11 Best AI Citation Tracking Tools in 2026 (Compared)

If you want to know why ChatGPT recommends your competitor and not you, look at what it cites.

AI citation tracking shows you the exact pages and domains ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews pull from. Once you have that list, you know which pages to improve, which sites to pitch and which Reddit threads matter.

We compared 11 AI citation tracking tools on how deep their source data goes, how often it refreshes and whether they help you actually earn the citation. Checked September 2026.

Disclosure: we build Orchly, so take our #1 pick with that in mind. We've used most of these tools ourselves, a few insights come from customers who moved over to us, and the rest comes from G2 reviews and Reddit threads. We've called out the good and the bad for every tool, including ours.

AI citation tracking tools compared

1. Orchly: best AI citation tracker that also earns you the citation

Most citation trackers hand you a list of sources and stop there.

Orchly shows you the same list, then helps you get onto those pages. Its agents write the content, pitch the sites and flag the Reddit and YouTube threads worth joining.

It checks your prompts daily in the real ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews interfaces, not a cheaper API. Gemini, AI Mode, Claude and Grok are add-ons.

See every source, down to the URL

• Sources view. Every page AI cites for your prompts, grouped by URL or rolled up by domain, with content type, frequency and whether your brand is on the page.
• Filters that matter. Slice by topic, engine, content type or source type, then export the list.

Our guide to tracking AI citations walks through each column.

Find the pages that name competitors but not you

• Mention Gap. Orchly reads the content of every cited page and records which brands it names. You get a grid of high-citation pages where rivals appear and you don't.

This is the list you'd otherwise build by hand in a spreadsheet. Honestly, it's the report our customers open first.

Understand why a page gets cited

• Query fan-outs. Before answering, AI engines run their own background searches. Orchly shows you those fan-out queries, so you can see which searches led to each cited page.

• Page 360. For your own pages, see AI citations next to Search Console clicks and GA4 conversions, so you know which cited pages actually bring in revenue.

Earn the citation, not just track it

• Activation Agent. It turns cited sources into outreach. It finds contacts, drafts personal pitches and sends them from your own Gmail, Zoho or SMTP inbox after you approve. There are separate tabs for backlinks, Reddit and YouTube.

• Content Agent. When the gap is your own content, it drafts new pages or refreshes old ones and publishes them to your CMS.

Of the 11 tools here, Orchly is the only one that actually sends the outreach. The others stop at a list or a suggestion. More on that in our link building and outreach page.

Where Orchly falls short

• Fewer engines in the base price. Gemini, AI Mode, Claude and Grok cost extra. Copilot isn't tracked in the app.
• No market-wide index. Orchly tracks your prompts. If you want to browse citations for any brand without setting anything up, Ahrefs Brand Radar does that.

Pricing: Essential $49/month (25 prompts daily). Pro $125/month (100 prompts, 3 sites, 5 users). 7-day free trial.
Best for: teams that want to see who AI cites and then go win those citations.

See Orchly pricing or start a free trial.

2. Profound: best for enterprise citation analysis

Profound has one of the deepest citation datasets out there. It captures answers from the real front ends of nine engines on Enterprise, including Copilot, DeepSeek and Claude.

Its Citation Share metric tells you how often your pages get cited, and you can drill into it by engine, topic and prompt. You see every cited URL per prompt, competitor domains included.

In January 2026 it added eight citation categories, like Owned, Competition, Earned Media and Social. Then in August 2026 it launched a YouTube citation breakdown down to channels and videos. It's mostly used by large brands with a dedicated analyst or research team.

What we like

• Granular source typing. Categories are assigned automatically, and you can override them when a source is filed wrong.
• URL and domain views. You can move from a domain down to the exact page and prompt that cited it.
• Wide engine coverage. Nine engines on Enterprise, captured from the real interfaces.
• Research-grade depth. In a roundup of Reddit threads on AEO tools, one r/b2bmarketing user called it "enterprise / research-grade." G2 reviewers also praise its Slack support.

Where it falls short

• No self-serve paid plan. Profound dropped its $99 and $399 plans in September 2026. What's left is a free trial and Enterprise.
• The trial is thin for citation work. It covers ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, with no history, exports or API. You only get those after an Enterprise sales cycle.
• Price is a common objection. The same Gauge roundup quotes r/b2bmarketing users wanting something between "Otterly (too simple)" and "Profound (too expensive)."

Pricing: free 7-day trial (50 prompts, 3 engines), then Enterprise (custom).
Best for: large brands with a budget and an analyst to dig into citation data.

See our Profound alternatives if the new pricing rules it out.

3. Peec AI: best for separating "used" from "cited" sources

Peec AI does something few tools do. It tells you which sources a model read versus which ones it actually cited in the answer.

You get a domain view and a URL view, six source types (editorial, corporate, UGC, reference, social and your own site) and a Gap Score that ranks pages where competitors show up and you don't. Data refreshes daily.

Since February 2026, an Actions view groups sources into scored clusters, split into on-page and off-page work. It suits teams that want clean data on a self-serve plan, without a sales call.

What we like

• Used vs cited. Knowing a model read a page but didn't cite it tells you a lot about what to fix.
• Gap Score on both views. You can rank gaps by domain or by exact URL.
• Easy for teams. Clean UI, fast setup and unlimited seats on every plan.
• Well reviewed. Peec holds a 4.8 on G2, and reviewers keep praising the support team.

Where it falls short

• Three engines per plan. Every self-serve plan tracks three engines you choose, so your citation map is only as wide as those three. Claude is a premium upgrade.
• Exporting sources could be easier. One G2 reviewer asked for "an easier way to extract sources," and more insight into how LLMs pick them.
• You do the outreach. Actions scores the opportunities, but the pitching is on you. The REST API is Enterprise only.

Pricing: Starter about $95/month (€85) for 50 prompts and 3 engines. Pro about $245 (150 prompts). Unlimited seats. 7-day trial.
Best for: marketers who want clean, daily source data and a clear gap list.

4. Ahrefs Brand Radar: best for market-wide citation research

Ahrefs Brand Radar works on any brand or topic without setup. That makes it great for research and pitching.

Its Cited Domains and Cited Pages reports show what AI engines cite across more than 470 million modeled prompts. It covers AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Grok.

To find a citation gap, you filter Cited Pages for competitor domains that exclude yours, as Ahrefs explains in its use cases guide. SEO teams and agencies that already live in Ahrefs get the most out of it.

What we like

• Huge dataset with no setup. You can look up any competitor or category on day one.
• Data you can pipe out. Exports, a Cited Pages API and a Looker Studio connector.
• Backlink data next door. Once you find a cited page, Ahrefs' link and site data sits right next to it.

Where it falls short

• Modeled prompts. The index prompts are built from keyword data, not your buyers' real questions.
• Slow chatbot refresh. The chatbot indexes refresh roughly monthly, and AI Overviews every few days. Daily tracking of your own prompts costs extra.
• Gaps take manual work. Finding pages that cite rivals but not you is a filter you build, not a one-click report. Users also complain about paying again for custom prompts.

Pricing: from $199/month per AI platform, or $699 for all. Custom prompts from $50/month on a paid Ahrefs plan. No trial.
Best for: SEOs researching any market, not just their own brand.

5. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: best for Semrush users

Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit tracks ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity, and splits cited sources into "You" and "Other."

Its Source Opportunities report lists sites cited on prompts that mention competitors but not you, and Semrush tells you directly to use them for outreach. A separate Topic Opportunities report covers content gaps.

Prompt tracking runs daily, while Brand Performance reports update weekly. Semrush has been part of Adobe since April 2026, and the toolkit mostly appeals to teams already paying for the suite.

What we like

• A real gap report. Source Opportunities is close to a ready-made pitch list.
• Competitor controls. You can include or exclude competitors in the Opportunities tabs.
• One login. It sits inside the Semrush suite you might already pay for, next to your keyword and backlink data.

Where it falls short

• 25 prompts per domain is thin. You'll see the top sources but miss the long tail. Another 50 prompts costs $60 a month.
• Per-domain pricing adds up. Reviewers also say competitor lists are hard to control and the UI feels cluttered.
• Claude and Copilot need Enterprise. They're part of Enterprise AIO, not the standard toolkit.

Pricing: $99/month per domain, billed yearly, for 25 prompts.
Best for: teams already living in Semrush that want a starter citation view.

6. SE Visible: best value for multi-brand citation tracking

SE Visible, from SE Ranking, toggles sources between domains and URLs. It also shows a Coverage percentage, meaning the share of AI answers that cite each source.

It tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, Perplexity and AI Overviews, and the data now refreshes daily. Sources are grouped into categories like media and forums.

You can filter by topic, engine, competitor and sentiment, which quickly shows the sources that mention rivals but not you. Small teams and agencies juggling a few brands tend to like the value.

What we like

• Generous limits. 200 prompts across 3 brands on the $99 plan, with unlimited seats.
• Coverage metric. It's an easy way to see which sources carry weight across answers.
• A Sources API. Plus exports, so you can pull the list into your own reports.
• Solid parent company. The wider SE Ranking suite holds about 4.7 on Capterra across 297 reviews.

Where it falls short

• Gaps in engines. No Claude yet (it's "coming soon"), and no Copilot or Grok. That's a blind spot if your buyers use Claude.
• Few reviews of its own. Most public reviews cover SE Ranking as a whole, not SE Visible.

Pricing: Basic $99/month (200 prompts, 3 brands). Core $189 (450 prompts, 5 brands). 10-day trial.
Best for: small teams and agencies tracking a few brands on a budget.

7. Otterly.AI: best budget citation tracker

Otterly.AI tracks each cited link with its source category, the competitors it names and the prompts that surfaced it. You also get a daily trend for each link by engine.

Its domain view tags sources as news, government, blogs, competitor and more, with a chart of the category mix. A Citations report points you to content gaps.

You can export everything as CSV or PDF, and Standard adds an API, MCP and Looker Studio. It's often the first tool small teams try.

What we like

• Cheap to start. Lite is $29 a month, with unlimited seats and daily data.
• Link-level context. Each cited URL comes with the competitors it names and the prompts behind it.
• Plenty of ways to get data out. CSV, PDF, API and MCP.
• Easy to get going. In Gauge's Reddit roundup, one user said it "felt a bit more operational than Peec," though another called it "too simple."

Where it falls short

• Engine add-ons. Gemini, AI Mode and Claude cost extra, so full coverage on Standard goes from $189 to $416 a month.
• Slow updates after edits. G2 reviewers mention data taking hours to days to update after prompt changes, plus a clunky initial setup.
• Suggestions, not action. Its Recommendations (April 2026) tell you what to do, but you do the outreach.

Pricing: Lite $29/month (15 prompts). Standard $189/month (100 prompts). 7-day trial.
Best for: small teams getting started with citation tracking.

8. Promptwatch: best for Reddit citation detail

Promptwatch has one of the best Reddit citation views we've seen. You get the top subreddits and threads, with upvotes, comments and total citations. YouTube citations followed in March 2026.

Its source analysis covers pages, Reddit threads, YouTube videos and domains. An answer gap view shows prompts where competitors appear and you don't.

It also shows crawler logs, so you can see which of your pages AI bots actually read. Brands whose categories get discussed a lot on Reddit get the most from it.

What we like

• Social citation depth. Thread-level Reddit data with engagement numbers is rare.
• It suggests where to post. The Reddit view points to the subreddits worth starting in.
• A content agent. Since July 2026 it's on every plan, writing pages to fill gaps.
• Public citation datasets. Promptwatch publishes citation data that updates every 24 hours.

Where it falls short

• Four engines per plan. Each plan caps you at four engines, and there's no Copilot, so your citation share is partial by design.
• Thin entry plan. Essential has one seat and 50 prompts. Reviewers also mention that the content needs editing and the UI has bugs.
• No outreach. It points you to subreddits but doesn't send anything.

Pricing: Essential $95/month (50 prompts, 4 engines, 1 seat). Professional $245 (150 prompts).
Best for: brands where Reddit and YouTube drive AI answers.

9. Scrunch: best for prioritizing sources

Scrunch ranks sources with an Influence Score: how often a source is cited, multiplied by how many prompts cite it. It's a handy way to decide which sites to chase first.

Its Citations tab works at the URL level and splits sources by owner: your pages, competitor pages and third parties. Because brand, competitors and third parties run on the same prompt set, gaps are easy to spot.

Sitecore bought Scrunch in June 2026, and Scrunch says it has around 500 customers.

What we like

• Useful prioritization. Influence Score turns a long source list into a ranked to-do list.
• Clear ownership split. You see at a glance how much of a topic is yours, a rival's or third-party.
• Crawler controls. Its AXP product helps manage how AI bots see your site.
• Easy to try. The 7-day trial doesn't need a card, and G2 reviews average 4.6.

Where it falls short

• High floor. It starts at $250 a month, and extra seats cost $25 each.
• Diagnosis only. Reviewers want better trend charts and stronger exports, and it doesn't act on the sources for you.
• Roadmap questions. After the Sitecore deal, the roadmap may shift.

Pricing: Starter $250/month billed yearly ($300 monthly), 350 custom prompts. 7-day trial.
Best for: mid-size brands that want prioritized source lists.

10. LLMrefs: best for engine coverage on a budget

LLMrefs covers 10 engines, including Copilot, Meta AI and DeepSeek, for one flat price.

You get every cited URL, top cited domains and a "new citations this week" view, with page-level views per topic. It positions that data for finding outreach opportunities with publishers.

Prompts are generated from about 50 keywords you give it, and dashboards update weekly. It suits SEOs who think in keywords and want broad coverage cheaply.

What we like

• Wide engine coverage. Ten engines for $79, with no add-on fees.
• Unlimited seats and projects. Handy for small agencies.
• CSV and API. Easy to get the citation list into your own sheets.

Where it falls short

• Weekly refresh. Citations can move faster than that. Ahrefs found that AI Overviews content changes every couple of days.
• Keyword-built prompts. Reviewers say aggregating by keyword hides nuance, and there's no sentiment.
• Monitoring only. There are no G2 reviews yet, and the $79 price is labeled "limited time."

Pricing: $79/month, up to 500 prompts, 10 engines. 7-day trial.
Best for: SEOs who want broad coverage and can live with weekly data.

11. Knowatoa: best for competitor citation analysis

Knowatoa shows which sources AI cites when it recommends your competitors. It updates sources daily and keeps historical trends.

On Growth it tracks seven platforms, adding Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Meta AI to ChatGPT, AI Overviews and AI Mode. Its feature page doesn't say whether citations are shown per URL or per domain.

It tends to suit small teams that want a simple competitor view.

What we like

• Simple competitor citation analysis. You see the sources behind a rival's recommendations without much setup.
• Cheap entry plan. Starter is $59 a month, and sites are unlimited.
• Growth adds a lot. API, MCP and Looker Studio, plus writing and social agents.

Where it falls short

• Limited Starter plan. It covers only ChatGPT, AI Overviews and AI Mode, with a weekly digest.
• Unpublished limits. Prompt limits aren't listed on the pricing page, and there are very few public reviews.

Pricing: Starter $59/month (3 engines). Growth $199/month (7 engines).
Best for: small teams watching a few competitors.

What the citation data actually tells you

Here's the thing most people miss: every engine cites different sources.

An Ahrefs study found that only 14% of top sources are shared across ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews. So tracking one engine and assuming the rest behave the same is a mistake.

The mix also changes fast.

• Reddit and Wikipedia swing. Semrush saw ChatGPT's Reddit citations fall from about 60% of prompts to about 10% in September 2025.
• YouTube is rising. In AI Overviews, YouTube is now the top cited domain at 22.9%, ahead of Reddit at 18.5%, according to Ahrefs' September 2026 data.
• Not every cited page is pitchable. Ahrefs found that 67% of ChatGPT's top citations are things like Wikipedia and homepages you can't pitch. That's why a good tool helps you find the other 33%.

How to pick an AI citation tracking tool

• URL level, not just domains. "Forbes cites your competitor" isn't actionable. The exact article is.
• Daily refresh. Weekly data misses citation swings.
• A gap view. You want pages that cite competitors but not you, ideally in one click.
• Social sources. Reddit and YouTube matter more every month.
• A way to act. Content, outreach or both. Otherwise it's just another dashboard.

Which AI citation tracker should you choose?

• You want to track citations and win them: Orchly.
• You need enterprise-grade citation research: Profound.
• You want market-wide data on any brand: Ahrefs Brand Radar.
• You're on a tight budget: Otterly.AI or SE Visible.

Still comparing? Our list of AI search monitoring tools covers the wider category.