article · October 25, 2026 · Gregory Shevchenko

AEO & GEO Software Pricing & ROI Comparison (2026): Trackers vs. Closed-Loop Platforms

By Gregory Shevchenko · CEO/CTO, Humanswith.AI · since 2019

· 5-min read

2026 pricing, engine add-on fees, and TCO comparison across Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Scrunch AI, Profound, traditional agencies, and Humanswith.ai — plus how to track ROI from owned-domain links to CRM pipeline.

All posts Book strategy call

Cited across

  • ChatGPT
  • Gemini
  • Google AIO
  • Google AI Mode
  • Perplexity
  • Copilot
Editorial cover for AEO & GEO Software Pricing & ROI Comparison (2026) featuring ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, prepared for humanswith.ai

When B2B marketing leaders compare AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) software pricing in 2026, list prices appear to span two orders of magnitude — from $29/month for an entry rank tracker to $4,977/month for a closed-loop platform or $10,000+/month for a traditional B2B agency [1][2]. The mistake is comparing a dashboard login that only counts mentions against an execution system that writes the articles, deploys Schema.org JSON-LD, and manages ChatGPT Ads.

In October 2026, our team at Humanswith.ai re-read the full pricing pages and add-on matrices of the leading AI visibility vendors (Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Scrunch AI, and Profound) and benchmarked them against our 5-turn buyer dialog study (Conversation Gauntlet Run #12). Below is the complete total cost of ownership (TCO) breakdown and two-stage ROI model.

In this article

Section 01

Published monthly pricing & hidden add-ons compared (October 2026)

On self-serve monitoring tools, the headline tier price rarely includes all the answer engines your buyers actually use or the editorial headcount required to act on the data:

Platform / Model Published Base Plans (Oct 2026) Per-Engine & Prompt Add-On Fees Articles & Technical Execution Included Effective Monthly TCO (with 10–20 Articles/mo)
Otterly.AI (/compare/ai-visibility-vs-otterly/) Lite $29 (15 prompts) · Standard $189 (100 prompts) · Premium $489 (400 prompts); daily tracking of 4 base engines Google AI Mode & Gemini: +$9/mo (Lite), +$59/mo (Standard), +$149/mo (Premium) each; Claude: +$29 / +$109 / +$439/mo; +100 prompts: +$99/mo 0 articles — automated GEO URL audit checklist only $416/mo software (Standard + 3 engine add-ons) + $4,000–$8,000/mo internal/freelance writers
Peec AI (/compare/ai-visibility-vs-peec/) Starter $95 (50 prompts) · Pro $245 (150 prompts) · Advanced $495 (350 prompts); daily tracking Capped at 3 models of choice on all self-serve plans; 4+ models require custom Enterprise 0 articles — monitoring dashboard + Looker Studio on Advanced $245–$495/mo software + $4,000–$8,000/mo internal/freelance writers
Scrunch AI (/compare/ai-visibility-vs-scrunch/) Core $250/mo (125 prompts, 5,000 responses, 5 site audits, 5 seats) Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Mode require upgrading to custom Enterprise 0 published articles — self-serve audit tips & drafting tools $250/mo software + $4,000–$8,000/mo internal writers & SEO engineers
Profound (/compare/ai-visibility-vs-profound/) From $499/mo to $2,250+/mo (600-prompt enterprise quotes) Custom enterprise contract metering 0 articles — analytics & prompt response logs $2,250+/mo software + $6,000–$12,000/mo internal content & SEO team
Traditional B2B SEO/GEO Agencies $6,000–$18,000/mo retainers (6–12 month lock-in) Extra fees for multi-language or technical schema sprints 4 to 10 manual articles/mo (~$800–$1,500 per article) $6,000–$18,000/mo total
Humanswith.ai (/pricing/) Starter $149 (100 prompts) · Growth $1,497 (500 prompts) · Scale $2,977 (1,000 prompts) · Outlier $4,977 (2,000 prompts) $0 per-engine add-on fees — covers up to 6 global / 10 regional engines; AI Ads fee +20% / +15% / +12% / +9% Included: Starter 1 article/mo, Growth up to 10/mo, Scale up to 20/mo, Outlier up to 40/mo (40+ on Custom) + Schema.org & llms.txt $149 to $4,977/mo all-in (tracking + ContentOS production + technical readiness)

Section 02

Why 100 prompts on Starter ($149) beats a $189–$416 tracker-only subscription

At the standard B2B starting benchmark of 100 commercial prompts: - On Otterly.AI Standard, tracking 100 prompts across the 4 base engines costs $189/month ($1.89/prompt), and adding Google AI Mode (+$59), Google Gemini (+$59), and Claude (+$109) brings the monthly software bill to $416/month — with zero articles written. - On Humanswith.ai Starter, tracking 100 prompts in ChatGPT costs $149/month ($1.49/prompt), includes 1 governed, fact-checked article produced in ContentOS, and unlocks AI Ads Arbitrage (+20% of ad spend) [1][3]. - When you scale to Growth ($1,497/mo for 500 prompts and up to 10 articles/mo) or Scale ($2,977/mo for 1,000 prompts and up to 20 articles/mo), your effective unit cost drops to ~$149 per published, schema-marked B2B article — with multi-engine tracking included at no extra charge.

Section 03

How to measure AEO & GEO ROI: from Owned-Domain Link Rate to CRM pipeline and CAC

A valid criticism of the AI visibility software market is that many vendors sell "Share of Voice" charts that never connect to pipeline or revenue. At Humanswith.ai, we measure ROI across a strict two-stage funnel:

  1. Stage 1 — Owned-Domain Link Rate (19%–20% target) & 5-Turn Dialog Survival: An unlinked brand mention in ChatGPT or an unnamed "ghost citation" (owned_link_unnamed — 144 found in our US audit and 473 in RU) generates zero clicks. Furthermore, in our 5-turn Conversation Gauntlet benchmark, over 60% of Turn 1 vendors are eliminated by Turn 4 (budget drop) when their site hides pricing behind "Contact Sales." We engineer open pricing tables, Schema.org JSON-LD (Organization, SoftwareApplication, Service, FAQPage) for Google Search RAG grounding [2][4], and curated /llms.txt v2 indexes for LLM/agentic crawlers (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot) [3] to drive 19%–20% clickable owned-domain link share.
  2. Stage 2 — AI Referral Sessions, Assisted SQLs, and CAC in GA4 & CRM: Once clickable links are live in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Copilot, referral visits arrive with inspectable sources (utm_source=chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, copilot.microsoft.com). We segment these cohorts in GA4 / Yandex.Metrika and HubSpot / CRM alongside self-reported attribution. Across our own B2B funnel since July 2026, 100% of new paying customers discovered Humanswith.ai inside AI answers, converting at 3–5× the rate of cold search traffic because the AI dialog pre-qualified reviews, case proof, and budget.
B2B Client & Vertical Market & Non-Branded Prompt Panel AI Visibility & Mention Lift Owned-Domain Link Rate & Commercial Proof
Birdview PSA (Project Management SaaS) USA & Canada · 211 non-branded prompts ChatGPT share rose from 0.9% to 21.5% in 8 weeks (×23 lift) #1 of 12 PSA brands in USA · 170 clickable domain links (13.43% link rate)
WEISAN (Industrial Equipment) Russia · 230 non-branded prompts (2,530 answers) 43.48% prompt mention rate (100 prompts) · 13.00% visibility 20.11% owned-domain link rate (508 direct links — #1 among 10 manufacturers)
Perfect Panel (B2B SaaS Infrastructure) Global · 215 non-branded prompts (2,365 answers) 56.74% prompt mention rate (122 prompts) · 13.66% visibility 19.67% owned-domain link rate (465 clickable links across ChatGPT & Perplexity)
Raqma (B2B Digital & Enterprise Tech) MENA & UAE (Dubai) · 594 prompts (2,935 answers) 23.91% prompt mention rate (142 prompts) · 24.47% in AR & EN 19.22% owned-domain link rate (564 direct clickable links to domain)
Enterprise SME Banking Russia & Europe · 498 prompts (5,478 answers) 98.80% prompt mention rate · 53.77% answer visibility Category leader across all 10 tracked AI engines

Section 04

Frequently asked questions

How much does AEO and GEO software cost per month in 2026?

Self-serve AI visibility trackers cost $29 to $495/month (Otterly.AI Lite $29, Standard $189, Premium $489; Peec AI $95–$495; Scrunch AI Core $250) for rank tracking and URL audit checklists without article writing. Humanswith.ai publishes four closed-loop plans that bundle multi-engine tracking, ContentOS article production, and AI Ads management: Starter at $149/mo (100 prompts, 1 article), Growth at $1,497/mo (500 prompts, up to 10 articles), Scale at $2,977/mo (1,000 prompts, up to 20 articles), and Outlier at $4,977/mo (2,000 prompts, 2 scans/mo, up to 40 articles) [1][2].

What are the hidden engine add-on costs on Otterly.AI?

On Otterly.AI Standard ($189/mo for 100 prompts across 4 base engines), Google AI Mode is +$59/mo, Google Gemini is +$59/mo, and Claude is +$109/mo ($416/mo total with all three add-ons), plus $99 per 100 extra prompts. On Premium ($489/mo), Google AI Mode and Gemini are +$149/mo each and Claude is +$439/mo.

Does llms.txt improve rankings in Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode?

No. Google Search Central's official AI Optimization Guide (#mythbusting) states that Google Search (including AI Overviews and AI Mode) ignores llms.txt and relies on core Search indexing, RAG grounding, and query fan-out [2]. We use Schema.org JSON-LD and HTML comparison tables for Google AI Mode, while maintaining curated /llms.txt v2 indexes for LLM/agentic crawlers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity) [3][4].

Section 05

Sources

[1] Aggarwal et al. (Princeton University, Georgia Tech, Allen Institute for AI, IIT Delhi) — GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (KDD 2024) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.09735

[2] Google Search Central — Optimizing Your Website for Generative AI Features on Google Search (AI Overviews and AI Mode) — https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide

[3] OpenAI Platform Documentation — Web Crawlers: OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, and GPTBot — https://platform.openai.com/docs/bots

[4] Schema.org & W3C — Organization, SoftwareApplication, and FAQPage JSON-LD 1.1 Specification — https://schema.org/FAQPage

For your team

Stop hiring agencies and freelancers

Hire not agencies and freelancers — but Marketing AI Agents for the AI Search.

  • Per-engine citation map across 7 AI engines
  • Content + schema work that earns the citation
  • Honest 30-min strategy call before you commit

Cited across

  • ChatGPT
  • Gemini
  • Google AIO
  • Google AI Mode
  • Perplexity
  • Copilot
Book strategy call See pricing →

Want to talk?

Book the strategy call. Thirty minutes, free.

An engineer from the team runs your brand through Hermes before the call.

You arrive to a per-engine citation map of your category, the closeable gaps, and an honest read on whether any tier fits.

Book the strategy call → More posts