The best AEO tools in 2026, compared on price and engines

AEO tools show you whether answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI Overviews recommend your brand, and what to change when they do not. The category has grown from a handful of trackers to dozens of platforms in two years, and the pricing pages have become hard to compare: some sell prompts, some sell credits, some sell engines one by one.

This comparison uses the public list prices and plan limits on each vendor’s site, checked on 18 October 2026, and on 11 November 2026 for Otterly.AI and SE Visible, after both changed their plans, and for Peec AI, so you can compare like with like. We build one of these tools, Mencoro, and we describe the others as we would want ours described.

What an AEO tool should do

Answer engine optimization has three jobs, and a tool is only as useful as the jobs it covers:

1. Measure. Run the prompts your buyers ask, on the engines they use, often enough to see a trend. One run of one prompt is an anecdote; a mention rate across repeated runs is a measurement.
2. Explain. Show how you were mentioned (recommended, compared, listed in passing), with what sentiment, next to which competitors, and which pages the answer cited.
3. Act. Point to the pages, sources and content gaps that would change the answer. Some tools stop at data; others add content or technical workflows on top.

The metrics behind those jobs are covered in our guide to GEO metrics. The short version: a count of mentions without quality, share of voice and citations tells you very little.

AEO tools compared

Prices are the public list prices before tax, in the currency each vendor shows. Prompt limits are not directly comparable: Mencoro counts checks (one query, on one engine, in one country, per run), AthenaHQ counts credits (one AI response each) and most others count prompts per plan.

1. Mencoro

Mencoro tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overview and Google AI Mode, plus the classic Google SERP and Google Shopping, in the same project. Every mention is classified into one of five mention types, from a direct recommendation to a passing reference, and scored for sentiment, so share of voice is weighted by how you were mentioned rather than counted. Citations are tracked per answer. Plans are paid per check from €15 a month, with unlimited projects, competitors and users, a REST API and an MCP server. Claude is included on every plan and uses five checks per pass. It does not track Gemini or Copilot today. The method behind every number is public in how Mencoro works.

2. Profound

Profound is the best-known enterprise platform in the category. Beyond answer tracking it sells prompt volume estimates, agent analytics (AI crawler traffic from your CDN or logs), ChatGPT Shopping tracking and credit-based AI agents for content. There is no self-serve paid plan for brands on its site: a free 7-day trial covers 50 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, and anything beyond that is quoted by sales. Agencies get a self-serve Agency Growth plan at $99 a month and add full client workspaces at $399 a month each. G2 reviewers praise the depth and mention the price and the learning curve.

3. Peec AI

Peec AI, based in Berlin, is a daily tracker with a clean interface and strong source analytics. Starter costs €85 a month (€70 billed yearly) for 50 prompts, Pro €205 for 150 and Advanced €425 for 350, all with unlimited users. Each plan includes three models you choose from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini and Naver; Perplexity and other extra models are paid add-ons, and Claude, Grok and DeepSeek are Enterprise only. It ships an MCP server on every plan, and the API starts on Pro.

4. Otterly.AI

Otterly.AI, from Austria, is the cheapest way in. Since 10 November 2026 every plan is priced in credits, with all seven engines, Google AI Mode, Gemini and Claude included, available on every plan and at least three picked per workspace. Lite is $29 a month for 16 prompts on four engines; Standard is $189 for 120 prompts and adds the API, the MCP server and agent analytics; Premium is $489 for 400 prompts. It also runs GEO audits of your URLs with weekly recommendations.

5. AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ has the widest engine list at its price. The free Essential plan gives 300 credits across five engines, and Starter, at $295 a month ($245 billed yearly), gives 3,600 credits across 11: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. It adds prompt volume estimates, a content optimization agent and robots.txt and llms.txt management. Starter is limited to one region and language, and the API is a paid add-on.

6. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Semrush sells AI visibility as a toolkit at $99 a month per domain with 25 prompts, or inside its Starter plan, €190 a month in October 2026, with 50. It covers ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity, and the appeal is having AI data next to Semrush’s keyword and backlink databases. Prompt limits are small for the price if AI tracking is all you need.

7. Ahrefs Brand Radar

Brand Radar works the other way round from most trackers. Its core is a large index of AI answers that Ahrefs collects for everyone, sold as Brand Radar AI from €179 a month, which is useful for market research on brands you do not track yet. Custom prompts come with Ahrefs plans, from 5 on Lite (€119) to 20 on Advanced (€419), and extra prompt packages cost €46.70 to €234 a month. There is no free trial.

8. HubSpot AEO

HubSpot AEO costs $50 a month ($45 billed yearly) for 25 prompts and one brand, and does not require a HubSpot subscription. It covers ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity only, and HubSpot still labels it a beta. A fair first step for HubSpot users; its free AEO grader gives a one-off snapshot.

9. SE Visible

SE Visible is SE Ranking’s standalone AI visibility product. Basic costs €80 a month (20% less billed yearly) for 75 prompts and five projects, and Agency €355 for 1,000 prompts and 30 projects, with the API on every plan and a 10-day trial. It covers ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Copilot, with Claude only on Agency and no Perplexity. The Agency plan makes it popular with agencies.

10. Goodie

Goodie positions itself as a full-stack AEO platform: tracking plus content, outreach and technical agents, agentic commerce visibility and traffic attribution. Core costs $295 a month billed yearly ($354 monthly) for 110 prompts on ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, AI Mode and Copilot; Pro, at $999, adds Gemini, Alexa and Sparky. Agencies get a separate plan from $275 a month.

How to choose an AEO tool

• Start from the engines. List the engines your buyers use, then check whether each tool includes them in the plan or sells them as add-ons. That single check changes the real price of several tools on this list.
• Count what you will actually run. Prompts times engines times countries times runs per month. A cheap plan with daily runs on three engines can cost more than a pricier plan with weekly runs.
• Ask how mentions are scored. A tool that tells you only whether you appeared hides the difference between being recommended and being listed as the expensive option.
• Decide how much “act” you need. If you have a content team, a tracker with good citation data may be enough. If you do not, a platform with content workflows may be worth the higher price.
• Test on your own prompts. Most tools on this list have a trial or a free plan. Run the same 20 prompts in two of them for a week and compare what each one tells you.

If you want to go deeper, our comparisons of GEO tools, LLM rank trackers and AI visibility tools look at the same market from other angles.

And if the job you care most about is knowing how answer engines talk about you, Mencoro’s AI visibility tracking was built for that: every mention classified, share of voice weighted by mention quality, and the classic SERP in the same project, from €15 a month.