AEO is a young category and the comparison pages most vendors publish are dishonest. Below is a per-row verdict on who wins what, including every scenario where one of the alternatives is the right call for your team. If your situation maps to a row that is not Mentioned AI, pick that one. We would rather you find the tool that fits than churn three weeks in.
Scroll horizontally on mobile. Names link to the vendor where available.
| Name | Category | Pricing | Pick them when | Pick Mentioned when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mentioned AI | AI visibility operating system · five-layer closed loop | $99-$499/mo · 2-day trial · no credit card | You want tracking PLUS paste-ready Citation-Lift fixes PLUS AEO-calibrated backlinks with authority signals PLUS outbound demand from citation data PLUS algorithm-aware social drafts in one self-serve loop at lean B2B pricing. | When the buyer is the founder paying out of pocket and time-to-shipped-fix is the metric that matters. Average drop-to-fix on the dogfood account is under 30 minutes of founder time. The Demand tab also turns the same citation data into outbound leads at zero per-lead vendor cost · the only AEO product that does this. |
| Profound | Enterprise AEO · sales-led | $50K+/yr · annual contract · SDR-led | You have Fortune 500 procurement (SOC2 Type II, dedicated CSM, MSA negotiation, an annual contract committee). Their roadmap and team scale match enterprise expectations. | You are a $1M-$30M ARR founder or growth lead who cannot sign a $50K annual without a procurement cycle and does not want an SDR funnel. |
| Jam | Horizontal AEO + outbound · mid-market | $1K-$3K/mo range (per public deck) | You want one platform spanning AEO plus outbound prospecting plus content workflows under one bill, and the team is sized for a $1K+/mo platform. | You want depth on the citation-lift loop specifically and lean per-brand pricing. Mentioned starts at $99/mo and ships the actual fix content; Jam is broader but lighter on the fix layer. |
| Otterly.ai | AEO monitoring · cheapest | $29/mo · fewer engines · monitoring only | You only need a dashboard that says yes-or-no on whether your brand was cited. No content fixes, no backlinks, no draft layer. | You want the dashboard plus the recovery content plus the next-morning verification in the same product, at $99/mo all-in. |
| Athena HQ | AI visibility tracking | Mid-market pricing (varies) | You want a polished tracking dashboard with growing AEO category authority and you do not need a built-in content fix layer. | You want the tracking AND the paste-ready Citation-Lift content fixes AND the backlink-outreach packages drafted in one loop. |
| Peec.ai | AEO tracker · EU-friendly | Tiered (varies by region) | You need EU data-residency or GDPR-first hosting from day one and the team prefers a European-headquartered vendor. | You want the broader closed-loop (tracking + Citation-Lift + backlinks + social + verifier) and you are not bound by EU procurement constraints. |
| Goodie AI | AI-content workflow tool | Content-tool pricing (varies) | Your primary need is AI-assisted content production at scale, not citation tracking. They sit closer to a Frase / Surfer competitor than to a pure AEO tracker. | You need to know which prompts you are losing and ship the specific fix per prompt, not generate generic content at scale. |
| Frase.io | AI content optimization · SEO-rooted | $45-$115/mo | Your team writes long-form SEO content weekly and wants briefs, topic clusters, and outline generation. Frase has years of SEO-tool maturity. | You care about AI answer-engine citations specifically, not Google rankings. Frase optimizes for traditional SERP; Mentioned optimizes for the answer. |
| Surfer SEO | Content optimization · SEO leader | $89-$219/mo | You publish long-form content and want SERP-driven content scoring with NLP analysis. Surfer is the category leader for on-page SEO. | Your buyers research on ChatGPT before Google. Surfer optimizes for the SERP that AI answers are replacing; Mentioned optimizes for the answer itself. |
| AlsoAsked | People Also Ask discovery | $15-$59/mo | You want a focused tool that surfaces the People Also Ask cluster around a seed query for content planning. Cheap and sharp at one job. | You want question discovery PLUS the per-engine citation tracking PLUS the actual fix shipped per question. AlsoAsked stops at the discovery step. |
| Brandwatch | Enterprise social listening · AEO module | Enterprise tiers ($30K+/yr) | You already pay for Brandwatch for social listening and want to extend that contract into AEO without adding another vendor. | You do not already have an enterprise social-listening contract and the AEO module alone does not justify the price floor. |
| Foundation Inc. | B2B content + AEO consulting | Consulting retainer ($5K-$25K/mo) | You need a done-for-you content team that owns the strategy and execution, not a tool to operate yourself. | You want self-serve software that drafts the fixes and lets you operate the loop, not a consulting retainer. |
| Search Atlas | SEO suite with AI features | $99-$399/mo | You want a broader SEO suite (rank tracking, site audits, link building) with AI features bolted on. Closer to a Semrush-class platform. | You want depth on AI citation tracking and the full Citation-Lift loop, not a broad SEO suite where AEO is one module among twenty. |
| Ahrefs | SEO incumbent · no LLM tracking | $129-$1499/mo | You need backlink analysis, SERP rank tracking, and keyword research. Ahrefs is the category-defining tool here. | You need AI answer engine citation tracking and fixes. Ahrefs does not measure LLM citations. The two are complementary, not substitutes. Most Mentioned customers run both. |
| Semrush | SEO incumbent · no LLM tracking | $129-$500/mo | You need SEO rank tracking, traffic analytics, competitive SERP intelligence. Semrush is feature-rich here. | You need AI answer engine citation tracking. Semrush, like Ahrefs, does not measure LLM citations. Most teams run both Semrush AND Mentioned, not one or the other. |
| Edna.io | AEO startup · early-stage | Early-stage pricing (varies) | You want to bet on a specific early-stage AEO startup and you have time to be patient with a smaller product surface. | You want a more complete loop today (tracking + fixes + backlinks + social + verifier) without waiting for the category to mature. |
Three frames cover almost every founder evaluation we see:
For the SEO incumbents (Ahrefs, Semrush, Surfer, Frase): they solve a different problem (Google rankings, backlink graphs, on-page SEO scoring). Most Mentioned customers keep their existing SEO tool and add Mentioned for the AI answer engine layer. The two are complementary.
See the full FAQ at /mentioned/faq, or read the playbooks for use-case-specific narratives. New to the category? Start with the glossary.
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