The AI Visibility Tool Landscape, July 2026
Where a single-engine, reputation-focused monitor fits in a market that has filled up with multi-engine dashboards. A 2026 comparison of AI search visibility / AEO monitoring tools — pricing, engine coverage, and the honest tradeoffs.
The AI-search visibility category got crowded fast. Semrush bundles it into a reported $199 SEO suite. HubSpot bolts it onto a CRM reported at ~$800+/mo. A dozen smaller startups track 4–9 AI engines for $20–$300/mo. Many of them separate mentions from citations now — that is no longer a differentiator.
AEO Monitor is the opinionated opposite: one engine (Perplexity Sonar), reputation-shaped branded queries that force AI onto Yelp/BBB/Trustpilot, and real GSC demand instead of prompts-you-type-in. It is not the cheapest, not the broadest — it is the narrowest on purpose, at a $9 founding floor.
How this is organized
Three tiers: the incumbent bundles (Semrush, HubSpot), the smaller startups in our weight class (Otterly, Peec, Ayzeo, Temso, Profound, and a long tail), and us. Every price below is the published monthly floor as of July 2026. Where a vendor hides pricing behind a sales wall, we say so.
The comparison matrix
The full field, one row each. “Rep-shaped” = does the tool run reputation-framed prompts (“reviews of X”, “complaints of X”) that push AI off the brand’s own site. “GSC-grounded” = does it pull non-branded queries from your real Google Search Console demand instead of asking you to type prompts.
| Tool | Price floor | Engines | Mentions vs citations? | Rep-shaped queries? | GSC-grounded? | Execution layer? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush AI Visibility | $199 | Google + AI, multi-LLM | Yes | No | Not stated | Yes (content opt) |
| HubSpot AEO | $50 / ~$800+* | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AIO | Yes | No | Not stated | Yes (CRM tasks) |
| Otterly.AI | $29 | 4 + add-ons | Yes | No | No | No |
| Temso | $29 | 8, all plans | Yes | No | No | Yes (fix workflow) |
| RankScale | $20 | AI Overviews | Yes | No | No | No |
| LLMRanks | $41 | 3 + add-ons | Yes | No | No | No |
| GrackerAI | $39 | Multi | Yes | No | No | No |
| RankAI | $49 | Multi | Yes | No | No | Yes (auto-rewrites) |
| Knowatoa | $59 | 7 | Yes | No | No | Yes (content) |
| Ayzeo | $31–39 | 7 (2 incl, others $29/ea) | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (schema, llms.txt) |
| Peec AI | Not public | 6–7 | Yes | No | No | No |
| ZipTie.dev | ~$103 | Multi | Yes | No | URL-based | Yes |
| AthenaHQ | $295 | Multi | Yes | No | No | No |
| Scrunch AI | $100–250 | up to 9 | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Profound | $99 / sales | 9 | Yes | No | Not stated | Yes (agents) |
| AEO Monitor (us) | $29 / $9 founding | 1 (Perplexity Sonar) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
*HubSpot AEO standalone $50/mo; full feature set requires Marketing Hub Pro (~$800/mo) or Enterprise.
Price floor, visualized
Bars are scaled to $300 for readability. Profound and Peec are grayed where pricing is sales-gated. The $9 founding floor is the only price point in the category sitting below $20.
Sources: vendor pricing pages (Otterly, Ayzeo, Peec, HubSpot) and aggregator reviews for the remainder. Peec pricing not publicly listed.
Engine coverage, visualized
Each dot is one AI engine (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek). Most startups cover 4–9. AEO Monitor runs one — deliberately.
Two different bets
The broad trackers
Most tools bet on coverage: more engines, more prompts, more dashboards, plus an execution layer (content generation, schema fixes, agent workflows). They sell the bundle. Price climbs with every engine and every prompt tier.
The narrow read
AEO Monitor bets on depth on one signal: does the citation engine that actually shows sources surface your brand on your real reputation queries? One engine, reputation-shaped prompts, GSC-grounded discovery — no dashboards you won't open.
What AEO Monitor does differently (and what it doesn’t)
The actual wedge
- Reputation-shaped branded queries. Prompts like “reviews of X” and “complaints of X” force the AI off the brand’s own website and onto Yelp, BBB, Trustpilot, Chrome Web Store, BirdEye, Houzz. We found no public positioning among the tools in this matrix that leads with that.
- GSC-grounded non-branded inputs. Non-branded queries are auto-pulled from the client’s Google Search Console top-30 by impressions (last 90 days) — not typed in by hand. Ayzeo integrates GSC; most others don’t.
- A $9 founding floor. Below the entire category floor, at an estimated >99% margin on a ~$0.14 full-run cost.
What it deliberately does not do
- Multi-engine dashboards. Semrush, Peec, Scrunch, Profound own that lane. We don’t compete on breadth.
- Content optimization / execution agents. HubSpot, Semrush, RankAI, Profound, Ayzeo all generate content or ship fixes. We measure; we don’t write.
- Sentiment + fact-checking. Profound’s FactCheck and Ayzeo’s sentiment are real features. Out of scope for now.
- Keyword research suites, historical SEO archives, CRM integration. Owned by Semrush and HubSpot.
The honest tradeoff
AEO Monitor runs Perplexity Sonar only. A buyer asking “does ChatGPT cite me?” gets no answer today. That is a real gap, and the honest framing is that Sonar is the one major engine that surfaces source URLs natively — so citation tracking is cleanest here. If you need full multi-engine monitoring across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, use a broader platform. If you need a low-cost reputation and citation diagnostic grounded in GSC demand and Perplexity sources, that is our lane. The roadmap question is whether to add engines or stay narrow and win on price.
Sources
- Otterly.AI pricing — otterly.ai/pricing ($29/$189/$489, 4 engines, Claude/Gemini add-ons)
- Ayzeo pricing — ayzeo.com/pricing ($31–39 Starter, 20 prompts, GSC + white-label on Pro)
- Peec AI pricing — peec.ai/pricing (pricing not publicly listed; 50/150/350 prompt tiers, choose 3 models, unlimited users)
- Profound — tryprofound.com/blog (new self-serve Starter/Growth plans reported; pricing aggregator-reported, partially sales-gated at enterprise; FactCheck on enterprise; 9 engines)
- HubSpot AEO — hubspot.com/products/aeo-lp (landing page; $50 standalone / Marketing Hub Pro ~$800/mo reported by aggregators including GrackerAI)
- Semrush AI Visibility — pricing widely reported at $199/$299 (e.g. SEO.com); dashboard via owner screenshot
- Aggregator rankings — SEO.com, AEO Rankings, ZipTie.dev, RankAI, Rank4AI
- LLMRanks — llmranks.io (self-serve credit pricing, $41/mo yearly)
- GrackerAI — gracker.ai ($39/$119/$279)