Buyer's guide
Best AEO tools: how to choose one
The best AEO tool is the one that tells you, with evidence, whether AI assistants can read your site and whether they mention you — then tells you exactly what to fix. Most tools fall into two groups: technical auditors and prompt monitors. You usually need a bit of both.
The two types of AEO tool
- Technical auditors check whether AI crawlers are allowed in, whether you have llms.txt and structured data, and whether your pages are readable without JavaScript.
- Prompt monitors ask AI assistants real buyer questions and record whether your brand is mentioned, in what position, and which competitors appear instead.
Features that matter
- Checks robots.txt rules for each major AI crawler, not just Googlebot.
- Reports "couldn't check" honestly when a firewall blocks it, rather than guessing.
- Reads structured data on more than just the homepage.
- Tests realistic, short prompts — the way people actually ask.
- Shows the actual AI answer as evidence, not only a score.
- Gives copy-ready fixes, ordered by impact.
- Tracks change over time so you can see if fixes worked.
Questions to ask before you pay
- Which AI assistants does it actually query, and how often?
- Can I see the raw answers behind each ranking?
- Is the score explained, or just a number?
- Is there a free audit so I can judge accuracy on my own site first?
Answer engine optimization tools compared
Score any tool against these criteria:
| Criterion | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Assistants queried | Results only cover the models it actually asks. |
| Raw answers shown | Lets you check the evidence behind a score. |
| Technical audit | Blocked crawlers can't cite you at all. |
| Fixes included | A score without next steps is hard to act on. |
| History | Shows whether your changes worked. |
AthenaHQ, Scrunch, HubSpot AEO, Rankshift and Otterly.ai
These are often compared together. Features and pricing change often, so check each vendor's own site against the criteria above rather than trusting a static table. For one detailed comparison, see our HubSpot AI Search Grader alternative page.
Where Xcite fits
Xcite combines both types for small teams. The free AI search audit checks 11 AI crawlers, llms.txt, JSON-LD and microdata across several pages, and entity signals, then gives a readiness grade with fixes ordered by impact. Pro adds prompt rankings in ChatGPT with competitor comparison and per-prompt advice on how to get cited. Blocked checks are marked "Could not verify" rather than scored.
Want to start without any tool? Use the free llms.txt generator and validator, then read the AEO guide.
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