If you've landed here, you already know the problem: your brand is invisible inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews — and keyword rankings don't tell you anything about it. GEO (generative engine optimization) tools exist to fix that. They measure your citation rate in AI answers, show who's cited instead of you, and increasingly tell you what to change on the page.
This is the 2026 field guide. I grouped the tools by what they actually do, verified pricing against vendor pages in August 2026, and flagged the catch in every one of them — because in this market the catch is usually the price structure. If you want the single in-depth review, that's Findrix, reviewed in full here.
If you only read one table, read this one. "Entry" means what it actually costs to start doing real tracking, not the marketing price. "Full engines" means the price at which you track all of ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews (or nearest equivalent) — the gap between those two numbers is where most tools hide their real cost.
| Pick | Tool | Entry (full engines) | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best overall | Findrix | $49/mo (all engines incl.) | Only sub-$100 tool that writes the fix, not just the diagnosis. 30% × 12mo affiliate for us. |
| Cheapest real tracking | Otterly | $29/mo → $189/mo | 15 prompts on Lite; Gemini/AI Mode/Claude cost extra until Standard. |
| Best for content teams | Geoptie | ~$79/mo | Built around content optimization, not just monitoring. |
| Best enterprise depth | Profound | $499/mo+ (demo required) | Deepest data, prompt-volume panels, 9+ engines. Sales-led. |
| Best value tracker | Peec AI | ~$95/mo | Unlimited seats, 3 engines included, G2 4.9/5. |
My honest recommendation for most teams: start with Otterly Lite ($29) or Peec's free tier to establish your citation baseline — if you don't know whether AI engines cite you at all, you're optimizing blind. Once you have two weeks of data, upgrade to the tool that fits your bottleneck: Findrix if you're a small team that needs fixes written for you, Geoptie if your content team needs rewrite guidance, Profound only if you have an analyst who'll actually use the depth.
Every tool in this category does three things: runs a set of prompts through AI engines, records whether your brand is cited in the answers, and reports the trend. The differences that matter are:
| Tool | Entry price | Engines at entry | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Findrix | $49/mo (Presence) | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini, AI Mode, Claude, Grok | Newer tool; audit features still maturing vs. Otterly's 25-factor GEO audit. |
| Otterly | $29/mo (Lite) | ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot | 15 prompts on Lite; Gemini/AI Mode $9–$149 and Claude $29–$439 add-ons per engine. |
| RankScope | $49/mo (Starter) | ChatGPT, AI Overviews only | 4-engine coverage costs $149/mo (Professional). Starter is a teaser. |
| Peec AI | ~$95/mo (Starter) | Choose 3 of 6 (ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini) | Extra engines cost more; no free tier for unlimited monitoring. |
| Geoptie | ~$79/mo | ChatGPT, Perplexity | 2-3 engines only; content-optimization focus means thinner tracking. |
| Tool | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | $99/mo per domain add-on | AI visibility sits next to your existing keyword/backlink data. Requires an active Semrush plan. |
| SE Ranking (GEO included) | ~$103/mo annual (Core) | Only suite where GEO tracking is bundled, not upsold. 5 engines, 5 research domains. |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | $199/mo per index + base plan ($129+) | Best prompt-volume research, punishing bill: $828–$1,199/mo for all-platform coverage. |
| Tool | Starting price | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Profound | $499/mo+ (demo) | Companies with an analyst who'll use prompt-volume panels and 9+ engine coverage. |
| AthenaHQ | $295/mo self-serve | Teams wanting credit-based multi-platform tracking with attribution reporting. |
| Rankscale | Custom / $99/mo (Pro) | Agencies and enterprise needing 17+ engine coverage; credit-based billing. |
Traditional SEO optimizes for a ranked list of blue links. GEO optimizes for inclusion in a synthesized paragraph — there's no position 1 to aim for, only "cited" or "not cited." The signals overlap (authority, structured data, clear entity definitions), but the measurement is different: GEO tools track mention rate, citation rate, and sentiment in AI answers instead of keyword position.
The practical consequence: your existing SEO tool won't tell you if ChatGPT recommends a competitor instead of you. That's a new data source, which is why GEO tools are a separate line item — and why every major SEO suite (Semrush, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, BrightEdge) is bolting on an AI-visibility layer.
| Scenario | What to buy | Realistic monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Just starting, solo | Otterly Lite ($29) or Peec free tier | $0–$29 |
| Small team, want fixes not just data | Findrix Presence/Growth ($49–$99) | $49–$99 |
| Content team actively rewriting pages | Geoptie (~$79) + existing content tool | $79–$130 |
| Mid-market, multiple brands | SE Ranking Core ($103) or Otterly Standard ($189) | $103–$189 |
| Agency, white-label | RankScope Agency ($399) or Otterly Premium ($489) | $399–$489 |
| Enterprise | Profound / AthenaHQ / Rankscale | $499–$5,000+ |
Peec AI's free tier and Mangools' AI Search Grader are the two legitimate free entry points — both cover ChatGPT and Perplexity with limited prompts. LLMrefs also has a free 1-keyword plan. None of them are a permanent full-featured free tier; they exist to prove the use case before you pay.
For a solo marketer or small team, $29–$99/mo gets you real daily tracking. Mid-market teams should budget $100–$200/mo. Enterprise platforms with analytics staffing run $500–$5,000+/mo. If a vendor quotes enterprise pricing but you only have one brand and one analyst, you're overbuying.
Most only measure and recommend. Findrix is the outlier at this price: it generates the specific fix (rewrites, schema suggestions) you can paste directly. Goodie AI and Writesonic also bundle content generation but start at $249–$495/mo.
Only if you're tracking more than a couple of domains. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit is $99/mo per domain on top of your existing plan — fine for one brand, punishing for agencies. SE Ranking is the suite where GEO is included in the base price.
ChatGPT and Perplexity are the two largest citation sources, so any tool you buy must cover both. Google AI Overviews and AI Mode are growing fast. Gemini, Claude, and Copilot matter for B2B/developer audiences — and they're exactly the engines most tools charge extra for. Check the add-on price before you commit.
Some links in this article are affiliate links — if you buy through them, this site earns a commission at no extra cost to you. That's disclosed in the footer too. It also means I have a bias to write positively about tools with good commissions, so the counterweight is that every price and plan above was verified against vendor pricing pages in August 2026, and the "catch" column exists specifically to keep the recommendations honest. Prices change fast in this market — verify before you buy.