The best GEO and AEO tools in 2026

What GEO and AEO tools actually do

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) are the same job seen from two angles: getting your brand named, cited, and recommended inside AI answers. When someone asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, or Claude for "the best project management tool" or "a good accountant in Austin," a handful of brands get surfaced and the rest are invisible. These tools measure whether you are one of them, why, and what to change.

You test them the way a buyer does: how many AI engines they actually track, whether they show the source URLs an assistant cited (not just a mention count), how deep the competitor and sentiment analysis goes, whether they help you act on gaps, and what the entry price buys. We favored platforms that expose citations and share of voice over ones that only report a single black box score. Prices and quotas below are taken from each vendor's own pricing page in 2026.

Profound

Profound is the most enterprise-leaning platform here, built around three stages: Monitor (answer engine insights, prompt volumes, and agent analytics that show how ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude crawl your site), Create (AEO content agents including an FAQ generator), and Operate (a prioritized weekly task list). It suits demand-gen, PR, and SEO teams inside larger companies that want automation, not just dashboards. The catch is coverage gating: the Starter plan tracks ChatGPT only with 50 prompts, so you need Growth to monitor three engines. Pricing runs $99/month for Starter, $399/month for Growth (billed yearly), and custom Enterprise, with a free trial on Growth.

AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ bills itself as a command center for AEO and GEO across eight or more engines, with real-time mention and citation monitoring, share of voice, content gap detection, and automated on-page and off-page agents. It is the only tool in this list with a genuinely free tier: the Essential plan gives you $25 of credit (300 responses) across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini, and Claude with unlimited members, which makes it the easiest low-risk starting point. Everything is metered on a transparent model where one credit equals one AI response, so heavy usage scales cost. Paid plans are $295/month for Starter (3,600 credits, nine models, API, CSV export) and custom Enterprise, which unlocks the Citation Engine, SSO, and discrepancy detection.

Otterly.AI

Otterly.AI is the value pick and the friendliest for solo marketers and small teams. It monitors six engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot, plus paid add-ons for Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Mode), does prompt and intent research, and gives on-page GEO recommendations after a crawlability check. Unlimited team members on every tier is a real perk if you work with clients. Prompt volumes are the main constraint (15, 100, then 400 by tier), and some engines cost extra. Pricing is $29/month for Lite, $189/month for Standard, and $489/month for Premium, with 15 percent off annually and a 7-day free trial.

Peec AI

Peec AI is a focused AI search analytics tool aimed at marketing teams tracking competitive positioning across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Its strengths are source and citation attribution (it surfaces which domains like G2, LinkedIn, and editorial sites feed the answers), competitor benchmarking, and clean reporting through CSV export, a Looker Studio connector, and an API. It centers on three engines rather than the broad coverage some rivals advertise. Its public pricing page lists four tiers (Starter, Pro, Advanced, Enterprise) but the figures are gated behind the app, so you should request a demo to confirm current numbers rather than trust secondhand quotes.

Scrunch AI

Scrunch AI pairs monitoring across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot with an Agent Experience Platform that serves machine-readable content to AI crawlers, so it is as much about feeding the models as watching them. It adds real-time bot crawl observability and prompt-level competitive benchmarking, and it is pitched at companies and agencies that want a delivery layer, not just analytics. Entry cost is high with no permanent free tier: Starter is $250/month billed annually ($300 month-to-month) for three seats and 350 custom prompts, Growth is $417/month annually, and Enterprise is custom, with a 7-day trial and $25 per extra seat.

Goodie AI

Goodie AI is the closed-loop option: research customer prompts, monitor visibility, act with an AEO Writer, then measure revenue impact through Google Analytics attribution. It tracks the widest engine set on this list on higher tiers (up to eleven, including Amazon Rufus, Meta AI, Grok, and DeepSeek) and has an Agentic Commerce Suite for SKU-level product visibility, which makes it a strong fit for ecommerce. The trade-offs are price and transparency: the entry Explorer plan is $399/month (three engines, 100 prompts, 10 optimization actions, revenue attribution, MCP access) and both Pro and Enterprise are demo-gated custom quotes.

Nightwatch

Nightwatch is the pick if you refuse to run a separate tool for classic SEO and AI visibility. It is a mature rank tracker (99.9 percent accuracy, 107,000+ locations, 170+ languages) with an AI layer bolted on well: Citation Intelligence ties your Google SERP rankings to when models like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity recommend you, alongside an AI Visibility Score, share of voice, and sentiment. Because it started as an SEO product, the AI prompt allowances are modest (50 to 500 by tier) next to its huge keyword volumes. Pricing is EUR based: Starter is €79/month, Professional €159/month, and Agency €399/month, all with unlimited seats and a 14-day trial.

Rankscale

Rankscale is the AI-native counterweight to Nightwatch, with the broadest engine coverage here (17+, including DeepSeek and Copilot), multi-brand dashboards, citation analysis that links source URLs to visibility gaps, and sentiment by brand, topic, and model. It uses credits, which buys flexibility but makes cost forecasting harder, and it lacks the deep traditional rank-tracking of an SEO-first tool. Pricing starts around $20/month for Essentials, then $99/month for Pro (1,200 credits, ten brand dashboards), $385/month for Growth (white-label, API), and $780/month for Enterprise.

If you already pay for an SEO suite

Before buying a dedicated tool, check what you already own. Semrush now sells an AI Visibility Toolkit that adds prompt tracking, an AI Visibility Score, and competitor benchmarking; it is $99/month standalone, or bundled into the paid Semrush plans (from $165.17/month for Starter, billed annually) with daily prompt allowances of 50 to 200 by tier. Ahrefs offers Brand Radar, which tracks brand mentions across AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok using a database of 402 million real monthly prompts, sold as AI add-ons on top of a core plan (roughly $199/month for a single platform up to $699/month for all platforms). Neither replaces a purpose-built GEO tool for depth, but if you are already paying for one of these suites, turning on their AI module is the cheapest way to start measuring.

GEO and AEO tools compared

Tool	Entry price	Engines tracked	Free option	Best for
Profound	$99/mo (Starter)	1 to 10 by tier	Trial on Growth	Enterprise automation
AthenaHQ	Free, then $295/mo	8+	Free tier ($25 credit)	Low-risk start, citations
Otterly.AI	$29/mo	6 (some paid)	7-day trial	Solos and small teams
Peec AI	Not published	3 core	Demo	Competitive positioning
Scrunch AI	$250/mo (annual)	5	7-day trial	Content delivery to crawlers
Goodie AI	$399/mo	Up to 11	Trial	Ecommerce, revenue attribution
Nightwatch	€79/mo	4 plus AI Overviews	14-day trial	SEO plus AI in one tool
Rankscale	~$20/mo	17+	Trial	Broadest engine coverage

How to choose

If you are a solo marketer or a lean agency testing the waters, start with Otterly.AI for its $29 entry and unlimited seats, or AthenaHQ's free tier to see real citations before paying anything. If your priority is competitive intelligence on a few key engines, Peec AI and Rankscale give you the sharpest citation and share of voice views, with Rankscale winning on sheer engine count. If you run ecommerce and need to connect AI visibility to revenue, Goodie AI's attribution and SKU-level tracking justify the higher price. If you already live in a rank tracker and want one bill, Nightwatch folds AI visibility into familiar SEO reporting. And if you are an enterprise team that wants automation and content delivery rather than dashboards alone, Profound and Scrunch AI are built for that scale.

Verdict

There is no single winner because the category splits by budget and job. For most teams starting out, AthenaHQ (free to begin, transparent credits, strong citations) and Otterly.AI (cheapest paid entry, generous seats) are the two we would trial first. Move up to Rankscale or Peec AI when competitor tracking becomes the point, to Goodie AI when revenue attribution matters, and to Profound, Scrunch AI, or Nightwatch when you need enterprise automation or a single tool spanning SEO and AI. Whichever you pick, insist on seeing the actual source URLs behind each answer, because that is what tells you what to fix.