# Best GEO tools for SaaS in 2026, 8 AI visibility platforms compared

> The best GEO tools for SaaS in 2026, compared. 8 AI visibility platforms ranked on engines tracked, prompts, sources and price, so ChatGPT shortlists you.

By Gabriel Toledano, CEO and co-founder of Hikoo. Updated 2026-10-28. SaaS Software Review, https://saassoftwarereview.com/en/best-geo-tools-for-saas

## Key takeaways

- In G2's March 2026 survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers, 51% started their research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, and chatbots were the top source shaping shortlists.
- A GEO tool for SaaS should track buying prompts such as "best X for Y" and "alternatives to X", show which sources the AI cites, and help you act on them.
- Hikoo ranks first for SaaS teams that want measurement and action in one place, from a free plan to €499 per month for 9 engines and an outreach agent.
- Profound, Scrunch and AthenaHQ suit larger budgets, while Otterly.AI and Peec AI are the cheapest focused trackers, from $29 and €85 per month.
- Review sites matter. Buyers in the same G2 survey named citations from software review sites as the signal that most increases their trust in an AI answer.

The best GEO tools for SaaS in 2026 are Hikoo, Profound, Peec AI, AthenaHQ, Scrunch, Otterly.AI, Ahrefs Brand Radar and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit. They show whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other assistants recommend your software when a buyer asks for the best tool in your category. The right pick depends on budget, engines covered and how much help you need to act.

The stakes are concrete for software companies. In [G2's March 2026 survey of 1,076 B2B software buyers](https://company.g2.com/news/g2-research-the-answer-economy), AI chatbots were the top source shaping vendor shortlists, ahead of review sites, analyst firms and vendor websites. A GEO tool tells you whether you are on that list, who is there instead, and which sources put them there.

| Tool | AI engines covered | Entry price (checked 28 Oct 2026) | Free option | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hikoo | Up to 9 (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, Mistral, Grok, AI Overviews, AI Mode) | €69 per month excl. VAT | Free plan | SaaS teams that want tracking and action |
| Profound | Up to 9 on Enterprise | On quote | 7-day trial | Enterprise software vendors |
| Peec AI | 3 of 6 models per plan, 13 on Enterprise | €85 per month | No | Transparent daily tracking |
| AthenaHQ | 11 listed on Starter | $295 per month | Free tier | Wide coverage on credits |
| Scrunch | 7 platforms including Meta | $250 per month (annual) | 7-day trial | Persona-based tracking |
| Otterly.AI | 4 native, 3 as add-ons | $29 per month | Free trial | First low-cost baseline |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | 7 | $50 per month (custom prompts) | No | Ahrefs users |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | ChatGPT and AI Mode for prompt tracking | $99 per month | No | Semrush users |

Disclosure: the author runs Hikoo, ranked first in this list.

### 1. Hikoo

The most complete loop for a SaaS team with a small marketing staff, from tracking category prompts to fixing pages and pitching the sources that AI cites. Start on Monitoring at €69 to get a baseline, and move to Growth or Agent when you are ready to act on sources.

- Best for: B2B SaaS teams that want to be shortlisted by ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and get the fixes done
- Price: Free plan, then from €69 per month excl. VAT per site (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: Tracks the buying questions your prospects ask, on up to 9 AI engines with the Agent plan; Source analysis shows which review sites, comparison pages and articles the AI cites (Growth plan and above); Outreach agent finds, writes and sends pitches to the sources AI cites, reviewed by you or automatic (Agent plan); Content suggestions from Monitoring, page fixes prepared for you on Agent, plus an llms.txt generator and an MCP server
- Limits: Only the Agent plan at €499 per month covers all 9 engines; One site per subscription, and entry plans track fewer questions than enterprise tools; Younger company than the SEO incumbents
- URL: https://www.tryhikoo.com/en/

### 2. Profound

The reference for large software vendors that need many engines, governance and an account team. Too heavy and too sales-led for most seed or Series A startups.

- Best for: Enterprise software companies with a dedicated AEO or content team
- Price: Free 7-day trial, then Enterprise on quote (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: Up to 9 answer engines tracked on Enterprise; Prompt Volumes and Agent Analytics modules for demand and AI crawler data; SSO, SAML and SOC 2 compliance on Enterprise, unlimited seats; Raised a $96 million Series C in February 2026
- Limits: No public self-serve price for brands at our check; The trial covers 50 recommended prompts for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews only
- URL: https://www.tryprofound.com/

### 3. Peec AI

A strong, transparent tracker for a SaaS marketing team that already knows what to do with the data. Budget for the extra models if your buyers use more than three assistants.

- Best for: Marketing teams that want clean daily tracking with unlimited users at a public price
- Price: Starter €85, Pro €205, Advanced €425 per month ($95, $245, $495), cheaper on annual billing (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: 50, 150 or 350 prompts tracked daily depending on the plan; Choose 3 models among ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode; Unlimited users on every plan, Looker Studio integration on Advanced; Enterprise tracks up to 13 models
- Limits: Each extra model is a paid add-on, from €30 per month on Starter; Focused on measurement and recommendations, without done-for-you page fixes or outreach
- URL: https://peec.ai/

### 4. AthenaHQ

A good fit for a SaaS team that wants many engines from the first paid plan. Model your prompt count times engines before buying, since credits drive the real cost.

- Best for: Growth teams that want wide engine coverage on a credit model
- Price: Free Essential tier, Starter $295 per month, Enterprise on quote (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: Free tier with 300 credits and unlimited users; Starter lists 11 engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral; One credit equals one AI response, 3,600 credits per month on Starter; Y Combinator company
- Limits: Large step from the free tier to $295 per month; Credits are consumed per answer, so prompt volume needs planning
- URL: https://www.athenahq.ai/

### 5. Scrunch

Solid choice for a software company that sells to several buyer personas and wants them tracked separately. The Sitecore acquisition may shape its roadmap toward Sitecore customers.

- Best for: Mid-market software brands that track personas and many prompts
- Price: Starter $250 per month billed annually ($300 monthly), Growth $417 ($500), Enterprise on quote (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: 350 custom prompts and 1,000 industry prompts on Starter; Covers ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews and Meta; Personas and page audits included in each plan; 7-day free trial of Starter, no card required
- Limits: Starter includes 3 user licenses and 5 page audits; Now part of Sitecore, which announced the acquisition in June 2026
- URL: https://scrunch.com/

### 6. Otterly.AI

The cheapest way to start measuring if you can live with a short prompt list. Most SaaS teams move to Standard quickly, where the price rises to $189.

- Best for: Founders and solo marketers who want a first paid baseline for little money
- Price: Lite $29, Standard $189, Premium $489 per month, 15% off on annual billing (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: Lowest paid entry price in this list, $29 per month for 15 prompts; ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot tracked natively; Free trial for new users
- Limits: Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude are paid add-ons; Lite tracks only 15 prompts, enough for a baseline but not for a category
- URL: https://otterly.ai/

### 7. Ahrefs Brand Radar

The natural add-on if your SEO team already lives in Ahrefs. It measures well, and leaves the content and outreach work to you.

- Best for: SEO teams already on Ahrefs that want AI visibility next to search data
- Price: Custom prompts from $50 per month, AI Visibility Index from $199 per month (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: Database of more than 512 million prompts for market-wide benchmarks; Covers AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude; Sits next to Ahrefs keyword, backlink and site audit data
- Limits: Pricing is split between custom prompts and the index; Each Claude update consumes 8 checks
- URL: https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar

### 8. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

A convenient first step for Semrush users. With 25 prompts and two engines tracked, a SaaS company will find it narrow once it tracks a full category.

- Best for: Teams on Semrush that want a first AI visibility view in a familiar tool
- Price: $99 per month (checked on 2026-10-28)
- Strengths: 25 tracked prompts and 1,000 daily Prompt Research queries; AI search checks in Site Audit for up to 100 pages; Can be bought on its own or with a Semrush One plan
- Limits: Prompt tracking covers ChatGPT and Google AI Mode; No free trial on the toolkit, and each user in a corporate account needs a license
- URL: https://www.semrush.com/
## Why do B2B SaaS companies need a GEO tool?

B2B SaaS companies need a GEO tool because buyers now ask AI assistants which software to shortlist, and those answers decide who gets a demo request. G2's March 2026 survey found that 51% of B2B software buyers start their research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, up from 29% in its 2025 Buyer Behavior Report.

The same survey reports that 69% of buyers chose a different vendor than they had planned because of a chatbot recommendation, and about one in three bought from a vendor they had never heard of. An [earlier G2 survey of more than 1,000 buyers, published in October 2025](https://learn.g2.com/ai-search-surging-for-b2b-buyers), found ChatGPT was the favorite assistant for 47% of them, nearly three times any other.

Search rankings do not tell you any of this. You can rank first on Google for "expense management software" and still be missing from the five tools ChatGPT lists for "best expense software for a 50-person startup". A GEO tool runs those prompts on a schedule, records who is mentioned and in what order, and keeps the history.

## How we compared these GEO tools

We compared the tools on published plans, documentation and pricing pages, checked on 28 October 2026. We did not run each product on the same brand, so the ranking reflects features and fit for a B2B SaaS company, not a measured test.

- **Engine coverage.** Which assistants are tracked at the entry price and which cost extra.
- **Prompt volume.** How many prompts the first useful plan covers, since a SaaS category needs dozens.
- **Source analysis.** Whether the tool shows the pages the AI cites, such as review sites and comparison articles.
- **Action.** Whether the tool helps fix pages, write content or reach cited sources, or stops at reporting.
- **Price and trial.** Public pricing, free plans or trials, and the cost of the plan a seed or Series A team would actually use.

Hikoo ranks first on the combination of action and price for a small team. Profound and Scrunch rank high for depth and governance, but at budgets most startups do not have.

## What prompts should a SaaS company track?

Track the prompts a buyer types at each stage of choosing software, not just your brand name. Branded prompts tell you whether the AI describes you correctly. Category, comparison and alternative prompts tell you whether you get shortlisted, which is where revenue is decided.

| Buying stage | Prompt type | Example for an expense management SaaS |
|---|---|---|
| Problem | How to solve a task | how do I stop chasing receipts from employees |
| Category | Best tool for a segment | best expense management software for a 50-person startup |
| Comparison | Tool A vs tool B | [competitor] vs [your brand] for multi-currency teams |
| Alternatives | Alternatives to a leader | cheaper alternatives to [competitor] |
| Integration | Tool that works with your stack | expense tool that syncs with Xero and Slack |
| Validation | Is it worth it, pricing | is [your brand] worth it for a startup |

Keep a separate group of branded prompts for accuracy, such as "[your brand] pricing", "does [your brand] integrate with Salesforce" or "is [your brand] SOC 2 compliant". Buyers ask these once you are on the shortlist, and an outdated price or a missing integration in the answer can cost you the deal even after the AI recommended you.

Run each prompt in every language and market you sell in, since answers differ by country. Add one prompt per persona when you sell to several, for example the finance lead and the operations manager. Review the set every quarter as competitors and features change.

## Which sources shape AI answers about software?

AI answers about software lean heavily on third-party sources, with review sites at the top of buyers' minds. In G2's March 2026 survey, buyers named citations from software review sites as the signal that most increases their confidence in an AI answer, and review sites were the only source besides chatbots that gained influence later in the buying process.

That points to concrete work for a SaaS marketing team.

- **Review profiles.** Keep G2, Capterra and similar listings current, with accurate pricing, features and recent reviews.
- **Comparison and alternatives pages.** Publish honest "[your brand] vs [competitor]" and "alternatives to [competitor]" pages, since these match the prompts buyers use.
- **Crawlable pricing and docs.** Make pricing, integrations and security pages readable without a login.
- **AI crawler access.** Check robots.txt, since [OpenAI states](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots) that sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers.
- **Third-party articles.** Identify the listicles and industry articles the AI cites for your category, then pitch their authors.

A GEO tool with source analysis turns this into a list. Instead of guessing which "best tools" article matters, you see which URLs the AI cited for each prompt and which competitors they mention.

## What does a weekly GEO routine look like for a SaaS team?

A weekly routine takes one person about an hour once the prompt set is in place. The point is to turn a dashboard into a short list of actions, then check a few weeks later whether they moved anything.

1. **Read the movements.** Open the prompts where your mention rate or position changed since last week, and the ones where a competitor appeared for the first time.
2. **Open the cited sources.** For each lost prompt, look at the pages the AI cited. A new comparison article, a refreshed review profile or a Reddit thread usually explains the change.
3. **Pick two actions.** Fix one owned page (a comparison page, a pricing page or an integration page) and start one source action, such as updating a review profile or pitching an article author.
4. **Check accuracy.** Read the answers on your branded prompts for wrong prices, missing features or outdated plan names, and correct the source pages that carry the error.
5. **Log what you did.** Note the date and the action next to the prompts it targets, so the next review can tell cause from noise.

Teams that skip step 5 end up with a chart they cannot explain. Teams that skip steps 2 and 3 end up with a tracker and no change.

## Can you track AI visibility without a tool?

You can check a handful of prompts by hand, but it does not scale past a quick baseline. Answers change between sessions, accounts and countries, so a single manual check of "best CRM for startups" in ChatGPT tells you what one person saw once. A tool runs the same prompts on a schedule, from fixed locations, and keeps the history that lets you compare month to month.

Manual checks remain useful for reading the full answer and its tone, which dashboards compress into a score. Pair a few manual reads per month with tracked data rather than choosing one or the other.

## How much should a SaaS startup spend on a GEO tool?

Most SaaS startups can get a useful baseline for €0 to €200 per month, and only need more once a team works on sources and content every week. The table maps stages to the options in this comparison, at prices checked on 28 October 2026.

| Stage | What you need | Options |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed, testing the channel | A baseline on 10 to 15 prompts | Hikoo Free (10 questions, ChatGPT), AthenaHQ free tier, Otterly.AI Lite at $29 |
| Seed, first marketer | 30 to 100 prompts, 2 to 4 engines, competitors | Hikoo Monitoring at €69 or Growth at €179, Peec AI Starter at €85, Otterly.AI Standard at $189 |
| Series A, content and PR effort | 100 to 350 prompts, sources, action | Hikoo Agent at €499, Peec AI Advanced at €425, Scrunch from $250, AthenaHQ Starter at $295 |
| Enterprise, several brands | Custom volumes, SSO, API | Profound, Scrunch and Peec AI Enterprise plans on quote |

Hikoo plans are priced per site and per month excluding VAT, with annual billing 20% cheaper. Monitoring and Growth come with a 7-day free trial, no card. Check the [Hikoo pricing page](https://www.tryhikoo.com/en/pricing/) for the full plan details.

## How do you measure whether GEO work pays off?

Measure AI visibility and AI-sourced pipeline separately, then look at both over the same months. Visibility comes from your GEO tool, as the share of tracked prompts where you are mentioned and your position against competitors. Pipeline comes from your analytics and CRM. Review both monthly rather than weekly, since a single week of AI answers is noisy.

Google Analytics added an [AI Assistant channel on 13 May 2026](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9164320) that groups visits from assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. Pass that source into your CRM and add "AI assistant" to the "how did you hear about us" field on demo forms. Our guide to the [best CRM for startups](/en/best-crm-for-startups) covers that setup, and the [SaaS metrics guide](/en/saas-metrics) shows how to compute CAC and payback for the channel once deals close.

If you want a first reading before choosing a tool, run the [free Hikoo AI visibility audit](https://www.tryhikoo.com/en/tools/free-audit/) on your site, then compare its findings with a manual check of your top five category prompts in ChatGPT and Perplexity.

## Frequently asked questions

### What is a GEO tool?

A GEO (generative engine optimization) tool measures how AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity mention and cite your brand on the questions your buyers ask. The better ones also show which sources the AI relies on and help you fix pages, publish content or reach those sources. For a SaaS company, the core use is checking whether you appear when a buyer asks for the best tool in your category.

### Which GEO tool is best for a B2B SaaS startup?

For a startup with a small marketing team, Hikoo is our first pick because it combines tracking with prepared fixes and outreach, from a free plan to €499 per month. Otterly.AI and Peec AI are good lower-cost trackers if you only need measurement. Profound and Scrunch fit larger software companies with dedicated teams.

### Do I need a GEO tool if I already rank well on Google?

Ranking on Google helps, but AI answers often cite review sites, comparison articles and forums rather than your own pages. A GEO tool shows which of those sources the AI uses on your category prompts and where competitors appear instead of you. Without that view you cannot tell whether your search rankings carry over.

### How many prompts should a SaaS company track?

Start with 30 to 50 prompts that cover your category, comparisons, alternatives and main use cases, in the languages and markets you sell in. Grow to 100 or more once you track several personas or product lines. Fewer prompts tracked daily beat many prompts you never read.

### How long does it take to improve AI visibility?

There is no fixed delay. Changes to your own pages can only appear once assistants that search the web fetch them again, and changes that depend on review sites or industry articles take as long as those sources take to update. Track the same prompt set over time and log each action, so you can link changes in mentions to specific work.

### Can I check my AI visibility for free?

Yes. Hikoo offers a free AI visibility audit and a free plan with 10 questions tracked on ChatGPT, and AthenaHQ has a free tier with 300 credits. You can also ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini your top category questions by hand, though results vary between sessions.

## Sources

- [Hikoo pricing](https://www.tryhikoo.com/en/pricing/)
- [Profound pricing](https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing)
- [Fortune, Profound raises $96 million (February 2026)](https://fortune.com/2026/02/24/exclusive-as-ai-threatens-search-profound-raises-96-million-to-help-brands-stay-visible/)
- [Peec AI pricing](https://peec.ai/pricing)
- [AthenaHQ pricing](https://www.athenahq.ai/pricing)
- [Y Combinator, AthenaHQ company profile](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/athenahq)
- [Scrunch pricing](https://scrunch.com/pricing)
- [Sitecore, Sitecore acquires Scrunch (June 2026)](https://www.sitecore.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/2026/06/sitecore-acquires-scrunch-to-help-brands-influence-discovery--and-buying-decisions)
- [Otterly.AI pricing](https://otterly.ai/pricing)
- [Ahrefs Brand Radar](https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar)
- [Semrush Knowledge Base, AI Visibility Toolkit](https://www.semrush.com/kb/1493-ai-toolkit)
- [Adobe, Adobe completes Semrush acquisition (April 2026)](https://news.adobe.com/news/2026/04/adobe-completes-semrush-acquisition)
- [G2, In the Answer Economy, Don't Win the Click, Win the Answer (April 2026)](https://company.g2.com/news/g2-research-the-answer-economy)
- [G2, How AI chat is rewriting B2B software buying (October 2025)](https://learn.g2.com/ai-search-surging-for-b2b-buyers)
- [OpenAI, overview of OpenAI crawlers](https://developers.openai.com/api/docs/bots)
- [Google Analytics Help, what's new (AI Assistant channel, May 2026)](https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9164320)