The Shortlist/Google
The 6 best Google AI Overviews and AI Mode tracking tools
Published Sep 14, 2026
Google has two AI answer surfaces and most tools report them as one number. AI Overviews is the summary that appears above the classic results. AI Mode is the conversational tab you switch into. They use different retrieval and they regularly name different brands for the same question.
That matters because Google is still where the volume is. ChatGPT is the engine people name in meetings, and Google is the one quietly answering far more of your category's questions without sending anyone to your site.
Six tools, checked against which Google surfaces each one actually separates.
At a glance
The shortlist, ranked
| # | Tool | Best for | Base | Entry price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Peec AI | Teams who need to know which Google surface is failing them, and what to do about it | Berlin, with a New York office since 2026 | From $95/mo (Starter, 50 prompts). Pro $245 for 150 prompts |
| 2 | Rankscale | Anyone who wants both Google surfaces tracked for the least money, including on a trial budget | Europe, remote | From $20/mo (Essentials). Pro $99, Growth $385, Enterprise $780 |
| 3 | Omnia | Small teams who want both Google surfaces on a trial before committing anything | Madrid | From €79/mo (Growth, 25 prompts). Pro €279, Enterprise from €499 |
| 4 | AthenaHQ | Teams who want both Google surfaces plus a free tier to see their data first | United States | Free Essential tier (300 credits). Starter $295/mo, Enterprise custom |
| 5 | Profound | Enterprise teams who need both Google surfaces alongside SOC 2, SSO and a procurement process | New York | From $99/mo (Starter, ChatGPT only). Growth $399, Enterprise custom |
| 6 | Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Semrush teams who want AI Overviews next to their keyword data and can live without AI Mode | Boston, with offices worldwide | $99/mo per domain. Semrush One, bundling SEO and AI visibility, from $199/mo |
Pricing re-checked against every vendor's own page on Sep 14, 2026
What it really costs
The same workload, priced across every tool
Entry prices are not comparable, because they buy different things. So we priced one identical workload across all of them: 100 prompts tracked daily against both Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, on one seat, for twelve months. That is 6,000 answers a month across the two surfaces.
| Tool | Plan this forces | Per month | 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rankscale | Pro, $99/mo (1,200 credits, 4,800 answers on Pro; Growth for headroom) | $99 | $1,188 |
| Peec AI | Pro, $245/mo (150 prompts, both Google surfaces included) | $245 | $2,940 |
| Omnia | Pro, €279/mo (100 prompts, both surfaces in the four defaults) | €279 | €3,348 |
| AthenaHQ | Starter, $295/mo (3,600 credits covers under two thirds of this) | $295 plus credit add-ons | From $3,540 |
| Profound | Enterprise (AI Mode is an Enterprise engine) | Not published | Not published |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | No plan covers AI Mode as a separate surface | Not available | Not available |
The two entries at the bottom cannot do this job at a published price. Profound covers AI Overviews from Growth but gates AI Mode to Enterprise, where pricing is not published. Semrush covers AI Overviews within its combined Google reporting and does not offer AI Mode as a separate surface at any price, so it cannot meet the brief regardless of budget. Annual billing takes 15% to 20% off most of these.
Methodology
How this was put together
The test that orders this guide is simple: does the tool report AI Overviews and AI Mode as two separate surfaces, on the plan you would realistically buy? A tool that reports one combined Google number is averaging two different answers together, and a tool that gates AI Mode behind an unpublished Enterprise price is not available to most of the people reading this.
We checked every engine list against each vendor's own documentation and feature pages on 14 September 2026, and each entry below states which Google surfaces it covers and on which plans. This category ships weekly, so treat coverage as a snapshot rather than a permanent fact.
We priced 100 prompts tracked daily across both Google surfaces for twelve months, and published the arithmetic below. Two of the six cannot serve that workload at a published price at all.
We re-check every price against the vendor's own page and stamp the date at the top. Anything that moves goes in the changelog, including changes that make an entry look worse.
The order is our judgement. Every entry says where the tool is the stronger pick and where it is not, including the one at the top, and the top two are separated by coverage depth rather than price.
The tools
Every entry in detail
#1
Peec AI
- Best for
- Teams who need to know which Google surface is failing them, and what to do about it
- Base
- Berlin, with a New York office since 2026
- Entry price
- From $95/mo (Starter, 50 prompts). Pro $245 for 150 prompts
- Terms
- Monthly or annual, around 15% off annual. No free tier
Separates Google into three tracked surfaces rather than one: AI Overviews, AI Mode and the Gemini interface, all included from the entry plan. That is the distinction this guide is about, and very little else does it without an Enterprise contract. The reason it matters in practice is that the fix differs by surface. AI Overviews leans on what already ranks and on pages Google has long trusted. AI Mode behaves more like a chat assistant and pulls in sources classic search would never surface. Peec reports the sources behind each one separately, classified as editorial, corporate, UGC, reference or your own site, so you can see which of the two is the problem before spending anything on fixing it.
Where it is stronger
- Both Google surfaces on the entry plan, with no Enterprise gate
- Three Google surfaces separated, counting the Gemini interface
- Source data reported per surface, so you can tell which Google problem you have
- Server-log data showing Google's crawlers actually reaching the pages you care about
- Fifty percent more prompts at Pro than Profound gives at Growth, for less money
Where it is not
- Two and a half times the price of Rankscale for this workload
- Fewer total engines than Rankscale, which covers ten on every plan
- 50 prompts at Starter, so most brands land on Pro at $245
- No free tier, so the cheapest look costs $95
- Founded in 2025, so the track record is short next to Semrush
- 18 G2 reviews is a thin base to judge from, however good the average
What it does
- Engines included on every plan, as of 14 September 2026: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot
- Data access: CSV and Looker Studio on all plans, REST API and an MCP server on the higher tiers
- AI-referred traffic: AI Referrals joins measured GA4 sessions rather than estimating them
- Recommendations: Peec Actions produces prioritised actions from the source gaps it finds
- Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and the Gemini interface tracked as three separate surfaces
- Source and citation analysis per surface, with five source classifications
- Crawlability checks across 40+ AI bots, including Google's
- Crawl insights from server logs, via Cloudflare, Vercel, AWS CloudFront, Akamai, WordPress, webhook or CSV
Published proof
- Lists Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode as separate included engines on every plan
- Publishes prompt caps per tier: 50 on Starter, 150 on Pro, 350 on Advanced
- Publishes eight named server-log integration methods
- Raised roughly $29M in total: a seed round led by 20VC in July 2025 and a $21M Series A led by Singular in November 2025
- States more than 3,000 marketing teams, brands and agencies as customers
- 4.8 out of 5 on G2 across 18 reviews
#2
Rankscale
- Best for
- Anyone who wants both Google surfaces tracked for the least money, including on a trial budget
- Base
- Europe, remote
- Entry price
- From $20/mo (Essentials). Pro $99, Growth $385, Enterprise $780
- Terms
- Monthly or annual, 15% off annual. Unused credits roll over to a per-tier cap
Tracks both Google surfaces from the $20 Essentials plan, which makes it the cheapest way to answer this question by a very wide margin. Ten engines are available on every tier, including AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Copilot, with more than 17 supported in total. Scheduling runs from hourly to monthly, which is genuinely useful for AI Overviews because that surface moves faster than the others. The trade is vendor weight: bootstrapped, two founders, no published compliance posture, and a page-audit tool that is good but not a substitute for source-level diagnosis.
Where it is stronger
- Both Google surfaces from $20, the cheapest coverage of this anywhere
- Ten engines on every plan, with no tier gating at all
- Hourly scheduling, which suits how quickly AI Overviews changes
- Credit rollover, so an unused month is not wasted
- Full credit arithmetic published, including the per-surface rate
Where it is not
- A two-founder bootstrapped team, which is a real vendor-risk answer you may have to give
- No published SOC 2, SSO or compliance posture
- Traffic analytics were still in beta at the time of writing
- No server-log or crawler analytics
- Site audits diagnose your pages rather than the sources Google chose instead of you
What it does
- Engines included on every plan, as of 14 September 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral, with 17+ supported in total
- Data access: REST API, Looker Studio connector and an MCP server
- AI-referred traffic: Search Console and GA4 analytics, in beta at the time of writing
- Recommendations: GEO site audits with 94+ technical checkpoints
- Credit-based usage at roughly 0.25 credits per engine per prompt, including AI Mode
- Scheduling from hourly to monthly
- Citation analysis showing which sources each surface cited
Published proof
- Lists Google AI Mode and Google AI Overviews as separately tracked engines, included from the $20 Essentials plan
- Publishes credit allowances and answer counts per tier: 1,200 credits and 4,800 answers on Pro
- Publishes the consumption rate, including 0.25 credits per AI Mode query
- Founders named publicly: Mathias Ptacek and Patrick Schmid
- Bootstrapped, with no outside funding announced
#3
Omnia
- Best for
- Small teams who want both Google surfaces on a trial before committing anything
- Base
- Madrid
- Entry price
- From €79/mo (Growth, 25 prompts). Pro €279, Enterprise from €499
- Terms
- Monthly or annual, 20% off annual. 14-day free trial, no card required
Both Google surfaces sit in the four engines Omnia turns on by default, alongside ChatGPT and Perplexity, so the narrow engine list works in its favour here in a way it does not elsewhere. A 14-day trial with no card means you can answer the AI Overviews question for a brand before anyone approves a budget line. Founded in Madrid in 2024 by Daniel Espejo, previously at Klarna, on a €3.5M pre-seed. Citation tracking runs in any language or region, which matters more for Google than for the chat engines, because AI Overviews varies a lot by country.
Where it is stronger
- Both Google surfaces in the default four, so nothing needs unlocking
- A real no-card trial, which is rare here
- Region and language coverage, which matters more on Google than elsewhere
- Credits that never expire
- Simple enough to read without onboarding anyone
Where it is not
- €279 for this workload, against $99 from Rankscale for the same two surfaces
- Four engines by default is the narrowest coverage in this guide
- 25 prompts on the entry tier, so Google alone pushes most brands to Pro
- No AI-referred traffic reporting at any tier
- No server-log or crawler analytics
What it does
- Engines included by default, as of 14 September 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, with up to seven available
- Data access: API access and data exports on paid plans
- AI-referred traffic: not offered
- Recommendations: Omnio surfaces the questions buyers ask about your category
- Citation tracking in any language or region
- Competitive intelligence and share of voice
- Insight credits that never expire
Published proof
- Lists Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode among the four engines enabled by default
- Raised a €3.5M pre-seed in October 2025, led by Visionaries Club with Kfund and Baobab Ventures
- Founder named publicly: Daniel Espejo, previously at Klarna
- Publishes full pricing for all three tiers
- Offers a 14-day trial with no card required
#4
AthenaHQ
- Best for
- Teams who want both Google surfaces plus a free tier to see their data first
- Base
- United States
- Entry price
- Free Essential tier (300 credits). Starter $295/mo, Enterprise custom
- Terms
- Monthly or annual, 17% off annual. One credit is one AI response
Covers both Google surfaces on every tier including the free one, which makes it the only way to see your own AI Overviews and AI Mode data without paying anything. Above that, one credit is one AI response, and 3,600 credits on Starter covers a little under two thirds of a 100-prompt daily set across two surfaces, so realistic use means credit add-ons priced on request. The optimisation agent is the differentiator: it drafts on-page and off-page work from the findings, which suits AI Overviews particularly well because the fixes there are usually conventional content and authority work.
Where it is stronger
- Both Google surfaces on a genuinely free tier
- Every engine on every tier, with no per-engine add-ons and no Enterprise gate
- An agent that drafts the fix, which fits how AI Overviews problems are usually solved
- Covers Meta AI and Amazon Rufus as well, which most of this list does not
- Founding team with real search engineering background
Where it is not
- 3,600 credits does not cover this workload, so the real price is above $295
- Credit add-on pricing is on request rather than published
- API access on Starter costs extra, priced on request
- $2.2M raised is the smallest funding base here
- No server-log or crawler analytics
What it does
- Engines included on every tier, as of 14 September 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot and Grok, plus DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral
- Data access: API access on Starter is a paid add-on, priced on request
- AI-referred traffic: not offered
- Recommendations: an advanced content optimisation agent producing on-page and off-page actions
- A free Essential tier at 300 credits, covering both Google surfaces
- The Athena Citation Engine on Starter and above
- SSO and audit logs on Enterprise
Published proof
- Lists Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode as separately tracked, on every tier including the free one
- Publishes its credit definition plainly: one credit is one AI response
- Publishes the Starter price, the annual discount and the credit allowance
- Y Combinator backed, with $2.2M raised
- Founders named publicly: Andrew Yan and Alan Yao, formerly of Google Search and DeepMind
#5
Profound
- Best for
- Enterprise teams who need both Google surfaces alongside SOC 2, SSO and a procurement process
- Base
- New York
- Entry price
- From $99/mo (Starter, ChatGPT only). Growth $399, Enterprise custom
- Terms
- Prices shown are billed yearly. AI Mode is an Enterprise engine
Added Google AI Mode support and tracks both surfaces properly, which is not in question. What places it fifth in a guide about Google is where that support sits. Starter is ChatGPT only. Growth at $399 reaches AI Overviews but not AI Mode. AI Mode arrives at Enterprise, alongside Gemini, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Claude, and Enterprise pricing is not published. So for anyone buying self-serve the answer to this guide's question is a sales call. For an enterprise team that was always going to have one, it remains the strongest option here on compliance and support, and the ranking above is not addressed to them.
Where it is stronger
- Both Google surfaces tracked properly once you are on Enterprise
- The only published compliance posture here: SOC 2, SSO and SAML
- Agent analytics covering crawler and referral behaviour
- The largest funding base and the largest independent review base on this list
- The most recognised brand, which shortens internal approval
Where it is not
- AI Mode requires Enterprise, and Enterprise pricing is not published
- Growth at $399 covers AI Overviews but not AI Mode, so it cannot answer this guide's question
- Starter at $99 covers neither Google surface
- No self-serve path to both surfaces at any published price
- No free tier
What it does
- Engines by tier, as of 14 September 2026: ChatGPT at Starter; ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews at Growth; up to nine including Google AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Claude at Enterprise
- Data access: API and integrations on Enterprise
- AI-referred traffic: agent analytics covering AI crawler and referral behaviour
- Recommendations: Agents credits, from 100 a month at Starter
- Multiple company tracking on Enterprise
- SSO, SAML and SOC 2 compliance on Enterprise
- Dedicated Slack support on Enterprise
Published proof
- Published a product announcement introducing Google AI Mode support
- Publishes the engine count at Starter, Growth and Enterprise, and names AI Mode as an Enterprise engine
- Raised $58.5M in total, including a $35M Series B led by Sequoia
- States SOC 2 compliance and SSO/SAML availability on Enterprise
- More than 140 G2 reviews at 4.6 out of 5, the largest review base in this category
#6
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
- Best for
- Semrush teams who want AI Overviews next to their keyword data and can live without AI Mode
- Base
- Boston, with offices worldwide
- Entry price
- $99/mo per domain. Semrush One, bundling SEO and AI visibility, from $199/mo
- Terms
- Per domain and per seat. Extra prompts and extra seats are billed separately
The only entry here that cannot do the thing this guide is about, at any price. Semrush reports brand mentions from ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity, and that combined Google figure does not break out AI Mode as its own surface. For a lot of teams that is an acceptable trade, because the AI Overviews data sits directly next to the keyword rankings and backlink data that explain it, and that adjacency is genuinely useful for diagnosing an AI Overviews problem. It is on the list because it is the tool most SEO teams already have open, and because AI Overviews correlates with classic ranking more than any other surface, which is exactly what Semrush is built to show you.
Where it is stronger
- AI Overviews data next to the ranking and backlink data that explains it
- No new vendor, login or invoice if you already use Semrush
- The strongest tool here for the classic SEO work that AI Overviews still rewards
- The largest research and support organisation of anything on this list
- Easiest internal approval
Where it is not
- No Google AI Mode as a separate surface at any price, which is what this guide is about
- Google reported as one combined figure, averaging two different answer surfaces
- 25 prompts per domain is the smallest allowance in this guide
- Per-domain and per-seat pricing, which punishes any team with more than one brand
- Little value unless you are already in the Semrush ecosystem
What it does
- Engines included, as of 14 September 2026: ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity, with Google reported as one combined surface
- Data access: exports and reporting within the Semrush platform
- AI-referred traffic: available through the wider Semrush analytics suite rather than the AI toolkit
- Recommendations: a site audit scoring AI readiness
- Prompt tracking with daily AI rankings, 25 prompts included per domain
- AI competitor analysis and prompt research
- Sits alongside the classic SEO toolkits, including rank tracking and backlinks
Published proof
- Lists four tracked engines, with Google reported as a combined surface rather than AI Overviews and AI Mode separately
- Publishes the $99 per domain price and the 25-prompt allowance
- Publishes add-on pricing: roughly $60 for 50 extra prompts, $99 per extra domain, $99 per extra seat
- Part of a long-established public company with a large published research output
- Publishes its own AI visibility research, which is itself among the most cited sources in this category
Why the two surfaces disagree
AI Overviews sits on top of classic search. It leans on pages that already rank, on sites Google has trusted for a long time, and on the same signals SEO teams have worked with for years. If you rank well, you have a decent chance of being summarised.
AI Mode behaves more like a chat assistant. It breaks your question into several background searches, runs them, and assembles an answer from what comes back. That process reaches sources classic search would never put on page one, which is why Reddit threads, YouTube videos and niche comparison posts turn up in AI Mode answers far more often than their rankings would suggest.
The practical consequence is that you can be strong in one and absent from the other, and the fixes are not the same. An AI Overviews problem is usually a ranking and authority problem, and your existing SEO work applies. An AI Mode problem is usually a coverage problem, where the pages the model reaches simply do not mention you, and no amount of on-site work changes that. A tool that reports one Google number hides which of the two you have.
Google is still the volume, whatever the meeting says
There is a gap between the engine people talk about and the engine that answers most of the questions. ChatGPT is the one named in board meetings. Google still handles the large majority of search in most categories, and it is putting AI answers on more of those queries every quarter.
This shows up in a specific way. Teams tracking only ChatGPT often conclude AI Search is a small problem, because their category has modest ChatGPT volume and they look reasonably visible in it. Then they add AI Overviews and find a much larger surface where they are absent, and where a competitor has quietly been the summarised answer for months.
Add Google second if you must add things one at a time. Do not leave it until the annual planning cycle, because the gap compounds while you are not looking at it.
What we left out, and why
We left out the classic rank trackers that added an AI Overviews flag. Knowing that AI Overviews appeared for a keyword is useful and is not the same as knowing whether it named you, which is the question. A yes-or-no presence flag against a keyword list will not tell you that.
We left out tools that track AI Mode by querying Gemini's API. Gemini the model and AI Mode the surface are different things, and the answers differ. If a tool describes AI Mode coverage, check whether it drives the actual surface or a model behind it.
We left out the free one-off AI Overviews checkers. They tell you what happened once, for one query, which has no trend in it. These surfaces move faster than the chat engines, which makes a single reading less useful here than anywhere else.
FAQ
Questions buyers actually ask
- What is the difference between AI Overviews and AI Mode?
- AI Overviews is the AI summary that appears above the normal blue links for some searches. AI Mode is a separate conversational tab you deliberately switch into, where you can ask follow-up questions. They draw on different retrieval, and they regularly name different brands for the same question, which is why tracking them as one number hides more than it shows.
- Which of the two should we prioritise?
- AI Overviews first for most businesses, because it reaches people who never chose to use an AI tool, so the audience is far larger. Prioritise AI Mode if your category is one where buyers ask long comparative questions, because that is the surface built for follow-ups, and it is where a considered purchase gets shortlisted.
- Does ranking well still help in AI Overviews?
- Yes, more than anywhere else in AI Search. AI Overviews leans heavily on pages that already rank and on domains Google has trusted for a long time, so conventional SEO still moves it. That is not true of AI Mode to the same degree, and it is barely true of ChatGPT, which is why a single AI Search strategy applied to all three tends to underperform.
- Why does a tool show different AI Overviews results than we see?
- Personalisation, location and timing. AI Overviews varies by country, by city in some categories, and by whether the user is signed in. A tool queries from a specific location with a clean session, which is the right way to get a consistent trend and will not match what you see on your own laptop. Compare the tool against itself over time rather than against your own browser.
- How fast do these surfaces change?
- Faster than the chat engines, and AI Overviews faster than AI Mode. Google adjusts which queries get AI answers at all, so a query that showed AI Overviews last month may not this month. Collect daily so the trend has resolution, read monthly, and expect more volatility here than in ChatGPT or Perplexity.
- Can we opt out of AI Overviews?
- Not selectively in any useful way. You can block Google's crawlers, which removes you from classic search too, so it is not a real option for most businesses. The practical response is the opposite: make the pages Google already trusts say clearly what you do, and get mentioned on the third-party pages it reaches when your own pages are not enough.
Changelog
What has changed since we published
- Sep 14, 2026
- First published. All prices and engine lists checked against each vendor's own pages on the same day.
More shortlists
Every other buying guide
Tools
The 6 best AI Search monitoring tools
Agencies
The 6 best AI visibility tools for agencies
ChatGPT
The 6 best ChatGPT tracking tools
In-house SEO
The 6 best AI Search tools for in-house SEO teams
B2B startups
The 5 best GEO agencies for B2B startups
Scale-ups
The 5 best GEO agencies for scale-ups
Enterprise
The 5 best GEO agencies for enterprise
B2B SaaS
The 5 best GEO agencies for B2B SaaS
Regulated
The 5 best GEO agencies for regulated industries
Europe
The 5 best GEO agencies in Europe
Germany
The 5 best GEO agencies in Germany
Scale-ups · Europe
The 5 best GEO agencies for scale-ups in Europe
Europe · SEO & AI
The 5 best SEO and AI Search agencies in Europe
Germany · SEO & AI
The 5 best SEO and AI Search agencies in Germany