10 Best Answer Optimization Tools for AI Visibility in 2026, Compared

Quick comparison

The best answer optimization tools

#1

Goodie AI

Best for: Brands that want AI visibility tracking plus done-for-you optimization actions in one subscription

Visit higoodie.com

Starting price$354/month (Core, billed monthly; $295/month billed annually)

Free planNo — 7-day free trial

Goodie AI is the only tool in this list built as a full answer optimization loop rather than a tracker with extras. Core watches 110 prompts a day across ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, AI Mode and Copilot, then its Optimization Hub turns the gaps into work: content rewrites, technical fixes and outreach, with 50 actions a month included. It also ties AI visibility to revenue attribution, so you can see whether citations bring traffic that converts.

The price is the honest trade-off: $354 a month billed monthly, or $295 billed annually, and the five-engine limit means Gemini and Claude coverage costs $999 a month on Pro. Buy Goodie when you want a team that acts on the data, not another dashboard. If you only need to know where you stand, Peec AI costs a third as much.

What we like

• Full loop in one plan: daily tracking across 5 engines, 110 prompts and 50 optimization actions a month on Core
• Optimization Hub can create or optimize content, fix technical signals and target outreach — not just report numbers
• Revenue attribution connects AI visibility to traffic and revenue, with unlimited seats on every plan

Watch out for

• Highest monthly-billed entry price here at $354/month, and the annual rate still matches AthenaHQ at $295/month
• Only 5 engines on Core — Gemini, Claude, Meta AI and Grok need Pro ($999/month) or Enterprise

#2

Peec AI

Best for: Small teams and agencies that want daily AI search tracking plus ranked fix recommendations from $95/month

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 balanced dedicated checker in this list: six models, daily tracking and unlimited seats from $95 a month. Starter covers 50 prompts across your choice of three models — ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini or Naver AI — with citation tracking and sentiment analysis included. What lifts it above a pure tracker is the Act layer: gap analysis plus ranked recommended actions.

Two limits: the prompt count and the model choice. Fifty prompts cover one brand's core questions, but a bigger question set pushes you to Pro at $245 a month, and the API is not on Starter. Peec is the right pick when you want daily answers plus a prioritized fix list without platform prices. Content teams that need the writing done too should look at Frase or Goodie.

What we like

• Daily tracking across 6 models with unlimited users, competitors and countries on every plan
• Recommended actions rank the earned and owned fixes that should improve visibility, and agent actions can run them
• Crawlability audit covers 40+ AI bots, and the MCP server is included from Starter

Watch out for

• Only 50 prompts on Starter, and you choose just 3 of 6 models — full coverage needs Pro or higher
• No free plan, and API access starts on Pro ($245/month), not Starter

#3

Frase

Best for: Solo writers and small content teams who want to optimize pages for Google and AI answers in one workflow

Visit frase.io

Starting price$49/month (Starter, billed monthly; $39/month billed annually)

Free planNo — 7-day free trial (no credit card required)

Frase is the cheapest way to change the pages AI engines quote, rather than only watch them. It audits your site, scores each page for Google search and for AI answers, ranks the fixes by likely payoff, and drafts the improvements for you to approve. Every plan carries the full feature set — SEO and GEO scoring, AI visibility tracking and the content agent — and differs only in volume.

Starter costs $49 a month, or $39 billed annually, for one seat, one site, 10 articles and 50 audit pages a month. That cap is the real constraint: a blog publishing more than twice a week needs Professional at $129 a month. Frase suits a solo writer or a small team fixing existing pages. If you need brand-level prompt tracking across many engines, pair it with Peec AI.

What we like

• Every plan includes the full feature set — SEO and GEO scoring, AI visibility tracking and the content agent — plans differ only in volume
• Cheapest entry price for content-level answer optimization: $39/month billed annually for 10 articles
• Audits each page, scores it for search and AI answers, and drafts the fixes in your brand voice

Watch out for

• Starter caps at 10 AI-optimized articles and 50 audit pages a month — heavy publishers hit the ceiling fast
• AI visibility tracking covers ChatGPT and Google AI on Starter; Perplexity needs Professional, Claude and Gemini need Scale

#4

Scrunch AI

Best for: Content teams that want AI visibility tracking plus optimization guidance and site audits in one tool

Visit scrunch.com

Starting price$250/month (Core)

Free planNo — 7-day free trial

Scrunch is the content-first AI visibility tool in this list. Core tracks 125 prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, then pairs the tracking with site audits and optimization guidance: five audits a month, one page optimization a month, and insights that explain which pages AI engines misunderstand. With 5,000 AI responses a month, it also has the most generous response allowance of any tool here.

Two catches. New prompts are checked daily for 14 days and then every 72 hours by default, so visibility data moves more slowly than on Peec or Goodie. And the four-engine Core leaves AI Mode, Claude, Gemini and Grok to custom-priced Enterprise. Scrunch also changed hands — Sitecore announced its acquisition in June 2026 — so check the roadmap before a long commitment. Buy it for content fixes, not just monitoring.

What we like

• Combines AI visibility tracking with content optimization — it tells you what to change, not just where you rank
• 5,000 AI responses a month on Core, the most generous response allowance here
• Site audits (5 a month) map your pages against the prompts you track, and Core includes 1 page optimization a month

Watch out for

• New prompts run daily for 14 days, then every 72 hours by default — slower than the daily checkers here
• AI Mode, Claude, Gemini and Grok are Enterprise-only, and the pricing page lists no annual rate for Core

#5

SE Ranking

Best for: Small agencies and in-house teams that want AI visibility bundled with rank tracking, audits and backlinks for about $103/month

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 value pick for teams that already need an SEO suite. Core costs $129 a month, or $103.20 billed annually, and bundles 2,000 keywords tracked daily, a 250,000-page audit allowance, keyword and backlink research — plus AI visibility tracking across five engines (AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity) at no extra cost. No other suite here includes AI tracking on its entry plan.

The AI allowance is the limit: 25 prompts a day on Core, shared across all projects, so an agency splitting it across ten clients runs thin fast. Extra prompts come through the AI Search add-on from $89 a month. SE Ranking suits teams where AI visibility is one job among many and you want one bill. If AI answers are the whole job, a dedicated platform tracks more for similar money.

What we like

• AI visibility (25 prompts a day, 5 engines) is included in every plan, so there is no add-on fee for AI tracking
• 2,000 keywords tracked daily plus site audit, keyword and backlink research in the same $103.20/month plan
• White-label reporting available with the Agency Pack add-on from $69/month

Watch out for

• Only 25 AI prompts a day on Core — heavy AI tracking needs the AI Search add-on from $89/month ($71.20 billed annually)
• AI features are lighter than the dedicated platforms — prompt analysis and optimization guidance are thinner than Goodie or Scrunch

#6

Otterly.AI

Best for: Small businesses and solo marketers checking a handful of prompts on a tight budget

Visit otterly.ai

Starting price$29/month (Lite, billed monthly; $25/month billed annually)

Free planNo — free trial (length not stated on the pricing page)

Otterly.AI is the lowest-priced way to start checking AI search: $29 a month for daily tracking on ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot, with unlimited team members. Unlike most cheap trackers, Lite also includes AI search optimization with recommendations, a GEO audit and a content check — so it points at fixes, not just scores.

The ceiling arrives fast. Fifteen prompts cover a single brand's core questions, and AI Mode, Gemini and Claude are paid add-ons at $9 a month each on Lite. The next plan, Standard, jumps to $189 a month for 100 prompts — a steep step for a small team. Otterly suits a solo marketer or a small business testing AI visibility. When 15 prompts stop being enough, Peec AI's 50 prompts at $95 a month are the next step.

What we like

• Cheapest entry price in this list — $29/month monthly, $25/month billed annually
• Daily tracking and unlimited team members on every plan, including Lite
• Every plan includes AI search optimization with recommendations, plus a GEO audit and content check

Watch out for

• Only 15 prompts and 4 engines on Lite — AI Mode and Gemini cost extra ($9/month each)
• Prompt count jumps from 15 on Lite to 100 on Standard ($189/month), so scaling is a steep step

#7

Surfer

Best for: Content teams that publish a few optimized articles a week and want live scoring against the pages already ranking

Visit surferseo.com

Starting price$59/month (Discovery, billed monthly; $49/month billed annually)

Free planNo — 7-day money-back guarantee, no free trial

Surfer built its name on one job: telling writers what the top-ranking pages do so a draft can match them. The Content Editor grades work live on word count, headings, structure and semantic terms, and Discovery covers 120 documents a year for $59 a month, or $49 billed annually. For a team publishing two or three optimized articles a week, that scoring loop is the product.

The catch is that Surfer optimizes content first and tracks AI visibility second. Discovery tracks zero AI prompts, so that need alone pushes you to Standard at $99 a month billed annually. Buy Surfer when writing volume is the bottleneck. If AI tracking matters from day one, Frase includes it on its $49 Starter plan.

What we like

• Content Editor grades drafts live on word count, headings, structure and semantic terms against top-ranking pages
• 120 documents a year on Discovery, with the SERP Analyzer, Topical Map and Google Docs and WordPress integration
• Standard adds AI visibility tracking on ChatGPT with 25 prompts refreshed weekly

Watch out for

• No AI visibility tracking on Discovery — it starts on Standard at $99 a month billed annually, so the entry plan optimizes content, it does not track AI answers
• No free trial — only a 7-day money-back guarantee, so you pay before you can test it on your own content

#8

AthenaHQ

Best for: Teams that want a free plan to start and are willing to pay $295/month for 11 models and deep analysis

Visit athenahq.ai

Starting price$295/month (Starter; $245/month billed annually)

Free planYes — free Essential plan (300 credits, 5 engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot)

AthenaHQ is the only tool here with a genuinely free plan: Essential gives 300 credits across five engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot — with competitor insights included. Paid Starter costs $295 a month, or $245 billed annually, for 3,600 credits a month across 11 models, plus a content optimization agent, citation intelligence and GA4 and Search Console integrations.

The credit math is the thing to check before you pay. One credit buys one AI response, so a prompt checked across all 11 models costs 11 credits per run — 3,600 credits cover about ten prompts a day at full coverage. API access and extra credits are paid add-ons on Starter, with no published refresh cadence. AthenaHQ suits teams where the free plan proves the value first and 11-model coverage matters more than prompt volume.

What we like

• The only free plan in this list — Essential gives 300 credits across 5 engines at no cost
• Starter covers 11 models with 3,600 credits a month, including Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI
• Content optimization agent, citation intelligence and GA4 and Search Console integrations on Starter

Watch out for

• $295/month is the joint-highest starting price here, and API access is a paid add-on on Starter
• Each prompt checked across all 11 models costs 11 credits per run, so 3,600 credits cover fewer prompts than the headline suggests

#9

Nightwatch

Best for: Small agencies that want rank tracking plus AI citation tracking across 6 surfaces for one euro price

Visit nightwatch.io

Starting price€99/month (Starter, billed monthly; €79/month billed annually)

Free planNo — 14-day free trial (no credit card required)

Nightwatch is a rank tracker that added AI visibility: Starter tracks 500 keywords daily and 50 AI prompts across six surfaces — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode and AI Overviews — for €99 a month, or €79 billed annually. Its standout feature is Citation Intelligence, which ties each ranking change to the AI citations behind it, so you can see which ranking move changed what ChatGPT says.

The limits are the euro billing and the prompt count. Fifty prompts and 1,500 AI answers a month cover one brand's core questions, but a second client or a bigger question set needs Professional at €199 a month. Content Studio, keyword research and the SEO MCP server come with every plan. Pick Nightwatch when your reporting already lives in rank data and you want citations attached, not a second dashboard.

What we like

• 6 AI surfaces on the entry plan — including Claude, which Otterly charges extra for
• Unlimited seats on every plan, so the whole team can use it at no extra cost
• Citation Intelligence links each ranking change to AI citations in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity

Watch out for

• Bills in euros (€99/month monthly), so the dollar cost moves with the exchange rate
• Only 50 AI prompts and 1,500 AI answers a month on Starter
• White-label reports and API access start on Professional, not Starter

#10

Profound

Best for: Large brands and enterprises that need deep AI search coverage and can buy through a sales process

Visit tryprofound.com

Starting priceCustom quote (Enterprise; free 7-day trial)

Free planNo — free 7-day trial (50 prompts daily, ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews)

Profound is the best-known name in AI search tracking, and the deepest platform here: nine answer engines on Enterprise, daily tracking, Answer Engine Insights, Prompt Volumes showing what users ask, and an AI Marketer agent that researches, writes and reports with your brand context. Its free trial is the most generous in this list — 50 prompts a day for 7 days across ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.

The catch: there is no price to compare. The $99 Starter and $399 Growth self-serve plans were removed in September 2026, so the only paid option is a custom-quoted Enterprise plan behind a sales conversation — and the trial's 50 prompts are a sample, not a plan. Profound suits a large brand that needs nine-engine coverage and can buy through procurement. Everyone else should start with Peec AI or Goodie.

What we like

• The most-recognized name in AI search tracking, with up to 9 answer engines on Enterprise
• Free 7-day trial runs 50 prompts a day across 3 engines — the most generous trial here
• AI Marketer agent, Answer Engine Insights and Prompt Volumes turn tracking into suggested actions

Watch out for

• No published price — every paid plan is a custom quote, so you cannot budget without a sales call
• The $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans were removed in September 2026, so there is no self-serve tier
• Overkill for a small team that only needs to check a handful of prompts

What the best answer optimization tools for AI visibility actually do

The best answer optimization tools for AI visibility do two jobs that sound similar but are not the same. First, they ask AI engines your buyers' questions — in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and the rest — and record whether your brand appears, which of your pages get cited, and how you compare with competitors. Second, and more important, they tell you what to change so the answers improve: which pages to rewrite, which facts to state plainly, which technical signals to fix.

That second job is what separates this list from a pure tracking list. A tracker tells you that ChatGPT quoted a competitor instead of you. An answer optimization tool tells you which page to fix, drafts the fix, and then checks whether the answer changed. The 10 tools below are organized by what you actually need: full platforms that track and act, content tools that fix the pages, and suites that bundle AI visibility with the SEO work you already do.

One vendor-published result shows the size of the prize: Scrunch publishes a customer result of a 364% increase in brand presence for non-branded prompts on its pricing page. Treat that as a single customer outcome, not a promise — but it explains why brands now pay for this category at all.

Free options first

If you only want to see whether your brand appears in AI answers, you may not need to pay at all. AthenaHQ has a free Essential plan with 300 credits across five engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot — and it is the only genuinely free plan in this list. The catch is that the 300 credits do not renew, so it is a trial in all but name once they run out.

Every other tool here offers a free trial instead: 7 days on Goodie, Peec AI, Frase, Scrunch, Otterly and Profound, and 14 days on SE Ranking and Nightwatch. Profound's trial is the most generous — 50 prompts a day for 7 days — while Surfer offers no trial at all, only a 7-day money-back guarantee. A trial answers the first question (does anyone cite you?) but not the second (is it getting better?), because a week is too short to measure movement. Use the trial to test the data quality, then pay for the plan that covers your real prompt list.

Dedicated platforms vs content optimizers vs suites

The 10 tools in this list split into three groups, and the right group depends on where your problem actually sits.

The dedicated platforms — Goodie AI, Peec AI, Scrunch, Otterly.AI, AthenaHQ, Nightwatch and Profound — live in AI answers all day. They track prompts across engines, report citations and sentiment, and most of them suggest fixes. Goodie and Scrunch go furthest: Goodie executes optimization actions in the platform, and Scrunch pairs tracking with site audits and page optimizations. Peec AI and Otterly sit in the middle, with ranked recommendations. Profound is the enterprise end of this group, with nine engines and an AI agent that does the research and writing work.

The content optimizers — Frase and Surfer — start from the page, not the prompt. Frase audits your site, scores each page for search and for AI answers, and drafts the fixes. Surfer grades drafts live against the top-ranking pages. Neither is a full AI tracker on its entry plan: Frase includes AI visibility tracking from Starter, while Surfer includes it only from Standard. If your pages are thin or badly structured, these tools fix the root cause; if your pages are already strong, a tracker will tell you more.

The suite — SE Ranking — bundles AI visibility into a full SEO subscription: rank tracking, site audits, keyword and backlink research, plus 25 AI prompts a day on Core. It is the cheapest way to add AI visibility to work you already pay for, and the thinnest on AI-specific depth. If you want to see how AI answers fit into the wider search picture, our guide to how to rank in AI Overviews explains what the engines actually quote.

Tracking is not the same as optimizing

The most common mistake in this category is buying a tracker and expecting it to optimize. Tracking answers three questions: do AI engines mention you, which sources do they cite, and are you gaining or losing ground? That is useful, and for a brand that only needs to report on visibility, it is enough. Peec AI at $95 a month and Otterly at $29 a month both do it well.

Optimization answers a different question: what do I change on Monday? Goodie's Optimization Hub, Scrunch's page optimizations, Frase's scored fixes and AthenaHQ's content optimization agent all produce changes, not just charts. The difference shows up in the price: the tools that act cost $250–$354 a month, while the tools that only watch start at $29. Before you buy, decide which question you are paying to answer.

There is also a technical layer that no tracking tool fixes on its own. AI crawlers need to reach and understand your pages, which is why a clean llms.txt file matters — our free llms.txt generator builds one in a minute. And if your content strategy needs a rethink rather than a tool, our AI search optimization service covers the same ground with a team behind it. For the basics of the category itself, see what is AEO.

Quick comparison: tool type by need

How to choose: a short decision path

1. Count your prompts first. Under 20, Otterly's 15 prompts or AthenaHQ's free credits cover you. Over 100, the per-prompt price decides — Peec AI and Scrunch give you the most prompts per dollar among the dedicated tools.
2. Decide whether you need tracking or fixing. If your pages are already strong, buy a tracker. If AI engines quote competitors because your pages are thin, buy Frase or Surfer and fix the pages first.
3. Check which engines the entry plan covers. Claude, Gemini and AI Mode are often held for higher tiers or paid add-ons — Otterly charges $9 a month each, Surfer includes AI tracking only from Standard ($99 a month billed annually), and Goodie needs Pro for Gemini.
4. Do the credit math. On credit-based tools like AthenaHQ, one prompt on 11 models costs 11 credits per run. On prompt-based tools, one prompt is one prompt. Compare like with like before comparing prices.
5. Try before you pay. Every tool except Surfer has a free plan or a free trial. Run your real question list for a week and check whether the citations it reports match what you see when you ask ChatGPT yourself.

Mistakes to avoid

• Comparing monthly prices without checking billing. The annual price is usually 15–20% lower, and Goodie's page loads the annual price by default — $295 a month billed annually is $354 billed monthly.
• Ignoring what counts as a prompt. Some tools charge per prompt, others per prompt per engine, and credit tools charge per response. Tracking 10 questions on 11 engines can cost 110 credits a day.
• Paying for tracking when the pages are the problem. If AI engines never cite you because your pages do not answer the question directly, no tracker fixes that — a content tool does.
• Trusting a directory price. Goodie still shows $399 on several directories; the live pricing page says $295 a month billed annually. Always check the vendor's own page.
• Forgetting the refresh cadence. Scrunch re-checks prompts every 72 hours after the first 14 days, and AthenaHQ publishes no refresh cadence at all. Daily data costs more for a reason.

How we chose

We checked each vendor's own pricing page on November 1, 2026 and recorded the starting price exactly as shown, including the annual-billing figure where the page lists one. One page could not be re-opened for a live read on the day — Frase returned errors from the browsing service — so its price is carried from multiple October 2026 reads of the same vendor pricing page, and we have flagged that for re-check. Surfer's price comes from the live pricing page read the same day for the companion content-optimization post: Discovery at $59 a month billed monthly, $49 billed annually, with 120 documents a year; the old $99/$79 Essential plan is gone in the 2026 reprice. No ratings appear in this list: the G2 pages could not be opened for verification on November 1, so no score or review count is shown rather than an unverified one. We ranked the tools by fit for the most common buyer — a small team or agency that wants its brand cited in AI answers — 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: count your prompts, decide tracking or fixing, and check which engines the entry plan covers. Then take the free plan or trial of your top pick and run your real question list for a week. If the citations match what you see in ChatGPT and the recommendations make sense for your pages, 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.

Sources we checked (10)

• Goodie AI pricing — higoodie.com/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)
• Peec AI pricing — peec.ai/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)
• Frase pricing — frase.io/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)
• Scrunch pricing — scrunch.com/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)
• SE Ranking pricing — seranking.com/subscription.html (checked November 1, 2026)
• Otterly.AI pricing — otterly.ai/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)
• Surfer pricing — surferseo.com/pricing (checked November 1, 2026; page rate-limited here, price from the live page read the same day for the companion content-optimization post)
• AthenaHQ pricing — athenahq.ai/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)
• Nightwatch pricing — nightwatch.io/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)
• Profound pricing — tryprofound.com/pricing (checked November 1, 2026)