How to get cited by ChatGPT, and what the tools cost
People now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers instead of scrolling ten blue links. If your pages are not the ones being quoted, you are invisible in that channel, even if you rank well in normal search.
Two things get you cited: content that is easy to lift (clear answers, numbers, tables, dated facts) and being present in the sources these engines read. The tools below track the second part. The first part is still writing.
| Tool | Cheapest paid plan | What it tracks | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rankscale | $20/mo | AI visibility across answer engines | Solos and small sites testing the waters |
| Surfer SEO | $49/mo, AI Tracker at $95/mo | Content scoring plus AI visibility | Teams already writing in Surfer |
| Frase | $49/mo | SEO and GEO scores, AI visibility on ChatGPT and Google AI | Solo writers who want briefs and drafting together |
| Peec AI | about $99/mo (billed in euros) | Position, sentiment and citations across chosen engines | Marketing teams reporting on brand mentions |
| Profound | $99/mo, real setups from $399/mo | Citation graphs, prompt-level benchmarking | Brands with a budget and a competitor to beat |
| Clearscope | $129/mo | Content optimisation, no AI-citation tracking | Editors who mainly care about ranking |
Before you pay anyone: the free version
Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI mode the questions your customers ask, and write down who gets named. Do it twenty times. You now have a baseline, and you know exactly which competitors are being quoted instead of you. That exercise costs nothing and tells you whether a tracking tool is worth buying at all.
The cheap end is genuinely useful now
Rankscale at $20 a month and Frase at $49 cover the basics: are you mentioned, where, and how often versus competitors. For a single site, that is enough. The $99 to $399 tier exists for teams running multi-brand reporting, and the enterprise tier exists for compliance and white-label needs, not for better answers.
Watch the per-engine pricing
This is the trap in the category. A $99 plan often tracks three engines, and adding Claude, Gemini, Grok or Copilot costs extra per model per month. One tracker charges around $30 per extra engine on the cheapest plan and up to $140 on a higher one, so a $200 subscription can quietly become $500. Decide which two or three engines your buyers actually use before you add models.
What actually gets you cited
- Answer first. Put the direct answer in the first two sentences, then explain. Extractors take the top of the page.
- Numbers and dates. "Prices checked October 2026" and specific figures survive quotation; adjectives do not.
- Tables. Comparison tables get lifted whole, and they carry your brand name with them.
- Plain headings that match the question. If someone asks it that way, structure the page that way.
- Be reachable by AI crawlers. Some trackers show which AI bots hit which pages. If GPTBot and PerplexityBot are blocked in your robots.txt, no amount of writing helps.
What we would pay for
For one site: nothing at first, then Rankscale at $20 or Frase at $49 once you have something to track. Skip the $400 tier until you are managing several brands, and never buy a plan without checking what each extra engine costs.
One note: AI pricing moves fast. We read these numbers off the vendors' own pricing pages in October 2026, so check the current price before you buy.
Where to check the current price
These are the official pages we read while writing this guide. Plain links, no tracking, no middlemen. If a number here disagrees with what you see, trust their page and tell us so we can fix it.
- Peec AI pricing
- Profound (book a demo)
- Surfer pricing
- Frase pricing
- Clearscope pricing
- Writesonic pricing
Frequently asked questions
What is AEO and is it different from SEO?
Answer engine optimisation is about being quoted inside AI answers rather than ranking in a list of links. The writing discipline overlaps, but extractability, dated facts and tables matter more, and ranking position matters less.
Do I need a paid tool to improve AI visibility?
No. Asking the engines your customers use, twenty times, gives you a working baseline for free. Paid tools automate that tracking and add competitor comparisons, which is worth it once you are publishing regularly.
Why is my site not cited by ChatGPT?
Usually three reasons: AI crawlers are blocked in your robots.txt, the answer is buried in the middle of the page instead of the top, or no other source links to you. Engines lean on sources they can corroborate.
How much do AI visibility tools cost?
From about $20 a month at the low end, $49 to $99 for most single-brand needs, and $399 upward for agency and enterprise reporting. Extra engines are usually billed per model, which is where the costs really climb.
Should I block AI crawlers or allow them?
If you want to be cited, allow them. Blocking GPTBot or PerplexityBot keeps your content out of the answer layer entirely, which is a choice worth making deliberately rather than by accident.