The Shortlist/Google
The 6 best Google AI Overviews and AI Mode tracking tools
Published Sep 14, 2026 · Updated Oct 16, 2026
The best Google AI Overviews and AI Mode tracking tools in 2026 are Peec AI, Rankscale, Omnia, AthenaHQ, Scrunch AI and Gauge. For 150 daily prompts across AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini, Peec AI is the lowest-priced published plan at $2,940 a year.
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 | Teams on a tight budget who track one or two Google surfaces, or can live with Growth's $385 for three | Europe, remote | Pro $99/mo, Pro+ $229, 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 for 100 prompts, Enterprise from €499 for 200+. Prompt packs of 25 on any plan |
| 4 | AthenaHQ | Teams who want the Google surfaces plus a free tier to see their data first | United States | Free Essential tier (300 credits). Starter $295/mo, Enterprise custom |
| 5 | Scrunch AI | Bigger brands who want Google coverage alongside crawler analytics and audits | United States | Core $250/mo (125 prompts). Enterprise custom |
| 6 | Gauge | Teams who want both Google surfaces plus something that drafts the fix | San Francisco | Growth $599/mo. Enterprise custom |
Prices verified against each vendor's own pricing page on Oct 16, 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: 150 prompts tracked daily against Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Gemini, on one seat, for twelve months. That is 13,500 answers a month across Google's three AI surfaces.
| Tool | Plan this forces | Per month | 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peec AI | Pro, $245/mo (150 prompts, three engines of your choice) | $245 | $2,940 |
| Omnia | Pro, €279/mo plus two 25-prompt packs (Pro covers 100 prompts, Gemini is on request, pack prices are not published) | From €279 | From €3,348 |
| AthenaHQ | Starter, $295/mo (3,600 credits covers about a quarter of this) | $295 plus credit add-ons | From $3,540 |
| Rankscale | Growth, $385/mo (Pro+ caps at 12,000 answers, this needs 13,500) | $385 | $4,620 |
| Gauge | Growth, $599/mo (600 prompts, six platforms) | $599 | $7,188 |
| Scrunch AI | Enterprise (Core has no AI Mode or Gemini, and caps at 125 prompts) | Not published | Not published |
Tracking three surfaces rather than one is what separates these prices. Rankscale is the cheapest tool here on a single engine and the fourth cheapest on three, because its credit tiers step up steeply once you multiply engines by prompts by days. Peec AI lets you pick three engines, so the table uses exactly the three Google surfaces. Scrunch AI is the one entry that cannot do this job at a published price: AI Mode and Gemini sit on its Enterprise plan, so budget is not the constraint. 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 16 October 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 150 prompts tracked daily across Google's three AI surfaces for twelve months, and published the arithmetic below. One of the six cannot serve that workload at a published price at all.
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. Every plan includes three engines of your choice, so all three fit 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
- 150 prompts at Pro, with unlimited users on every plan
What it does
- Engines, as of 16 October 2026: three of your choice on Starter, Pro and Advanced, including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. Up to 13 on Enterprise
- Data access: CSV exports and an MCP server on every plan, Looker Studio connector from Advanced, REST API on Enterprise
- 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
#2
Rankscale
- Best for
- Teams on a tight budget who track one or two Google surfaces, or can live with Growth's $385 for three
- Base
- Europe, remote
- Entry price
- Pro $99/mo, Pro+ $229, Growth $385, Enterprise $780
- Terms
- Monthly or annual, 15% off annual. Unused credits roll over to a per-tier cap
Tracks the Google surfaces on every paid plan, but Pro's 4,800 answers and Pro+'s 12,000 both fall short of the 13,500 this workload needs, so pricing it properly means Growth at $385. That puts it fourth cheapest here once three surfaces are in scope, not first. Ten engines are available on every paid plan, including AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Copilot. Scheduling runs from hourly to monthly, which is genuinely useful for AI Overviews because that surface moves faster than the others. It is bootstrapped and run by two founders, with a page-audit tool alongside the tracking.
Where it is stronger
- Both Google surfaces included on every paid plan, with no enterprise gate
- Ten engines on every paid 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
What it does
- Engines included on every paid plan, as of 16 October 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral
- 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
#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 for 100 prompts, Enterprise from €499 for 200+. Prompt packs of 25 on any plan
- 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
What it does
- Engines by default on every plan, as of 16 October 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. Claude, Copilot and Gemini on request, up to seven in total
- Data access: API access and data exports on paid plans
- AI-referred traffic: not offered
- Recommendations: Omnia 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
#4
AthenaHQ
- Best for
- Teams who want the 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
The free tier covers Google AI Overviews and Gemini, which makes it the only way to see your own AI Overviews data without paying anything. AI Mode starts on Starter. Above that, one credit is one AI response, and 3,600 credits on Starter covers about a quarter of a 150-prompt daily set across three 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
- Google AI Overviews and Gemini on a genuinely free tier
- Eleven engines on Starter, AI Mode included, with no Enterprise gate
- An agent that drafts the fix, which fits how AI Overviews problems are usually solved
- Covers Meta AI as well, which most of this list does not
- Founding team with real search engineering background
What it does
- Engines, as of 16 October 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot on Essential; eleven on Starter, adding Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral
- Data access: API access on Starter is a paid add-on, priced on request
- AI-referred traffic: Google Analytics (GA4) and Search Console integrations
- Recommendations: an advanced content optimisation agent producing on-page and off-page actions
- A free Essential tier at 300 credits, covering Google AI Overviews and Gemini
- The Athena Citation Engine on Starter and above
- SSO and audit logs on Enterprise
#5
Scrunch AI
- Best for
- Bigger brands who want Google coverage alongside crawler analytics and audits
- Base
- United States
- Entry price
- Core $250/mo (125 prompts). Enterprise custom
- Terms
- Seven-day free trial on Core. Five user licenses on Core
Core covers Google AI Overviews, with 125 prompts and 5,000 responses a month. AI Mode and Gemini sit on Enterprise. Agent traffic analytics and site audits sit next to the tracking, which matters for Google specifically, because AI Overviews problems are usually ordinary content and authority problems that an audit will surface.
Where it is stronger
- Agent traffic analytics and site audits in the same product
- Five user licenses on the entry plan
- Nine engines on Enterprise, Meta AI included, which is unusual
What it does
- Engines, as of 16 October 2026: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot on Core; nine on Enterprise, adding Gemini, Google AI Mode, Claude, Meta AI and Grok
- Data access: API access and integrations on Enterprise
- AI-referred traffic: agent traffic analytics
- Recommendations: site audits alongside the tracking, five a month on Core
- 125 unique prompts and 5,000 responses a month on Core
- SSO and a dedicated account team on Enterprise
#6
Gauge
- Best for
- Teams who want both Google surfaces plus something that drafts the fix
- Base
- San Francisco
- Entry price
- Growth $599/mo. Enterprise custom
- Terms
- Y Combinator backed, founded 2024
Growth covers six platforms, both Google surfaces and Gemini among them, with 600 tracked prompts a day. Founded in 2024 in San Francisco, Y Combinator backed, five people. The content engine drafts and publishes articles from the gaps it finds, which fits Google problems well, because the work there is usually conventional content that somebody has to actually write.
Where it is stronger
- Both Google surfaces on the Growth plan, with no enterprise gate
- 600 prompts a day, a large allowance at $599
- A content engine that drafts the follow-up work
- Six platforms on Growth, and Claude and Grok with your own API key
What it does
- Engines on Growth, as of 16 October 2026: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Claude and Grok on any plan if you connect your own API key
- Data access: exports and an Ask Gauge agent, included rather than an add-on
- AI-referred traffic: not offered
- Recommendations: a content engine that drafts and publishes articles from the visibility gaps it finds
- 600 tracked prompts a day on Growth, which is a large allowance for the price
- Citation analysis across a large corpus of AI answers
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.
- How much does Peec AI cost in 2026?
- Peec AI costs $95 a month for Starter (50 prompts), $245 for Pro (150 prompts) and $495 for Advanced (350 prompts), as checked on 16 October 2026. Enterprise is custom. Every plan includes three engines of your choice and unlimited users, so AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini fit on Pro. Some roundups list a 25-prompt plan at €89. Peec AI has no such plan.
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