Comparison
A tool, or an agency
There is a category of software that will tell you, every week, whether ChatGPT named you. It is useful, it is cheaper than we are, and for a number of companies it is the correct purchase. Here is where the line sits.
The short answer
Tools measure. They do not move the number. Every product in this category runs prompts on a schedule and reports what came back. None of them get you into the roundup an engine cites, fix the entity confusion that stops it recognising you, or earn the review presence it reads as independent.
So the question is not tool versus agency. It is whether you have someone who will act on the report. If you do, buy the tool. If you do not, the tool becomes a weekly email confirming a problem nobody is working on.
The category
What is actually available.
Coverage as published by each vendor. No pricing, because we have not verified it and a stale price is worse than none.
| Tool | Engines covered | Built around |
|---|---|---|
| Otterly AI | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews | Share of AI voice against named competitors |
| Peec AI | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot | Multi-platform monitoring at scale |
| ZipTie | AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity | Brand mentions plus sentiment |
| LLMrefs | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini | Maps existing keywords to AI visibility |
| Semrush / Ahrefs | AI Overviews | AI Overview presence inside a tool you already pay for |
Where the line sits
What each one does and does not do.
| A monitoring tool | An agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Tells you whether an engine named you | Yes | Yes |
| Tracks it over time without you remembering | Yes | Yes |
| Shows which source produced the citation | Some | Yes |
| Changes the answer | No | Yes |
| Gets you into the roundups engines cite | No | Yes |
| Fixes entity and schema problems | No | Yes |
| Works in categories the ad platforms refuse | Yes | Yes |
| Costs less than a retainer | Yes | No |
| Useful without someone to act on it | No | Yes |
Buy the tool when
A tool is the right purchase.
- You have a marketer in-house who will own the follow-up work
- You want an independent number to hold a supplier — including us — to
- You are testing whether the channel matters for your category before committing budget
- Your entity and schema foundations are already clean and you only need watching
In all four cases the honest recommendation is software, not a retainer, and we will say so on the call rather than after the invoice.
5 questions
Questions we get asked
Can I just buy a tool instead of hiring an agency?
If you have someone in-house who will act on what it reports, yes — and you should. A monitoring tool plus a competent marketer is cheaper than a retainer and gets to the same place. The tools stop being worth it when nobody opens the dashboard, which is the usual outcome when the work it implies has no owner.
What do these tools actually do?
They run a set of prompts across AI engines on a schedule and record whether your brand appears, which competitors appear instead, and in most cases which sources the engine cited. That is measurement. None of them change what the engine says — they tell you what it currently says.
Do I need a tool if I hire you?
No. Measurement is part of the engagement and you get the raw log rather than a summary. If you already pay for one of these, keep it — a second independent measurement of the same thing is useful, and we would rather be checked than trusted.
Do these tools work for restricted categories?
Mostly, because they prompt the engines the same way a person would. The gap is not measurement, it is that almost every published playbook for acting on the results assumes you can run paid search and buy mainstream coverage. That assumption is what breaks in these categories.
Which tool would you recommend?
Whichever covers the engines your buyers actually use, which varies by category. If your audience skews to community research, Perplexity coverage matters more than it looks. We have no affiliate relationship with any of them and would tell you if we did.
Be the name AI gets named
Before switching anything, or buying anything, find out where you actually stand. If a tool or your current supplier has this covered, the audit will show it.
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