkit is bundled with 50 prompts, which is the cheaper route for most teams.

Two honest limits. First, the per-domain price means five client brands cost $495/month before anything else. Second, the engine coverage is narrower than the dedicated tools: Perplexity shows up only in weekly brand reports, and Claude is not tracked at all. Buy it when Semrush is already your home base, not as a first AEO tool.

What we like

  • $99/month per domain for 25 prompts tracked daily, with Brand Performance reports for one domain
  • Sits beside Semrush's keyword database of more than 27 billion keywords and its site audit
  • Bundled into Semrush One Starter ($199/month) with 50 prompts if you already need the SEO tools
  • White-label PDF reports available as a $20/month add-on

Watch out for

  • $99 a month per domain, so the bill scales in a straight line with every brand you track
  • Prompt Tracking covers ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini daily; Perplexity appears only in weekly brand reports, and Claude is not tracked
  • The toolkit has no free trial, and each extra user needs their own AI Visibility license
#6

Scrunch AI

Best for: Mid-market brands that need deep citation diagnostics plus audits of how AI-ready their pages are

4.6/5 on G2 (73 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit scrunch.com
Starting price$250/month (Core)
Free planNo — 7-day free trial

Scrunch AI is the diagnostics pick. Core costs $250/month and includes 125 unique prompts across four engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot — plus 5,000 responses a month and five site audits. It records every cited domain and URL behind each answer, so you can see exactly which pages win citations and which competitors take them from you.

The refresh cadence is the trade-off: new prompts run daily for two weeks, then every 72 hours by default. The Agent Experience Platform is the other reason to buy Scrunch — it serves AI crawlers a clean version of your pages. Pick it when citation evidence and AI-readiness matter more than daily checks.

What we like

  • Core includes 125 unique prompts across 4 engines, with 5,000 responses a month
  • Records every cited domain and URL behind each answer, with hallucination detection
  • Agent Experience Platform serves AI crawlers a clean, machine-readable version of your pages
  • SOC 2 Type II audited, which helps with enterprise security reviews

Watch out for

  • New prompts run daily for 14 days, then every 72 hours by default — not daily forever
  • User licenses are capped at 5 on Core
  • Acquired by Sitecore in June 2026, so the standalone roadmap is less certain than a year ago
#7

Profound

Best for: Enterprise brands running a large AEO program across many engines, countries and languages

4.5/5 on G2 (1,128 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit tryprofound.com
Starting priceCustom quote (Enterprise; free 7-day trial with 50 prompts)
Free planNo — 7-day free trial

Profound is the enterprise standard in this category, and its G2 review base — 1,128 reviews — is larger than every other tool here combined. Enterprise plans track citations across up to nine engines, and Prompt Volumes data estimates how often real users actually ask each question you track, which is the closest thing this category has to search volume. Aim, its AI marketer agent, turns the data into marketing work instead of leaving it in a dashboard.

The catch is access. Profound removed its $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans in September 2026, so the only way in now is a free 7-day trial followed by a custom Enterprise contract. For a small team that is a non-starter. For an enterprise brand, it is the deepest platform here — just budget for a sales cycle.

What we like

  • Largest G2 review base in this list — 1,128 reviews — and the deepest enterprise feature set
  • Tracks citations across up to 9 engines, with agent analytics showing how AI crawlers read your site
  • Prompt Volumes data estimates how often real users ask each tracked question
  • Aim, its AI marketer agent, turns visibility data into marketing work

Watch out for

  • No self-serve plan since September 2026 — the $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans were removed, so every deal is a sales conversation
  • Enterprise pricing is unpublished, and real deployments are reported in the thousands per month
  • The credit-based model for Profound Agents adds variable costs worth monitoring
#8

Goodie AI

Best for: Brands that want monitoring plus an action layer that writes content, fixes technical signals and does outreach

Visit higoodie.com
Starting price$354/month (Core, billed monthly; $295/month billed annually)
Free planNo — 7-day free trial

Goodie AI is the closed-loop pick: it does not stop at telling you where you stand. Core costs $295/month billed annually and covers 110 prompts a day across five engines, plus 50 optimization actions a month from agents that write content, fix technical signals and run outreach. Revenue attribution ties the visibility back to outcomes, including zero-click traffic that Google Analytics cannot see.

The price is the filter. At $295/month, Core is the most expensive self-serve entry here, and Claude, Meta AI, DeepSeek and Grok coverage needs Enterprise. There is also no verifiable G2 rating to cross-check the claims against, so the 7-day free trial matters — run your own prompts before you commit.

What we like

  • Core covers 110 prompts a day across 5 engines, with 50 optimization actions a month included
  • Every plan includes the full action layer — content writer, optimization, blog generation, outreach and technical agents — not just monitoring
  • Unlimited seats on every plan, with an AEO strategist on Core
  • Revenue attribution links visibility to outcomes, including traffic Google Analytics cannot see

Watch out for

  • Core is the most expensive entry tier among the self-serve tools here at $295/month
  • Claude, Meta AI, DeepSeek and Grok coverage needs Enterprise
  • Thin independent review footprint — no verifiable G2 rating found at the time of writing
#9

Athena HQ

Best for: Data-driven teams that want to test AI visibility with their own prompts before any budget conversation

4.9/5 on G2 (39 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit athenahq.ai
Starting price$295/month (Starter, billed monthly; annual billing is 17% cheaper)
Free planYes — free Essential plan (300 credits)

Athena HQ wins on try-before-you-buy. Its free Essential plan includes 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot, so you can run real tracking with your own prompts before any budget conversation. Paid plans start at $295/month for Starter with 3,600 credits and visibility across 11 models, and it holds the highest G2 score in this list at 4.9/5.

The credit meter is the thing to read carefully. One credit equals one AI response, so tracking 100 prompts across six engines once a day burns about 600 credits a day — the Starter allowance lasts roughly six days at that pace. Start on the free plan, model your real prompt volume, and only then decide whether Starter fits.

What we like

  • The only free plan here that tracks real AI answers: Essential includes 300 credits across 5 engines
  • Starter covers 11 models including Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Google AI Mode
  • Hallucination detection flags inaccurate claims AI engines make about your brand
  • Highest G2 score in this list at 4.9/5 across 39 reviews

Watch out for

  • Paid plans are metered in credits — one credit is one AI response — so costs rise fast when you track many prompts across many models
  • API access is a paid add-on on Starter, not included
  • No industry prompt templates pre-loaded, so the first prompt library takes a few days to build
#10

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Best for: Ahrefs users who want market-wide AI visibility research without picking prompts first

4.5/5 on G2 (723 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit ahrefs.com
Starting price$199/month (AI Visibility Index, one platform; $699/month for all indexes)
Free planYes — Ahrefs Free for verified site owners (Brand Radar needs a paid add-on)

Ahrefs Brand Radar flips the usual model. Instead of only tracking prompts you pick, its AI Visibility Index holds stored answers for more than 495 million prompts modeled from real searches, so you can look up any brand — including competitors — and see its visibility going back to 2025 without setting anything up. One index costs $199/month per platform, or $699/month for all of them.

The check-based billing needs attention: one prompt on one platform in one location is one check, so 60 prompts a day across several engines drains the allowance fast. Paid Ahrefs plans from Lite ($129/month) include 5 to 20 custom prompts a day, with extra prompt packages from $50/month. Buy Brand Radar for market research; buy a dedicated tracker for daily monitoring of your own prompts.

What we like

  • AI Visibility Index holds stored answers for more than 495 million prompts modeled from real searches, so you can research any brand — including competitors — with no setup
  • Custom Prompts track the exact questions you choose, with 5 to 20 daily prompts included in paid Ahrefs plans
  • Prompt packages start at $50/month for 2,500 extra checks
  • AI Sources adds YouTube, TikTok and Reddit tracking, free for Ahrefs customers in beta

Watch out for

  • The AI Visibility Index costs $199/month per platform, or $699/month for all indexes, on top of a paid Ahrefs plan
  • Billing is check-based — one prompt on one platform in one location is one check — so allowances drain fast
  • No native Claude tracking on the index; Claude appears only in custom prompts
#11

AccuRanker AccuLLM

Best for: AccuRanker customers tracking thousands of keywords who want AI visibility in the same reporting system

4.8/5 on G2 (233 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit accuranker.com
Starting price$229/month (LLM Lite, billed monthly; $206/month billed annually)
Free planNo — 14-day money-back guarantee, no free trial

AccuLLM brings AI prompt monitoring into AccuRanker's rank-tracking system, which is the point: one login, one reporting rhythm, unlimited seats and all-time history. LLM Lite costs $229/month for 100 prompts tracked daily across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, reporting average rank, mention rate, cited pages and sentiment per prompt.

The per-prompt cost is the honest limitation. At $2.29 per prompt per month, Lite is expensive next to Peec AI or PromptWatch, and four engines is the narrowest coverage here. Choose AccuLLM when you already track thousands of keywords in AccuRanker and want AI visibility in the same reports — not as a first AEO tool.

What we like

  • Sits inside AccuRanker's mature rank-tracking system, with unlimited seats and all-time history
  • Reports average rank, mention rate, cited pages, sentiment and competitor benchmarks per prompt
  • Daily tracking on every tier, with MCP and API access for pulling AI visibility data into other tools
  • Highest G2 score among the rank trackers here at 4.8/5

Watch out for

  • LLM Lite is $229/month for only 100 prompts, so the per-prompt cost is high next to dedicated tools
  • Covers only 4 engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode — with no Claude or Gemini
  • API access starts on LLM Pro ($579/month), not Lite

What an AEO tracking tool actually does

The best AEO tracking software answers one question: when someone asks an AI assistant about your category, does it mention your brand — and does it recommend you? You give the tool a list of prompts, the kind of questions your buyers actually type into ChatGPT or Perplexity, and it runs them on a schedule, then reports how often your brand appears, where it ranks in the answer, which sources the AI cites, and how you compare with competitors.

That is a different job from rank tracking. A rank tracker checks where your pages sit in Google; an AEO tracker checks what the AI says about you, which is a generated answer, not a list of links. The two overlap — Google AI Overviews sit on top of search results — but the metrics differ: mentions, citations, sentiment and share of voice, not positions.

The gap is real. McKinsey & Company reported in October 2025 that roughly half of consumers already lean on AI-generated search, yet only 16% of brands track whether they actually show up in those answers. Most brands are flying blind in the channel their buyers already use, and that is the whole case for buying one of these tools.

A good report does more than count mentions. It shows the trend over weeks, so you can see whether a new page or a PR hit moved the number. It names the competitors who win the answers you lose, and it lists the cited sources behind each answer, which tells your content team exactly which pages to improve. The best tools also track sentiment — whether the AI describes your brand positively or flags a problem — and some watch for hallucinations, the wrong facts AI invents about your business.

Free options first

If you are testing the channel, you may not need to pay at all. Athena HQ has the only free plan here that tracks real AI answers: Essential includes 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. PromptWatch has a free plan too. Every other tool offers a free trial instead — 7 days at Peec AI, PromptWatch, Scrunch, Profound and Goodie, 14 days at Otterly.AI and SE Ranking.

Free plans and trials are honest products, not demos, but they cap out fast. Three hundred credits covers a small prompt set for a week or two; fifteen prompts covers one brand's core topics and nothing else. The moment you track competitors as well as yourself, or a second brand, a paid plan is cheaper than the time you lose checking answers by hand.

For a single small brand, start with Athena HQ's free plan and upgrade when the credit meter starts biting. For anything client-facing, skip the free tier: the reporting, white-label features and agency workspaces start on the paid plans.

Dedicated tools vs all-in-one suites

The 11 tools in this list split into two camps. The dedicated tools — Peec AI, Otterly.AI, PromptWatch, Scrunch AI, Profound, Goodie AI and Athena HQ — do one job: track how AI answers treat your brand, and in Goodie's case, fix what they find. They are usually cheaper per prompt and faster to learn, and they cover more engines on their entry plans.

The suites and add-ons — SE Ranking, the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Ahrefs Brand Radar and AccuRanker AccuLLM — bundle AI visibility with the SEO tools you may already pay for. You pay more per prompt, but you replace a second subscription. The right camp depends on what you already own: if you pay for a suite, use its AI module first; if you only need AI answers tracked, a dedicated tool costs less.

There is also a coverage difference worth checking. Dedicated tools usually track more engines on their entry plans — Scrunch covers seven, PromptWatch lets you choose four of twelve — while the suite add-ons cover fewer: the Semrush toolkit tracks three engines daily, and AccuLLM covers four. If your buyers ask Claude or Gemini, a dedicated tool is the safer bet. If your buyers live in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, a suite module covers the ground that matters.

Bar chart of starting prices billed monthly: Otterly.AI $29, Peec AI $95, PromptWatch $95, Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit $99, SE Ranking $129, Ahrefs Brand Radar $199, AccuLLM $229, Goodie AI $354, Athena HQ $295, Scrunch $250. Profound is custom quote and not shown
Starting prices, billed monthly. Annual billing is lower for most tools — the comparison table at the top shows the annual figure. Profound is custom quote and not shown.

AI visibility, citations and the action layer

Tracking a mention is only half the job. The other half is knowing which sources the AI cited, because those sources are what you can actually change. Scrunch records every cited domain and URL behind each answer, Athena HQ breaks down which of your pages get cited and which competitor pages take the citations instead, and PromptWatch's citation analysis shows which page types the engines pull from. If your pages are never cited, no amount of prompt tracking will fix the score — the content has to change.

Some tools go further and do the changing. Goodie's agents write and optimize content, fix technical signals and run outreach, and its revenue attribution links the work back to outcomes. Scrunch's Agent Experience Platform serves AI crawlers a clean, machine-readable version of your pages, which is a different kind of fix: it makes your site easier for the bots to read. Before you pay for either, check how AI crawlers actually reach your site with the free AI crawler robots.txt generator — if the bots are blocked at the door, no tracking tool can help.

If you want to see what the AI side looks like for your own brand, our guide to getting cited in ChatGPT explains what the engines actually quote, and how to rank in AI Overviews covers the Google side. For the wider tool landscape, see the best AI SEO tools.

Matrix showing what each entry plan includes: daily updates, AI visibility, white-label reporting and a free plan
What the entry plan includes, checked October 31, 2026. A dash means the feature is not included on the entry plan.

Quick comparison: tool type by need

BuyerBest pickWhy
Small brand on a budgetOtterly.AI$29/month, daily updates, 4 engines on the entry plan
Agency or mid-market teamPeec AI$95/month, 50 daily prompts, unlimited seats, pitch projects
Team that wants transparent limitsPromptWatch$95/month, free plan, API and MCP on every paid plan
Already paying for an SEO suiteSE Ranking or SemrushAI visibility bundled or $99/month per domain in-suite
Enterprise brandProfoundUp to 9 engines, Prompt Volumes data, custom Enterprise
Monitoring plus fixesGoodie AI or Scrunch AIAction agents and AI-readiness audits included
Testing before payingAthena HQFree plan with 300 credits across 5 engines

How to choose the best AEO tracking software: a short decision path

  1. Write your prompt list first. Start with 25–50 questions: your core product questions, the comparison questions buyers ask, and the five questions your top competitors win. The list decides the plan, not the other way round.
  2. Multiply prompts by engines. A 50-prompt list on 3 engines is 150 checks a day; on 6 engines it is 300. Credit-based tools like Athena HQ and Evertune charge per response, so do this math before comparing prices.
  3. Pick your camp: dedicated or suite. If you already pay for SE Ranking, Semrush or Ahrefs, try its AI module first. If you only need AI answers tracked, a dedicated tool gives you more prompts per dollar.
  4. Check the refresh rate. Daily tracking catches answer changes fast; Scrunch drops to every 72 hours after the first two weeks, and Athena HQ publishes no refresh rate at all. If you report to clients weekly, daily matters.
  5. Try before you pay. Every tool here has a free plan or a free trial. Run your real prompt list for a week and check the answers yourself — AI outputs vary by wording, location and model version, so your own spot-check is the only test that counts.

Mistakes to avoid

  • Comparing headline prices without counting prompts. A $29 plan with 15 prompts costs more per prompt than a $95 plan with 50. Divide the price by prompts times engines before you compare.
  • Ignoring engine add-ons. Otterly.AI charges extra for Gemini, AI Mode and Claude; Peec AI covers 3 of 6 engines on self-serve plans. The sticker price understates the real cost if you need those engines.
  • Tracking prompts nobody decided on. Every prompt times every engine is a cost. If no decision follows from a prompt's answer, drop it from the list.
  • Treating a visibility score as exact. AI answers change with prompt wording, location and model version, so scores move even when nothing about your brand changed. Read them as trends, not grades.
  • Buying an enterprise tool for a pilot. Profound is custom quote with a sales cycle; Brandlight is demo-only. A $29–$95 pilot tells you whether the channel matters before you book the demo. If you need help reading the results, our AI search optimization service does exactly that.

How we chose

We checked each vendor's own pricing page on October 31, 2026 and recorded the starting price exactly as shown, including the annual-billing figure where the page lists one. Ratings come from G2, with the review count shown; Goodie AI has no rating because no verifiable G2 score was found. We ranked the tools by fit for the most common buyer — a small agency or in-house team tracking a few dozen prompts across the main AI engines — not by brand size. No vendor paid for a place in this list, and none of the links here are affiliate links.

What to do next

Start with the decision path above: write your prompt list, multiply it by the engines, and pick dedicated or suite. Then take the free plan or trial of your top pick and run your real prompts for a week, checking a few answers by hand against what the tool reports. If the numbers make sense and the reports read clearly to a non-SEO colleague, you have your tool. If you'd rather have this set up and read for you, request a free SEO + AI visibility audit and get a ranked fix list in 2 business days.

Rather not run the tools yourself?

Tools show you the data. SerpAstra turns it into higher rankings, more map-pack calls and citations in AI answers.

Get a free SEO + AI visibility audit→
Sources we checked (22)
Shamim

Shamim

Founder of SerpAstra

A full-stack SEO and digital marketer who spends most days on Local SEO for dental practices, AI search visibility and lead generation.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AEO tracking software in 2026?

Peec AI is the best fit for most teams: 50 prompts tracked daily, unlimited seats and readable share-of-voice reports from $95/month. Otterly.AI is the cheapest way in at $29/month for 15 prompts. If you already pay for an SEO suite, SE Ranking bundles AI visibility from $103.20/month billed annually, and Semrush adds it for $99/month per domain.

What are the best AEO checking tools for a small team?

Otterly.AI, PromptWatch and Athena HQ. Otterly.AI starts at $29/month for 15 prompts, PromptWatch at $95/month with a free plan and API access, and Athena HQ has the only free plan that tracks real AI answers — 300 credits across five engines. All three are self-serve, so a small team can start this week without a sales call.

What are the best tools for AEO monitoring if I run an agency?

Peec AI first: agency plans start at $245/month with client projects, unlimited seats and free 7-day pitch projects for prospects. PromptWatch agency plans start at $199/month with unlimited projects, though all clients share one response pool. Profound and Scrunch both sell agency workspaces too, but Profound is custom quote and Scrunch caps seats at five on Core.

How much does AEO tracking software cost?

From $29 to $300 a month at the entry level, plus custom enterprise contracts. Otterly.AI starts at $29, Peec AI and PromptWatch at $95, the Semrush toolkit at $99 per domain, and Scrunch at $250 billed annually. Profound and Brandlight publish no price. The cheapest plan is not always the cheapest tracking — divide the price by prompts times engines.

Is there a free AEO tracking tool?

Athena HQ is the only tool here with a free plan that tracks real AI answers: Essential includes 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. PromptWatch has a free plan too. Every other tool offers a free trial of 7–14 days instead. Free plans work for a first pilot; a real prompt set needs a paid plan within weeks.

Do I need a dedicated AEO tool, or will my SEO suite do?

Your suite is enough if you track under 25 prompts a day and already pay for it — SE Ranking bundles AI visibility on every plan, and Semrush and Ahrefs sell it as an add-on. Buy a dedicated tool when you need more prompts, more engines, or agency workspaces. Dedicated tools also track citations and sentiment in more depth than the suite add-ons.

How many prompts should I track?

Start with 25–50: your core product questions, the comparison questions buyers ask, and the five questions your top competitors win. That fits Otterly.AI Lite at the low end or Peec AI Starter at 50 prompts. Add prompts only when you have a decision tied to them — every prompt times every engine is a cost, so an untracked prompt list grows the bill without growing the insight.

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