Six AEO plans compared against one monitoring workload
Entry prices alone do not tell you whether a monitoring plan fits. We reviewed the public plans for six featured tools and compared their limits with one workload: 25 prompts, three engines and daily tracking.
Public-documentation research, prepared with AI assistance for Best AEO Tools on September 19, 2026. No accounts were used for a hands-on benchmark. Setup time, response accuracy and report-export quality were not measured.
What the published plans establish
- OtterlyAI Lite's 15-prompt limit is below this workload. Its Standard plan or another configuration is needed; the $29 entry price is not the workload cost.
- Writesonic Starter advertises 50 answers daily and does not include Perplexity. Our 25-prompt, three-engine workload would require 75 daily answers, so Starter does not meet it.
- Profound's free trial runs ten prompts once. Ongoing daily monitoring requires a tailored paid quote.
- Peec's stated 50 prompts and three selected models meet the quantity requirement, subject to confirming the model selection. A current price was not confirmed.
- Evertune's prompt accounting and AthenaHQ's credit accounting need confirmation before translating their allowances into a daily three-engine workload.
Source observations
| Tool / plan | Advertised entry price | Allowance | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evertune AI Pro | $800/month Published monthly price; confirm contract length during the demo. | 100,000 tracked prompts; daily, weekly or monthly frequency. Confirm how the allowance is counted. | Vendor pricing |
| Writesonic GEO Starter | $79/month, billed annually $948 per year at the advertised annual rate; monthly billing costs more. | 50 prompts and 50 answers tracked daily on Starter. | Vendor pricing |
| AthenaHQ Starter | $295/month Starter monthly price; credit consumption depends on the actions performed. | 3,600 Starter credits. Credits are not a published daily unique-prompt allowance. | Vendor pricing |
| Profound Enterprise | Custom quote Paid monitoring is quoted by sales. The current page no longer lists the former $99 Starter plan. | Enterprise allowance is tailored. Trial runs ten prompts once. | Vendor pricing |
| OtterlyAI Lite | $29/month Monthly Lite price in USD, excluding tax. Discounted annual billing is also offered. | 15 search prompts on Lite; Standard includes 100. | Vendor pricing |
| Peec Starter | Check current price Monthly and annual options. The current price could not be confirmed from the public pricing page; older vendor pages disagree. | 50 prompts tracked daily, three selected models and one project. | Vendor pricing |
Download observations (CSV)Download sources and facts (JSON)Download the hands-on results template
Repeatable hands-on protocol
Use one brand, three competitors and a frozen list of 25 prompts: ten category-discovery questions, ten tool comparisons and five pricing or integration questions. Use US English on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews daily for seven days. This yields 525 planned answers when every engine is available.
Before starting, record the reviewer, account plan, billing commitment, model availability and exact prompt wording. Time account setup from the first configuration action to a saved monitoring project; record waiting time for first results separately. Keep dated screenshots of setup and reports, original responses, cited URLs and exports. Attempt the same CSV export and competitor report in every product.
Mark unavailable actions and engines explicitly. Record the full subscription and add-on cost for the workload rather than dividing annual prices into an apparently cancellable monthly fee. Do not convert credits into prompts without documented rules.
Limits of this research
This article compares advertised terms, not actual product performance. Vendor pages can change and may omit taxes, regional terms or negotiated pricing. A dash or unconfirmed price means unknown, not free. No screenshots or setup timings are presented as test evidence because those actions have not been performed. A seven-day future test would also be too short to establish a causal effect on traffic or revenue.
Read our methodology and evidence standards before using these observations to shortlist a product.