9 best AEO tools and AEO trackers compared, 2026 edition.
Honest, opinionated buyer's guide to the AEO tracking tools that actually exist 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.
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. The reason there are nine 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 May 2026, not the bets their landing pages talk about.
The 9-tool table
Sorted by overall fit for the most common buyer in our pipeline. Click any row to jump to that tool's review.
Full-stack AI visibility platform — prompts, citations, perception, crawler analytics, agency portals.
Enterprise-led AI share-of-voice reporting; the most expensive listed option, built for procurement-led buyers.
GEO platform with a task-style Action Center and 8-engine coverage on every plan, sold on credits.
Hybrid software + done-for-you AI SEO agency; bundles prompt tracking with monthly AI-generated blog output.
Cleanest budget on-ramp into AI search monitoring — published Lite/Standard/Premium plans, real free trial.
Content suite with a GEO/AI search visibility module bolted on; better as a content platform than a standalone tracker.
HubSpot's AI search visibility module inside Marketing Hub — bundled with the CRM, not sold separately.
Established SEO suite with two AEO surfaces: a €79/mo AI Search add-on, and a standalone product called SE Visible.
AI visibility + outreach hybrid — track mentions, then run outreach and content campaigns against the citation sources.
Trakkr
This is ustrakkr.aiThis is our page, so take the placement with that in mind. What Trakkr actually does: tracks how 8 AI engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, Copilot) 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.
Brands and agencies that want prompt-level data across every major engine, citations, perception, and white-label portals on one bill.
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.
Profound
tryprofound.comProfound is the priciest AI visibility platform on this list and the most enterprise-shaped. The headline product is share-of-voice reporting, with a Prompt Volumes panel on the Enterprise tier that is genuinely best-in-class for category-level intelligence. The trade-off is real: the Lite plan ($499/mo) is ChatGPT-only at nearly $10 per prompt, Growth ($399/mo) covers three engines, and there is no self-serve trial. If you are not buying for a Fortune 500 budget, Profound is overpriced for what it ships at the lower tiers.
Fortune 500 marketing teams that need full prompt-volume panel data, SOC 2 Type II, and a dedicated CSM on day one.
No free trial, no self-serve signup, Lite tier is single-engine, pricing jumps steeply between tiers. Reporting tool, not an optimization tool — no recommended actions, no Reddit signal, no crawler analytics.
AthenaHQ
athenahq.aiAthenaHQ does two things well: 8 engines on every plan (most rivals ladder engines by tier), and an Action Center that turns visibility data into task-style recommendations. The catch is credit-based pricing — your monitoring cadence becomes a budget decision, and overage credits run about $0.08 each. Self-Serve is also single-country, so any multi-market brand has to step up to Enterprise. The ACE Citation Engine, the feature most worth paying for, is Enterprise-only.
Teams that want assigned GEO tasks, not just dashboards, and are happy with credit-style billing.
Credit pricing makes spend unpredictable. Self-Serve is single-country. ACE Citation Engine is gated to Enterprise. No Reddit intelligence, no crawler analytics, no free trial.
AIClicks
aiclicks.comAIClicks is a hybrid product: the software layer ($79–499/mo) does prompt tracking, country-based monitoring, and ships 10–30 AI-generated blog posts a month; the managed-services layer ($1,699+/mo) is a done-for-you AI SEO agency. That packaging works if you don't have in-house GEO capacity. It works less well if you actually want to operate the platform yourself — the homepage advertises broader model coverage than the public pricing cards actually deliver (Starter is 3 models, Business is 6). Verify the engine count before buying.
Small teams that want a single bill for prompt tracking + monthly AI content output, or buyers shopping for a managed AI SEO service.
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.
Otterly.AI
otterly.aiOtterly is the easiest tool on this list to buy. Lite at $29/mo with 15 prompts, Standard at $189/mo with 100 prompts and a Looker Studio connector, Premium at $489/mo with 400 prompts and 10,000 GEO URL audits — all published, all behind a real free trial. The core four engines (Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot) are on every plan; Google AI Mode and Gemini are add-ons. Less depth than Trakkr or AthenaHQ, but if your goal is "get marketers looking at AI visibility data this week," it is the lowest-friction option.
Small teams and agencies that want clear pricing, daily tracking, and a Looker Studio reporting flow without an enterprise sales cycle.
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.
$29/mo
4 (Google AIOs, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot)
Free trial
Writesonic
writesonic.comWritesonic is not a single-purpose AEO product — it is a content-generation suite that has added prompt tracking, citations, an Action Center, and free AI Search Grader / LLM Optimizer tools. If you are already buying Writesonic for content, the GEO layer is a useful add-on. If you are shopping for a standalone AEO tracker, the packaging fights you: the pricing page is selling the whole stack, not a GEO-only SKU, and the buyer has to read carefully to figure out what depth they're actually getting at $49/mo.
Content teams that already use Writesonic for AI content and want a GEO module on the same bill.
Not a pure-play AEO tool. Lower tiers ship lighter visibility depth than the headline pricing implies. Plan packaging keeps changing.
HubSpot AEO (Brand Visibility in AI Search)
hubspot.comHubSpot 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.
HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional customers who want a free-with-stack first look at AI visibility before paying for a dedicated platform.
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.
Bundled with Marketing Hub
3 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews)
No
SE Ranking (SE Visible / AI Search add-on)
seranking.comSE Ranking is the cleanest example on this list of an SEO suite extending into AEO. There are two ways to buy: bolt the AI Search add-on (€79/mo) onto an SE Ranking core plan, or buy SE Visible standalone from $99/mo. Both cover the same four engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, Perplexity) with 200/450/1,000 prompt ladders. If you already trust the SE Ranking stack for SEO, the AEO layer is reasonable; if you are evaluating AEO on its own merits, the packaging is split across multiple pages and the standalone product moves faster than the add-on.
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.
Four engines is the floor of useful coverage in 2026. The split between SE Visible and the AI Search add-on makes the commercial story harder to read than it should be.
€79/mo (AI Search add-on) or $99/mo (SE Visible standalone)
4 (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, Perplexity)
Free trial
Mentions.so
mentions.soMentions.so is the only tool on this list that bundles AI mention tracking with actual outreach workflows — once you find a citation source, you can use the platform to email the site owner or generate content to influence the result. Sensible workflow for lean growth teams and agencies. The friction is transparency: the public pricing cards were not reliably visible during research, and the analytics depth (relative to Trakkr, Profound, AthenaHQ) is shallower. Treat it as an outreach play with visibility data attached, not as a research-grade analytics platform.
Agencies and lean growth teams that want a single tool for "find the citation, run the outreach, ship the content."
Public pricing is not cleanly published. Engine coverage and enterprise signals are lighter than dedicated analytics platforms. Verify pricing and engine count with sales before you commit.
Pricing snapshot, May 2026
Pulled from each vendor's published plan pages. We re-verify these monthly against the vendor's own pricing URL — see the methodology section if you want the source list. For a Profound-specific cost breakdown by platforms, prompts, and seats, use the Profound pricing calculator.
Which AEO tool for which buyer
Same nine tools, sorted by the buyer profile that actually shops for them. If your situation matches more than one row, the picks are not exclusive.
D2C & ecommerce
You need to know when ChatGPT recommends 'best running shoes' and you're not in the answer.
Trakkr
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
You need procurement-safe reporting, SSO, and a CSM, and your budget is six figures.
Profound (Enterprise) or Trakkr (Enterprise)
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
You manage 10+ client brands and need white-label portals that hide your stack.
Trakkr (Scale)
$399/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: AIClicks if you want done-for-you AI SEO bundled with the platform.
Startups & SMBs
You want to validate AI visibility this month without signing a 12-month contract.
Otterly Lite ($29/mo) or Trakkr Growth ($79/mo)
Otterly is the cheapest published self-serve plan in the category. Trakkr Growth adds 4 more engines and a perception layer for $50 more. 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
You need to know if ChatGPT recommends you when someone asks for a "marketing consultant in Austin".
Trakkr Growth or Otterly Lite
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
You have a HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional seat and want to see if AI visibility is even a problem.
HubSpot AEO (in-stack)
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.
The best free AEO tracker in 2026
Two honest categories of free, depending on what you actually want.
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.
Run a free AEO checkFree 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.
Start the Trakkr 14-day trialWhat "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.
How we built this list
The nine tools above are the AEO/GEO trackers that, as of May 2026, are either publicly billed as such (Trakkr, Profound, AthenaHQ, AIClicks, Otterly, Mentions.so), ship a dedicated AEO module inside a broader product (Writesonic, SE Ranking/SE Visible), or bundle the capability inside a CRM platform we hear named in real buying conversations (HubSpot). We did not include tools whose AEO surface is a single dashboard widget inside an SEO suite (Ahrefs Brand Radar, Semrush AI features) — they are tripwires, not standalone trackers.
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 in May 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 [email protected] and we will fix it inside a week.
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 the floor of useful coverage — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot or Google AI Overviews. Below four you are blind to either the consumer-facing model (Gemini, Copilot) or the research-heavy one (Perplexity). Tools that ship 7–8 engines (Trakkr, AthenaHQ Self-Serve, Profound Enterprise) add Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, and Meta AI, which matter as soon as you care about technical or developer-adjacent categories. SEO suites that have bolted AEO on usually ship 2–4 engines.
How much do AEO tools actually cost in 2026?
Real, published self-serve plans in the category: Otterly Lite $29/mo, Writesonic Lite $49/mo, Trakkr Growth $79/mo, AIClicks Starter $79/mo, SE Visible Basic $99/mo, Otterly Standard $189/mo, AthenaHQ Self-Serve $295/mo, Profound Growth $399/mo, Otterly Premium $489/mo, Profound Lite $499/mo. Enterprise tiers (Profound, AthenaHQ, Trakkr) range from $2,000/mo to $5,000+/mo. HubSpot bundles its AEO module inside Marketing Hub Professional (from $890/mo) rather than selling it standalone.
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.
See your own AEO data in 14 days.
A free AEO check tells you whether the problem exists. A 14-day Trakkr trial tells you what to do about it — across 8 engines, with citations and perception data attached.