AEO tools are software that checks whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI features name your brand when buyers ask a question, shows which pages those answers cite, and helps you publish the content that gets you named. The tools below split into three jobs: measuring AI answers, writing or publishing the content that changes them, and fixing the technical basics so AI crawlers can read your site. Most products now do the first job and some of the second.
This guide compares 11 answer engine optimization tools on the four things that decide a purchase: what the tool does, which engines it checks, whether it writes or publishes content, and what it costs. Every competitor fact was read on the vendor's own site, rendered in a browser, on October 16, 2026, and each row links to the page we read. Prices change often, so check the link before you buy.
Disclosure: Rank.ai publishes this page and sells one of the tools on the list. We describe our own product from the same four angles, including what it does not do, and we have not ranked the tools against each other.
What an AEO tool does
Answer engine optimization (AEO) is the work of getting your brand named and cited in AI-generated answers. Our answer engine optimization explainer covers the practice itself, and AEO vs SEO explains how it overlaps with ranking in Google. The tools that support it do some mix of three jobs.
| Job | What the tool does | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Measure | Puts a fixed set of buyer questions (prompts) to AI engines on a schedule and records each answer | Which brands each answer names, which pages it cites, your share of answers over time |
| Write and publish | Turns the questions you lose into articles or page updates, sometimes publishing them to your CMS | Content aimed at the questions competitors win |
| Technical readiness | Checks whether AI crawlers can reach and parse your pages | Robots rules, rendering, schema and llms.txt issues to fix |
Measurement is where every tool on this list starts. The differences show up in which engines are included, how often the prompts run, and what happens after the report.
Why the engines you check matter
The same question gets different answers from different engines. Rank.ai put 102 buyer questions from 15 customer accounts to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini through each engine's API with web search on, and kept 11,726 fresh answers between May and October 2026 (Rank.ai analysis of 11,726 AI answers).
| Engine | Answers | Named at least one business | Named the customer's own brand | Cited the customer's own site | Average citations per answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gemini | 3,918 | 38.1% | 11.0% | 7.5% | 7.38 |
| Claude | 3,878 | 36.6% | 8.1% | 4.5% | 5.40 |
| ChatGPT | 3,930 | 39.0% | 6.4% | 3.7% | 6.34 |
Two things follow for buying a tool. First, a tool that checks only one engine shows you one of several different pictures, so match the engines to where your buyers ask. Second, about six in ten answers name no business at all, and when an answer does name businesses it tends to name a list (about one answer in five named five or more). Choose questions that produce a shortlist, because that list is what your buyer sees. The GEO and AEO statistics page collects the wider research on AI search adoption and citations.
AEO tools compared
All figures below were read on each vendor's own pages on October 16, 2026. "Engines" lists what the entry plan includes; higher tiers often add more.
| Tool | What it does | Engines at entry | Writes or publishes content | Entry price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot AEO | Tracks your brand in AI answers, suggests prompts and gives prioritized recommendations | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity | Recommends when to create a page, publish a video or reach out to third-party sites | $50 a month for 25 prompts ($45 billed annually) |
| Profound | An "AI Marketer" agent that researches, writes and reports on AI search data | Free trial: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews. Enterprise: "Up to 9 Answer Engines tracked" | Rewrites pages and stages them in your CMS | Brands: free 7-day trial, then custom Enterprise. Agencies: $99 a month plus $399 per client workspace |
| Peec AI | AI search analytics: visibility, position, sentiment, sources and gap analysis | Choose 3 of ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini, Naver AI | An MCP use case drafts a post and publishes it to WordPress via the API | $95, $245 or $495 a month; Enterprise custom |
| Otterly | AI search monitoring, prompt research and GEO page audits | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot; Claude, AI Mode and Gemini as add-ons | Page audits with a brief; a Beta n8n workflow turns recommendations into WordPress article drafts | $29, $189 or $489 a month; Enterprise custom |
| AthenaHQ | Tracks AI visibility, then optimizes and publishes content | Free Essential: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot. Starter: 11 models | Publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Contentful, Sanity, Framer, Wix and Payload CMS | Essential free; Starter $295 a month |
| Scrunch | AI monitoring and citations, site audits, and Agent Pages that deliver an optimized experience to AI agents | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AIO, Copilot | 1 page optimization a month and basic content generation on Core | Core $250 a month; Enterprise custom |
| Semrush AI Visibility | AI visibility reports, 25 daily prompts, competitor and prompt research | ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity | Writing is a separate Content toolkit, $60 a month billed annually | $99 a month per domain |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Custom prompt tracking plus an index of AI answers for any brand | AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot; Claude uses 8 checks per update | Not listed on the Brand Radar page | Custom prompts from $50 a month; AI Visibility Index from $199; $699 for all models |
| Writesonic | AI search visibility tracking plus an AI article writer and site audits | ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews | 15 AI articles a month on Starter; pushes to WordPress, Sanity, Contentful, Webflow or Ghost | $79 a month billed annually |
| Promptwatch | AI visibility tracking, crawler logs, conversion tracking and a content agent | 4 models on each brand plan | 0, 5 or 10 "AEO Articles" a month by plan; integrations with Webflow, Framer and WordPress | $95, $245 or $579 a month |
| Rank.ai (our product) | Asks your buyer questions in AI engines every day, shows the questions competitors win, writes and publishes the articles | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini; Perplexity, Grok or DeepSeek per question | 30 articles a month written and published on Starter, to WordPress, Webflow or Shopify | Free, then $49, $129 or $399 a month; done-for-you from $2,000 |
Sources for each row are the linked pages, plus Profound's homepage ("Rewrites pages with citation decay and stages them in your CMS"), Peec AI's auto-publish use case, Otterly's homepage and n8n workflow, AthenaHQ's integrations, Semrush's Content toolkit pricing and Writesonic's AI article writer.
Each tool in brief
HubSpot AEO
HubSpot's AEO tool tracks your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, reports a visibility score and share of voice, and suggests prompts from your company, competitors and industry. It costs $50 a month for 25 prompts, or $45 a month billed annually, with more prompts sold separately (HubSpot AEO). Its recommendations say when to create a new page, fix a technical gap, publish a video or reach out to third-party sites.
Good fit: teams already on HubSpot that want AI visibility next to their CRM data.
Profound
Profound leads with an "AI Marketer" agent that researches, writes and reports. Brands get a free trial with 50 prompts run daily for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, then a custom Enterprise package with "Up to 9 Answer Engines tracked", SSO/SAML and SOC 2 (Profound pricing). Agencies pay $99 a month for Agency Growth, with full client workspaces at $399 a month each. Its homepage says the agent "Rewrites pages with citation decay and stages them in your CMS."
Good fit: large brands with an enterprise budget and a team to run the agent. Our Rank.ai vs Profound page compares the two in detail.
Peec AI
Peec AI measures visibility, position, sentiment and share of voice daily against competitors, with source analytics and gap analysis. Starter is $95 a month for 50 prompts, Pro $245 for 150 and Advanced $495 for 350; every self-serve plan lets you choose 3 models, and Enterprise lists "Up to 13 LLM models tracked" (Peec AI pricing). Its published MCP use case drafts a blog post from a visibility gap and publishes it to WordPress via the API.
Good fit: marketing and SEO teams that want detailed source analysis. See Rank.ai vs Peec AI.
Otterly
Otterly has the lowest entry price on this list: Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts tracked daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are paid add-ons. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts and Premium $489 for 400 (Otterly pricing). Otterly audits pages for AI readiness and gives a brief to fix them, and a Beta n8n workflow turns its recommendations into WordPress article drafts.
Good fit: a solo marketer who wants daily data on a few prompts for the least money. See Rank.ai vs Otterly.
AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ's Essential plan is free with 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter is $295 a month for 3,600 credits and "Visibility across 11 models", where one credit is one AI response (AthenaHQ plans). Its integrations page lists publishing to WordPress, Webflow, Contentful, Sanity, Framer, Wix and Payload CMS (AthenaHQ integrations).
Good fit: teams that want a free starting point and publishing to a headless CMS. See Rank.ai vs AthenaHQ.
Scrunch
Scrunch Core is $250 a month for 125 prompts, 5,000 responses and 5 site audits a month across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AIO and Copilot. Enterprise adds Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, Google AI Mode and Grok, plus its Agent Experience Platform, which Scrunch says will "Deliver an optimized experience to AI agents" (Scrunch pricing). Core includes 1 page optimization a month and basic content generation.
Good fit: enterprise teams that want to control what AI agents read on their site. See Rank.ai vs Scrunch.
Semrush AI Visibility toolkit
Semrush sells AI visibility as its own toolkit: $99 a month per domain for 25 custom prompts tracked daily, with mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity, competitor analysis, prompt research and an AI-readiness site audit (Semrush AI pricing). Article writing is the separate Content toolkit at $60 a month billed annually (Semrush Content pricing).
Good fit: teams already working in Semrush. See Rank.ai vs Semrush.
Ahrefs Brand Radar
Brand Radar has two parts. Custom Prompts tracks the questions you choose, starting at $50 a month and free in small amounts on paid Ahrefs plans. The AI Visibility Index looks up any brand across what Ahrefs says are 481M prompts, from $199 a month, or $699 a month for all models (Ahrefs Brand Radar). Platforms listed include AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, and Claude consumes 8 checks per update.
Good fit: Ahrefs customers, and anyone researching competitors' AI visibility without writing prompts first. See Rank.ai vs Ahrefs.
Writesonic
Writesonic's Starter plan is $79 a month billed annually for 50 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, 15 AI articles a month and 10 site audits; Basic is $199 and Growth $399, and Enterprise covers "All 9 AI platforms tracked" (Writesonic pricing). Its article writer pushes finished articles to WordPress, Sanity, Contentful, Webflow or Ghost in one click (Writesonic AI article writer).
Good fit: content teams that want tracking and an AI writer in one subscription. See Rank.ai vs Writesonic.
Promptwatch
Promptwatch's brand plans are Essential $95 a month, Professional $245 and Business $579, each tracking 4 models, with 0, 5 and 10 AEO articles a month respectively. Every plan includes MCP and API access, and its integrations include Webflow, Framer and WordPress (Promptwatch pricing). State and city level tracking starts on Business.
Good fit: teams that want crawler logs and conversion tracking beside AI visibility. See Rank.ai vs Promptwatch.
Rank.ai
Rank.ai asks your buyer questions in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini every day through each engine's API with web search on, and you can switch on Perplexity, Grok or DeepSeek for any question. It records every brand each answer names and every page it cites, shows the questions where competitors are named and you are not, then researches, writes and publishes the articles that answer them to WordPress, Webflow or Shopify. Each site's setting decides whether articles publish on a schedule or wait for review; publishing on a schedule is the default. Your Google keywords are checked daily on the same plan.
Plans (Rank.ai pricing):
| Plan | Price | AI questions to win | Articles a month, written and published | Google keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | None | 3 | 3 |
| Starter | $49 a month | 5 | 30 | 25 |
| Growth | $129 a month | 25 | 80 | 100 |
| Agency | $399 a month | 100 | 300, pooled across clients | 500 |
Every new account starts with 14 days of Growth, no card. Done-for-you, where we run Rank.ai for you, starts at $2,000 a month.
What Rank.ai does not do: it does not check Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Mode or Google AI Overviews answers as tracked engines; it does not run the same question several times a day or per country; map scans run when you start them, on grids up to 7x7; it has no white-label reports, Looker Studio connector or public REST API; and the free plan includes no AI questions. Its answers come from each engine's API with search on, so they show the model behind each app, which can differ from what one person sees in the consumer app.
Good fit: businesses and agencies that want the articles written and published as part of the plan, with Google keywords in the same login. The AI visibility product page shows the reports, and the AI visibility tool buying guide goes deeper on choosing a tracker.
How to choose an AEO tool
| If you... | Look at |
|---|---|
| Want the cheapest daily tracking of a few prompts | Otterly Lite |
| Already run HubSpot, Semrush or Ahrefs | That vendor's AEO add-on |
| Need detailed source and competitor analysis across projects | Peec AI |
| Want a free plan with AI tracking | AthenaHQ Essential |
| Are an enterprise with a procurement process and SSO requirements | Profound or Scrunch Enterprise |
| Want tracking plus an AI writer that pushes to a headless CMS | Writesonic, AthenaHQ or Promptwatch |
| Want articles written and published every month, with Google keywords in the same plan | Rank.ai |
Before you buy, run five checks:
- Engines. List where your buyers ask. Check which of those engines the entry plan includes and which are add-ons.
- Questions. Write 20 questions your buyers really ask, in plain language. Test a few by hand in ChatGPT, Gemini and Google to see which produce a shortlist of businesses.
- Frequency and history. Answers vary from day to day, so a tool should run each question on a schedule and keep the history.
- Citations. Mentions tell you whether you were named. Cited pages tell you what the engine read, which is the part you can act on. Our share of voice explainer shows how to turn mentions into one comparable number.
- The content step. Decide who writes and publishes the articles the data asks for. Count articles per month, the CMSs supported and the review step.
For a tracker-only comparison with more on prompt counts and frequency, see our guide to the best AI visibility tools. For the wider set of AI tools in SEO work, see AI SEO tools.
Free AEO tools to start with
You can learn a lot before paying for anything:
- The free AI grade writes 12 questions your customers ask, puts them to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and shows who gets named and which pages the answers read. No account needed; your email unlocks the report.
- The AI visibility checker runs one prompt across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and shows whether each answer names or cites you.
- The AI Overview checker shows whether a keyword triggers a Google AI Overview and whether it cites your site.
- The AI crawler checker tells you whether GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and other AI crawlers are allowed in by your robots.txt.
- The llms.txt generator drafts an llms.txt file from your sitemap; our llms.txt explainer covers what the file can and cannot do.
- The LLM SEO tool tests how three models answer your buyers' question, with the steps to get named.
FAQ
What is the best AEO tool?
It depends on the job. For the cheapest daily tracking, Otterly starts at $29 a month. For teams already on HubSpot, Semrush or Ahrefs, their AEO add-ons keep the data in one place. For enterprises, Profound and Scrunch sell custom contracts with SSO. If you want the content written and published as part of the plan, Rank.ai includes 30 articles a month on its $49 Starter plan. Rank.ai publishes this page, so test any shortlist with a trial.
What are the best AEO tools for 2026?
The tools most often compared are HubSpot AEO, Profound, Peec AI, Otterly, AthenaHQ, Scrunch, Semrush's AI Visibility toolkit, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Writesonic, Promptwatch and Rank.ai. The table above lists each one's engines, content features and price as read on October 16, 2026.
Is AEO legit?
Yes, in the sense that AI answers are a real place buyers find businesses, and those answers draw on pages you can influence. In Rank.ai's sample of 11,726 answers, ChatGPT averaged 6.34 citations per answer, Gemini 7.38 and Claude 5.40. Be wary of anyone who guarantees a mention: answers vary by engine, day and wording, and no tool controls them.
What is an AEO audit?
An AEO audit checks how AI engines currently treat your brand and your site. It usually covers which buyer questions name you or your competitors, which pages the answers cite, whether AI crawlers can reach your pages, and what content is missing. The free AI grade runs a short version: 12 questions in ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, a score out of 100 and three fixes.
Which AEO platforms have the best reviews?
We did not score review sites for this guide, and review scores change weekly. Check G2 or Capterra for the tools on your shortlist, and weigh reviews from companies your size. A free trial on your own questions tells you more than a star rating.
Are there free AEO tools?
Yes. AthenaHQ has a free Essential plan, Profound offers a 7-day free trial for brands, and Rank.ai has a free plan (articles and Google keywords, without AI questions) plus a free AI grade that needs no account. Free single-purpose checkers, like an AI crawler checker or an AI Overview checker, cover the technical basics.
What is the difference between AEO tools and SEO tools?
SEO tools measure and improve your position in Google's ranked results. AEO tools measure whether AI engines name and cite you in generated answers, where there is no fixed position. The work overlaps: pages that rank well are often the pages AI answers cite. Our AEO vs SEO entry covers the differences.
Do AEO tools show exactly what my customers see in ChatGPT?
No tool can. Some collect answers from the consumer apps' interfaces and some query each engine's API with web search on, as Rank.ai does. Either way, answers change with the person, the day and the wording, so read the results as trends across many questions and days.
