Best AEO tools in 2026: 16 compared, and when a done-for-you service fits better

New to the topic? Start with what AEO is and how AEO differs from SEO, then come back to pick a tool.

How we compared

On 16 October 2026 (Melbourne time) we opened each vendor's own pricing page and recorded four things: the lowest published entry price in US dollars, the AI engines that plan lists, who the vendor says the plan is for, and what the plan includes or leaves out. Every price below links to the page we read. Where a vendor does not publish a price, we say so rather than guess. On 16 October 2026 we added four more (Searcherries, AIVisibility, Mentionable and LLM Pulse) the same way, so each price in the table shows the date we checked it.

We did not run hands-on tests or score the tools on results, so this is not a ranking. Feature descriptions are the vendors' own claims. Prices change often, especially launch prices, so check the vendor's page before you buy. We are not neutral: Pemba is our service. That is why it is labelled and kept apart from the software.

AEO tools compared: price, engines and fit

The 15 AEO tools in detail

Profound

Free 7-day trial; Enterprise custom pricing. The trial runs 50 prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Earlier US$99 and US$399 self-serve plans no longer appear on the page. Does: prompt tracking, citations, sentiment, agent analytics and an "AI Marketer" that researches and drafts with your brand context. Does not: show a self-serve price, and trial prompts cannot be customised.

HubSpot AEO

US$50 a month, or US$45 a month paid annually, after a free 25-prompt trial with no card. No other HubSpot subscription is needed. Does: visibility score, competitor share of voice, prompt suggestions, citation analysis and prioritised recommendations. Does not: list Google AI Overviews, AI Mode or Claude. Weighing it against a done-for-you route? See our HubSpot AEO alternative page.

AthenaHQ

Free Essential plan with 300 credits; Starter US$295 a month, which lists 11 models including AI Mode and Claude. Does: monitoring, on-page and off-page actions, a content optimisation agent, and Shopify and Webflow integrations. Does not: include API access or extra credits on Starter; both are add-ons without a published price.

Scrunch

Core US$250 a month. Does: 125 prompts, 5,000 responses and 5 site audits a month, one page optimisation a month and basic content generation. Does not: cover Gemini, Claude or AI Mode, or offer API access, below Enterprise.

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Custom prompt packages from US$50 a month; AI Visibility Index from US$199 a month. Tracking all models costs more (see the Brand Radar page), and paid Ahrefs plans include a small daily prompt quota. Does: mentions, citations and share of voice across a large prompt index, AI traffic and crawler analytics, and Reddit and YouTube sources. Does not: bundle content writing; Ahrefs sells content tools as separate add-ons.

AirOps

Price not published. Plans are Solo, Pro and Enterprise, with a 14-day free trial. Does: content workflows, brand kits, knowledge bases and CMS integrations. Does not: publish a price, and Solo covers ChatGPT insights only.

Rankscale

Essentials from US$17 a month, billed yearly only; Pro US$99 a month. Does: credit-based monitoring across a long engine list, citations, sentiment, page audits, MCP and Looker Studio. Does not: list content writing on its plans.

Contentstack Canoe

Free, US$0, no card, not a trial; Growth US$279 a month as a launch price. Does: a monthly report with competitors, sentiment and citations, an AI Readiness Score, and your top 2 recommendations on Free (plan limits). Does not: list Google AI Overviews or AI Mode, and Enterprise is not available yet.

Contentpen

Starter from US$39 a month billed yearly, or US$49 monthly, with a 7-day trial that needs a card. Does: 12 articles and 25 tracked prompts a month on Starter; approve a piece and it publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Ghost, Wix or Shopify. Does not: include Autopilot on Starter (it starts on Growth, US$79 a month billed yearly). You still run the software and approve each piece.

Otterly.AI

Lite US$29 a month, or US$25 a month billed annually. Does: 15 prompts tracked daily, a brand visibility index, link citations and a GEO audit. Does not: include Claude, AI Mode or Gemini without paid add-ons, or API and MCP below Standard (US$189 a month).

Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

US$99 a month per domain, billed annually. Does: 25 custom prompts tracked daily, competitor analysis, prompt research and an AI readiness site audit. Does not: list Claude, or show a monthly-billed price on that page.

Searcherries

Starter US$120 a year, which works out to US$10 a month billed yearly; Pro US$564 a year (checked 16 October 2026). Does: daily tracking of 10 customer questions on 1 project on Starter, each on 3 platforms you pick from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude and Grok, plus Search Console, Analytics and Bing Webmaster Tools connections. Does not: write content for your site on the self-serve plans; that sits in its separate Managed done-for-you plan, at custom pricing.

AIVisibility

Starter US$19 a month, plus a no-cost baseline audit (checked 16 October 2026). Does: weekly scheduled re-audits of one brand, a prioritised action plan after each audit, saved score history and one competitor benchmark. Does not: list any engine other than ChatGPT.

Mentionable

Growth EUR 79 a month excluding tax; Pro EUR 149; Agency EUR 299 (checked 16 October 2026). Does: up to 115 tracked prompts and 1,500 scan credits on Growth, all 7 engines on every plan, competitor and source analysis, and page generation on your visibility gaps. Does not: price in US dollars, and page audits and generated pages draw on the same credit pool as tracking.

LLM Pulse

Starter EUR 49 a month (checked 16 October 2026). Does: 50 tracked prompts checked weekly on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, with 10 competitors per project. Does not: include Claude without a paid add-on, and daily tracking is a separate plan option.

Not software: done-for-you service

Pemba

Done-for-you service (not software). Monthly plans are in a 90-day results pilot right now. Month to month, no lock-in, cancel any time. Does (Full Implementation): a monthly AI visibility audit with live citation checks on ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Perplexity and Claude; AI citation tracking on 10 locked buyer questions checked every week, with who was named instead of you; a weekly site health check of your key page (usually your homepage); content written from your own site, approved by you by month end and published on a connected WordPress or Shopify site (on other sites you get the finished content to paste in); a page-by-page schema and on-page fix list ranked P1 to P3 with ready-to-paste JSON-LD; off-site drafts (a Reddit answer and an outreach pitch); and a monthly report in your portal. Does not: enterprise-scale monitoring of hundreds of prompts.

AEO tools vs a done-for-you service

Most AEO tools measure. They tell you whether AI answers name you, who they name instead, and which pages they cite. Several now go further: HubSpot and Canoe recommend actions, AthenaHQ and Scrunch offer content help, and Contentpen writes and publishes after your approval. Writing and publishing is no longer unique to services.

The real difference is who does the work. With a tool, someone on your side picks the prompts, reads the reports, decides what to fix, approves the content and ships the changes. That suits a team with time and skills. With a done-for-you service, that whole loop runs for you on a fixed monthly schedule, and your job is to read the drafts and approve them, or ask for changes, by month end.

A simple test: if you already have someone who will act on a dashboard every week, buy a tool. If the fixes would sit on a to-do list, a service is likely the better fit. You can see what Pemba covers on the services page.

One-off AEO checkers

One-off checkers are a good first step, because they show where you stand before you spend anything.

• HubSpot AI Search Grader: a free, one-time check of what ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini say about your brand, based on their training data. No account needed.
• Ahrefs AI visibility checker: a no-cost check of how often AI platforms mention and cite your brand, with results from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and AI Overviews.
• Pemba instant AI visibility check: scores how ready your site is to be cited, in about 20 seconds. It is a readiness check only and does not ask ChatGPT live. The live checks sit on the paid plans.

For ongoing free tracking, Contentstack Canoe's Free plan and AthenaHQ's Essential plan are the two options we found on 16 October 2026.

What AEO software costs in 2026

Based only on the prices we verified on 16 October 2026:

• Free: Contentstack Canoe Free and AthenaHQ Essential, plus trials from HubSpot AEO, Profound, Otterly, Contentpen and AirOps.
• Under US$100 a month: Searcherries (from US$10 a month billed yearly, checked 16 October 2026), AIVisibility Starter (US$19, checked 16 October 2026), LLM Pulse Starter (EUR 49, checked 16 October 2026), Mentionable Growth (EUR 79, checked 16 October 2026), Rankscale (from US$17 billed yearly), Otterly Lite (US$29), Contentpen (from US$39 billed yearly), HubSpot AEO (US$50, or US$45 annually), Ahrefs custom prompt packages (from US$50) and Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit (US$99, billed annually).
• US$199 to US$300 a month: Ahrefs AI Visibility Index (from US$199), Scrunch Core (US$250), Canoe Growth (US$279 launch price) and AthenaHQ Starter (US$295).
• Custom pricing: Profound Enterprise, AirOps and the enterprise tiers of most tools.

Entry plans are capped on prompts, engines or seats, so a team tracking many questions on every engine will pay more. For comparison, Pemba's monthly plans, with the work included, are in a 90-day results pilot right now. Full details are on the pricing page.

How to choose an AEO tool

1. Decide who will act on the data. If nobody has time, a tool will not change much on its own.
2. Match engines to your buyers. Check whether the plan you can afford covers the engines your customers use, especially Google AI Mode and Claude, which are often add-ons or higher tiers.
3. Count your prompts. In our view, ten to twenty real buyer questions is a sensible start for a small business. The entry plans we checked track roughly 10 to 125.
4. Use what you already pay for. Semrush and Ahrefs customers can add AI visibility before buying a second tool.
5. Start with a one-off check. Run one first, then judge any paid option on citation trends over a few months, not on dashboard size.

Questions people ask