AI visibility tracker

Otterly + Ranqer: the entry-level stack

Otterly is the cheapest credible AI visibility tracker in the category — $29/month to see whether ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI actually name your brand. Ranqer is the content engine that shapes what those engines get to read. For solo founders and lean teams, this pairing is the minimum viable stack.

What is Otterly?

Otterly is a focused AI search visibility platform used by 20,000+ marketing teams worldwide. It tracks how brands appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Mode — all six engines on every tier, no per-engine add-ons gating the basics.

Positioning is pure monitor-only. Otterly is not trying to replace Ahrefs or Semrush; it doesn't crawl your site, profile backlinks, or track traditional keyword rankings. The scope is narrow and intentional: answer the one question of whether AI search engines mention your brand, and if so, how they frame you against competitors.

Recognised by G2, OMR, and Gartner. Notable customers span enterprise and mid-market — Roche, Opera, Auto1, Publicis Sapient, A1 Telekom, BenQ, Trimble, Valvoline, Visma, Check24 — which is unusual for an entry-priced tool. The country-level visibility reporting (per-market, per-language) is a real differentiator versus tools that track only globally.

Who it's for

Solo founders, early-stage SaaS, and lean marketing teams that need to know whether their brand shows up in AI answers — without a $500/month commitment. Not a fit for multi-brand agencies (no multi-project support) or teams that need a full SEO toolstack (no crawler, no backlinks). At 15-prompt scale, Otterly is a spotlight, not a dashboard.

Key features

Six engines on every tier

ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot, and Google AI Mode — all included. Most competitors charge extra for Gemini or AI Mode coverage.

Country-level visibility

Performance reports per market and per language. If you sell internationally, this is one of the few tools that shows regional AI search gaps rather than a global average.

GEO audit with SWOT

Automated content audit surfacing prompts where your competitors appear and you don't, with specific tactic recommendations per gap.

Brand sentiment + citation tracking

Tracks which URLs AI engines cite for your brand, and how the AI describes you versus competitors. Weekly citation changes flagged as alerts.

Otterly pricing

Tier
Price
What you get
Lite
$29/mo
15 tracked prompts, all 6 AI engines, 14-day free trial
Standard
$189/mo
100 prompts, brand reports, domain analytics
Premium
$489/mo
400 prompts, country-level reports, priority support

Google AI Mode and Gemini are available as per-tier add-ons ($9 Lite / $59 Standard / $149 Premium). Big jump from Lite ($29) to Standard ($189) — if 15 prompts aren't enough, the next step is nearly 7x the price.

The gap every tracker has

Otterly's honesty is its specialisation. It measures whether you appear in AI answers with surgical focus — and does nothing to put you there. When Otterly shows your brand at zero mentions or flags a competitor winning a prompt, the fix is upstream. Reddit is the single largest source the AI engines cite, and tracking a gap doesn't close it.

46.7%

of Perplexity top-10
citations are Reddit

Profound, 680M citations

24%

of all Perplexity
citations are Reddit

Tinuiti Q1 2026

+73%

Reddit citation share
growth Oct 2025 → Jan 2026

Tinuiti Q1 2026

These numbers come from independent research — Profound's own 680-million-citation study and Tinuiti's Q1 2026 AI Citation Trends Report. The takeaway is the same regardless of which tracker you use: AI models lean heavily on Reddit.

How Ranqer fits in

Ranqer is the content engine that feeds what Otterly measures.

Otterly tells you the gap. Ranqer fills it. We find Reddit threads where your buyers are already asking about tools in your category, draft contextual comments in a real user voice, and post them from vetted human accounts. Those threads are exactly what ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews cite — the same citations Otterly shows you counting. Otterly Lite ($29) plus Ranqer ($129) is $158/month total, the lowest-cost measure-and-act stack you can build for AI search in 2026.

See what Ranqer would post for you

The Otterly + Ranqer loop

01
Track baseline with OtterlyOtterly

Set 15 prompts on Lite (or 100 on Standard). Otterly runs them daily across all 6 AI engines, flags where your brand is absent or hedged, and where competitors take the slot.

02
Identify zero-mention promptsOtterly

GEO Audit surfaces gap prompts with SWOT analysis — exactly where competitors appear in AI answers and you don't. This becomes your content targeting list.

03
Seed Reddit threads with RanqerRanqer

Ranqer finds active Reddit threads mapped to those gap prompts, drafts contextual comments, and posts them through vetted accounts. Threads index within days and feed into AI model retrieval.

04
Watch gap prompts recoverBoth

Otterly re-runs the same prompts daily. Gap prompts move from absent to mentioned with specificity, usually within 3-6 weeks. Brand Visibility Index trends up.

Frequently asked questions

Is Otterly Lite ($29) actually enough to track a real category?
For narrow categories with a focused ICP — yes. 15 prompts covers your main 'best [category]' queries plus a handful of competitor-direct prompts. For broad categories (B2B SaaS, marketing tools, CRM) you'll feel the ceiling within weeks and need Standard ($189) or Premium ($489). Otterly is honest about this: Lite is an onboarding tier, not a production plan.
Why the huge jump from Lite to Standard?
Lite is designed as a try-it-first tier. Standard unlocks the real analytics surface: brand reports, domain citation analytics, weekly alerts. If you're serious about AI search as a channel, you end up on Standard or higher. The $29 to $189 gap is the single most common complaint in Otterly reviews — our recommendation is to treat Lite as trial-extended and budget for Standard if the channel matters.
Does Ranqer replace Otterly's GEO audit feature?
No. GEO audit is still useful — it tells you which prompts to target. Ranqer doesn't surface prompts; it acts on the ones you've already identified. Otterly's audit feeds Ranqer's targeting list. They're sequential steps of the same workflow, not competing features.
What's the cheapest AI visibility stack you can actually run?
Otterly Lite ($29) + Ranqer ($129) = $158/month. That covers tracking across 6 AI engines plus managed Reddit content placement. No other combination gets under $200 total with both measurement and execution. If $158 is too much, skip the tracker entirely and just run Ranqer — you'll lose measurement but keep the content engine that actually moves the number.
When do I outgrow Otterly?
Two signals: you need multi-project/multi-brand support (Otterly doesn't do this), or you need API access for workflow integration (Lite and Standard don't include it). At that point LLM Pulse Growth (€99) replaces Otterly Lite for roughly 3x the prompt coverage, real API, and white-label for agency use. Otterly + Ranqer is right for solo. LLM Pulse + Ranqer is right for agency.

Related reading

Sources

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