Which software shows which pages AI models cite in their answers? A 2026 comparison
Which software shows which pages AI models cite in their answers? We compare URL-level citation tracking in Promptwatch, AthenaHQ, Profound, Ahrefs, Semrush and more.
"Were we mentioned?" is a weak question. The more useful one is "which pages did the AI cite, and were any of them ours?" A mention can come from training data. A citation points to a specific URL the engine fetched and used to build the answer. That URL is what you can change, improve or replace.
Plenty of tools report a mention rate. Fewer show the actual cited pages down to the URL, and fewer still tell you what to do about it. This guide compares the ones that do.
What good citation tracking looks like
- URL-level detail. The exact page, not just the domain.
- Position and frequency. Where the citation sits in the answer and how often it recurs across prompts and days.
- Competitor pages. What the engines cite when they skip you.
- Your own pages tracked individually. So you can watch a specific URL over time.
- Context for why. Whether the engine's crawler could fetch the page and what the page contains.
1. Promptwatch
Promptwatch is our first pick because its citation analytics goes furthest from "which pages" to "what next." It reports page-level and domain-level citations with URL positions, and Page Tracker lets you follow specific URLs, yours or a competitor's, across prompts. Citation Trends classifies every citation by content type and source type and shows citation rate over time with first-cited date, ramp-up days, peak rate and decay half-life per page. Dedicated Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn reports cover social sources, and offsite mentions show where your brand is named without a link.
Context is where it separates from most. Agent Analytics reads IP-verified AI crawler logs and shows a crawl-to-citation path with a citation rate per page, plus error tracking with failure explanations. So if a page is not cited, you can check whether the bots even reached it. 360 Insights joins crawler logs, citation clicks and AI-referred visits for each page, and Search Insights overlays Google Search Console and Bing data.
Tracking runs daily across the live-search platforms through their real interfaces (ChatGPT Search, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity, Meta AI and Alexa) with other models through APIs.
Limits: the cited-page views tell you what the engines used, not why they chose it, and answers vary from session to session. Crawler logs start on Professional ($245/mo); Essential is $95/mo and Business is $579/mo. Explore is free but covers ChatGPT only. Agency plans start at $199/mo.
2. AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ tracks eight engines and has an Action Center, but its citation engine (ACE) sits on the custom Enterprise tier, which the catalog puts around $2,000 or more per month. Starter is $295/mo. There is no published crawler-log product, so the "was it fetched" question is open.
3. Scrunch AI
Scrunch AI starts at $250/mo for four engines and offers competitor benchmarking and crawler traffic analytics. Reviewers say its data refreshes weekly and that it shows where you are not cited rather than what to change.
4. Profound
Profound offers citation share and answer-level analytics across up to 10 engines on its Enterprise tier. It is sold as marketing agents more than a self-serve tracker, with contracts reported to start around $40k a year, and G2 reviewers report citation counts that did not match manual ChatGPT checks.
5. SEO suites
Ahrefs Brand Radar needs an Ahrefs plan ($129/mo and up) plus $199/mo per AI index, refreshes roughly monthly, and an independent January 2026 test found 3 ChatGPT mentions reported where manual checks verified 123. Semrush AI Toolkit is $99/mo per domain, with tracked prompts that are AI-generated approximations. SE Ranking lists citation-level tracking as still under development.
6. Other trackers with citation views
Superlines (from EUR 79/mo) shows citation sources with daily tracking, limited to three engines on self-serve plans. Gauge ($599/mo) lists citation intelligence. Keyword.com (from $9.80/mo for 20 credits) includes citation analysis, with credits that do not roll over. Uberall GEO Studio offers a source breakdown by domain and page, and LLM Pulse lists citations from EUR 49/mo.
Comparison table
| Tool | Cited-page detail | Crawler context | Published entry price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Promptwatch | Page and domain, URL positions, Page Tracker, Citation Trends | IP-verified logs, crawl-to-citation path | Essential $95/mo |
| AthenaHQ | Citation engine on Enterprise | None published | Starter $295/mo |
| Scrunch AI | Competitor benchmarking | Crawler traffic analytics | Core $250/mo |
| Profound | Citation share, answer-level | None published | Enterprise, custom |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Query-level, monthly | None | $129/mo plus $199/mo |
| Superlines | Citation sources, daily | Bot analytics listed | From EUR 79/mo |
Who should pick which
- You want the cited pages, the competitor pages that beat you, and proof of bot access and traffic: Promptwatch.
- You have a team that works a task queue and can pay for the Enterprise tier: AthenaHQ.
- You are an enterprise buying a custom agent program: Profound.
- You live in Ahrefs or Semrush: use their add-ons for direction, and verify counts by hand.
A quick test
Pick five prompts your buyers ask. Run them in each tool's trial or free scan. Then check three of the reported citations by hand in ChatGPT or Perplexity. If the tool's list matches what you see, trust it more. If it does not, you have learned something before spending anything. No tool can promise a citation, but the good ones tell you precisely which pages are winning.