A thermometer tells you the fever exists. It doesn't cure it.
Every AI visibility tool on the market does the same core job: it runs a set of prompts against ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and other AI systems, then reports back whether your brand got mentioned, where you ranked against competitors, and how that's trending. That's a real, useful measurement. You genuinely can't fix what you can't see.
But measuring the gap and closing it are two different jobs. Profound, Otterly.AI, Peec AI, and Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit are all measurement tools. Dashboards, not content engines. If the answer comes back "you're cited zero times for the queries that matter," none of them write the article, build the collection page, or fix the internal linking that would change that. You still have to go do the work somewhere else.
Monitoring tools answer "are we visible?" Content engines answer "how do we become visible?" Most stores eventually need both. But if you only have room for one line item right now, know which question you're actually trying to answer before you buy.
The tools at a glance
Pricing below is entry-tier monthly pricing as published or reported in mid-2026. Annual billing and add-on engines change the real number for most of these. Treat this as a starting point, not a quote.
| Tool | What it does | AI surfaces tracked | Builds content? | Pricing (from) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otterly.AI | Daily prompt monitoring & citation tracking | 4 engines on Lite. Google AI Mode & Gemini as paid add-ons | No. Monitoring only | $29/mo (Lite) |
| Peec AI | Daily share-of-voice & citation monitoring | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews baseline. More engines cost extra | No. Monitoring only | ~$89/mo (Starter) |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Brand visibility, sentiment & competitor benchmarking | Multi-engine, backed by Semrush's prompt database | No. Monitoring only | $99/mo per user (standalone) |
| Profound | Enterprise-grade AI search monitoring & reporting | 10+ AI engines at the Growth tier and above | No. Monitoring only | $399/mo (real entry tier) |
| RunOctopus (Otto) | Builds the SEO content library, then tracks citations on it | 4 AI surfaces. Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude (Scale+) | Yes. Guides, collection pages, tools, internal linking | $97/mo |
Pricing shown is the lowest publicly documented entry point as of mid-2026 and excludes annual discounts, add-on engines, and enterprise quotes. Otterly.AI, Peec AI, and Semrush all charge extra for tracking additional AI engines beyond their default set. Profound's $99 tier only covers ChatGPT, which is why $399/mo is the realistic entry price for multi-engine tracking.
Where each tool sits
Two things decide fit: does the tool measure the problem or fix it, and what does it cost per month. Plotted against each other, four tools cluster on one side of the map and RunOctopus sits alone on the other.
An honest look at each tool
Otterly.AI. The cheapest way to find out if you're invisible
Otterly.AI is a dedicated GEO platform built around prompt monitoring: you create prompt sets from real customer questions, and it reruns them daily across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, tracking share of voice, average position, and citation frequency over time. Lite starts at $29/mo for 15 prompts across 4 engines, with a 14-day free trial and no card required. It's the lowest-friction way to get a real answer to "does AI search even know we exist," but it only answers that question. The writing and publishing still happens somewhere else.
Best for: stores that want the cheapest, fastest way to confirm whether they have an AI-visibility problem at all before spending on anything else.
Peec AI. Daily tracking built for marketing teams
Peec AI monitors how often a brand appears when AI systems answer buyer questions, with daily tracking of ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews included on every plan and additional engines (Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok) available for a per-engine add-on fee. Starter runs around $89/mo for 25 prompts with unlimited seats, scaling to Pro and Enterprise tiers for more prompt volume. It's a well-built, marketing-team-friendly monitoring dashboard. And, like the others here, purely a dashboard.
Best for: marketing teams that want a clean, shareable dashboard for ongoing AI-visibility reporting.
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit. Monitoring bolted onto a tool you may already own
If your team already pays for Semrush, its AI Visibility Toolkit adds visibility overview, prompt research, brand performance, and competitor research on top of a large prompt database, starting at $99/mo per user as a standalone add-on, or bundled into Semrush One plans from $199/mo. The advantage is integration with SEO data you may already track. The limitation is the same as every tool on this list. It reports the gap, it doesn't close it.
Best for: teams already inside the Semrush ecosystem who want AI-visibility data next to their existing SEO reporting.
Profound. The enterprise-grade monitor
Profound offers the deepest monitoring infrastructure here, covering 10+ AI engines in one dashboard and backed by $35M in Series B funding. Its published $99 Starter tier only tracks ChatGPT, though. The real entry point for multi-engine coverage is the $399/mo Growth tier, and serious competitive work typically means a custom Enterprise quote running $2,000-$5,000+/mo. It's built for large teams that need the most thorough measurement available and have budget to match. It's not a starter tool for a single ecommerce store, and it still doesn't write anything.
Best for: larger teams or agencies that need the deepest, most comprehensive monitoring and have the budget for it.
RunOctopus (Otto). The content engine that also watches the scoreboard
RunOctopus doesn't compete on monitoring depth. It competes on being the other half of the problem. Otto builds the actual guides, collection pages, and interactive tools that AI search has something to cite in the first place, installing them directly on Shopify, WooCommerce, or Wix with full internal linking. On the Scale ($247/mo) and Authority ($597/mo) tiers, that's paired with citation tracking across Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, updated weekly, so you can see whether the content is actually working. It won't out-monitor a dedicated tool with 10+ engines and custom prompt sets. That's a real trade-off. But none of those tools will write you a single article.
Best for: ecommerce stores that don't yet have enough AI-citable content to make monitoring alone useful, and want the content and the tracking built by the same system.
How to choose, by use-case
Skip the rankings. Find the row that sounds like you:
- "I have no idea if ChatGPT even knows we exist." → Start with Otterly.AI at $29/mo. The cheapest, fastest way to get a real answer.
- "My marketing team wants an ongoing AI-visibility dashboard." → Peec AI or Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit if you're already in that ecosystem.
- "We're a large team and need the deepest monitoring across every AI engine." → Profound, budgeting for the $399/mo tier and up.
- "We already know we're invisible. We barely have any content for AI search to cite." → You need the content built before monitoring tells you anything new. That's RunOctopus.
- "We want both. The content built and deep monitoring on top." → Run RunOctopus for the content library and a dedicated monitor alongside it. See below.
Can you use both?
Yes, and it's a genuinely reasonable stack if Otto's bundled citation tracking isn't deep enough for you. A dedicated monitor gives you custom prompt sets, more AI engines, and competitor benchmarking built specifically for that one job. But the sequencing matters: a monitoring tool tells you the truth about a store with nothing to cite just as accurately as one with a real content library. It just tells you a more discouraging truth. Build the content first, or at least alongside, not instead of it.
For more on how AI search actually decides what to cite, see our glossary entries on Answer Engine Optimization (AEO), Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), and AI citation, or the deeper explainer on AI search optimization.
Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit, and Profound all answer "are we visible in AI search?". At prices from $29/mo to $399+/mo, with none of them writing a single word of content. RunOctopus builds the content library that earns citations and includes its own tracking on top. If you have to pick one first, pick based on whether you already know the answer to "are we visible". If you don't, a cheap monitor answers it fast. If you already know the answer is no, build the content first.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AI visibility tool?
An AI visibility tool tracks how often, and in what position, your brand gets mentioned or cited when people ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, or other AI systems questions related to your category. Tools like Profound, Otterly.AI, Peec AI, and Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit run a set of prompts on a schedule and report back share-of-voice, citation frequency, and competitor comparisons.
Does RunOctopus track AI citations like these tools do?
Yes, on the Scale and Authority tiers. Otto tracks citations across Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude with weekly updates showing which queries cite your store. It's a bundled feature of the content engine, not a standalone specialized product, so a dedicated tool with custom prompt sets across more AI surfaces will go deeper on monitoring alone.
Should I buy a monitoring tool or a content engine first?
If you don't yet know whether AI search cites your store, a monitoring tool answers that question fastest and cheapest. Otterly.AI's $29/mo Lite plan is the lowest-cost way to find out. But knowing you're invisible doesn't fix it. If the honest answer is "we have almost no content AI search could cite," you need the content built before monitoring tells you anything new.
How much do AI visibility tools cost?
Entry pricing in 2026 ranges widely. Otterly.AI starts at $29/mo (Lite). Peec AI starts around $89-95/mo. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit runs $99/mo per user standalone, or is bundled into Semrush One plans from $199/mo. Profound's real entry point is its $399/mo Growth tier (the $99 Starter only covers ChatGPT). Enterprise deployments run $2,000-$5,000+/mo. RunOctopus's citation tracking is included in Scale ($247/mo) and Authority ($597/mo) plans alongside the content itself.
Can I use a monitoring tool and RunOctopus together?
Yes, and it's a reasonable stack if you want deeper monitoring than Otto's bundled tracking provides. A dedicated tool gives you custom prompt sets, more AI surfaces, and competitor benchmarking dashboards built for that one job. Otto still has to be the one building the guides, collection pages, and internal linking that actually earn the citations you'd be tracking.