Honest comparison of free + paid tools to check whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini cite you. Some real free tiers exist — and the manual method costs nothing.
By what you actually get for free:
| Tool | Free tier? | Engines covered | Best for | Paid starts at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otterly.ai | ✓ Free tier | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | Most-balanced free tier | ~$99/mo |
| PromptWatch | ✓ Free tier | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude | Most engines on free tier | ~$49/mo |
| BrandRank.ai | — Demo only | All four major | Enterprise teams | ~$199/mo |
| Profound | — Demo only | All four major + custom | Large brands with budget | Custom (~$1k+/mo) |
| Manual checks (ChatGPT/Perplexity/Claude/Gemini direct) | ✓ Free forever | All four | Under 10 queries/week | $0 |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | ✓ Free | ChatGPT Search index quality | Indexing visibility | $0 |
| Custom Claude API agent | ~ Pay per query | All four (you implement) | 100+ queries/week | ~$5–20/mo at scale |
Pricing as of May 2026. Check vendor sites for current free-tier limits.
What you get free: Track ~5 queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. Weekly automated checks. Email alerts on citation changes.
What's paid: More queries (up to ~50 on the $99 plan), Claude tracking, competitor benchmarking, API access.
Use it if: You want a "set and forget" check on 5 highest-value queries without thinking about it.
What you get free: Track ~10 queries across all four major engines (including Claude). Daily checks.
What's paid: More queries, prompt-level analytics, team workspace.
Use it if: You want broader engine coverage on free — particularly if Claude citations matter to your audience.
The path that costs nothing: open ChatGPT Search, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini in four browser tabs. Run your top 5 commercial queries through each. Note which engines cite you and where.
Why it still works in 2026: AI engines are designed for human use. Manual checks return the same answers a paid tool would query through the API. The only thing you lose is automation.
Use it if: You're starting out, have fewer than 10 critical queries, or want zero vendor lock-in.
ChatGPT Search uses Bing as its underlying index. If you're not in Bing, you're invisible to ChatGPT Search — full stop. Setting up Bing Webmaster Tools (free, takes ~10 minutes) is the single highest-ROI GEO move most operators skip.
What to do: Verify your domain → submit sitemap → check index coverage. That's it.
If you track 100+ queries weekly OR want citation alerts piped into Slack / your existing dashboard, the economics flip toward building your own. Claude API costs roughly $0.003 per query at the queries-per-day volume most operators need; the agent itself is ~200 lines of Node.js.
What it costs in practice: ~$5–20/month in API spend for serious tracking volume. ~1 day to build if you've used the Claude API before; ~3 days if not. I include this agent in the $9,500 audit as part of the deliverable.
Not for free at any meaningful query volume. Otterly and PromptWatch both have free tiers limited to ~5-10 queries/month. Profound and BrandRank are paid-only. For unlimited free checks you have to query each engine manually (or build your own agent).
Depends on your audience. ChatGPT Search has the largest user base and uses Bing as its index. Perplexity is research-heavy buyers. Claude is engineers + writers. Gemini = Google AI Overviews + Workspace users. For B2B SaaS, check all four. For consumer / local services, ChatGPT + AI Overviews are usually enough.
Weekly for the queries that matter to your business. AI engine indexes refresh frequently — what was uncited last week may be cited this week (and vice versa). Set a recurring check via Otterly free tier or roll a manual Sunday-evening routine.
If you have fewer than 50 queries to track and minimal engineering capacity — pay (~$49–$99/mo). If you track 100+ queries OR want to integrate citation alerts into your existing workflow (Slack, dashboards) — build your own with the Claude API. I build these for clients on the audit ($9,500).
Mostly yes — the underlying AI engines work across languages. But the free tiers of Otterly, PromptWatch, etc. typically only index English. If you operate in another market, manual checks via ChatGPT/Perplexity in that language are the path of least resistance.
The $9,500 audit includes a custom citation-tracking agent built into your stack. You keep it.