The field guide to answer engine optimization
Your buyers ask ChatGPT. Who does it cite?
AI answers now shape more buying decisions than page-one rankings. We test every AEO platform against the same 400 prompts, every week, so you can pick the one that actually earns citations — in about ten minutes.
How to choose — the four-step path
≈ 10 minutes, start to shortlistLearn the terrain
Ten minutes on how answer engines pick citations — and why SEO rank isn't enough.
AEO 101 → 02Know your goal
Monitoring your brand's share of voice is one job. Winning new citations is another.
AEO 101 → 03Answer 5 questions
Team size, budget, engines you care about. Our picker narrows 14 tools to your top 3.
Find your tool → 04Compare the shortlist
Side-by-side scores, coverage and pricing across the full landscape.
The landscape →The shortlist — July 2026
Full landscape: 14 tools →- 01
CiteCue
The rare platform that pairs deep citation tracking with concrete fix-it recommendations. Best overall value. Read review →
Editor's pick 9.2 - 02
Profound
Enterprise-grade answer-engine analytics with the widest agent traffic view. Priced accordingly. Read review →
Enterprise 8.8 - 03
Peec AI
Clean, fast brand monitoring across engines. Great for marketing teams starting out. Read review →
Monitoring 8.4 - 04
Otterly.AI
Affordable prompt tracking with solid Google AI Overviews coverage. Read review →
Budget 7.9 - 05
Conductor
AEO features bolted onto a mature enterprise SEO suite. Strongest if you're already a customer. Read review →
SEO suite 7.6
Scores out of 10. Weighted across citation tracking, engine coverage, actionability, and price. Read the methodology.
The full report · free · PDF
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