How to appear in ChatGPT and Perplexity: 8 AEO tools and services
September 5, 20267 min
When a customer asks ChatGPT or Perplexity "who can fix my blinds in Valencia" or "best accountancy firm for freelancers", the assistant doesn't return ten blue links. It returns an answer with two or three names and a handful of cited sources. Either you're inside that answer, or you don't exist for that customer.
The work has two parts. The first is measuring: knowing what questions your potential customers ask, what each assistant answers today, and who it cites. The second is fixing: changing the website, the content and the external mentions to get into those answers. Almost all the tools in this list serve the first part. Agencies and managed services cover both.
What an AI visibility tool actually measures
They all work in a similar way: you define a list of prompts (real customer questions), the tool runs them periodically against several models and stores the answers. From that, three metrics emerge.
Mentions: in what percentage of answers your brand name appears.
Citations: which URLs the model uses as sources, and whether any is yours.
Competition and sentiment: which brands appear in your place, and in what terms you are discussed.
The price of these platforms depends almost always on the number of prompts you track and how many models you query. That's the variable to look at before any other.
How to choose the prompts
This is where the subscription budget is won or lost. A useful prompt is one a customer with buying intent would write, with the city or sector included: "tax advisor for freelancers in Zaragoza", "how much does a bathroom refurbishment cost in Málaga". Generic prompts like "best software companies" produce flashy reports and no customers. Fifteen well-chosen questions perform better than three hundred copied from a list.
Written with the help of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the Sofyer team.
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Eight options to position your business in AI answers
1. Otterly.AI
Visibility monitor with affordable entry-level plans. Tracks mentions, cited links and sentiment across several generative engines, with tracking by country and language.
What it measures: brand appearances and cited URLs in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity and Gemini, according to its tool comparison.
For whom: SMEs and freelancers who want to start measuring without committing much budget.
Price: Lite plan from $29/month with 15 prompts; Standard $189/month with 100 prompts; Premium $489/month with 400, according to its pricing page.
2. Peec AI
AI search analytics platform aimed at marketing teams and agencies. Bills in euros, which avoids currency conversion surprises.
What it measures: visibility by prompt and by model, cited sources and competitor comparison, with CSV export and a Looker Studio connector.
For whom: companies with an in-house marketing team or an agency already handling SEO.
Managed service in Spanish, not a dashboard you have to learn to use. The aim of the service is for the business to appear and be cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews.
What it measures: the initial audit reviews which answers your business appears in today and which sources the model cites instead.
For whom: freelancers and SMEs without a marketing department who prefer to delegate and work with a fixed quote.
The logical option if you already use Semrush for classic SEO. Adds an AI visibility layer on top of its prompt database.
What it measures: visibility overview, prompt research, brand performance, competition and site audit oriented to AI search.
For whom: businesses and agencies already working within Semrush.
Price: $99/month per domain with annual billing, with 25 custom prompts and daily rankings, according to its pricing page.
5. Ahrefs Brand Radar
Add-on to the Ahrefs suite to see brand mentions within generated answers. Worth it if you already pay for Ahrefs; less so if you take it out just for this.
What it measures: mentions and prompt indices per AI engine, with comparison against competitors.
For whom: SEO teams with an active Ahrefs licence.
Platform focused on AI presence: citations, sentiment, competitive position and conversation context.
What it measures: multi-platform brand coverage across answer engines, with advanced analytics.
For whom: brands with a team dedicated to measurement.
Price: its pricing page states custom enterprise pricing; an agency-focused review puts the entry point at $499/month and warns it may be out of reach for small brands.
7. Writesonic
Combines monitoring and execution: you see where you're not appearing and produce content from the same dashboard.
What it measures: visibility across several AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI.
For whom: teams that want to measure and publish without switching tools.
Price: self-service from $99/month according to its pricing page.
8. Scrunch AI
Enterprise-focused approach: besides citations, it analyses AI agent traffic to your website and diagnoses how they consume your site.
What it measures: monitoring and citations, agent traffic, site diagnostics and product-level performance.
For whom: brands with a large catalogue or multiple business units.
1If you have no in-house marketing: start with a free audit or an entry-level plan like Otterly's Lite. You need to know whether you're already being cited before buying anything else.
2If you already pay for an SEO suite: activate the AI module your provider includes first, before buying a new tool. The marginal cost is lower.
3If you have a marketing team: Peec AI or Writesonic give frequent data and, in the latter case, the ability to act on content.
4If the problem is that your website isn't understood: the money goes further on structured data and content than on another metrics dashboard.
What needs fixing on the website, not in the dashboard
No tool gets you into an answer. It only tells you that you're not there. The real work is on the site: specific service pages that answer literal customer questions, visible prices when they can be published, an up-to-date business listing, correct structured data, and mentions in sources the models already consult (sector directories, local press, reviews).
Assistants cite what they can verify. A page that says "comprehensive solutions tailored to your needs" is not citable. A page that says what you do, in which city, how much it costs and how long it takes, is. The practical rule: for every question your customers ask over the phone, there should be a page or section that answers it with data. If you need to produce that content systematically, AI-powered SEO content solves the volume problem; the audit sets the criteria for which questions to target.
How to know if it's working
Measure three things each month: the percentage of prompts in which you appear, the number of your URLs cited, and enquiries or calls that come in saying "ChatGPT recommended you". The third is the one that pays the bills. The first two anticipate it.
It's also worth noting which specific pages get cited. The pattern tends to repeat: specific, detailed pages get in, not the homepage. That tells you where to invest next month's work.
If you want to start with the diagnosis, request the free AI visibility audit: you'll find out which answers you appear in today, and which ones your competitors are taking.
