11 Best Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) Software in 2026

Most "AEO tools" are really trackers. They tell you ChatGPT skipped you, and then leave you to figure out the rest.

Answer engine optimization software should help with the actual optimizing. That means writing answer-ready content, fixing the technical stuff AI crawlers trip on, covering the fan-out questions AI engines search, and earning mentions on the sites they cite.

We compared 11 AEO tools on that. Checked September 2026.

Disclosure: Orchly is our product, and it's our #1 pick here. We've signed up for and used most of these tools, some notes come from customers who switched to us, and the rest comes from G2 reviews and user forums. You'll find the good and the bad for every tool, ours too.

AEO software compared

1. Orchly: best AEO software that does the optimizing with you

Orchly covers all four sides of AEO in one place: content, technical, off-site and measurement.

It tracks your prompts daily in the real ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews interfaces. Gemini, AI Mode, Claude and Grok are add-ons. Then its agents work on what the data shows.

Content that answer engines can use

• Content Agent. It looks at prompts you're losing and pages that are slipping in Search Console, then suggests new articles and refreshes.
• AI article writer. Drafts in your brand voice using Brand Brain, your stored facts about products, pricing and audience. It publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Framer, Wix, Sanity or Ghost after you approve.

• Query fan-outs. AI engines quietly run several related searches before answering. Orchly shows you those fan-out queries, so your page covers what the engine actually looked up.

Technical AEO

• Site Health Agent. Audits your pages for technical SEO and AI search issues and ranks them by priority.

• Page scores. Every page you track gets separate SEO, AEO and GEO scores, so you can see which ones aren't answer-ready.
• AI crawler tracking. On Pro, see when GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and others crawl your pages, plus the real visitors AI sends you.

Off-site AEO

• Activation Agent. Finds the pages, Reddit threads and YouTube videos AI cites for your topics. Then it drafts outreach and sends it from your own inbox after you approve.

Proof it worked

• Search Console, GA4 and AI visibility, side by side. See whether a refreshed page picked up AI citations, clicks and revenue. Our Search Console integration makes that a single view.

Where Orchly falls short

• No schema generator or llms.txt builder. To be fair, Google says neither is needed for its AI features (more on that below).
• Add-on engines. Gemini, AI Mode, Claude and Grok cost extra.

Pricing: Essential $49/month (25 prompts, 20 articles). Pro $125/month (100 prompts, 50 articles, AI traffic analytics). 7-day free trial.
Best for: teams that want AEO done end to end, not just measured.

See Orchly pricing or start a free trial.

2. Profound: best enterprise AEO platform

Profound started as an AI visibility tracker and has grown into optimization. It raised a $180M Series D at a $1.8B valuation in September 2026.

Its AI Marketer agents handle content refreshes, competitive monitoring, citation tracking and media outreach. There's an approval step before anything goes live, and it publishes to Webflow and Framer.

On the technical side, Agent Analytics shows AI bot visits from your CDN logs. With Enterprise-only pricing, it's aimed at larger brands with a dedicated team.

What we like

• Deep data. Prompt Volumes plus up to nine engines on Enterprise, including Claude, Copilot, DeepSeek, AI Mode and Exa. G2 reviewers call out the data depth.
• Agents that do the work. AI Marketer refreshes content and handles media outreach, and nothing publishes until you approve it.
• Big review base. It has the largest G2 review base in the category, and reviewers regularly praise the support.
• Enterprise ready. SSO/SAML, SOC 2 and Context Manager for your brand knowledge come with Enterprise.

Where it falls short

• No self-serve plan. The paid Starter and Growth plans were removed in mid-September 2026. You get a 7-day trial, then a sales call.
• Hard to justify for small teams. G2 reviewers flag the cost, especially for smaller companies paying month to month.
• No classic SEO toolkit. There's no rank tracker, keyword research or site audit, so you'll still need an SEO tool next to it.

Pricing: free 7-day trial (50 prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews), then Enterprise (custom).
Best for: enterprise brands with a dedicated AEO team and budget for a sales-led contract.

3. AirOps: best for building custom AEO workflows

AirOps is a content engineering platform. You build workflows that go from topic to brief to draft to refresh, powered by your own knowledge bases and brand context.

Its AEO side is mostly content. You also get onsite and offsite opportunity reports and page-level performance, and in May 2026 it launched an autonomous content optimization agent.

It suits content ops teams who'd rather design their own pipeline than follow a fixed one.

What we like

• Very flexible. You shape workflows around how your team already works. G2 reviewers single out customization and automation.
• Training and support. Its Content Engineering Cohort training gets good marks, and reviewers praise the support. G2 rates it around 4.6.
• Free way in. The Solo plan is free with 35k tasks, though it only covers ChatGPT insights and one seat.
• Off-site pointers. Offsite opportunity reports show where to work beyond your own site.

Where it falls short

• Steep learning curve. More than 25 G2 reviews mention it, and many put implementation at about a month.
• Costs can surprise you. Task-based billing is hard to predict, and Pro and Enterprise are quote-only.
• Tracking is secondary. Some reviewers mention limits in GEO tracking and occasional workflow errors.

Pricing: free Solo plan (35k tasks, ChatGPT only). Pro and Enterprise by quote. 14-day trial.
Best for: content ops teams with someone who enjoys building their own pipelines.

4. Writesonic: best for AEO on a mid-size budget

Writesonic started as an AI writer and now wraps GEO tools around it. Its GEO Action Center explains why you're missing from an answer and what to do about it.

It covers the technical side too. It audits robots.txt, schema and indexing, and says it catches 404 and 500 errors served to AI crawlers like GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot.

Off-site, it surfaces Reddit threads, YouTube videos and listicles that cite competitors, then drafts outreach. It fits content teams that publish a lot and want tracking in the same tool.

What we like

• A lot for the price. The writer, query fan-outs, crawler checks and outreach drafts all start at $79 a month billed yearly.
• Mature writer. It drafts content and publishes to WordPress.
• Search Console on every plan. GSC is included on all tiers. GA4 is Enterprise.
• Easy to try. There's a free trial, no card needed.

Where it falls short

• Three engines below Enterprise. Starter, Basic and Growth optimize against ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews only. Perplexity and Claude need Enterprise.
• Drafts need editing. G2 reviewers say output needs heavy editing and factual accuracy is inconsistent.
• Billing complaints. It scores 4.6 on Trustpilot across 5,000+ reviews, but some reviewers say they were charged after cancelling.

Pricing: Starter $79, Basic $199, Growth $399 per month billed yearly (about $99, $249 and $499 monthly). Enterprise custom.
Best for: content teams that write at volume and mainly care about ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews.

5. AthenaHQ: best for Shopify and e-commerce AEO

AthenaHQ turns visibility gaps into on-page and off-page tasks in its Action Center, where a content optimization agent drafts the fixes.

Its content workspace is spreadsheet-style, with AI agent columns that generate, import and publish content. The Shopify integration publishes AEO content and ties it to revenue, and Shopping Pages arrived in August 2026.

That makes it a natural fit for e-commerce brands, especially on Shopify.

What we like

• Easy to start. The free tier gives you 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot.
• Wide engine coverage. Starter covers 11 engines, adding Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta and Mistral.
• Revenue link. Shopify and GA4 connect your AEO content to sales.
• Well rated. G2 rates it 4.9 (34 reviews as of June 2026), and it was a Spring 2026 High Performer. Reviewers like the agents and the responsive support.

Where it falls short

• Credits burn fast. One credit is one response. Running all 11 engines, $295 covers about 10 prompts a day, and some G2 reviewers used a month of credits in a week.
• Best features are Enterprise-only. The Knowledge Base, hallucination detection and the ACE citation engine need Enterprise.
• Multi-brand friction. Reviewers mention clunky switching between brand workspaces.

Pricing: free tier (300 credits). Starter $295/month (3,600 credits). Enterprise custom.
Best for: Shopify and e-commerce brands that want AEO content tied to revenue.

6. Scrunch: best for AI crawler experience

Scrunch is known for AXP, its Agent Experience Platform. It sits at your CDN edge (Cloudflare, Akamai or Vercel), detects AI retrieval bots and serves them a compressed, JavaScript-free, structured version of your pages. People still see your normal site.

Beyond AXP, it tracks seven engines on every plan and adds page audits, agent traffic monitoring, personas and misinformation detection. Knowledge Studio launched in June 2026, the same month Sitecore acquired Scrunch.

It leans technical and measurement-first, so it suits teams with engineering help.

What we like

• A new take on technical AEO. AXP works on how AI bots read your site, not just what they say about you. Scrunch reports that Akamai's AXP pages were cited 85% more between December 2025 and January 2026 (vendor data).
• Seven engines on every plan. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews and Meta, even on Starter.
• Good for data teams. G2 reviewers (around 4.6 to 4.7) like the clean dashboard, the API and raw data export.
• Brand accuracy checks. Misinformation detection and personas help you spot where AI answers about you go wrong.

Where it falls short

• No content or outreach. It doesn't write content or run outreach, and some G2 reviewers say it tells you the problem more than how to fix it.
• AXP takes engineering. It's an edge setup project, and the pricing page doesn't say which plans include it. Google's guide also says you don't need special AI versions of pages for its AI features.
• Setup and roadmap. Reviewers mention complex setup and export and reporting limits, and the Sitecore deal adds some roadmap uncertainty.

Pricing: Starter $250/month billed yearly ($300 monthly), Growth $417 ($500). Enterprise custom. 7-day trial, no card.
Best for: technical teams at larger brands with access to their CDN.

7. Search Atlas: best for automated on-page fixes

Search Atlas is an SEO suite with AI visibility built in. Its OTTO pixel deploys technical fixes, schema, entities, internal links and meta tags straight to your site.

Per LinkGraph, its sister company, OTTO's GEO Actions kick in when a competitor's AI visibility beats yours by more than 25% on a query. It then suggests actions it can deploy automatically.

It also includes Content Genius for writing, Website Studio and Atlas Agent, and there's an Agency tier from $999 a month.

What we like

• Bulk fixes without a developer. Reviewers praise pushing on-page changes across many pages at once.
• One login. Writer, site builder, on-page automation and LLM visibility sit in the same suite.
• Reasonable entry price. Starter is $79 a month, with a 7-day trial.
• Helpful team. Some reviewers praise a responsive team and useful webinars.

Where it falls short

• Automation needs watching. Some Trustpilot reviewers say OTTO added schema without approval, so check what it deploys.
• Billing and support complaints. Reviews mention surprise crawl-quota charges, glitches and dismissive support. Sentiment is split.
• Thin AI visibility detail. LLM Visibility isn't on Starter, and third-party reviewers say it rolls mentions and citations into one score with no page-level citation detail.

Pricing: Starter $79/month. Growth $159/month adds LLM Visibility (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode). Pro $319/month covers five engines. 7-day trial.
Best for: agencies that want on-page fixes automated and have time to review them.

8. Frase: best budget AEO content tool

Frase is a content tool first. It goes from research to brief to draft, scores pages with a GEO score and sends Content Guard alerts when pages decay.

It publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Sanity, Wix and its own FraseCMS. An AI Agent with 80+ skills and a read-write MCP server can also run workflows like FAQ schema generation.

It suits small content teams that want answer-ready drafts without a big bill.

What we like

• Fast research. G2 reviewers (4.8 from 305 reviews) like the quick SERP research and easy setup.
• Low price. Starter is $39 a month billed yearly, with 10 articles and 50 prompts.
• Wide CMS publishing. Five publishing targets cover most small-team stacks.
• Agent and MCP. You can plug its MCP server into your own AI tools.

Where it falls short

• Few engines on cheaper plans. Starter tracks ChatGPT and Google AI, and Professional adds Perplexity. Claude and Gemini need Scale.
• No technical or off-site layer. We found no AI crawler logs or citation outreach.
• Drafts need work. Reviewers say drafts take 30 to 60 minutes of editing. Some lifetime-deal users were also unhappy after the February 2026 rebuild left them on the legacy version.

Pricing: Starter $39/month billed yearly ($49 monthly), Professional $103 ($129), Scale $239 ($299). 7-day trial.
Best for: small content teams on a budget.

9. Semrush: best for technical AEO audits

Semrush is the big SEO suite, owned by Adobe since April 2026. Its AEO features split into a technical audit and a visibility toolkit.

Site Audit now includes AI Search Health. It checks whether crawlers like OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot, Google and Perplexity are blocked in robots.txt, and whether your llms.txt is present and set up.

The AI Visibility Toolkit adds prompt research with volume and intent from 261 million prompts, plus prompts where competitors get cited and you don't. It makes the most sense if you already use Semrush.

What we like

• Great research data. Prompt volumes and intent help you choose which questions are worth targeting.
• Clear technical checks. The Blocked from AI Search check catches robots.txt mistakes that quietly hide you.
• Competitor gaps. You see the prompts where rivals get cited and you don't.
• Fits your existing suite. The SEO Writing Assistant works in Google Docs and WordPress.

Where it falls short

• Diagnosis, not action. There's no AI citation outreach or CMS publishing from the toolkit, so you write, fix and pitch elsewhere.
• Small prompt sample. The toolkit tracks 25 prompts per domain, and extra prompts, domains and seats stack up fast.
• No toolkit trial. Reviewers note you can't trial the AI toolkit before paying.

Pricing: AI Visibility Toolkit $99/month per domain, billed yearly (25 prompts, 50 more for $60/month). Semrush One from $199/month.
Best for: Semrush customers who want AI checks next to their SEO data.

10. Goodie: best for retail and commerce AEO

Goodie combines an AEO writer, an AI Optimization Hub with prioritized actions and a Topic Explorer. It ties visibility to traffic and revenue through GA4 and Search Console.

On the technical side, it has AI crawler and agent analytics with crawl optimization. Pro adds commerce engines like Alexa and Walmart Sparky, plus SKU tracking.

It's bootstrapped and suits retail and mid-market brands that want a strategist alongside the software.

What we like

• Commerce coverage. Tracking Alexa, Walmart Sparky and SKUs is unusual in this list.
• A strategist included. Core comes with a strategist, five seats and MCP access.
• Content, technical and measurement together. The writer, crawler analytics and revenue attribution live in one tool.

Where it falls short

• High entry price. Core starts at $399 for 120 prompts and five models. Gemini comes on Pro, and Claude on Enterprise.
• Thin review footprint. There are essentially no G2 reviews to check its claims against.
• Unclear outreach and publishing. We couldn't confirm citation outreach or CMS publishing.

Pricing: Core $399/month (120 prompts, 7-day trial). Pro $999/month (250 prompts, 8 models). Enterprise custom.
Best for: retail brands that sell through Walmart or care about Alexa.

11. Conductor: best for enterprise SEO teams adding AEO

Conductor is an enterprise SEO platform. In April 2026 it launched AI Search Performance, which it pitches as a system of record for AEO.

Conductor Monitoring tracks AI bot crawls around the clock, with 20+ AEO signals next to 100+ SEO health signals. Creator handles AI writing with outlines and quality scoring.

AgentStack, launched in December 2025, opens its data through MCP, an API and a ChatGPT app. It's built for enterprise SEO teams.

What we like

• Strong technical monitoring. 24/7 AI bot crawl tracking shows when crawlers run into problems on your site.
• Unlimited users. Everyone can get in without seat math.
• Deep SEO roots. AEO sits next to mature SEO data, and G2 reviewers praise the comprehensive dashboard and support.
• Open data. AgentStack lets you pull Conductor data into your own agents and tools.

Where it falls short

• Enterprise pricing. Pricing is custom, and third-party estimates put it at $30,000 or more a year. That's not for a three-person team.
• Learning curve. G2 reviewers mention a learning curve and issues with reporting and data loading.
• Off-site is unclear. We couldn't confirm citation outreach tools.

Pricing: custom quote with unlimited users. AI search credits start on the Growth tier.
Best for: enterprise SEO teams adding AEO to an existing program.

What actually works in AEO right now

Here's where we want to be straight with you.

Google published an AI optimization guide in May 2026 (updated July 2026). It says you don't need llms.txt, special markup or "chunked" content for its AI features.

It also warns that creating separate pages just to target fan-out queries can break its spam policies.

So what does move the needle?

• Cover the questions people and AI actually ask. Use fan-out data to find gaps in your existing pages, not to spin up thin new ones.
• Get mentioned where AI looks. Ahrefs found Reddit (21.6%) and YouTube (20.8%) lead Perplexity's most-cited domains.
• Keep pages fresh. Vendor research from AirOps found 83% of commercial-query citations come from pages updated in the last year.
• Don't just chase Google rankings. Grow & Convert found about 60% of ChatGPT citations don't rank on Google or Bing for the fan-out queries.

The academic GEO paper from Princeton and others found that adding citations, quotes and stats could lift visibility by up to 40%. Note the "up to."

AEO vs SEO vs GEO

• SEO gets your pages ranked in search results.
• AEO gets your content used as the answer, in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and voice assistants.
• GEO is a newer name for much the same thing, focused on generative AI answers.

Most teams now do all three together. That's why tools that combine SEO data with AI visibility, like Orchly, save a lot of switching.

Which AEO software should you choose?

• You want AEO done end to end: Orchly.
• You're an enterprise with a big budget: Profound or Conductor.
• You want to build custom workflows: AirOps.
• You're on a tight budget: Frase.

For the wider category, see our list of AI search optimization tools.