Best AI visibility tools in 2026: 11 AEO and GEO platforms compared

Eleven AI visibility platforms, sorted by what you actually need: enterprise depth, low-cost tracking, an add-on to your SEO suite, or gaps fixed and the lift proven.

AI visibility tools measure whether your brand is named and cited when someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity or Google's AI features a question. Search Generative Experience (SGE) was Google's earlier name for AI Overviews, renamed in May 2024, so SGE optimization today means AI Overviews. The work itself is called answer engine optimisation (AEO) or generative engine optimisation (GEO), and the tools for it have multiplied fast. This guide sorts the field by the job you need done, with each vendor's facts taken from its own pages on 26 September 2026.

We build Stellarcast, one of the tools below, so weigh our entry accordingly. We've tried to describe every other tool the way its own team would.

The shortlist

Checked 26 September 2026; Semrush, AthenaHQ, Rankscale, Scrunch and Profound re-checked 17 October 2026. Prices on monthly billing where published. Full detail, including top-tier prices, trials and engines per plan, is in our AI visibility tool pricing comparison.

See where you stand before you buy anything: get a free AI visibility audit.

Best for closing gaps and proving results: Stellarcast

Every paid plan checks six engines daily: Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot. Stellarcast diagnoses why a competitor is named instead of you, drafts the fix, and after your approval sends it to WordPress as a draft for you to publish. From the Growth plan, each change is tracked in a lift ledger with a confidence label (MEASURED, LIKELY or TOO-EARLY) and a range rather than a single number. Markets are measured separately with native-language prompts, the app runs in nine languages, and agency plans pool one tracked-prompt allowance across client brands. Plans start at $39 a month; see pricing.

Best for enterprise depth: Profound

Up to nine engines on Enterprise, 30+ languages and 150+ regions, server-log crawler analytics, SOC 2 Type II, and agents that publish approved content to ten CMSs. Brand pricing is sales-led after a free 7-day trial; agency pricing is not shown, with client workspaces at $399 a month each.

Best for focused monitoring: Peec AI

From $95 a month, with three engines of your choice and more sold per model. Popular with agencies for unlimited client workspaces and free pitch projects. It reports and recommends; it does not publish changes itself.

Best on a budget: Otterly.AI and Rankscale

Otterly Lite is $29 a month with ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot (other engines are add-ons) and a 14-day trial. Rankscale's Essentials plan is $17 a month billed yearly only ($20 list; Pro is $99) and covers 21 engines on every plan. Both are monitoring tools rather than fixing tools.

Best inside an existing suite: Semrush, Ahrefs, HubSpot

Semrush now sells its AI Visibility Toolkit inside its plans: the $139 a month SEO plan includes AI search tracking, and the $199 Starter plan adds 50 tracked prompts a day on one domain across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google Search (the standalone $99 per-domain toolkit we listed on 26 September no longer appears on its pricing page as of 17 October 2026). Ahrefs Brand Radar pairs a large index of AI answers with custom prompts on Ahrefs' paid plans. HubSpot AEO, launched in April 2026 and still labelled beta, is $50 a month standalone for 25 prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, with a 28-day free trial. Choose one of these if you already work in that suite and mainly want visibility data beside it.

Best for actions on Shopify and Webflow sites: AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ's Starter plan ($295 a month) tracks 11 engines and lists on-page and off-page actions with Shopify and Webflow integrations (the eight-CMS list we saw on 26 September, including WordPress and Wix, no longer appears on its plans page as of 17 October 2026); a free Essential tier lets you try it. Starter covers one market.

Best for agent-facing pages: Scrunch

Scrunch Core is $250 a month for 125 prompts across four engines. On Enterprise it can serve an AI-optimised copy of your site to AI agents without changing what visitors see.

Best for small businesses, and affordable picks for agencies

For a small business, buy only what you will act on. If you just need to know whether AI mentions you, Rankscale ($17 a month, billed yearly only) or Otterly.AI ($29) is enough. If you want six engines checked daily with no add-ons, Stellarcast starts at $39, and from $89 it drafts the fixes for you, which matters when nobody on the team has time to write them.

For agencies, compare the cost per client rather than the sticker price. Profound charges $399 a month for each client workspace; Peec AI's agency packaging includes unlimited client workspaces; Stellarcast's Agency plan ($599 a month) pools 220 tracked prompts across every client brand and puts your logo on client reports.

Brand monitoring, LLM optimization, change over time and gaps

Buyers search for these tools under four names, and each name is a different test.

• AI brand monitoring tools show whether and how AI answers name you. Every tool on this page does this; the budget trackers do little else.
• LLM optimization tools go further and change your content so models describe you better. Profound, Writesonic and Stellarcast send approved changes to a CMS (Stellarcast as drafts), AthenaHQ lists on-page and off-page actions, and Scrunch changes what AI agents are served instead.
• Tracking change over time needs repeated readings, because AI answers vary from run to run. Ask how often prompts run and how much history the plan keeps: Profound's trial keeps no history while its Enterprise plan keeps all of it (checked 18 October 2026), and Stellarcast runs every prompt daily and shows a P25 to P75 range on each reading.
• Finding visibility gaps means listing the buyer questions where a competitor is named and you are not. Ask whether the tool ranks them. Stellarcast ranks gaps by impact and feasibility; Peec AI lists recommended actions; AthenaHQ lists on-page and off-page actions.

Pros and cons at a glance

• Stellarcast. Pro: six engines daily on every plan, fixes drafted from $89 and confidence-labeled lift from $249. Con: fixes go only to WordPress, as drafts, and Claude and Grok are Enterprise only.
• Profound. Pro: up to nine engines, 30+ languages and agents that publish to ten CMSs. Con: brand pricing is sales-led after a 7-day trial.
• Peec AI. Pro: clean monitoring from $95 and unlimited client workspaces for agencies. Con: three engines on self-serve plans, and no publishing.
• Otterly.AI. Pro: a $29 entry with a 14-day trial. Con: Gemini, AI Mode and Claude are paid add-ons, and no publishing.
• Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit. Pro: AI visibility next to your SEO data. Con: tracked prompts start on the $199 plan, and publishing is not described.
• Ahrefs Brand Radar. Pro: a large pre-built index of AI answers. Con: the $129 plan includes 5 custom prompts.
• AthenaHQ. Pro: a free tier, 11 engines on Starter, and actions with Shopify and Webflow integrations. Con: the $295 Starter plan covers one market.
• Scrunch. Pro: serves AI agents an optimized copy of your site on Enterprise. Con: $250 a month buys four engines in one country.
• HubSpot AEO. Pro: $50 a month inside HubSpot with a 28-day trial. Con: three engines and 25 prompts, still labeled beta.
• Writesonic. Pro: content creation and tracking in one tool from $99. Con: publishing starts on its Growth plan.
• Rankscale. Pro: 21 engines from $17 a month. Con: that price is billed yearly, engines use credits at different rates, and there is no publishing.

Features to compare beyond the engine list

Once the engines and markets fit, these are the features that separate tools in daily use. Ask each vendor to show you rather than tell you, and check which plan includes each one.

• Alerts that do not cry wolf. AI answers vary from run to run, so an alert on every wobble trains your team to ignore it. Ask what change triggers an alert and how often one fires in a normal week. Stellarcast sends email or Slack alerts when your share of voice in a market falls 5 points or more between daily readings, when a fix's lift is confirmed, or when something is waiting for your approval.
• Catching wrong statements about your brand. Some tools offer to flag answers that get your facts wrong, such as pricing, founding date or features. Ask what they check answers against and how often the check misfires. Stellarcast lets you record your confirmed brand facts today; automatic checking of answers against them is on our roadmap, not in the product yet.
• Proof that a fix worked. A before and after chart cannot separate your change from an engine update. Ask whether the tool compares against questions the fix did not touch, and whether it says so when the evidence is too thin. Stellarcast does both from the Growth plan, labelling each result MEASURED, LIKELY or TOO-EARLY.
• Conversions, not only mentions. If you need revenue or offline conversions tied to AI visibility, ask exactly which data source the tool joins, and test it on your own account. Stellarcast shows AI referral traffic from Google Analytics; it does not attribute revenue or offline conversions yet.
• Crawler access and AI bot traffic. Being named starts with AI crawlers being able to read your site. Ask whether the tool checks robots.txt and firewall blocks, and whether it can show real AI bot visits from your CDN logs. Stellarcast checks crawler access for each engine and, with Cloudflare connected, shows which AI bots actually visited. For a quick one-off check, try our free AI crawler checker.
• Fit with your workflow. Check the integrations you would actually use: analytics, Search Console, your CMS, Slack and an API. Stellarcast connects Google Analytics, Search Console, Cloudflare, WordPress and Slack, and offers an API on Pro and Agency plans.

How to choose

1. List the engines your buyers use and check the plan you'd buy includes them. Include both Google AI Overviews and AI Mode if Google matters to you.
2. Count your markets. One country per plan is common on entry tiers.
3. Decide whether you need reporting or results. If someone has to act on every gap by hand, a tool that ships approved fixes saves the most time.
4. Ask how lift is proven, and whether the tool will tell you when the evidence is too thin to claim anything.

Prefer a service to a tool? See how to choose an AEO agency for the vetting questions to ask before you hire one.