Tested & updated 2026-07-07 · honest comparison

Best AEO tools and services for developer-tools companies (2026)

By Reviewed & updated Measurement-first: figures are median share-of-model with 95% confidence intervals. How we measure.

The real choice set - AI-visibility dashboards AND the done-for-you agencies that actually do the work - compared on the same criteria, with sourced facts and honest drawbacks for every entry, ours included.

Get your tool measured — free See the measured leaderboards

Disclosure: Clear Cited runs this page. Our own entry is written in the first person ("we"/"our") so the bias is visible, and every entry - including ours - lists real drawbacks. Facts about other vendors are quoted from their own public materials and dated; we last verified them on 2026-07-07. Verify anything that matters to your decision directly with each vendor.

Short answer: if you have an in-house specialist, a monitoring tool (Profound for depth, Otterly for a low entry price, AthenaHQ for a free tier) tracks your AI visibility. If you want it measured and fixed for you, a done-for-you service - an agency like Omniscient or Animalz, or our own productized service - does the schema, content and citation work. Enterprise with a complex site? Profound or iPullRank. The right pick depends on who does the fixing.

First fork: a tool, or done-for-you?

This is the real buyer question - and most "best AEO" lists skip it. A dashboard/tool measures your AI visibility; a done-for-you service measures it and does the schema, content and citation work that moves it. A tool tells you you're invisible; it doesn't fix it.

If you...Buy thisWhy
have an in-house specialist to act on the data every weekA tool / dashboardYou own the fixing; you just need the measurement and alerts.
want it measured and fixed for you, without a $10k/mo agencyA done-for-you serviceThe work - not the dashboard - is what moves share-of-model.
are enterprise with a complex site and a big teamAn enterprise tool or agencyDepth and seats matter more than a fixed price; see the enterprise picks below.

The tools (dashboards that measure your AI visibility)

Profound

Dashboard / tool

An AI-search visibility platform - their positioning: "Optimize Your Brand's Visibility in AI Search" - that tracks and helps improve how a brand appears in AI answer engines.

Pricing: Starter $99/mo (ChatGPT tracking only, billed yearly) / Growth $399/mo (3 answer engines, billed yearly) / Enterprise custom (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Engines tracked: Up to nine engines on Enterprise - ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and Grok among them, plus additional AI assistants and Google's AI surfaces; the Starter tier tracks ChatGPT alone and Growth covers three (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: Enterprise and mid-market teams with an in-house owner for AI visibility who want the deepest dataset in the category.

Peec AI

Dashboard / tool

"AI search analytics for marketing teams" - brand-visibility tracking across AI search platforms with competitive benchmarking and source analysis.

Pricing: Four tiers (Starter / Pro / Advanced / Enterprise), but the exact figures render only client-side on their pricing page - confirm current prices with the vendor; extra AI models beyond a tier's included set are priced extra (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Engines tracked: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini in the base set, with Claude and other models (DeepSeek, Mistral) available as add-ons, plus AI Overviews / AI Mode and other assistants; base engines vary by tier (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: Marketing teams and agencies that live in dashboards and want European-built, team-oriented AI-visibility analytics.

Otterly

Dashboard / tool

An AI-search monitoring and optimization platform ("Your Partner for AI Search Monitoring, AEO & GEO") that tracks brand visibility and citations across generative engines.

Pricing: Lite $29/mo (15 prompts) / Standard $189/mo (100 prompts) / Premium $489/mo (400 prompts); ~15% off billed annually; extra engines (Claude, Gemini, AI Mode) are add-ons from $9/mo (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Engines tracked: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews and Microsoft's assistant in base plans; AI Mode, Gemini and Claude are paid add-ons (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: Smaller teams and solo marketers who want a low-cost, self-serve entry into AI-search monitoring.

AthenaHQ

Dashboard / tool

"Agents to Win on AI Search" - a GEO/AEO platform to track, monitor and optimize brand visibility across AI engines and LLM apps, with agentic content tooling.

Pricing: Essential free tier / Starter $295/mo (about $252/mo billed annually) / Enterprise custom (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Engines tracked: ChatGPT and Perplexity on the free tier, along with Gemini and Claude, plus AI Overviews; Grok, additional assistants and AI Mode come in across paid tiers (9+ models) (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: Teams that want to trial AI-visibility tracking free before committing, or want agentic content tooling alongside monitoring.

The done-for-you services (agencies that do the work)

The actual substitutes for hiring us - real AEO/GEO agencies serving this buyer today. Strengths from their own materials; limitations are verifiable facts, not invented weaknesses.

Omniscient Digital

Done-for-you service

A B2B SaaS organic-growth agency with a dedicated generative-engine-optimization (GEO) service: citation and competitor analysis, technical evaluation, an optimization roadmap, content production, brand-mention building and ongoing LLM visibility monitoring.

Pricing: Full-service engagements start at $10,000/mo (stated on their GEO services page) (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: Well-funded B2B SaaS ready to invest $10k+/mo in a combined SEO + GEO organic-growth program.

Animalz

Done-for-you service

A B2B SaaS content-marketing specialist (since 2015) with a dedicated answer-engine-optimization service: an AI visibility audit, strategy, micro content refreshes, new content, strategic citation outreach and Reddit community engagement.

Pricing: Pricing not published (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: B2B SaaS and devtools companies that want top-tier editorial content with AEO layered in, rather than a standalone GEO program.

Grizzle

Done-for-you service

A B2B/SaaS content and SEO agency (since 2016) selling "content, GEO, and SEO systems that capture buyers across Google, ChatGPT, YouTube, and whatever comes next" - GEO integrated into a multi-channel organic program.

Pricing: Pricing not published (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: B2B SaaS teams that want one agency running content, SEO, GEO and YouTube/digital PR as a single organic program.

First Page Sage

Done-for-you service

A large, long-established SEO firm (San Francisco) with dedicated AEO and GEO services built on a thought-leadership content model: AEO audit, authoritative content creation, technical implementation (schema/structured data) and continuous optimization.

Pricing: Not published for their own services; they publish market fee ranges for GEO work ($2,000-$12,000/mo across tiers, framed as market data), and third-party reporting places their own fees at the premium end with 6-12-month minimums (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: Enterprise B2B companies where premium executive thought-leadership content is the growth lever and budget is not the constraint.

iPullRank

Done-for-you service

An enterprise SEO agency (NYC) whose GEO offering, branded "Relevance Engineering", combines information retrieval, content strategy, UX, AI, measurement and digital PR for visibility across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and beyond.

Pricing: Pricing not published (source, 2026-07-07) (opens in a new tab)

Strengths:

Honest limitations:

Best for: Enterprise and mid-market companies with complex sites that want the most technically rigorous, engineering-led approach to AI search.

Our entry - Clear Cited (in our own words)

Clear Cited our entry

Done-for-you service

Our productized AI-search-optimization (AEO/GEO) service for developer tools and B2B SaaS: we measure share-of-model rigorously, fix the SEO foundation with real data, and produce the content + authority end-to-end - then prove it.

Pricing: $500 Starter Audit (one-time), retainers from $2,950/mo (Growth) to $12,000/mo (Authority) - fixed and public. (our pricing)

What we measure: the 5 AI engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Grok — plus Google's AI surfaces (AI Overviews & AI Mode), measured separately. (methodology)

Why we're different - with receipts:

  • A public, live-measured AI Visibility Index: nine developer-tools categories, re-measured on a cadence, with confidence intervals shown. (source, 2026-07-07)
  • Citation receipts: every piece we publish is attributed to the AI citations it earns - the engine, the prompt, and the date it was cited. (source, 2026-07-07)
  • A published methodology: median of repeated runs per engine with confidence intervals, and Google's AI surfaces reported separately. (source, 2026-07-07)
  • Fixed public pricing and an async, no-calls delivery model - every price on /pricing/, no discovery-call gate. (source, 2026-07-07)

Where we're the wrong pick (honest drawbacks):

  • We are a young studio: no long public case-study history yet (our case studies are clearly labelled illustrative until real ones exist).
  • We are a solo-operator studio by design - a deliberately small client roster and finite capacity, not a large account team.
  • No phone or call support, ever - everything is async and written. If you want weekly calls, we are the wrong pick.
  • A narrower vertical focus than generalist agencies: DevOps, developer tools and B2B SaaS. For e-commerce or consumer brands, pick a generalist above.

Best for: Developer-tools and B2B SaaS companies that want AI visibility measured and fixed for them, at a fixed published price, without enterprise-agency minimums or mandatory calls.

Live proof, not a promise. GitHub Actions leads CI/CD platforms with a 21.5% share-of-model (95% CI 19.7-23.3), across 500 AI answers - measured 2026-08-07. That engine-by-engine disagreement is exactly why per-engine measurement matters. See the category leaderboard →

The criteria table

The same properties across every entry - so the comparison is like-for-like. A "—" means the vendor doesn't state it in its public materials as of 2026-07-07; it is not evidence of absence.

VendorModelPricingPublishes a measurement methodology?Google AI surfaces measured separately?Per-piece citation receipts?Entry price
ProfoundToolPublished———$99/mo
Peec AIToolTalk to sales———Custom
OtterlyToolPublished———$29/mo
AthenaHQToolPublished———$295/mo
Omniscient DigitalDone-for-youPublished———$10,000/mo
AnimalzDone-for-youTalk to sales———Custom
GrizzleDone-for-youTalk to sales———Custom
First Page SageDone-for-youTalk to sales———$2,000
iPullRankDone-for-youTalk to sales———Custom
Clear CitedDone-for-youPublished (fixed)Yes, with CIsYesYes (unique)$500 / $2,950+/mo

Best for X - including when a competitor is the right call

A list that never recommends a competitor isn't a comparison, it's an ad. Here's where each is genuinely the best pick.

Best pickIf you are...Why
Clear Citeda dev-tools or B2B SaaS team that wants it measured AND fixed at a fixed public price, async, no callsmeasurement + the schema/content/citation work, without enterprise minimums.
Profoundenterprise with an in-house owner who wants the deepest dataset and the most enginesthe broadest engine coverage and richest prompt/agent analytics in the category.
Otterlya solo marketer or small team that just needs low-cost monitoring to startthe lowest published entry price ($29/mo) with a no-card trial.
AthenaHQa team that wants to trial AI-visibility tracking before paying anythingthe only genuinely free tier here, across five engines.
iPullRankan enterprise with a complex site that wants the most technically rigorous, engineering-led GEOIR/ML depth (embeddings, relevance engineering) beyond content-only GEO.
Omniscient Digitala well-funded SaaS ready to invest $10k+/mo in a combined SEO + GEO organic-growth programB2B-SaaS-native with a dedicated, published GEO service.

How we sourced this comparison

Every fact about another vendor is quoted from that vendor's own public materials and carries the source link + the date we verified it (we re-verify on a quarterly cadence). Roughly ~95% of the sources behind AI answers are third-party (Otterly) (opens in a new tab), so a comparison AI can trust has to be sourced, dated and fair - which is also why we keep our own bias visible rather than faking objectivity. Our measurement method (median of repeated runs per engine, confidence intervals, Google AI surfaces separate) is on our methodology page.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best AEO tool for developer-tools companies?

It depends on who acts on the data. If you have an in-house specialist, a dashboard like Profound (depth), Otterly (low entry price) or AthenaHQ (free tier) tracks your visibility. If you want it measured and fixed for you, a done-for-you service - an agency or our productized service - does the work. A tool tells you you're invisible; it doesn't fix it.

Do these tools track Claude?

Coverage varies and changes often - verify with each vendor. Profound and AthenaHQ cover Claude; on Otterly it's a paid add-on. Claude matters for developer tools because technical buyers lean on it, so we measure it (and Grok) and weight it for dev-tools categories.

Is a dashboard or a done-for-you service better?

A dashboard is right if you have someone in-house to act on the data. A done-for-you service is right if you want the schema, content and third-party citation work executed for you. The work - not the dashboard - is what moves share-of-model.

How did you keep this comparison fair?

Every competitor fact is quoted from that vendor's own public materials with the source link and the date we verified it, and re-checked quarterly. We state real strengths generously, list honest limitations, and - because we run this page - keep our own entry in visible 'we' voice with its own drawbacks. That transparency is what earns the citation.

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More comparisons: All comparisons · Best AEO for B2B SaaS · Profound alternatives · not sure what you need? Find your fit.

Most AEO optimizes only the slice of citations you own. Here's the whole map — all four tiers AI cites from, and how much of it we actually work.

Clear Cited works all four tiers

Coverage 100% · Control ~86% · Influence ~94% · Earned (best-effort)

Most AEO optimizes the ~44% you own. Clear Cited works all four tiers.

Control ~86% · influence ~94% · the last ~6% earned — worked, not guaranteed.

Source: Yext (6.8M citations), 2025-10 — a third-party citation-tier mix, not measured by our AI Visibility Index (which tracks share-of-model); illustrative of the tier split until we publish our own measured citation-source mix

Coverage is the scope of what we work — never a control or ranking guarantee. · See the full Citation Control Map →

The transparency wedge

A method you can reproduce

pre-registered prompt sets with published hashes, run counts and a confidence interval on every figure, and null results published on the same terms as positive ones - as standing practice, not a one-off study

at least 10 runs per engine (12 by default), spent adaptively — more on high-variance engines, fewer on stable ones, never below a 5-run floor Every presence figure carries a Wilson 95% confidence interval. Share of model carries a percentile bootstrap 95% confidence interval in the paid audit, and a Wilson 95% confidence interval in the public AI Visibility Index — the method matched to the metric and named per product, both computed from the actual runs.

Confidence intervals are reported honestly wide and named per product: presence uses a Wilson interval in both products; share-of-model uses a percentile bootstrap in the paid audit and a Wilson interval in the public Index, whose pooled denominator is clustered - so those Index intervals are narrower than a cluster-corrected estimate would give, and we say so. We never narrow a CI to look more certain than the data is.

We publish our run counts, our uncertainty and our pre-registered prompt sets. Across the 8 providers we checked on 2026-08-02: run counts 4 of 8 verified; 4 not verified; uncertainty on published figures 2 of 8 verified; 6 not verified; the prompt set published with the results 0 of 8 verified; 8 not verified. The full comparison, with each vendor’s own wording →

That is the wedge: a number you can re-run and get back. See the full method →

Hold us to it, and hold the others to it too — the 12 questions to ask anyone selling AI visibility, each one answered here with a link.

Comparison

What each of us publishes about how we measure

This compares disclosure, not features, because disclosure is checkable. Every cell was read from that vendor’s own pages on 2026-08-02. A cell we could not establish either way says “not verified” — it does not say no.

Publishes…A stated definition of what a citation isDistinguishes retrieved from citedHow many times each prompt is runUncertainty on the published figuresThe prompt set published with the resultsNull and unfavourable results
Clear Citedyesnot yetyesyesyesyes
Ahrefsyesyesnot verifiednot verifiednot verifiedyes
Semrush (with Kevin Indig)yesnot verifiednot verifiednot verifiednot verifiednot verified
Profoundyesnot verifiedyesyesnot verifiedyes
Evertunenot verifiedyesyesyesnot verifiednot verified
DataForSEOyesyesnot verifiednot verifiednot verifiedyes
Peec AIyesyesyesnot verifiednot verifiedyes
Otterly.aiyesnot verifiednot verifiednot verifiednot verifiedyes
DEJAN (Airank)not verifiedyesyesnot verifiednot verifiedyes

Surveyed 2026-08-02. Roster: Ahrefs, Semrush (with Kevin Indig), Profound, Evertune, DataForSEO, Peec AI, Otterly.ai, DEJAN (Airank). These are the vendors we checked, not a market total.

Where each row stands

What they do better