# Best GEO tools for AI search visibility Updated October 2026 Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the work of getting an AI answer engine to cite, recommend or describe a brand correctly when someone asks a buying question. The tools built for it split into two camps: dedicated AI-visibility trackers, and GEO modules bolted onto an SEO or content suite a team already pays for. This list covers both, plus MarketHQ, which approaches the same problem from mentions and gap analysis rather than content generation. ## Quick answer MarketHQ checks brand visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek every week and turns a missed citation into a gap analysis and action plan, rather than a chart to interpret yourself. Profound, AthenaHQ and Otterly.ai are dedicated AI-visibility trackers built around prompt libraries. Writesonic GEO, BrightEdge AI Catalyst and Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit add GEO reporting to a content or SEO platform you may already run. Rankscale prices by credits instead of seats. - MarketHQ ties AI-answer visibility to the evidence and gap analysis behind it, not just a citation count. - MarketHQ tracks six AI engines weekly: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek, the same set on every paid plan. - Paid GEO trackers here start at $29 a month (MarketHQ Lite, Otterly.ai Lite) and run to demo-gated pricing at Profound and BrightEdge AI Catalyst. ## What sources does MarketHQ cover? Free: Hacker News, GitHub, RSS, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Lobsters. Paid plans add Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Perplexity, Product Hunt, Broader web crawl, Bluesky. - Grouped Slack daily digest - Drafted replies from your own strengths - Gap analysis and action plans - Weekly AI-answer visibility (paid plans) - Chat over your own evidence - API and MCP on every paid plan - Flat capacity pricing, tiers differ by tracking volume only - 7-day trial for $0.99 on Lite and Startup - Free tier with no card and no end date ## List Method: every vendor fact here was read on the vendor's own site on October 8, 2026 and is listed only if the vendor states what it tracks. Prices are quoted only where the vendor publishes a figure; where pricing is gated behind a demo, the entry says so instead of repeating a third-party number. Ordering groups dedicated AI-visibility trackers ahead of SEO-suite GEO modules rather than ranking by popularity. Nothing here is paid placement, and MarketHQ is our own product. 1. MarketHQ Checks brand visibility across six AI engines every week, then ties a missed citation to the mentions and evidence in your feed and writes a gap analysis with an action plan attached. Not a dedicated GEO platform: no prompt library builder, no automated content rewriting. - Best for: Teams that want the AI-answer gap and the evidence behind it in one place, not a chart to interpret alone. - Pricing: Free (paid from $29/mo) - Sources covered: Hacker News, GitHub, RSS, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Lobsters, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Perplexity, Product Hunt, Broader web crawl, Bluesky 2. [Profound](https://markethq.ai/directory/profound) Tracks up to nine answer engines on its Enterprise plan, with Agent Analytics for AI-sourced traffic, a FactCheck feature and benchmarking against industry peers. Enterprise pricing is custom, and a limited 7-day trial tier is offered. - Best for: Marketing teams that can go through a sales process to get a price. - Pricing: From $0/mo - Sources covered: Not published 3. [AthenaHQ](https://markethq.ai/directory/athenahq) Cross-platform AI-visibility tracking across 11 or more LLMs with automated content-optimization recommendations and citation-source analysis, metered by credits. Its Essential plan is free with 300 credits. - Best for: Teams that want to test GEO tracking before committing a budget. - Pricing: From $0/mo - Sources covered: Not published 4. [Otterly.ai](https://markethq.ai/directory/otterly-ai) Tracks ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot on its base plan, with Claude, AI Mode and Gemini as paid add-ons, plus daily tracking and ChatGPT Ads Tracking. Lite is $29 a month. - Best for: Small teams that want a prompt set tracked daily at a self-serve price. - Pricing: From $29/mo - Sources covered: Not published 5. [Writesonic GEO](https://markethq.ai/directory/writesonic-geo) A GEO module inside Writesonic that tracks where a brand gets cited in AI answers and auto-generates articles and site audits to close the gaps it finds, with sentiment analysis on the Growth plan and above. - Best for: Teams already using Writesonic for content who want citation tracking and auto-drafted fixes in the same tool. - Pricing: From $79/mo - Sources covered: Not published 6. [BrightEdge AI Catalyst](https://markethq.ai/directory/brightedge-ai-catalyst) BrightEdge's AI intelligence layer benchmarks brand presence and sentiment against competitors across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, and shows which competitor page currently earns a citation and why. Pricing is demo-gated. - Best for: Enterprise SEO teams already running BrightEdge who want AI-citation benchmarking in the same dashboard. - Pricing: Not published - Sources covered: Not published 7. [Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit](https://markethq.ai/directory/semrush-ai-toolkit) An add-on toolkit on top of a Semrush subscription, at $99 a month, that measures visibility on Google AI Mode and ChatGPT, runs prompt research and audits whether AI bots can even crawl the site. - Best for: Existing Semrush customers who want AI-visibility reporting without a second subscription. - Pricing: From $99/mo - Sources covered: Not published 8. [Rankscale](https://markethq.ai/directory/rankscale) Prices by credits rather than prompt count, tracking 17-plus AI engines including ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, Mistral, Grok and Copilot, plus page audits scored across 200-plus factors. A REST API ships on the Pro+ plan. - Best for: Teams that want to buy a pool of checks rather than a fixed prompt count. - Pricing: From $99/mo - Sources covered: Not published ## What counts as a GEO tool? A GEO tool tracks whether an AI engine cites or recommends a brand for a buying question, and the better ones also act on what they find. The category splits in two. Dedicated trackers such as Profound, AthenaHQ, Otterly.ai and Rankscale exist only to run prompts against AI engines and report who gets named. SEO-suite add-ons such as Writesonic GEO, BrightEdge AI Catalyst and Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit bolt the same measurement onto a platform built for classic search rankings. MarketHQ sits outside both camps: it checks the same kind of question weekly, but instead of a prompt library you build yourself, it starts from the mentions and evidence already in your feed, then writes the gap and a plan to close it. A tracker alone tells you Perplexity never names your brand against two rivals; the gap analysis adds the evidence on your side and your competitors' side, which is the part you can act on this week. None of this makes the SEO-suite add-ons redundant. If a content team already lives inside Semrush or BrightEdge, the AI-visibility module is the path of least resistance, even if its engine coverage is narrower than a dedicated tracker's. The right pick depends on whether the gap is a measurement problem or a workflow problem. ## Which engines does each tool actually track? Coverage ranges from two engines to 17 or more, so check which engines your plan includes. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit names only Google AI Mode and ChatGPT. Writesonic GEO adds Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, Claude and Perplexity, for six. AthenaHQ lists 11 or more LLMs including Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. Rankscale lists 17-plus AI engines. Profound tracks up to nine answer engines on its Enterprise plan; its trial tier covers ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. MarketHQ tracks six: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek, the same set on every paid plan rather than gated by tier. - Two engines: Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit. - Six engines: Writesonic GEO, MarketHQ. - Nine to 17-plus: Profound (Enterprise plan), AthenaHQ, Rankscale. ## What does GEO tracking cost? From $29 a month at MarketHQ and Otterly.ai to demo-gated pricing at Profound and BrightEdge AI Catalyst. MarketHQ Lite and Otterly.ai Lite are both $29 a month; Otterly's covers 15 prompts across four engines. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit is a $99-a-month add-on on top of a Semrush subscription. AthenaHQ's Essential tier is free with 300 credits. Above that, Writesonic GEO Starter runs $79 a month billed annually, Rankscale Pro is $99 and AthenaHQ Starter is $295. Profound's Enterprise plan and BrightEdge AI Catalyst publish no self-serve price. ## Does a GEO tool also fix the problem it finds? Writesonic GEO and AthenaHQ go furthest on content fixes; BrightEdge points at what to beat. Writesonic GEO auto-generates articles and runs site audits to close the citations it finds missing. AthenaHQ ships automated content-optimization recommendations alongside its tracking. BrightEdge AI Catalyst shows which competitor page currently earns a citation and why, which is closer to a lead than a fix. MarketHQ's version of fixing it is a gap analysis with an action plan built from the same evidence, not a content generator. For a team that wants AI-optimized articles drafted automatically, Writesonic GEO is a closer fit, though a human still needs to publish and own what gets drafted. ## Do you need a dedicated GEO tool yet? Only if a buyer has already told you they asked an assistant before they asked a search engine. Run the buying questions a prospect would ask by hand through ChatGPT and Perplexity once. If your brand is missing or wrong in the answer and you can trace that to lost pipeline, the category is worth paying for. If nobody on your team has heard a prospect mention an AI assistant yet, a paid tracker measures a channel you may not have, and the money is better spent on the channel you do have evidence for. AthenaHQ's free tier, Otterly.ai's $29 plan or MarketHQ Lite at $29 is a reasonable way to find out without committing a budget. Each answers the narrow question (are we named at all) well enough to decide whether the wider, more expensive category is worth a second look three months later. - Already hearing it from prospects: buy a dedicated tracker now. - Not sure yet: run AthenaHQ's free tier or a manual check for a month first. - Already inside Semrush or BrightEdge: try the built-in add-on before buying a second tool. ## How should you build your first GEO prompt list? Start from the questions real buyers ask, written the way they would type them, and keep the list short at first. List the five to ten questions a prospect asks before choosing a product in your category, including comparison questions that name your competitors. Run them by hand in ChatGPT and Perplexity once to see the baseline, then load the same questions into whichever tracker you choose. Plans cap how many questions you can track: MarketHQ allows 10 on Lite, 60 on Startup and 120 on Growth, Otterly.ai Lite covers 15 prompts, and Geoptie Starter 15. A short, well-chosen list tracked weekly beats a long list nobody reads. ## What would a one-marketer team actually buy? Probably one cheap tracker to start, not the whole stack. The scenario below is illustrative, not measured. Illustrative: a 20-person SaaS company's only marketer wants to know if ChatGPT and Perplexity ever name the brand against two named competitors. AthenaHQ's free Essential tier comes with 300 credits at no cost. If the answer is no, never, the next question is why, which a tracker alone does not answer. MarketHQ Lite at $29 a month adds the mentions and evidence behind that gap, plus a gap analysis naming what to fix first. ## FAQ ### Is GEO the same thing as SEO? No. SEO ranks a page in a list of links; GEO is about whether an AI engine cites, recommends or describes a brand correctly inside a generated answer, which draws on a narrower and different set of sources. ### What is the cheapest GEO tool? MarketHQ Lite at $29 a month, the same as Otterly.ai Lite. AthenaHQ's Essential tier is free with 300 credits, for a trial run. ### Which GEO tools track the most AI engines? MarketHQ tracks six on every paid plan: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Grok and DeepSeek. Rankscale lists 17-plus engines, AthenaHQ 11 or more, and Profound up to nine on Enterprise. ### Can an SEO team use its existing tools for GEO? Partly. Semrush and BrightEdge both sell a GEO add-on inside their SEO suites, so an existing subscription gets some tracking with less setup. Neither replaces a dedicated tracker's prompt-library depth. ### Do any of these tools write content to fix a GEO gap? Writesonic GEO generates articles from the gaps it finds, and AthenaHQ recommends content optimizations. MarketHQ turns a gap into an action plan rather than drafted copy. ### Is GEO worth paying for if a brand has no AI-answer presence yet? Usually not immediately. A one-off manual check of the main buying questions across ChatGPT and Perplexity costs nothing and tells you the same named-or-not fact a paid tracker would, before you commit a recurring budget to measuring it. ## Related - [What is GEO?](https://markethq.ai/blog/what-is-geo-in-seo) — the fuller definition of GEO this list assumes - [Free GEO audit](https://markethq.ai/tools/geo-audit) — check your own citations before paying for a tracker - [Best AEO tools](https://markethq.ai/best/aeo-tools) — the answer-structuring half of the same problem - [Best LLM visibility trackers](https://markethq.ai/best/llm-visibility-trackers) — the broader cross-engine category this list narrows - [All category guides](https://markethq.ai/best) — every list we verified the same way - [Pricing](https://markethq.ai/pricing) — what MarketHQ's four tiers cost ## Sources - Profound home page: https://www.tryprofound.com (verified 2026-10-08) - Profound pricing: https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing (verified 2026-10-08) - AthenaHQ pricing: https://athenahq.ai/pricing (verified 2026-10-08) - AthenaHQ home page: https://athenahq.ai (verified 2026-10-08) - Otterly.ai pricing: https://otterly.ai/pricing (verified 2026-10-08) - Writesonic GEO docs: https://docs.writesonic.com/docs/geo-getting-started (verified 2026-10-08) - Writesonic pricing: https://writesonic.com/pricing (verified 2026-10-08) - BrightEdge AI Catalyst: https://www.brightedge.com/ai-catalyst (verified 2026-10-08) - Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-visibility-toolkit (verified 2026-10-08) - Rankscale pricing: https://www.rankscale.ai/pricing (verified 2026-10-08)