A software company can sit on page one of Google for its main keywords and still be missing when a buyer asks ChatGPT or Perplexity for the best tools in its category. Generative engine optimization (GEO) tools exist to show whether that’s happening: they run a set of prompts across AI platforms on a schedule and record which brands get mentioned, which sources get cited and who is recommended instead of you.
This guide compares five of them: Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.AI, Scrunch and Semrush. They differ a lot in price, platform coverage and how much they help you act on what they find. For the traditional side of search software, see our guide to the best AI SEO tools.
Disclosure. The buttons in this guide link to each tool’s official site. If we join a tool’s affiliate program later, those links may earn us a commission at no extra cost to you, and that won’t change how we rank anything. See our affiliate disclosure.
Quick answer: what are the best GEO tools?
GEO tools track how often and how favorably AI answer engines mention your brand. Otterly.AI is the lowest-priced entry point we found. Peec AI suits agencies running several client projects. Scrunch pairs prompt tracking with page audits and citation data. Semrush makes sense if you already use it for SEO. Profound is built for enterprises that need many answer engines, API access and security controls. This is an editorial judgment from vendor documentation.
At-a-glance comparison
Prices are from each vendor’s public page, checked October 11, 2026, in US dollars where stated. Vendors change plans often.
| Tool | Best for | AI platforms covered | Starting price | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Enterprise brands | Up to 9 answer engines on Enterprise | Custom; free 7-day trial | No public paid pricing |
| Peec AI | Agencies and multi-market teams | Choose 3 models on self-serve plans | Not shown on the page we checked | Prices and trial terms weren’t visible |
| Otterly.AI | Small businesses and budget-conscious teams | ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot | Lite $29/mo (15 prompts) | Claude, AI Mode and Gemini cost extra |
| Scrunch | Teams that want audits and citation data | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Meta | Starter $250/mo annual, $300 monthly | Higher entry price |
| Semrush | Existing Semrush users | AI search tracking in SEO plans | SEO plan $117.33/mo annual, $139 monthly | AI tracking is one part of a larger suite |
How we selected these tools
We looked for products that cover different buyers: enterprise, agency, budget, audit-oriented and suite add-on. We checked official pricing and product pages for platform coverage, prompt limits, reporting and agency features. Where a vendor didn’t publish something, we say so. Visibility scores are vendor-defined, and we don’t compare them across products.
The five GEO tools
1. Otterly.AI: best for smaller businesses
Verdict: The cheapest way to start tracking AI mentions with a real tool.
Otterly’s Lite plan is listed at $29 a month for 15 search prompts, with four engines, unlimited team members, daily tracking, one workspace, three recommendations a week and 1,000 GEO audits a month. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts and adds API and MCP access, Agent Analytics and unlimited workspaces. Premium is $489 for 400 prompts. Included platforms are ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, while Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are paid add-ons. The page also shows a second, lower set of figures without labeling the billing basis, and it lists 15 percent off for annual billing, so confirm the final price at checkout. Plans are month to month, and a free trial is offered.
- Strengths: Low entry price, unlimited team members, built-in recommendations.
- Trade-offs: 15 prompts is thin, and extra platforms cost extra. Agency partners get unlimited workspaces if they subscribe to Standard or Premium.
- Choose it if: You want to measure a small set of prompts cheaply. Choose a competitor if: You need many prompts or many platforms.
2. Peec AI: best for agencies and multi-market tracking
Verdict: A flexible fit for agencies, though we couldn’t verify its prices.
Peec’s self-serve plans are Starter (50 prompts, 1 project), Pro (150 prompts, 2 projects) and Advanced (350 prompts, 5 projects, multi-country tracking and Looker Studio). All include unlimited users and daily tracking, and you choose three models from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. Enterprise adds up to 13 models, API, SSO and weekly or daily tracking. Agencies can run several client projects under one bundle with centralized billing, and the FAQ says any supported country or language can be tracked at no extra cost. The pricing page we saw showed no dollar amounts and listed only a 15 percent annual discount, so check the live page or its agency page for prices and the trial length.
- Strengths: Unlimited seats, choice of models, agency bundles, multi-country tracking.
- Trade-offs: Only three models on self-serve plans, and pricing wasn’t visible to us.
- Choose it if: You manage several brands or markets. Choose a competitor if: You need a publicly priced budget plan.
3. Scrunch: best for citations and page-level fixes
Verdict: The best fit here if you want tracking tied to specific page audits.
Scrunch’s Starter plan is $250 a month billed annually ($300 month to month) and includes 3 user licenses, 350 custom prompts, 1,000 industry prompts, 3 personas and 5 page audits. Growth is $417 annually ($500 monthly) with 5 licenses and 700 custom prompts. It covers ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, and Meta. All plans include a prompt manager, citation tracking, page audits, a reporting dashboard and agent traffic monitoring. Its Agent Experience Platform creates an AI-friendly version of your site and is positioned as a complement to SEO tools, which is a vendor claim we haven’t verified. A 7-day Starter trial needs no card, and extra seats cost $25 a month each.
- Strengths: Broad platform coverage, citation and audit features, a no-card trial.
- Trade-offs: The entry price is far above Otterly’s.
- Choose it if: You want to connect visibility data to page fixes. Choose a competitor if: You just need basic mention tracking.
4. Semrush: best for teams already doing SEO
Verdict: The practical choice if you want AI tracking inside a tool you already pay for.
On Semrush’s pricing page, the SEO plan is $117.33 a month billed annually ($139 monthly) and includes AI search tracking with 50 custom prompts. Starter ($165.17 annual, $199 monthly) lists 50 daily AI prompts and 300 AI visibility reports a day, and higher tiers add more. A free plan includes basic AI visibility features, and there’s a 7-day trial. We couldn’t load Semrush’s dedicated AI visibility page, so the details here come from its pricing page only. For the wider platform, see Semrush vs Ahrefs.
- Strengths: One login for SEO and AI tracking, a free plan to test.
- Trade-offs: It’s a suite, so you pay for more than GEO.
- Choose it if: You already use Semrush. Choose a competitor if: You want a dedicated GEO workflow.
5. Profound: best for enterprise brands
Verdict: The heaviest-duty option, aimed at large teams that will talk to sales.
Profound offers a free trial with 50 prompts run daily for 7 days across ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, but without exports, API or support. Its Enterprise plan is custom priced and lists up to 9 answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Exa Search), all-time history, CSV and JSON exports, API access, SSO, SOC 2 compliance and dedicated support. Both plans include unlimited seats and a credit-based Agents feature. An Agency Growth plan is mentioned in the FAQ, with 400 credits a month per client workspace, but no price is listed.
- Strengths: Widest platform coverage listed, enterprise security, exports and API.
- Trade-offs: No public paid pricing, and credits make costs less predictable.
- Choose it if: You’re an enterprise with security needs. Choose a competitor if: You want a published price.
Best GEO tools by use case
- Small business or startup: Otterly.AI Lite, or Semrush’s free plan to test first.
- B2B SaaS: Scrunch or Otterly Standard, depending on budget.
- Ecommerce brand: Profound lists ChatGPT Shopping on Enterprise, so ask about it in a demo.
- SEO agency: Peec AI or Otterly’s Agency Partner program.
- Enterprise team: Profound.
- Multi-market brand: Peec AI, which lists multi-country tracking.
- Existing SEO team: Semrush.
GEO tools versus traditional SEO tools
Traditional SEO tools track keyword rankings, audit your site and analyze backlinks. GEO tools sample AI answers and record mentions, citations and competitors. They overlap but aren’t interchangeable, and traditional SEO still matters. Google’s own documentation on AI features and your website says AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special optimization beyond standard SEO best practices, which is a good reason to check whether your existing SEO platform is enough before buying a dedicated one. See also our SEO tools guide.
What GEO tools can and can’t measure
These tools can show how an AI platform answered a set of prompts at a given time. They can’t tell you how every customer sees your brand. Keep these limits in mind:
- AI answers vary between sessions, models, locations and dates.
- A mention isn’t a citation, and a citation isn’t a visit or a sale.
- Visibility scores are proprietary, so scores from different vendors aren’t comparable.
- Your prompt choices shape the results, and a small set can’t represent every question.
A sensible approach combines AI visibility data with referral traffic, branded search, leads and conversions, without claiming that a change in sales came from GEO alone.
How to choose a GEO tool
- Define what you want to learn: mentions, citations, competitors or fixes.
- Identify the AI platforms your customers use.
- Write the prompts they’d actually ask.
- Decide whether tracking or recommendations matter more.
- Check competitor coverage, exports and reporting.
- Price the real total, including extra platforms, prompts and seats.
- Run a short trial on the same prompts in two tools.
- Ask whether the data will change a decision.
Questions for vendors: Which platforms are included in my plan, and which cost extra? How are prompts counted? How long is history kept? Can I export data? How are visibility scores calculated?
A practical measurement workflow
You can start without software. Build a prompt set, run it on the platforms your customers use, record the results in a table and repeat it on a consistent schedule. Record mentions, citations and context separately. Investigate wrong or missing brand information, prioritize content and technical fixes, and compare against referral traffic. Illustrative prompt types:
- Problem-aware: “How do I track my brand in AI answers?”
- Category comparison: “What are the best project management tools for small teams?”
- Product recommendation: “Which email tool should a small store use?”
- Brand-specific: “Is [your brand] good for agencies?”
- Alternatives: “What are alternatives to [competitor]?”
Use a template like this one. It’s a practical monitoring aid, not a universal standard.
| Field | What to record |
|---|---|
| Date | When you collected the observation |
| AI platform | The platform or model tested |
| Prompt | The exact question used |
| Brand mentioned | Whether your brand appeared |
| Citation present | Whether a relevant source was cited |
| Competitors mentioned | Which alternatives appeared |
| Answer context | How your brand was described |
| Landing page | The cited URL, if available |
| Follow-up action | What the team should investigate |
Common buying mistakes
- Buying before defining a measurement goal.
- Comparing visibility scores across vendors.
- Tracking too few or only commercial prompts.
- Ignoring country and language differences.
- Treating AI answers like stable rankings.
- Skipping checks on data history, exports and plan limits.
- Paying for features you already have in an SEO suite.
Frequently asked questions
What are GEO tools?
Software that tracks how AI answer engines mention, cite and describe your brand across a set of prompts.
What’s the difference between GEO and SEO?
SEO targets rankings in conventional search. GEO targets how a brand appears in AI-generated answers. They overlap, and neither replaces the other.
Which tool is best for beginners?
Otterly.AI Lite for price, or Semrush if you already use it.
What’s the best tool for agencies?
Peec AI lists agency bundles with central billing. Otterly and Profound also describe agency options.
Can these tools track ChatGPT and citations?
Yes. Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.AI and Scrunch list ChatGPT coverage, and Scrunch and Otterly describe citation tracking. Semrush lists AI search tracking, but its pricing page doesn’t name the platforms, so confirm that before buying.
Are GEO tools worth paying for?
Possibly, if AI answers influence your market and you’ll act on the data. Otherwise a manual process may be enough.
Are free GEO tools available?
Semrush has a free plan with basic AI visibility features, and Profound, Scrunch and Otterly offer trials. Trials aren’t free plans.
Can a tool guarantee my brand appears in AI answers?
No. These tools measure; they can’t control what an AI model says.
How often should I monitor?
Pick a consistent schedule that matches how fast your market changes. Several tools offer daily tracking.
Final recommendation
Start with Otterly.AI or Semrush if you want to test the value of GEO data cheaply. Choose Peec AI for multi-client or multi-market work, Scrunch if you want audits next to tracking, and Profound if you’re an enterprise with security and scale needs. Before you buy, run the same 20 or so real prompts through two trials and see which tool gives you something you’d act on.
More guides: Best Software and all software categories.
