Answer engine optimization tools track how often brands appear in AI-generated answers, measure citation frequency across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews, and help identify the content gaps that AI systems penalize. The market for AEO tools is nascent. Most platforms launched in 2024 or 2025, and the feature sets vary a lot. This comparison covers the leading platforms as of May 2026: Profound, Peec AI, Discovered Labs (Searchable), Otterly, and Authoricy.
What to look for in an AEO tool
Before comparing platforms, it helps to understand the capabilities that actually move the needle:
Citation tracking: The core function. Can the tool track how often your brand appears in AI-generated answers for your target queries across multiple platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Copilot)? Can it compare your citation frequency against competitors?
Content analysis: Can the tool diagnose why specific pages are or are not being cited? Does it surface structural issues (no BLUF, no FAQPage schema, poor section structure) or only citation frequency data?
Prompt/query management: Can you add custom queries to monitor, or are you limited to the tool's own query bank? Custom queries are essential for B2B brands with specific competitive terms.
Competitor benchmarking: Can you compare your citation share against 2-5 competitors for the same query set?
Actionability: Does the tool tell you what to do, or just what is happening? Tools that surface specific, fixable issues per page create significantly more value than dashboards with no prescriptive recommendations.
Pricing: AEO tools range from $49/mo to enterprise pricing. The right tool depends on whether you need standalone monitoring or integrated content optimization.
Profound
Best for: Teams that need deep AI search analytics across multiple platforms
Profound (tryprofound.com) is the most established AEO platform in the market. DR 76, 10,000+ monthly organic visitors, built on research content that defined much of the AEO and GEO vocabulary.
What Profound does well: Comprehensive citation tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Copilot. Strong competitor benchmarking. Good query management with the ability to add custom brand and competitor terms. The platform also provides Share of Voice (SOV) analytics showing citation share trends over time.
Limitations: Profound is platform-focused. It tells you what is happening (citation frequency, SOV) but is lighter on prescriptive content guidance. The platform does not score individual pages against an AEO framework or surface specific structural issues to fix. For teams that want to know why they are not being cited and what to change, Profound requires pairing with a content strategy layer.
Pricing: Tiered subscription, approximately $79-299/mo depending on query volume and team size.
Peec AI
Best for: B2B companies that want real-time AI brand monitoring with alerts
Peec AI (peec.ai) focuses on real-time AI brand monitoring, tracking mentions of your brand in AI-generated answers as they happen rather than through periodic query runs. DR 72, approximately 1,100 monthly organic visitors.
What Peec AI does well: Real-time monitoring earns its keep for brand reputation work: you know when your brand appears in AI answers for competitive terms, and when it drops out. The alert system is a differentiated feature that Profound does not offer. Clean interface.
Limitations: Peec AI is stronger on monitoring than on content optimization. The platform tracks citations but provides limited guidance on how to improve extractability or fix content structure. The real-time monitoring focus means it is better suited to brand management teams than content strategy teams.
Pricing: Approximately $49-149/mo depending on query volume.
Discovered Labs (Searchable)
Best for: Teams that want structured AEO benchmarking and competitive intelligence
Discovered Labs (discoveredlabs.com, also operating as searchable.com) takes a more research-oriented approach, with structured AEO benchmarks and B2B GEO comparisons. DR 38, 144 monthly visitors. Smaller but growing, with a citable framework that positions them well.
What Discovered Labs does well: Structured benchmarking reports that compare citation performance across categories. The AEO benchmark approach is differentiated: rather than tracking your brand alone, it shows how your category performs and where citation share is concentrated. Good for competitive landscape analysis.
Limitations: Limited scale compared to Profound and Peec AI. The platform is still early-stage, and some features feel MVP. No real-time monitoring. Query coverage is narrower than larger platforms.
Pricing: Custom, on request.
Otterly
Best for: Solo founders and small teams that need affordable AI visibility monitoring
Otterly is a lighter-weight AI visibility monitoring tool aimed at smaller businesses and individuals. It tracks brand mentions in AI answers and provides basic citation reports.
What Otterly does well: Accessible pricing, simple setup, and reasonable coverage for basic AI brand monitoring. Good for a founder who wants to know whether their brand is appearing in AI answers without investing in enterprise tooling.
Limitations: Otterly lacks the depth of Profound or Peec AI for competitive benchmarking or content optimization. Limited platform coverage (primarily ChatGPT and Perplexity, with less robust Google AI Overviews tracking). Not suitable for serious content strategy work.
Pricing: Approximately $29-79/mo.
Authoricy
Best for: B2B SaaS teams that want AEO implemented rather than measured
Authoricy sits in a different place from the monitoring tools above. The tools tell you where your citation gap is. Authoricy closes it: PRISM-scored content strategy, topical cluster builds, content production, schema implementation, and publishing straight to your own site.
What Authoricy does well: The PRISM framework gives diagnostic depth the monitoring tools lack, scoring each page on five dimensions (Precise, RAG-Ready, Intent, Source, Measured) and naming the structural fixes that move citation velocity. The unusual part is the quality gate. Every draft is scored against the brief it was written from, and anything below the bar is held as a draft with the reason recorded rather than published. Most content tools generate, ship, and let you find the problem.
Limitations: The content is written by AI, and Authoricy does not claim otherwise. Teams who need a named human byline on every piece will want something else. It also covers one site per subscription, so portfolios and agencies need a separate arrangement.
Pricing: EUR 129 per month for one site, covering thirty published articles. No contract.
Comparison summary
| Tool | Best for | Citation tracking | Content diagnosis | Competitor benchmarking | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Analytics-first teams | ✓✓✓ | Limited | ✓✓✓ | $79-299/mo |
| Peec AI | Brand monitoring | ✓✓ | Limited | ✓✓ | $49-149/mo |
| Discovered Labs | Research and benchmarks | ✓✓ | ✓ | ✓✓ | Custom |
| Otterly | Small teams, affordable | ✓ | Limited | ✓ | $29-79/mo |
| Authoricy | Content strategy + execution | ✓✓ | ✓✓✓ (PRISM) | ✓✓ | EUR 129/mo |
Which AEO tool should you choose?
If you want to understand your current AI citation gap and have a content team that can act on the data: start with Profound. The platform gives you the citation frequency and competitor benchmarking data to direct your own content strategy.
If brand monitoring is the primary use case: Peec AI's real-time alert system is differentiated. Useful for PR teams and brand managers tracking brand sentiment in AI-generated answers.
If you are an early-stage team or solo founder: Otterly provides enough functionality to establish a baseline for a low monthly cost.
If you want AEO implemented rather than measured: Authoricy. The analysis establishes your PRISM baseline and cluster map, then the system writes and publishes against the gaps at EUR 129 a month. The PRISM framework supplies the content diagnosis that monitoring tools lack.
Most B2B SaaS companies at scale end up with one monitoring tool (Profound or Peec AI) plus a content strategy layer (either in-house or via an agency). The tools track what is happening; the strategy determines what to build.
Authoricy runs AEO as a system rather than an agency. If you want your AI citation gap closed rather than measured, it costs EUR 129 a month.