- Choose Otterly.AI if budget is the constraint: $29/month is the lowest published entry in the category, with daily tracking and unlimited team members on every plan.
- Choose MentionBeat if your numbers get challenged: 95% confidence intervals, ties marked, honesty labels, a public methodology, and a fix queue that closes only on a passing re-check.
- Coverage differs by shape, not just size: Otterly's base plans cover 4 surfaces with Gemini, Claude and AI Mode as paid add-ons; MentionBeat's 6 surfaces are never plan-locked.
- Both let you try before paying: Otterly has a free trial, MentionBeat a permanent free tier (1,500 credits, no card).
Disclosure first: we're one of the two vendors here. The rules for this post: every Otterly.AI fact is from Otterly's own public pages, checked August 2026 and linked in the sources; where something isn't documented publicly, we say we couldn't find it rather than claiming it's absent. Our general case against the category is on why us — this is the specific matchup.
Who each is for
Otterly.AI is the volume pick for small teams. It monitors prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, tracks brand mentions with share of voice and sentiment, follows the citations engines link to, and audits URLs for GEO readiness.2 It states a base of 30,000+ marketing pros, a 4.8/5 G2 rating, and a Gartner "Cool Vendor" nod in 2025.2 Plans start at $29/month for 15 prompts and scale to 400 prompts at $489, with API, MCP access and agent analytics from the Standard tier up.1
MentionBeat is the rigor pick for teams whose numbers end up in a deck. It samples real buyer prompts repeatedly across six surfaces — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Grok — and reports mention rate, recommendation rate, share of voice, sentiment and accuracy, every headline number with a 95% confidence interval. Findings become a fix queue that closes only when a re-check passes, wrong facts get drafted corrections, and experiments report attributed lift — null results included.
Capability comparison
| Capability | Otterly.AI (public pages, Aug 2026) | MentionBeat |
|---|---|---|
| Engines / surfaces | Base: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot. Gemini, Claude and AI Mode are paid add-ons ($9–$439/mo by tier)1 | 6 surfaces incl. Claude, Gemini and Grok — none plan-locked; credits are the only limit |
| Cadence | Daily tracking on all plans1 | Scheduled tracking on the interval you choose; fortnightly is the default |
| Statistical treatment | Confidence intervals aren't documented on the public pages we checked (August 2026) | 95% CI on every headline rate; repeated sampling per prompt; overlapping ranks marked as ties; live/modeled/estimated labels |
| Citations & sources | Citation and link tracking — which sites engines cite2 | Cited-source tracking per answer, plus source-gap analysis against rivals |
| Content workflow | GEO content recommendations and URL audits (5,000–10,000/mo by tier)1 | Fix queue with verified closure; Content Studio with GEO lint; drafted corrections; experiments with null results reported |
| Team & integrations | Unlimited team members on all plans; API, MCP and Agent Analytics from Standard up1 | Seats never metered on any plan; REST API, MCP server, Slack, exports and SSO on paid plans |
| Methodology | Not documented on the public pages we checked (August 2026) | Published in full, limitations included |
| Free option | Free trial1 | Permanent free tier: 1,500 credits, no card, no expiry |
The pricing reality
As of August 2026, from each vendor's public pricing page:
- Otterly.AI: Lite $29/month (15 prompts) · Standard $189/month (100 prompts) · Premium $489/month (400 prompts) · Enterprise custom. Annual billing takes 15% off. Extra engines (Gemini, Claude, AI Mode) are add-ons priced by tier.1
- MentionBeat: Free — 1,500 credits once. Pro $99/month — 20,000 credits, roughly 1,400 checks on the cheapest engine or 400 on ChatGPT. Scale $399/month — 80,000 credits. Agency $599/month — pooled client workspaces. Yearly is ten months' price for twelve. Details on pricing.
The models differ more than the prices. Otterly sells flat prompt caps per tier — simple to predict, and genuinely cheap at the entry point. MentionBeat sells credits: one check is one prompt on one engine once, priced from 11 to 172 credits by engine, quoted before every run. Flat caps favor a fixed list watched constantly; credits favor a suite you resize, repeat for statistical confidence, and point at whichever engines matter this quarter.
Watch the add-on math. If Claude or Gemini matters to your category, price Otterly with those add-ons at your tier before comparing — the sticker gap between $29 and $99 can narrow or vanish depending on the engines you actually need.1
When Otterly.AI is the better choice
Said without hedging:
- Your budget is under $100 and fixed. $29/month for daily monitoring of 15 prompts is the cheapest paid entry in the category we've found published, and a real product at that price.1
- You want daily cadence out of the box. Every Otterly plan tracks daily.1 MentionBeat's default is fortnightly — you choose your interval, but frequent sampling across many engines burns credits accordingly.
- Microsoft Copilot matters to you. Otterly covers it in every base plan; MentionBeat doesn't measure Copilot today.1
- You want the well-trodden path. A stated 30,000+ users and a Gartner Cool Vendor mention mean plenty of peers, templates and reviews to lean on.2
When MentionBeat is the better choice
- Someone will ask if the number is real. AI answers vary run to run — one ask is an anecdote, not a measurement. MentionBeat samples each prompt repeatedly and puts a 95% interval on every rate, marks statistical ties instead of inventing an order, and labels every result live, modeled or estimated. That's the difference between reporting a chart and defending one.
- Claude, Gemini or Grok are core to your buyers. All six MentionBeat surfaces come with every plan — the only question is credits. At Otterly, Claude and Gemini are add-ons and Grok isn't listed on the public pages we checked (August 2026).1
- You want the loop, not a to-do list. A finding here isn't closed when you mark it done — it's closed when the re-check passes. Corrections for wrong facts on pages you don't own get drafted for you, and experiments tell you whether the work moved the number, including when it didn't.
- You want to audit before you buy. Our methodology is public, limitations included. Hold both vendors to that bar and see who blinks.
MentionBeat's free tier includes 1,500 credits — a real first baseline, with confidence intervals, not vibes. If the cheaper tool still wins after that, you'll know it for the right reasons.
Get a free visibility reportThe honest verdict
If you're a solo marketer who needs to watch a short prompt list every day for less than the cost of lunch, buy Otterly — that's its home turf, and pretending otherwise would insult your intelligence.
If your AI-visibility number feeds a strategy — quarterly goals, content investment, a board slide — the interval and the loop stop being luxuries. A rate that moved from 41% to 47% with no interval hasn't told you anything happened; a fix marked "done" without a re-check hasn't told you it worked. That's the product we sell, and it's why we cost more than $29.
Still mapping the field? Start with our roundup of the best GEO tools in 2026, see how we stack against the enterprise leader in MentionBeat vs Profound, or scan Profound alternatives. And whichever tool you pick, the work it feeds is the same: read your category's answers, publish the comparison pages engines quote, and re-measure.
Frequently asked questions
As of August 2026, Otterly.AI publishes three self-serve tiers: Lite at $29/month (15 prompts), Standard at $189/month (100 prompts, API and MCP access) and Premium at $489/month (400 prompts), each covering ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot.1 Gemini, Claude and Google AI Mode are paid add-ons from $9 to $439/month depending on tier. Annual billing takes 15% off, and there's a free trial.
Yes. MentionBeat's free checker audits any page with no account, and its free tier includes 1,500 measurement credits — no card, no expiry. Otterly.AI offers a free trial rather than a permanent free tier (checked August 2026).1 You can also check whether a page is cited in Google's AI Overview for free.
Neither is a superset of the other. Otterly's base plans cover 4 surfaces, extendable to 7 with paid add-ons.1 MentionBeat measures 6, none plan-locked. Otterly covers Copilot, which we don't; we cover Grok, which Otterly's public pages don't list (checked August 2026). Match the list to where your buyers actually ask.
Sources & further reading
- Otterly.AI — Pricing (tiers, prompt caps, engine coverage, add-ons, trial), checked August 2026.
- Otterly.AI — otterly.ai (capabilities, stated user base, G2 rating, Gartner Cool Vendor mention), checked August 2026.
- MentionBeat — Pricing, current as of August 2026.
- MentionBeat — Published methodology, including limitations.
Growth Lead at MentionBeat. Jack turns visibility data into 90-day execution plans, and has run the diagnose → plan → execute → remeasure loop with teams from industrial manufacturers to developer-tools startups.
