AEO Tools

Most AEO tool lists come from vendors. Profound, Geoptie, HubSpot, AirOps, Rankability and SE Ranking each publish one and place the publisher at or near the top. Their feature data is useful. Their order is harder to trust.

SERP Masters has no AEO product to rank. It runs a six-tool stack on client work, and four of those tools sit in the table below. The dedicated trackers are reviewed from their own pricing and product pages, so read those reviews as a buyer’s reading of the vendor’s terms.

The standard here is what a tool measures, per engine, at the plan you would buy. It comes from client reporting: the same stack counted 15,332 de-duplicated AI citations across the client portfolio, with every engine on its own line. The table comes first, then the four jobs these tools do.

TL;DR: AEO tools by job

The free AI visibility audit from SERP Masters checks citations, mentions, bot access and page extractability on 12 editable prompts, and its results show which engines and prompt types a tracker has to cover.

Quick comparison of the best AEO tools

The best AEO tools fall into three groups: dedicated trackers, SEO suites with AI modules, and raw data sources. Each row gives the engines the vendor’s own page names, a verified entry price where the vendor states one, and the limit SERP Masters weighs most.

What does an AEO tool do?

An AEO tool sends a set of prompts to AI answer engines and records whether a brand is cited, named or missing in each answer. The label covers four jobs, and the costly mistake is buying a tool built for one job and asking it to do another.

AEO tools, AI visibility tools and AI visibility trackers are one category under three names. “AEO tool” is the marketer’s term for answer engine optimization software, while “AI visibility tool” and “AI visibility tracker” name the measurement half. Vendors that call their products GEO tools sell the same trackers. The answer engine optimization guide defines the discipline these tools measure, and the AEO vs GEO comparison shows where the two labels part ways.

A rank tracker stores a position for a keyword; an AEO tool stores an answer, with its text, the brands it names and the sources it links. Two brands can hold the same Google position and get different treatment in ChatGPT, which is why SEO teams run both.

How SERP Masters evaluated these AEO tools

SERP Masters judged every AEO tool on seven criteria, the same rules it applies when it measures AI visibility for clients.

Where a vendor page shows no price, this page says so and quotes no third-party figure. Vendors change prices often, so confirm on the vendor page before you buy.

The AEO tool stack SERP Masters runs

SERP Masters runs six tools for AI search measurement, because no single AEO tool covers access, answers, citations and clicks in one place. Together they produced the portfolio count of 15,332 AI citations, de-duplicated across Ahrefs, DataForSEO and live renders, with each engine reported on its own line and the raw rows kept.

Ahrefs for AI citation counts and corroboration

Ahrefs Brand Radar shows which domains AI answers cite for a topic, and that list sets the Corroborate targets: the publishers, directories and review sites where a third-party mention would count. Ahrefs also supplies Domain Rating and backlinks, and never the performance figures in a SERP Masters report.

Google Search Console for performance

Google Search Console is the only source SERP Masters uses for reported clicks, impressions and traffic. Because Search Console folds AI Overview and AI Mode activity into standard web results, SERP Masters reports AI citation presence from the trackers and performance from Search Console on separate lines. The SEO reporting service shows how those two lines reach clients.

Screaming Frog for access and extractability

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is how SERP Masters checks what AI bots can fetch. SERP Masters crawls a site as retrieval user agents such as OAI-SearchBot and PerplexityBot, compares raw and rendered HTML, and extracts schema to confirm that the answer passage and the Organization data survive rendering. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs, and the paid license is $279 per year on the Screaming Frog pricing page. Bot blocks found here go to technical SEO work on crawler access.

DataForSEO for raw answers you own

DataForSEO’s AI Optimization API returns LLM responses and LLM mention data, and its SERP API returns Google result pages at scale. Billing is pay as you go with a $50 minimum payment. SERP Masters keeps the raw rows, so a client’s history survives a change of dashboard vendor.

Keyword.com for daily tracking

Keyword.com is the SERP Masters daily tracker for rankings and AI visibility on a fixed prompt panel, across the nine engines in the table above, charged in credits per engine. A Claude check costs more credits than an AI Overview check, so SERP Masters sets the engine mix client by client.

Semscraper for Google SERP captures

Semscraper captures Google result pages with AI Overview presence, pixel position, featured snippets, People Also Ask and the local pack, which is how SERP Masters checks local AI Overviews at a set location. Semscraper gives 1,000 free requests without a card, then draws each request from a prepaid balance.

Dedicated AI visibility trackers

Dedicated AI visibility trackers measure AI answers and nothing else, with no SEO suite attached. The six below show up most often in the lists that rank for “aeo tools”.

Profound

Profound is an enterprise AI visibility platform whose Enterprise plan names nine engines. Its free trial runs 50 prompts daily for seven days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews; Enterprise adds Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Anthropic Claude and Exa Search, with prompt volumes and pricing quoted through sales. Profound also sells crawler analytics and AI content agents billed in credits.

Peec AI

Peec AI is a prompt tracking platform organized by project and country, with unlimited users on every self-serve plan. Its pricing page lists Starter with 50 prompts and one project, Pro with 150 prompts and two projects, and Advanced with 350 prompts, five projects, multi-country tracking and Looker Studio. Each self-serve plan tracks three models you choose, and Enterprise opens the full list of up to 13 models, including Claude, Grok and Perplexity.

Otterly.ai

Otterly.ai is the lowest-cost AI visibility tracker in this comparison with a public price. Its pricing page lists Lite at $29 per month with 15 prompts, Standard at $189 per month with 100 prompts, and Premium at $489 per month with 400 prompts. Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are sold as add-ons to the four base engines. Standard and Premium include API access, MCP access and crawler analytics.

Scrunch

Scrunch pairs prompt tracking with page audits, buyer personas and crawler analysis. Its pricing page lists Starter at $300 month to month or $250 per month billed annually, with 350 custom prompts and 1,000 industry prompts. Growth is $500 month to month or $417 per month billed annually. Starter includes Claude and both Google AI surfaces, with a 7-day trial and no credit card.

AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ is a credit-based AI visibility platform that covers 11 models on its $295 Starter plan. Its pricing page lists a free Essential tier with 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter buys 3,600 credits per month across those 11 models, including Claude, Grok, AI Mode, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral.

HubSpot AEO

HubSpot AEO is a simple AI visibility tracker that works with or without a HubSpot CRM subscription. The product page lists $50 per month, or $45 billed annually, a free trial with 25 tracked prompts, and tracking on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. The free AEO Grader returns a one-time visibility score, sentiment and competitive position for a brand name.

SEO suites with AI visibility modules

SEO suites with AI visibility modules suit teams that already pay for the suite and want AI data beside keywords and backlinks. The trade is depth: fewer custom prompts per dollar than a dedicated tracker, offset by the data the suite already holds.

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Ahrefs Brand Radar is an AI visibility index inside Ahrefs, built on prompts Ahrefs selects. The pricing page lists Brand Radar AI from $199 per month as an add-on to an Ahrefs plan, which starts at $129 per month for Lite. Brand Radar covers Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot. Custom prompt packs start at $50 per month for 2,500 checks.

Semrush AI Toolkit

The Semrush AI Toolkit puts AI visibility tracking inside Semrush SEO plans. The pricing page lists Starter at $165.17 per month billed annually with 50 prompts tracked daily and 300 AI visibility reports per day. Pro+ is $248.17 per month billed annually with 100 daily prompts, and Advanced is $455.67 per month billed annually with 200 daily prompts. Semrush names Google Search, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini among the platforms covered.

SE Ranking and SE Visible

SE Ranking is an SEO suite with an AI search tracker, sold with a separate SE Visible dashboard. The tracker page lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, and offers a 14-day free trial. The page SERP Masters checked stated no add-on price, so this page quotes none.

Other AEO tools in the comparisons

Several more AEO tools appear in the ranking lists. SERP Masters has not run these on client work, so this section gives each one’s stated focus and no prices.

Which AI engines do AEO tools cover?

AEO tools cover different engines at different price points, and the engine list on the plan you buy matters more than the list on the homepage. The quick comparison table above lists the engines each vendor names, plan by plan.

Claude is the engine most often held back: Profound and Peec AI place it on Enterprise and Otterly.ai sells it as an add-on, while Scrunch, AthenaHQ Starter and Keyword.com include it at their paid entry level.

Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are the two surfaces SERP Masters weights highest for local and service clients, and it checks AI Overviews at each client’s own location.

How much do AEO tools cost?

AEO tools run from free graders to enterprise contracts, and five factors set the price. SERP Masters compares plans on cost per tracked prompt per engine, because a low headline price with a small quota can cost more per answer than a larger plan.

Verified entry points run from $29 per month for Otterly.ai Lite to $300 month to month for Scrunch Starter; Profound, Peec AI and enterprise tiers are quoted by sales. The free options are listed in the FAQ below.

How to choose an AI visibility tracker

Choosing an AI visibility tracker starts with your prompts and engines; the vendor comes last. SERP Masters follows the same five steps when it picks a tracker for a client.

Two objections come up often. “We already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs”: a suite module is a fair start for a small panel, and the FAQ covers when it stops being enough. “The numbers look random”: AI answers vary from run to run, and the next H2 explains how to read that variance.

Questions to ask an AEO tool vendor

SERP Masters asks every vendor these twelve questions, which separate tools that measure from tools that estimate.

Why do two AI visibility trackers report different numbers?

Two AI visibility trackers report different numbers because they sample different answers. An engine can return different text to the same prompt minutes apart, and each tracker runs its own prompts on its own schedule and method.

SERP Masters handles the gap by keeping the prompt panel fixed, running repeat samples and comparing each engine against itself over time, because a trend inside one tool is more reliable than two tools’ absolute numbers.

What AEO tools cannot do

AEO tools measure AI answers, and none of them can place a brand inside one. No vendor controls which sources an engine cites, so a tool that promises a citation is describing something the engines do not sell.

The same limit applies to this page: it shows what each tool reports and costs at the plan you pick, and it cannot tell you which tool your team will use every week.

AEO tool, audit or agency?

An AEO tool watches, an AI visibility audit diagnoses, and an agency does the fix work. A tool fits a team with people who can act on the data, such as an SEO manager who edits pages or a developer who changes bot rules. An audit fits a team that needs a measured baseline and an ordered fix list before it picks a tool. An agency fits a team whose tracker shows gaps it cannot close in-house.

SERP Masters works at all three points. The audit gives a baseline on 12 prompts, the stack above runs the ongoing measurement, and answer engine optimization services from SERP Masters cover the fix work in five steps (Diagnose, Architect, Execute, Corroborate and Measure). Pages that compete in multi-source answers follow the generative engine optimization guide.

Results measured with the SERP Masters stack

The figures below come from the SERP Masters AEO case study, measured per engine with this stack. Client names stay anonymized until consent.

The telehealth SEO case study shows the per-engine reporting rule at work: Google AI Overview, ChatGPT and Perplexity citations are counted on separate lines. More results are on the SERP Masters case studies page.

Andy Wang, founder of SERP Masters, chose each tool in the stack and reviews the measurement on every engagement. He holds a B.S. in Pharmacology from UC Santa Barbara and has run SEO work for Pokémon, Disney, Mastercard, Mailchimp, US Soccer, Clorox, Wynn Las Vegas and BigCommerce. Terms on this page, from grounding to share of voice, are defined in the AI SEO glossary.