The best AEO tools for small businesses in 2026
By Matvei Belov, founder of Glowsearch · Updated
Glowsearch, our product, starts at $19.99 a month, the lowest paid entry price among these nine AEO tools. It checks whether ChatGPT, Claude (on Pro), Gemini and Google's AI Mode name you, then gives you an action plan and drafts to change the answer. If you publish a lot of articles, Frase ($49) scores and writes them. If you already use HubSpot, its AEO tool is $50. Below are nine answer engine optimization (AEO) tools, what kind of tool each one is, and what it costs.
Key takeaways
- AEO tools do three different jobs: tracking whether assistants name you, improving your pages so they get cited, or both inside a bigger marketing suite. Know which job you're buying for.
- Glowsearch (ours): $19.99 a month for up to 80 weekly questions, an action plan sorted by priority and drafts. Start the $1 seven-day trial.
- HubSpot's AEO tool: $50 a month for 25 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, with recommendations. No HubSpot subscription needed.
- Frase: $49 a month for content scoring and writing, plus 50 tracked prompts on ChatGPT and Google AI. Best if you write a lot of pages.
- Team plans: Peec AI starts at $95 for daily data and unlimited users. Profound sells custom plans to brands and a self-serve plan to agencies.
We make Glowsearch and list it first because it has the lowest paid entry price here. Price sources and check dates are listed below.
Published October 22, 2026. HubSpot, Frase, LLM Visibility Lens, Ahrefs and Profound details were checked on their pages on October 22, 2026. The other prices come from our best AI visibility tools roundup and 20-tool price comparison, checked October 12–15. Prices are monthly in US dollars, billed monthly, before tax.
What is an AEO tool?
Answer engine optimization means getting your business named and cited when people ask an AI assistant instead of searching. An AEO tool helps with some part of that. Most fall into one of three kinds:
- Trackers ask assistants the questions your customers ask, on a schedule, and record who gets named and which pages get cited. Glowsearch, LLM Visibility Lens, Otterly, Peec AI and Profound are trackers first.
- Content tools score and rewrite your pages so they're easier for assistants to quote. Frase is the clearest example here; it also tracks a set of prompts.
- Suites add AI tracking to a marketing or SEO platform you may already use: HubSpot, Semrush and Ahrefs.
No AEO tool can make an assistant recommend you. The useful ones show you where you stand, who's named instead, and what to change. The work of changing it is still yours.
The tools at a glance
| Tool | Kind | Entry price per month | Assistants at that price | Questions at that price | Tells you what to do next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glowsearch (ours) | Tracker | $19.99 | ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode; Claude on Pro | Up to 80 weekly or 10 daily | Action plan and drafts |
| HubSpot AEO | Suite | $50 | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity | 25 | Prioritized recommendations |
| Frase | Content tool | $49 | ChatGPT, Google AI | 50 | Content scores and writing |
| LLM Visibility Lens | Tracker | $29 | ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, AI Overviews | 25 daily | Monthly action plan on Pro |
| Otterly | Tracker | $29 | ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot | 15 daily | Three recommendations a week |
| Ahrefs custom prompts | Suite | $50 | Your choice | 2,500 checks a month | Not the focus |
| Peec AI | Tracker | $95 | Any three supported | 50 daily | Recommended actions |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Suite | $99 | Each assistant uses a slot | 25 slots | Inside Semrush |
| Profound | Tracker | Custom | Up to nine | Custom | Content agents |
HubSpot is $45 a month and Frase $39 a month if you pay yearly. Frase names its Google coverage "Google AI" without saying whether that means AI Overviews, AI Mode or both.
The tools in detail
Glowsearch: $19.99 a month with an action plan and drafts
Best suited for: a small business with one website that wants to know what to do this week.
Lite is $19.99 a month for one website: 80 questions once a week, 40 twice, 25 three times or 10 every day. Every question is asked twice per scan, in real browsers, signed out and from your country, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode. Pro is $99.99 for three websites and adds Claude through its API on 50 questions a week per website.
Every scan shows who was named instead of you and which pages the answers cite. Then it gives you an action plan sorted by priority: lists and sites to get onto, Reddit and forum threads to join, pages to write or fix, wrong facts to correct. A drafting button writes the email, reply or page text for each one. Lite includes 10 drafts a month.
Want to see it on your own business first? The free AI visibility checker asks ChatGPT three of your customers' questions and shows who it names. Or start the seven-day trial for $1.
HubSpot AEO, best for teams already on HubSpot
Best suited for: a marketing team that wants AI tracking next to its CRM and email.
HubSpot's AEO tool is $50 a month, or $45 a month billed yearly, for 25 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. You can buy more prompts at any time. It covers brand visibility and sentiment, competitor share of voice, citation analysis, prompt suggestions and prioritized AEO recommendations. You don't need another HubSpot subscription to use it, and there's a free trial with 25 prompts and no card.
Where others are better: it doesn't cover Google's AI Mode or AI Overviews at that price, and 25 prompts is a small set. Glowsearch covers AI Mode and up to 80 weekly questions for $19.99.
Frase, best if you write a lot of content
Best suited for: a business or agency that publishes articles regularly and wants them written to be cited.
Frase Starter is $49 a month, or $39 billed yearly. It scores pages for both search and AI answers, writes 10 articles and audits 50 pages a month, and tracks 50 prompts on ChatGPT and Google AI. Professional is $129 a month for 200 prompts and adds Perplexity and AI crawler monitoring. Scale, at $299, adds Claude and Gemini. All paid plans have a seven-day free trial without a card.
Where others are better: its tracking is narrower than a dedicated tracker's at the entry price: two assistants. It does find sites that link to your competitors and drafts outreach to them, but it picks those from competitors' backlinks, not from the pages the assistants cite when they answer your questions. If your problem is that assistants name others, a tracker that shows those cited pages fits better.
LLM Visibility Lens, best for daily tracking on a small budget
Starter is $29 a month for 25 questions checked daily on ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews. It writes questions from your website and lets you add your own. There's also a free plan with five questions checked weekly. Pro adds a monthly action plan and has a seven-day free trial.
Otterly, best for Perplexity and Copilot
Otterly Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts checked daily on ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. Gemini and AI Mode are $9 each extra. It includes 1,000 page audits and three recommendations a week. Going past 15 prompts means Standard, from $189. See Glowsearch vs Otterly.
Ahrefs custom prompts, best for a flexible budget
Custom prompts Basic is $50 a month for 2,500 prompt checks, sold without an Ahrefs subscription. You set the schedule, from daily to monthly. Each question uses a check per assistant per update, and Claude uses eight, so plan the allowance before you buy.
Peec AI, best for marketing teams that need daily data
Peec Starter is $95 a month for 50 prompts on any three of its supported assistants, with unlimited users, sentiment, share of voice and recommended actions. Each extra assistant is $35. See Glowsearch vs Peec AI and Peec AI alternatives.
Semrush, best for teams already working in it
The AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month with 25 prompt slots. Tracking the same question on another assistant uses another slot, so 20 questions on three assistants needs the $60 add-on: $159 a month.
Profound, best for enterprise requirements
Profound sells custom Enterprise plans to brands, with daily tracking on up to nine assistants, AI crawler analytics, content agents and enterprise support. Agencies can use its self-serve Agency Growth plan instead. The free seven-day trial tracks 50 prompts that Profound picks for you. See Profound pricing and Profound alternatives.
Which kind of AEO tool do you need?
| Your situation | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You don't know if assistants mention you at all | The free checker, then Glowsearch | See where you stand before paying for anything |
| Assistants name competitors, and you want to know what to change | Glowsearch | Action plan and drafts after every scan |
| You already run marketing in HubSpot | HubSpot AEO | Tracking and recommendations next to your CRM |
| You publish articles every week | Frase | Content scoring and writing, with some tracking |
| You need daily data for a team | Peec AI | Daily prompts, unlimited users, reporting |
| You need SSO and enterprise support | Profound | Custom plans, sales conversation |
Frequently asked questions
They're mostly names for the same goal: being named and cited in AI answers. AEO (answer engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization) describe the work; AI visibility usually describes measuring it. Tools use all three labels for similar products.
SEO helps, because assistants that search the web often find pages through search indexes. But a page that ranks on Google isn't always named in an AI answer, and assistants also lean on lists, reviews and forum threads you don't control. A tracker shows you that gap, whether it's a separate tool or part of a suite like Semrush.
Entry prices in this list run from $19.99 to $99 a month, and enterprise tools are priced on a quote. Compare what you get at that price: which assistants, how many questions, how often, and whether it tells you what to do.
Yes, for single checks. Our free AI visibility checker asks ChatGPT three of your customers' questions, and the AI crawler checker shows whether assistants can read your site. HubSpot and Frase have free trials, and LLM Visibility Lens has a free plan that checks five questions a week. Tracking more than that takes a paid plan or a lot of manual asking.
No. Assistants change their answers from one ask to the next, and nobody controls what they say. A good tool shows where you stand, what to change and whether it worked.
Start with your own questions
Start your seven-day trial for $1 with the questions your customers ask. Get your first scan, an action plan sorted by priority and a drafting button for each action. Lite is $19.99 a month after the trial.