9 AEO Tools That Show Whether Answer Engines Quote You
An AEO tool tells you whether answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot name or cite your brand when people ask questions in your market. For small budgets, Otterly.AI and Rankscale start under $30 a month. For depth, Goodie, AthenaHQ and Profound cover more engines and add actions or accuracy checks. None of them rewrite your pages, so plan who will act on what they find.
Updated October 21, 2026
AEO tools compared
We checked every price on the vendor's own pricing page on October 21, 2026.
| AEO tool | Engines on entry plan | Extra beyond tracking | Lowest confirmed price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Otterly.AI | ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot | Add-ons for Claude, AI Mode, Gemini | Lite listed at $29/month |
| Rankscale | 9 engines on Pro and up | Page audits | Essentials $17/month (yearly only); Pro $99/month |
| Peec AI | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini (named on homepage) | Cited source analysis | Not shown on pricing page |
| Goodie | ChatGPT, AI Overview, Perplexity, AI Mode, Copilot | Accuracy monitoring, actions | $295/month |
| AthenaHQ | 5 on free tier, 11 on Starter | Credit-based usage | Free tier; Starter $295/month |
| Profound | 3 on trial, up to 9 on Enterprise | Enterprise reporting | Free 7-day trial, then custom |
| SE Ranking AI Search Toolkit | AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini | Competitor comparison | Not shown on toolkit page |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | ChatGPT, AI Mode (named in docs) | AI crawler site check | $99/month |
| AI Search Optimization (ours) | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews | We make the fixes | $299/month |
The last row is our service, not software. It is included because some readers searching for an AEO tool really want the answers fixed, not only tracked.
What an AEO tool should check
Answer engine optimization is about becoming the source an assistant quotes when it answers a question. Our answer engine optimization guide covers the strategy. For tool shopping, four checks matter:
- Mention: is your brand named in the answer?
- Citation: is your page linked as a source?
- Accuracy: is what the engine says about you correct?
- Cause: which pages or third-party sources is the engine reading instead of yours?
Most AEO tools handle the first two well. Fewer cover accuracy and cause, and those two are where the fixes come from. If you are unsure how AEO differs from GEO, read AEO vs GEO before you buy.
1. Otterly.AI
What it does: Otterly.AI runs your search prompts through four core engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot) and reports brand mentions and cited links. Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are paid add-ons on the Lite, Standard and Premium plans.
Who it's for: Freelancers, small businesses and agencies that want a low-cost way to start tracking answer engines.
Price: Lite is listed at $29 per month for 15 search prompts, with a lower rate on annual billing. Standard is listed at $189 per month for 100 prompts. A free trial is offered.
Honest limitation: 15 prompts on Lite is enough to test the idea but not to cover a real product range. Read our Otterly.AI review for more.
2. Rankscale
What it does: Rankscale tracks answers on a credit system and adds page audits, so you can see why a page is or is not picked up. Pro and higher plans list ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, Claude and Copilot.
Who it's for: Hands-on marketers who want engine coverage and page-level checks at a low price.
Price: Essentials is $17 per month on yearly billing only. Pro is $99 per month with 1,200 credits, 50 page audits and a 7-day free trial.
Honest limitation: The pricing page does not list engines or credits for Essentials, so treat the cheapest plan as unknown until you check it in a trial.
3. Peec AI
What it does: Peec AI is an AI search analytics platform for marketing teams. Its homepage names ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, and the product lets you organize prompts, use suggested prompts with search volumes, benchmark against competitors and see the sources AI answers cite.
Who it's for: Marketing teams and agencies. Peec says more than 3,500 brands and agencies use it.
Price: The pricing page shows Starter, Pro and Advanced plans, but the amounts did not display when we checked. Enterprise is custom and billed annually. A free trial is offered.
Honest limitation: You cannot confirm the cost without starting a trial or talking to sales. See our Peec AI review for alternatives.
4. Goodie
What it does: Goodie positions itself as an AEO platform. Beyond daily prompting across models, it monitors inaccurate AI claims about your brand, analyzes AI crawler activity on your site and recommends or carries out actions such as content updates, technical fixes and outreach.
Who it's for: Brands where wrong answers cost money, for example on pricing, features or eligibility, and that want an action layer.
Price: Core is $295 per month for 110 prompts across five engines, with a 7-day free trial.
Honest limitation: At $295 for 110 prompts, Core costs more per prompt than the budget trackers on this list, and Gemini needs the $999 Pro plan.
5. AthenaHQ
What it does: AthenaHQ counts usage in credits, where one credit is one AI response. The free Essential tier covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter lists 11 models and unlimited topics and prompts.
Who it's for: Teams that want to try AEO tracking for free and grow into wider coverage.
Price: Essential is free with 300 credits. Starter is $295 per month with 3,600 credits.
Honest limitation: 300 free credits go quickly once you multiply prompts by engines, so the free tier is a sample, not an ongoing program.
6. Profound
What it does: Profound tracks how answer engines describe your brand, running prompts daily. Enterprise covers up to nine engines, including Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude and Exa Search alongside the major ones.
Who it's for: Enterprise brands with analysts who will use detailed answer data.
Price: The trial is free: 50 prompts daily for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Enterprise is custom.
Honest limitation: No public paid price means a sales cycle before you can start, which is slow for small teams.
7. SE Ranking AI Search Toolkit
What it does: The AI Search Toolkit checks the answers for your tracked prompts, shows whether your domain is mentioned or linked, where it ranks among cited sources and how you compare with up to five competitors. It covers Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT and Gemini.
Who it's for: Agencies that report rankings to clients and want AEO numbers in the same reports.
Price: No price on the toolkit page. A 14-day free trial is available, and a free checker gives 5 attempts a day.
Honest limitation: Perplexity and Copilot are not in the listed coverage.
8. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
What it does: The toolkit scores your AI visibility, compares sentiment against competitors, suggests prompts to target, tracks prompts daily and checks whether technical issues block AI crawlers.
Who it's for: Existing Semrush users who want AEO data without another login.
Price: $99 per month, according to Semrush's knowledge base.
Honest limitation: The documentation we read names only ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, so check the platform list before relying on it for Perplexity.
9. AI Search Optimization (our service)
What it does: This is our own AEO agency service. A free audit finds what keeps answer engines from quoting you. In month one we fix it: AI crawler access, schema, llms.txt, entity data and content gaps. Then we keep optimizing and track up to 50 prompts a month on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews.
Who it's for: Owners who want to be the answer but have no one to act on a tool's reports.
Price: $299 per month flat, 3-month minimum, or $2,990 a year. Sites over 500 pages get a custom quote.
Honest limitation: It is not self-serve software, Copilot is not in our tracked set and the prompt count is lower than tools like Otterly Standard or Goodie Core. You can start with the free AI visibility checker to see the gaps first.
Picking an AEO tool by budget
- Under $50 a month: Otterly.AI Lite or Rankscale Essentials, to learn which questions you appear for.
- Around $100 a month: Rankscale Pro or the Semrush toolkit if you already use Semrush.
- Around $300 a month: Goodie Core or AthenaHQ Starter for broader coverage, or our done-for-you AI search optimization services if you want the fixes made.
- Enterprise: Profound or Peec AI, where pricing is set with sales.
Whichever you pick, track questions your buyers actually ask, not your brand name. Brand-name prompts almost always return you and tell you little.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AEO tool?
An AEO tool checks whether answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews mention or cite your brand for the questions you care about. It runs those questions on a schedule and reports the results. Some also check answer accuracy or audit your pages.
What is the cheapest AEO tool?
On the vendor pages we checked in October 2026, Rankscale Essentials was $17 a month on yearly billing and Otterly.AI Lite was listed at $29 a month. AthenaHQ also has a free tier with 300 credits. Cheap plans have small prompt limits, so treat them as a starting point.
Do AEO tools improve my rankings in AI answers?
Not on their own. They measure and suggest. Your visibility changes when your site and content change, for example when AI crawlers can access it, schema is in place and your pages answer the question directly.
Which AEO tool checks if AI answers about my brand are wrong?
Goodie lists monitoring of inaccurate AI claims about a brand as a feature. Most other tools focus on mentions and citations. Whatever tool you use, read a sample of the actual answers rather than relying only on scores.
How many prompts should an AEO tool track?
Enough to cover your main products and the questions buyers ask before they purchase. For a small business that is often 25 to 50 prompts. Larger catalogs need hundreds, which pushes you to higher tiers.
Is AEO different from GEO when choosing a tool?
The tools are largely the same products. AEO stresses being the direct answer and GEO stresses being used by generative engines in longer responses. Pick by engine coverage, prompt limits and whether the tool helps you act.
Sources
See where AI search leaves you out
Run the free AI visibility audit. If you want the fixes done for you, the plan is a flat $299/month.