I built one of these tools, so I'll be upfront about that. I'll do my best to be fair about what each one does well and where it falls short, including my own.
AEO tools track how AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews respond to prompts about your brand or category. The category has grown fast: a year ago there were a handful of products. Now there are more than a dozen. Most do roughly the same thing. The differences that matter are in pricing, how they handle multi-client agency work, and what they do with the data beyond just showing you a number.
Here's what's worth using in 2026.
The short version
The choice usually comes down to how many brands you track and what you're willing to spend.
- AI-native freelancers and agencies who work with Claude and agents and run multiple client brands: AEO Copilot. Free to start, then $34 or $99 flat, no per-brand fees.
- Enterprise teams with budget and a data function: Profound or Scrunch AI.
- A site built on Webflow with an enterprise budget: Webflow AEO, native and agentic.
- Widest engine coverage on a small budget: Rankscale, from $20 a month across 17+ engines.
- One brand, clean reporting: Peec.ai or Otterly.ai.
- A free one-time check: the free audit or HubSpot's AEO Grader.
The rest of this piece is the reasoning behind each pick.
Quick comparison
AEO Copilot: Best for agencies and freelancers
Full disclosure: I built this one. I'll be as honest as I can.
AEO Copilot is the only tool in this list built specifically for AI-native freelancers and agencies: the people who already work with Claude and AI agents every day, managing multiple client brands. Every other tool assumes you're tracking one brand for one company from a dashboard. AEO Copilot assumes you're tracking five or ten brands for five or ten clients, and that you'd rather pull the data into your own workflow than log into another tab.
What it tracks: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. You define topics, set prompts, and the platform runs them on a schedule or manually. It reports on Visibility Score (how often the brand appears), Sentiment (positive/neutral/negative), Competitive Share (your brand's mention rate vs. named competitors), and Visibility Trend over time.
What makes it different: it comes down to who it's for, the free tier, and the price. It's built for people working with Claude and agents from day one. It runs as an MCP server, so in Claude Code you can set up a client, run prompts, and pull a report straight from a conversation, no dashboard required. The free tier is real: one brand, 50 prompts a month, ChatGPT and Claude, no credit card, no expiry. The pricing is flat and public: $34/month for Freelancer, $99 for Agency with unlimited brands and no per-brand fees. The technical audit covers robots.txt, sitemap, llms.txt, schema markup, and crawlability, so you walk away with a client deliverable, not just a number.
What it doesn't do well: It doesn't have the deep custom workflow builder that something like AirOps offers. If you're a large enterprise wanting to run hundreds of prompts daily across a custom set of AI models, there are tools built for that scale. But for the agency delivering this as a service to 5 to 20 clients, it's the right fit.
Pricing: Free to start with 1 brand, then $34/month (Freelancer) or $99/month (Agency, unlimited brands).
Start free → | See the website audit → | AEO Copilot vs Peec.ai vs Profound: detailed comparison →
Profound: Best for enterprise
Profound is the most technically capable tool in this space. It handles large-scale prompt monitoring, integrates with enterprise data stacks, and is built for teams that need audit trails, advanced reporting, and custom data pipelines.
The trade-off is price and complexity. The entry plan tracks only ChatGPT, and full LLM coverage runs into the hundreds per month. It's designed for marketing teams at mid-size to large companies, not freelancers. If you're an agency trying to add AI visibility as a service line, Profound's pricing model makes it hard to build a margin on client work.
Best for: Enterprise in-house marketing teams, large agencies with dedicated data teams, brands running 100+ prompts monthly.
Scrunch AI: Enterprise monitoring for big-budget clients
Scrunch is built for the top of the market. It tracks eight or more engines, carries SOC 2 compliance, and adds the things enterprise buyers ask for: Google Analytics integration to attribute AI referral traffic, AI crawler analysis, and content tools tied to your priority prompts.
The price matches the positioning. Self-serve plans start at $300 a month and run to $500, with custom pricing above that. The entry plan gives you 1,000 prompts across prebuilt industry topics plus 350 custom prompts, which is a lot of volume if you have one large brand to cover.
For an agency, the math only works with high-budget clients. At $300 to $500 a month before your own margin, you can't build a profitable service line on top of it for a small-business client. For an in-house team at a large company, the depth and the compliance story can justify it.
Best for: Enterprise marketing teams and agencies serving large clients who need broad coverage and SOC 2 compliance.
Webflow AEO: Best if your site lives on Webflow
Webflow launched its own AEO product in 2026, and it's the most tightly integrated option on this list, as long as your site is built on Webflow. It's a closed-loop system: AEO analytics inside Webflow Analyze show how AI bots crawl your site and how your brand shows up in answers, agents surface prioritized fixes, and those same agents ship the changes, with review before publish. Measure, recommend, execute, all in one platform.
The catch is the box you're in. It's enterprise-only, the analytics need the Enterprise tier of Webflow Analyze, and the whole thing assumes your site is on Webflow. If it is, and you have an enterprise budget, the measure-to-fix loop is genuinely hard to beat. If you run clients on WordPress, Shopify, or a custom stack, it's not for you.
It's also the opposite philosophy to a tool like AEO Copilot. Webflow AEO keeps everything inside Webflow's own agents. AEO Copilot hands you the data and lets you act on it with whatever agent you already use. Which you prefer depends on whether you want a closed system or your own.
Best for: Enterprise marketing teams whose sites are built on Webflow.
Peec.ai: Best for brand monitoring breadth
Peec covers a wide range of AI platforms and has solid reporting. The interface is clean and the data is easy to read. It's priced for company marketing teams, not agency resellers. There's no multi-client workflow, and the cost per brand makes it expensive to scale across client accounts.
Best for: Single-brand companies who want clean, reliable monitoring with a polished interface.
Rankscale: Widest engine coverage on a small budget
Rankscale takes the opposite approach to most tools here on pricing. It starts at $20 a month and includes every engine it supports, 17 and counting, with newer ones like Google AI Mode, Grok, and DeepSeek in the mix. There's no per-engine upsell, which is the lever most competitors pull to move you up a tier.
The model is credit-based: you're charged per prompt, per model, per run. That gives you fine control over spend, and it also means a heavy month of tracking can cost more than the $20 headline suggests. Coverage is the reason to pick it. If you want to see how a brand shows up across a long list of engines without paying enterprise rates, nothing else comes close on price.
What it lacks is the multi-client structure AEO Copilot is built around. It tracks brands, not client accounts with separate reporting and white-label output. For a solo consultant watching a wide engine spread, it's a strong, cheap option.
Best for: Solo consultants and small teams who want the widest engine coverage at the lowest entry price.
Otterly.ai: Light use, solo users
Otterly is the most accessible entry point in the paid tier. It's straightforward, covers the core platforms, and works fine for someone tracking one or two brands without a lot of complexity. It doesn't have the agency infrastructure (multi-client, team access, automated reporting) that makes a service line scalable.
Best for: Solo founders or marketers tracking one brand on a limited budget.
HubSpot AEO: Free grader, plus a paid monitoring tier
HubSpot rebranded its AI Search Grader to the AEO Grader in 2026 and added a paid product next to it. The free grader is worth running on any stack: enter a brand and get a one-time snapshot of how you show up across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, with a visibility score, sentiment, and share of voice against competitors. No account, no caps.
The paid HubSpot AEO tier adds ongoing monitoring at $50/month after a 28-day trial, with 25 prompts. That's the part to compare carefully. At $50 for 25 prompts it sits above AEO Copilot's $34 Freelancer plan, which includes 250 prompts and multi-brand support. If you already live in HubSpot's CRM, the integration can justify the premium. If you don't, you're paying for an ecosystem you're not using.
Best for: Teams already on HubSpot who want AI visibility data inside the same platform. The free grader is worth a run by anyone.
SE Ranking: SEO-first with AEO add-on
SE Ranking is primarily an SEO platform that has added AEO monitoring features. If you're already using SE Ranking for keyword tracking and backlinks, the AEO features are a natural extension. If you're looking for a dedicated AEO tool, it's not designed for that use case from the ground up.
Best for: SEO agencies already on SE Ranking who want basic AI visibility data in one platform.
Quattr: Content + AEO, enterprise pricing
Quattr combines content optimization with AI visibility tracking. It's strong on the content side and has added AEO features as the category has grown. Pricing is enterprise-tier, which makes it hard to justify for agencies building a service line on top of it.
Best for: Enterprise content teams that want AEO data alongside content scoring and optimization.
AirOps: LLM workflow builder, not a monitoring tool
AirOps is often listed alongside AEO tools but it's a different category. It's a platform for building custom LLM workflows, not for monitoring how AI systems respond to prompts about your brand. If you need to automate content generation or build custom AI pipelines, it's worth looking at. If you need to know whether ChatGPT mentions your brand when someone asks about project management software, it's not the right tool.
Best for: Teams building internal AI workflows, not brand monitoring.
How to choose
If you're a freelancer or agency managing multiple client brands: AEO Copilot is the only tool in this list built specifically for your workflow, and the only one that plugs into the way AI-native teams already work, through Claude and an MCP server rather than yet another dashboard. The free tier lets you test before committing, and the agency pricing leaves room for your margin.
If you're an enterprise with a dedicated marketing team and a significant budget: Profound or Quattr, depending on whether you need content features alongside the tracking. If your site is on Webflow, Webflow AEO keeps measurement and fixes in one place.
If you want the widest engine coverage cheaply: Rankscale starts at $20/month and covers more engines than anything else at that price, as long as you're tracking brands rather than separate client accounts.
If you want a free starting point to understand where you stand: the free audit or HubSpot's AEO Grader will give you a snapshot without any cost.
If you're new to AEO: the complete AEO guide for freelancers and agencies covers the full picture before you invest in any tool.
If you're already on SE Ranking: try the AEO features before paying for a separate platform.
AEO checker, AEO software, AEO monitoring tool: same thing?
People search for this category under a dozen different names, and the labels get used loosely. Here's how they map to what the tools actually do.
An AEO checker is usually a one-time test: you run your site or brand through it and get a snapshot score. The free audit is a checker in that sense. AEO software and an AEO monitoring tool are the ongoing version: they run your prompts on a schedule and track how your brand mentions move over time. An AEO checking tool sits somewhere in between, depending on who's marketing it.
The label matters less than the job. If you want a number today, a checker does it. If you want to know whether your visibility is climbing or slipping month over month, you want monitoring software, not a one-off check. Most of the tools above do the ongoing version; a few, like HubSpot's grader, are checkers.
What to look for in any AEO tool
Before buying anything, check these five things:
- Which AI platforms does it track? At minimum: ChatGPT and Perplexity. Better: plus Claude and Google AI Overviews. Some tools only cover one or two.
- How does it handle multiple clients or brands? If you're an agency, a per-brand pricing model at $200+/brand/month makes the service unsellable.
- What does it do with the data? A visibility score is useful. A visibility trend, sentiment breakdown, and competitive share is what you actually need for client reporting.
- Is there a technical audit component? Knowing your brand doesn't show up is only half the answer. Knowing why, and having a checklist to fix it, is the service.
- What's the free tier? Tools that don't offer a free trial or free tier are asking you to commit before you've seen the product.
FAQ
What is an AEO tool?
An AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) tool tracks how AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews respond to queries related to your brand or category. It measures whether your brand is mentioned, how it's described, and how your visibility changes over time.
What's the most affordable AEO tool?
On headline price, Rankscale is the lowest at $20/month, though its credit model means cost climbs with usage. AEO Copilot is the most affordable for anyone tracking more than one brand: the free plan has no expiry, and paid plans are flat at $34 and $99 with no per-brand fees. If you're running several client brands, flat pricing beats per-prompt credits most months.
Are AEO tools worth it for small agencies?
For agencies adding AI visibility as a service line, yes. The tool cost is built into the retainer price. At $400 to $700 per client per month, even two clients cover the tool cost with significant margin remaining.
How often should you run AEO tracking?
Weekly monitoring gives you enough data to spot trends without burning through credits. Monthly is the minimum for a useful trend line. Daily tracking is available on most paid plans but is only needed if you're in a competitive category where AI mentions shift frequently.
Can AEO tools tell you how to improve?
Better ones do. AEO Copilot includes a technical audit that flags specific issues affecting AI crawlability and citation likelihood. Other tools show you the score without the fix.
Is AEO the same as GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)?
They refer to the same practice under different names. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and LLM SEO all describe optimizing for visibility in AI-generated answers. The terminology varies by author and platform.
Is there a free AEO checker?
Yes. The free audit runs a one-time AEO check on any URL with no signup, and HubSpot's AEO Grader does a similar snapshot. For ongoing checks rather than a single run, AEO Copilot's free plan tracks one brand with no expiry.
What's the best AEO software?
It depends on scale. For freelancers and agencies tracking several brands, flat-priced software like AEO Copilot keeps the cost predictable. For enterprise teams, Profound and Scrunch AI offer more depth. Match the software to how many brands you track, not the headline feature list.
What's the best AEO checking tool for agencies?
Agencies need multi-brand support and reporting they can hand to a client, which rules out most single-brand checkers. AEO Copilot and Peec.ai are the two that hold up for client work; the deciding factor is usually flat versus credit-based pricing.