There are now more than 20 tools claiming to do AI SEO. Most do one thing well. A few are expensive for what they give you. This is an honest comparison by category, so you can pick the right tool, not the loudest one.
The tools split into three categories. Tracking tools watch what AI engines say about you and your competitors. Optimisation tools help you improve the pages that AI pulls from. Service-led options bring a human in to do the work and hand back a backlog of fixes.
Pick the category that matches your job first. Then pick the tool. Do not buy a tracker when what you need is fixes, and do not pay a service when a cheap dashboard would do.
These tell you where you stand in AI answers. They do not write copy, add schema or fix a site for you.
AI visibility analytics for enterprise. Monitors brand share across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude.
From around $1,000 per month, enterprise onlyAI search rank tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
From around $89 per monthAI search visibility with citation attribution and competitor tracking.
From $199 per monthThese help you improve pages. Some are built for Google SERPs, some for AI answers, and the lines are blurring.
AI visibility features added to the Semrush suite.
Semrush plans from around $140 per monthAI brand mention tracking, sitting alongside Ahrefs backlink data.
Included in Ahrefs plans from $129 per monthGenerative engine optimisation features built into the Writesonic AI writer.
From $39 per monthNo dashboard. A human does the audit and hands you a backlog of fixes.
Service-first AI visibility audit. No monthly contract, no SaaS dashboard.
Free checker, £15 workbook, $197 one-off auditThe trade-off is simple. You pay once for a human audit instead of monthly for a dashboard. If you have a handful of buying prompts and one or two landing pages, the numbers on a tracker are not what is holding you back. The copy, schema and entity signals on your site are. A one-off $197 audit usually costs less than two months on a mid-tier tracker, and you end up with fixes shipped rather than data to interpret.
| Tool | Category | Entry price (monthly) | AI citation coverage | Recommendations included | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Tracking | ~$1,000+ | Broad, 4+ models | No | Annual, enterprise |
| Peec AI | Tracking | ~$89 | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AIO | No | Monthly |
| AthenaHQ | Tracking | $199 | Citation attribution | Limited | Monthly |
| Otterly AI | Tracking | ~$29 | Narrow, basic | No | Monthly |
| Surfer SEO | Optimisation (Google) | $89 | Not the focus | Google SERP briefs | Monthly |
| Semrush AI Toolkit | Optimisation (suite) | ~$140 | Small sample | Via suite | Monthly |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Tracking (mentions) | $129 | Brand mentions | No | Monthly |
| Writesonic GEO | Optimisation (writing) | $39 | Via generated copy | AI-written | Monthly |
| SEO for AI | Service-led | $0 to $197 one-off | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude | Yes, human-written | No subscription |
Public pricing as of April 2026. Figures change often, check the vendor site before buying.
Start with a service-first option like SEO for AI, or pair Otterly AI for cheap monitoring with a one-off audit. You need fixes shipped, not a daily chart to watch. A monthly $199 tool will eat your budget before it moves a citation.
Peec AI or the Semrush AI Toolkit give you the tracking layer at sensible pricing. Layer an external audit from SEO for AI on top when the dashboard flags a site that is slipping. That keeps your retainer workflow intact and adds specialist writing when needed.
Profound or Ahrefs Brand Radar for continuous monitoring, plus a quarterly external audit to sense-check the numbers. Trackers drift, models change, and an outside pair of eyes catches issues the internal dashboard has been trained to ignore.
Otterly AI is the cheapest dedicated tracker at around $29 per month. Cheaper still, you can run a short prompt list by hand once a fortnight in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude, log the results in a spreadsheet, and spend nothing. For most small businesses with a handful of buying prompts, the manual approach is enough to start.
No, not if your site is small and your prompt list is short. A one-off audit or a workbook will tell you what to fix. A subscription is useful when you have a team, many pages, and need trend data. For a single-owner business, the monthly fees often exceed the value of the numbers on the dashboard.
Surfer is still a strong Google content grader, and the editor workflow is clean. It was not built for AI citation tracking, so if your goal is ChatGPT visibility it is measuring the wrong thing. Keep Surfer for long-form Google rankings and add an AI-specific tool or audit on top.
Not really. Profound has the broadest model coverage today, but smaller tools often sample only ChatGPT and Perplexity. Model APIs change, providers rate-limit, and each tool chooses a different prompt sample. Treat any single tool as a signal, not truth, and cross-check with a manual prompt run.
Fast. Models update monthly, new trackers launch every quarter, and pricing shifts without notice. Anything you read about AI SEO tools is accurate for a few months at most. This page is dated, and we will update it when the figures move. Annual contracts on a market this young are a risk.
Drop in your domain, see whether ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude know you exist, and get a shortlist of gaps to fix.
Run a free AI visibility checkHuman audit across 20 buying prompts. Homepage copy, FAQ block and JSON-LD schema written for your site. Delivered in 3 business days.
Get a one-off audit ($197)That is the honest read. Prices move, tools come and go, and no single dashboard tells you the whole story. Pick the category first, pick the tool second, and keep a manual prompt run in your back pocket as a sanity check. Happy to answer anything, Bob.