Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is the work of getting your brand named, described accurately and cited in the answers that AI engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity write.
GEO tools are the software that measures that work and helps you do it. This guide is about the tools: what each kind does, how to compare them, and where Noma by Nurdd fits. For the discipline itself, read what generative engine optimisation is. For how Noma approaches it, see Noma’s GEO capabilities.
A note on who wrote this: this guide is written by Noma by Nurdd, which makes one of the tools it mentions. Every detail about another company was checked on that company’s own pricing and product pages in October 2026. Products in this category change quickly, so confirm current details with each vendor before you buy.
GEO vs SEO vs AEO
The three terms overlap, and tools are often sold under more than one of them. The difference is what each one optimises for.
| Term | What it optimises for | What success looks like | What a tool measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO (search engine optimisation) | A ranked list of links on a results page | A high position that earns a click | Rankings, impressions and clicks per keyword |
| AEO (answer engine optimisation) | Answer engines broadly, including AI Overviews and assistants | Being the answer, or named in it | Mentions, position in the answer and cited sources per prompt |
| GEO (generative engine optimisation) | Generative AI that writes a new answer each time | Named, described accurately and cited | The same as AEO, tracked across engines and over time |
In practice GEO and AEO describe the same work, and most tools cover both. SEO still matters, because many AI engines retrieve web pages while they write an answer. We set out how the two fit together in AI visibility vs SEO.
Tool categories
GEO tools fall into three broad groups. Many teams use one from each.
Dedicated AI visibility platforms
These are built mainly to track how AI answers describe brands. You give them a list of prompts, they run those prompts on a set of engines on a schedule, and they report who is named, in what position, and which sources are cited. Most add competitor benchmarking and share of voice.
Examples include Peec AI, Profound, Scrunch AI, Promptwatch, AthenaHQ, Goodie, Otterly.ai and Noma by Nurdd. They differ most in three places:
- Engines per plan. Peec AI’s Starter, Pro and Advanced plans each let you choose 3 models. Scrunch AI Core tracks 4. Promptwatch says every plan tracks all its listed models.
- How usage is metered. Peec AI and Goodie count prompts. Scrunch AI and Promptwatch also cap responses a month. AthenaHQ uses credits, where one credit is one AI response.
- Entry price. Published entry plans we checked range from $79 a month (Noma by Nurdd) and $95 (Peec AI, Promptwatch) to $295 (AthenaHQ Starter, Goodie Core). AthenaHQ also has a free plan, and Profound offers a free trial before a custom Enterprise price.
We compare these platforms in more detail in our guide to AI visibility and AEO tools and on our compare pages.
SEO suites with AI add-ons
Some SEO platforms now sell AI visibility next to their search data, which suits teams that already work in them.
- Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: $99 a month, with no free trial. Its help page names Google AI Mode and ChatGPT, and tracks prompts daily.
- Ahrefs Brand Radar: custom prompts from €47 a month and an AI Visibility Index from €179 a month, covering AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot, with Claude available.
The trade-off is depth. A suite keeps everything in one place, but the AI visibility part may cover fewer engines or features than a dedicated platform.
Audit and content tools
Measurement tells you where you stand. The third group helps you change it, by checking whether engines can read your site and by improving the pages they might cite. Typical checks include:
- whether AI crawlers are allowed in your robots.txt and can fetch your pages;
- whether you publish an llms.txt file and valid structured data;
- whether a page answers its question clearly enough to be quoted.
Some platforms include this work: Scrunch AI Core includes 5 site audits a month, and Promptwatch Professional adds content writing. You can also run many of these checks for free. Noma by Nurdd publishes free tools for them, including an AI crawler checker, an llms.txt generator and a content grader, with no account needed.
Evaluation checklist
Work through these in order. The first two rule out most tools quickly.
- Engines. List the engines your buyers use. For each tool, check which plan includes them and which are add-ons.
- Metering. Work out your real usage: prompts times engines times runs a month. Convert each plan’s prompts, responses or credits to that number before comparing prices.
- Cadence. Check how often prompts run. AI answers change from day to day, so daily runs make it easier to date a change.
- Evidence. Check whether the tool keeps the full answer and the cited sources, not only a score. You will need them to explain a change.
- Competitors. Check how many competitors you can benchmark, and whether share of voice is reported per engine.
- Action. Decide whether you need the tool to find gaps, audit your site or draft content, or whether measurement alone is enough.
- Integrations. Check for an API, an MCP server, Google Search Console or a reporting connector, and which plan each is on.
- Security. If your procurement team needs SSO or a SOC 2 report, check that the vendor states it, and on which plan.
- Seats and projects. Agencies and multi-brand teams should check how many users and projects each plan allows.
- Trial. Run your own prompts through two or three tools and see which one helps you decide what to change.
Noma’s approach
Noma by Nurdd is an answer engine optimisation platform, which is the same work this guide calls GEO. It covers the first and third categories above: tracking, and the work of closing the gaps it finds.
- Tracking: it monitors 13 AI engines. ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude are included on every paid plan, with Grok, GPT-5, Claude Sonnet, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral Small, Mistral Medium, Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews as add-ons. It reports visibility, position and sentiment for each engine, share of voice against competitors, and the sources each answer cites.
- Closing gaps: it finds topics where competitors appear in AI answers and your brand does not, audits your site for AEO readiness (structured data, llms.txt, FAQ schema, freshness and Core Web Vitals), and drafts content briefs and articles. The GEO capability page sets out the audit and content side in full.
- Crawlers: it reports which AI crawlers fetch each page and which assistants send visitors back.
- Price and trial: plans start at $79 a month for 50 tracked prompts, with a 3-day trial of 25 prompts that is free to start (a card is taken). Current prices are on the pricing page.
- What it does not do: it does not track Microsoft Copilot or Meta AI, and it has no SSO or SOC 2 report.
If you want to see where you stand before choosing any tool, try the free tools or a free brand audit.
Questions people ask
What does a generative engine optimisation tool do?
It asks AI engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask, records whether your brand is named and how it is described, and lists the sources each answer cites. Some tools also audit your site for AI crawlers and structured data, or draft content aimed at the answers you are missing from.
How are GEO tools different from SEO tools?
SEO tools track where your pages rank in a list of search results. GEO tools track whether your brand appears inside an answer an AI engine writes, which changes from engine to engine and from day to day. Some SEO suites, such as Semrush and Ahrefs, now sell AI visibility as an add-on.
How much do GEO tools cost?
Published entry prices we checked in October 2026 run from $79 a month (Noma by Nurdd Starter) and $95 (Peec AI Starter, Promptwatch Essential) to $250 (Scrunch AI Core) and $295 (AthenaHQ Starter, Goodie Core). The Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month. AthenaHQ has a free plan, and Profound offers a free trial before a custom Enterprise price.
What should I look for in a GEO tool?
Start with the engines your buyers use and check which plan includes them. Then check how usage is metered (prompts, responses or credits), how often prompts run, whether full answers and cited sources are kept, whether it benchmarks competitors, what it does beyond measurement, and whether it meets your security requirements.
Can I start GEO without a paid tool?
Yes. You can ask the engines your buyers use a handful of questions by hand and note who is named and cited, and free checks can tell you whether AI crawlers can reach your pages and whether your structured data and llms.txt are in place. A paid tool becomes useful when you need the same prompts run on many engines every day.