Quoted
- Price
- $10 one-time
- AI engines
- 6
- Free preview
- Yes, no card
- Tracking
- Snapshot only
- Best for
- Indie SaaS
Best AEO tools in 2026
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) tools measure how AI engines describe your brand — across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, Google AI Mode, and Google AI Overviews. Five tools dominate the category as of May 2026: Quoted, Profound, Otterly, Peec, and AthenaHQ. They differ on price (from $10 one-time to €499/mo), engine coverage (1 to 6), and who they're built for (solo founders to enterprise marketing teams).
This page is an editorial comparison. Disclosure: Quoted is our own product. Everything below about the other tools is from their public pricing pages and the AI-engine landscape as of May 2026. Vendor links open in a new tab — verify current values yourself if you're picking.
Comparison
Pricing and engine counts as of May 2026. Vendor pages may have updated since.
Profound
- Price
- $99–$399/mo+
- AI engines
- 1 starter
- Free preview
- No (paid only)
- Tracking
- Ongoing
- Best for
- Mid-market
Otterly
- Price
- $29–$489/mo
- AI engines
- 1–3
- Free preview
- Trial
- Tracking
- Ongoing
- Best for
- SEO agencies
Peec
- Price
- €90–€499/mo
- AI engines
- 4
- Free preview
- Trial
- Tracking
- Ongoing
- Best for
- EU marketing
AthenaHQ
- Price
- $295/mo+
- AI engines
- 3
- Free preview
- No (demo only)
- Tracking
- Ongoing
- Best for
- Enterprise
Per-tool quick verdict
Quoted — $10 one-shot audit
6 AI engines · solo founders · no subscription
The only one-shot in the category. $10 buys a 30-prompt audit across all 6 mainstream AI engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, AI Mode, AI Overviews). Free 5-prompt preview without a card. Built for indie founders and solopreneurs who want a snapshot at a specific moment — launch, repositioning, YC application prep, fundraise diligence — and don't want a monthly subscription. No ongoing tracking. Re-run for another $10 whenever the answer matters again.
Profound — mid-market platform
Subscription · series-B funded (Lightspeed) · self-serve + sales
Well-funded platform aimed at mid-market and enterprise marketing teams. Starter at $99/mo covers ChatGPT only; Growth at $399/mo expands engine coverage; enterprise quotes above. Strong product surface and ongoing tracking dashboards. Best fit if you're a marketing team with monthly budget and need reporting cadence baked into your workflow.
Otterly — SEO agency tool
Subscription · agency-friendly tiers · 1–3 engines
Built for SEO agencies and SMBs managing client AEO. Lower entry point ($29/mo) than the other subscription tools, but engine coverage scales with tier — top tier $489/mo for the full feature set. If you bill clients monthly for AI-visibility work, Otterly's per-client tier model fits the workflow better than enterprise-priced alternatives.
Peec — European platform
Subscription · EUR pricing · 4 engines
European AEO platform priced in euros (€90–€499/mo) for marketing teams that prefer an EU vendor. Tracks 4 AI engines. Continuous dashboards and scheduled re-runs are the core proposition. Best fit if you're an EU-based marketing team where regional vendor sourcing matters and you need ongoing brand-monitoring on a monthly cadence.
AthenaHQ — enterprise
Subscription · sales-led · 3 engines
Enterprise AEO platform with sales-led purchasing — no free preview, demo-only signup. Pricing starts at $295/mo. Best fit for enterprise marketing organizations that already have procurement processes for $4–10k+ annual SaaS contracts and need contract-grade SLAs and vendor onboarding.
How to pick
You want a snapshot, not a dashboard: Quoted. The only one-shot tool. $10 covers a full 30-prompt audit across 6 engines.
You're a marketing team with monthly budget and need ongoing reporting: Profound (mid-market) or AthenaHQ (enterprise) for established marketing orgs. Peec if you're EU-based. Otterly if you're an agency billing clients monthly.
You're an SEO agency: Otterly. Its tier model maps to per-client billing better than enterprise-priced alternatives.
You only care about ChatGPT mentions: Profound Starter at $99/mo if you need ongoing tracking on ChatGPT specifically; Quoted at $10 if a snapshot is enough.
You want a free preview before committing: Quoted (5 prompts × 6 engines, no card) or Otterly/Peec (limited trials). Profound has no free tier (paid only); AthenaHQ is demo-only.
Methodology
Pricing is from each vendor's public pricing page as of May 2026. Engine counts are based on what each vendor publicly states in their feature lists or pricing tiers as of the same date. Vendor pages update regularly — we link each vendor in a new tab so you can verify current values.
"Best for" framings are editorial, based on each vendor's stated audience (marketing pages, pricing-tier descriptions, demo-call positioning) cross-referenced with publicly observable customer profiles.
Quoted is our own product. The "Best for" framing under Quoted reflects who we actually built it for (solo founders, indie SaaS) — not a marketing claim. If your needs are better served by another tool on this list, that's the recommendation here.
FAQ
What is an AEO tool?
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) tools measure how AI engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Grok cite your brand in their answers. They run prompts through the engines, parse the responses for brand mentions, sentiment, and competitor surfacing, and report changes over time.
How is AEO different from SEO?
SEO targets Google's link-based search results — you optimize to rank for a query. AEO targets AI engines' synthesized answers — your brand either appears in the cited answer or it doesn't. There's no "scroll to position 20" in an AI answer.
Which AEO tool has the lowest starting price?
Quoted at $10 one-time is the lowest entry price and the only one-shot pricing in the market as of May 2026. Among subscription tools, Otterly starts at $29/mo, Profound at $99/mo, Peec at €90/mo, AthenaHQ at $295/mo. Note that "cheapest" depends on usage — at 5+ audits/month a subscription can work out cheaper than repeated one-shots.
Which AEO tool tracks the most AI engines?
Quoted tracks 6 engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Grok, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews). Profound starter tier covers 1 (ChatGPT only); higher tiers expand. Otterly varies 1–3 by tier. Peec tracks 4. AthenaHQ tracks 3. Claude is rarely tracked by public AEO tools because Anthropic blocks automated scraping of its consumer UI.
Should I pick a subscription tool or a one-shot audit?
Pick a subscription if you need ongoing monitoring, scheduled re-runs, and historical reporting — typical for SEO agencies and marketing teams. Pick a one-shot if you want a snapshot at a specific moment (product launch, repositioning, due-diligence pre-fundraise, YC application prep) and don't need monthly cadence.
Are the numbers in this comparison verified?
Pricing and engine counts are from each vendor’s public pricing page as of May 2026. Vendors update these regularly — links open to the vendor in a new tab so you can verify current values. We disclose that Quoted is our own product; everything else is observed publicly.
See also
How to improve your brand's visibility in AI search engines — practical guide based on our 4-brand × 6-engine audit dataset.
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