AI Mention Trackers Compared: What 50 Prompts Cost (2026)

An AI mention tracker does one job.

It reruns your buyer questions on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and the rest. And logs three things: does the answer name you? Link you? Name a competitor instead?

Why not just check by hand?

Because one check isn't tracking. The same prompt can return different sources on the next run.

The real job is a history you can compare week to week.

So here are 11 trackers. What about 50 prompts cost on each. Which engines each covers. Who each fits.

Every price comes from the vendor's own page, read on 2 October 2026.

I build AI SEO Tracker. It's one of the 11. So I state its limits too.

What an AI mention tracker records

Three different jobs get mixed up in every roundup.

• Mention: the answer uses your brand name.
• Citation: the answer links a URL. Yours, or someone else's.
• Position: how early your brand appears.

A tracker should store the answer text for every prompt. With engine and date. Not only a score.

Scores drift. The snippet is the evidence you send to a client or an editor.

(For classic Google positions: best rank tracking tools. For the full SEO stack: best AI SEO tools.)

How I picked these trackers

I read the live listicles that currently get cited for this topic.

The names that repeat: Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.AI, Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar.

A tracker made the list if it does four things:

• Re-queries engines on a schedule
• Detects brand strings, with competitors in the same run
• Keeps history
• Exposes sources, when the vendor shows citation URLs

I cut tools that only score HTML (llms.txt, schema) and never ask an LLM.

What 50 prompts cost

Each row is the vendor's own price on 2 October 2026. In the currency the page showed.

Prices are monthly unless noted. So this isn't a ranking by price.

The sticker price leaves things out.

• Peec: an extra model on Starter is $30/mo on annual billing.
• LLM Pulse: lists euros. It shows dollars as a daily-refreshed conversion. So the table keeps its euro prices.
• Profound: the trial has the same shape as our $49 report (50 prompts, daily for 7 days). But it covers three engines, and keeps no history or exports.

The trial is free. The report costs $49 and you keep it.

Which AI engines each tracker covers

Coverage matters. Because the engines disagree.

Proof: our public leaderboard for "best SEO tool", scanned on 24 September 2026.

• Five engines named 14 products.
• Only Ahrefs and Semrush appeared on all five.
• Yoast SEO ranked first on Gemini. It was absent from ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews.

One question, one scan. Read it as "the engines disagree". Not as a ranking.

Perplexity is covered by default at AI SEO Tracker, Otterly, Nightwatch, Ahrefs, Semrush, LLM Pulse and Surfer. Waikay queries Sonar, Perplexity's search model. (See how Perplexity picks sources.)

Grok: only Mangools lists it in its base engines.

Wider lists: best AI visibility tools.

1. AI SEO Tracker

Best for: A mention log you can keep, plus the URLs the models cited

Mine. Weigh it accordingly.

AI SEO Tracker tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, and AI Overviews.

Not Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek or Meta AI.

No free scan. No free trial. A free account shows the suggested prompts before you pay.

The $49 audit: a 7-day scan week on up to 50 prompts, for one brand. You keep login, print and export after day 7.

New scans need a plan:

• Basic: $79/mo. 50 prompts, 1 brand.
• Pro: $199/mo. 500 prompts, unlimited brands, teammates.

What you get:

• Rank or missing status per prompt and engine
• Competitors in the same answers
• Cited sources
• Snippets of how the model described you
• MCP access for an agent (OAuth, no API keys)

Page Inspector is on the higher plan. Don't expect it on Basic.

Use it when: you want a closed loop: mention → source → page to fix. That's LLM SEO measurement, not a sentiment toy.

Skip it when: you need Google AI Mode, Claude or Grok. Or a market-wide prompt index like Brand Radar's.

Cons: weekly on paid plans, not intra-day alerts. No free scan or trial.

2. Otterly.AI

Best for: Daily mention checks on a small prompt set

Every plan tracks ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. Daily.

The add-ons on Lite:

• Gemini: $9/mo
• AI Mode: $9/mo
• Claude: $29/mo

Higher plans (Standard $189/mo for 100 prompts, Premium $489/mo for 400) add workspaces, Looker Studio, API and MCP.

Daily cadence is the reason to pick it over a weekly tool. You know a mention dropped within a day. Not after the Monday report.

Fifteen prompts is the limit that bites.

Use it when: a handful of head prompts matter every day.

Skip it when: you need Gemini in the base price. Or 50 prompts without jumping to $189/mo.

3. Peec AI

Best for: Daily visibility and position against competitors

Peec's page lists visibility, position, sentiment and share of voice. Tracked daily, against competitors.

• Starter: $95/mo. 50 prompts.
• Pro: $245/mo. 150 prompts, 2 projects.
• Advanced: $495/mo. 350 prompts. Adds a Looker Studio integration.

Use it when: a marketing team wants daily movement against competitors, and a Looker connector.

Skip it when: you need the monitor to output a page brief.

4. Profound

Best for: High-frequency enterprise mention monitoring

Profound's pricing page lists a free Trial and a custom Enterprise plan.

• Trial: no history, no exports, no API.
• Enterprise: up to 9 engines.

Large brands buy it when "monitoring" means analysts, regions and crawler logs.

Semrush describes near-real-time change detection, CSV/API workflows and ChatGPT Shopping on Enterprise. Zapier calls out Conversation Explorer.

Use it when: you have a data team and a compliance review.

Skip it when: you wanted self-serve mention tracking this week.

5. Ahrefs Brand Radar

Best for: Market-level mention share, not a fixed watchlist

Most mention tools start from prompts you invent.

Brand Radar's AI Visibility Index (€179/mo) starts from search demand. Ahrefs says it covers 449M real prompts people ask AI platforms, retested monthly.

That reduces the "we only tracked the questions we already knew" bias.

Custom Prompts (from €47/mo) track questions you define. Daily, weekly or monthly, per platform. You see mentions, citations, AI share of voice and estimated impressions.

Use it when: leadership wants "how often are we named in this category?"

Skip it when: you want a flat price per prompt. Ahrefs meters usage in checks. 5 prompts on 1 platform, checked daily, is 150 checks a month.

6. Semrush AI Visibility

Best for: Mention tracking next to keyword and backlink data

Tracking has to live next to Site Audit and Position Tracking? This is the path of least resistance.

• Base: 25 prompts, one domain.
• 50 prompts: needs the SEO + AI Search plan. It has a free trial.

Billing is per domain and per sub-user. Extra users from $45/mo.

A bad surprise if you expected unlimited seats like Otterly.

Use it when: the same person already opens Semrush every morning.

Skip it when: AI mentions are the only job and you don't want the suite.

7. Waikay

Best for: Catching wrong facts in AI answers, not only presence

Most monitors count mentions. Waikay asks if the mention is true.

Dixon Jones's product builds a brand knowledge graph. It flags claims the model invented. Wrong price. Dead feature. Old HQ.

• Small Teams: $69.95/mo. Up to 120 prompts on ChatGPT, Google, Claude and Sonar.
• Free plan: 3 credits that don't renew.
• Early-adopter plan: $24.95/mo for 8 credits a month.

A different job from a five-engine tracker. Reputation, not share of voice.

Use it when: hallucinated product facts cost you deals.

Skip it when: you still don't know if you're mentioned at all.

8. Nightwatch

Best for: SEO agencies that already rank-track and want AI mentions in the same report

Nightwatch is a rank tracker first.

Every plan tracks six AI platforms. Claude included. 14-day trial. No per-seat fees.

• Starter: €79/mo billed yearly. 50 prompts.
• Professional: €159/mo. 150 prompts. White-label reports start here.
• Agency: €399/mo. 500 prompts.

Useful if the client report already comes from Nightwatch and you refuse a second dashboard.

Use it when: Google ranks and AI mentions must share one PDF.

Skip it when: chat-engine coverage is the product, not a module.

Also worth a look

• LLM Pulse: weekly by default, daily as a separate plan option. Growth adds sentiment analysis.
• Mangools AI Search Watcher: runs each prompt several times and averages the results. Its page lists no price.
• Surfer AI Tracker: tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews, AI Mode and Perplexity.

For a head-to-head of AI SEO Tracker, Otterly, Peec and Profound, see the tracker comparison.

How often to scan

"Real-time" is a loose word in this market.

• Daily: Otterly, Nightwatch, Peec.
• Weekly: AI SEO Tracker's paid plans. LLM Pulse's defaults.

Does daily matter? Less than you'd think.

LLMs are non-deterministic. The same prompt twice can disagree.

cloro, an AI search API vendor, reran the same 20 prompts on the same model minutes apart.

Only about 40% of the cited domains repeated.

(A small test. 20 prompts, one day. Read it as instability, not a constant.)

So what do you do with daily data?

cloro's rule of thumb:

• 50 prompts on 6 engines, sampled daily, is 2,100 answers a week.
• A week-over-week read is sound.
• A day-over-day read is noise.

Our $49 report is up to 1,750 answers in a week (50 prompts x 5 engines x 7 days). So read that week as one snapshot.

And alert on a run of misses. Not one missing answer. cloro's example: a mention rate under 15% for 7 days in a row.

A simple monitoring setup

1. Pick 20 to 50 buyer prompts. "Best X for Y". Not branded vanity queries only.
2. Track you + 3 competitors on the same set.
3. Freeze the set for a measurement window. Prompt tracking compares like with like only if the set stays fixed. Log mention, citation URL and snippet every week. Read the rate per engine. See how to measure AI brand visibility.
4. When a competitor wins, open the cited listicle. Pitch that page. That's how ChatGPT ranking moves. Keep GEO work on pages the models already cite.

Need the first dataset without a subscription? The AI SEO Tracker $49 audit is a 7-day mention week you keep.

FAQ

What software monitors AI search mentions?

Two kinds.

• Dedicated trackers: AI SEO Tracker, Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Profound, LLM Pulse. They rerun prompts on AI engines and flag brand names.
• Suite add-ons: Semrush, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Nightwatch. Same job, inside a larger SEO tool.

How many prompts should I track?

Enough to cover the jobs you sell.

Fifty commercial prompts is a solid start. That's the $49 report size, and the entry plan at Peec, Nightwatch, Surfer and LLM Pulse.

Fifteen is a pulse (Otterly Lite).

Do I need sentiment tracking?

Only if models describe you badly or invent facts.

Presence first. Sentiment second.

Peec, Surfer, Semrush and LLM Pulse (Growth) list sentiment. Waikay checks facts rather than tone.

Can I track mentions for free?

You can check by hand: ChatGPT brand monitoring. For one quick answer, use the free AI Visibility Checker. It asks ChatGPT one question.

Free options from vendors:

• Nightwatch: 14-day trial, no card.
• Profound: 7-day trial.
• Otterly: free trial.
• Waikay: free plan with 3 credits that don't renew.

Mangools AI Search Grader is a free score. Not a monitor.

Do any trackers show sponsored answers or ChatGPT ads?

Otterly lists ChatGPT Ads Tracking on every plan.

Peec has an ads library of prompts where AI answers carry a sponsored placement.

How do I track Google AI Overviews over time?

Pick a tracker that names AI Overviews and reruns on a schedule. See how to track Google AI Overviews.