Promptwatch vs LLM Pulse vs Rankscale vs CitedSpy: 2026 Budget GEO Tools
Cheap GEO trackers against Promptwatch: LLM Pulse, Rankscale, and CitedSpy on credits, cadence, engine lists, and whether $16 to €49 is a program.
Not every GEO budget starts at $245. LLM Pulse, Rankscale, and CitedSpy undercut almost everyone on sticker. Promptwatch still has a free Explore tier, then $95/mo Essential. The question is which cheap number is a working log.
Google's AI features docs cover Overviews eligibility. Cheap trackers do not replace Search Console, and Search Console does not replace ChatGPT.
Four prices, four compromises
| Promptwatch | LLM Pulse | Rankscale | CitedSpy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| From | Free; paid $95/mo | €49/mo annual (Starter) | $20/mo (Essentials) | ~$16 to $19/mo (site disagrees with itself) |
| Engines on that SKU | Paid: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot, Overviews, AI Mode | 5 engines. Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI are Enterprise add-ons | 17+ engines, no per-engine surcharge | Six engines plus Overviews (catalog) |
| Cadence / meter | Daily on paid | Weekly default. Daily costs more and skips the trial | Credits. Burn swings ~8x by engine | Flat-ish sticker; prompt limits scale by tier |
| Extra | Crawler logs, visitor analytics, Content Agents | Traffic analytics, shopping tracking, MCP, unlimited seats | Site audits for generative readability. No PDF export. No revenue attribution | Fix suggestions. No G2/Capterra/Trustpilot. Changelog has blank sentiment and 100% win-rate bugs |
| Reviews | 4.7/5 G2, 1,840+ brands | One verified G2 review in our catalog | Hands-on operators like the coverage-per-dollar | Zero independent reviews in our catalog |
Promptwatch Professional is $245/mo. Agency Kick-off is $199/mo with unlimited projects and prompts.
LLM Pulse: honest euro pricing, weekly on purpose
LLM Pulse is a bootstrapped Barcelona tracker: published prices, 14-day trial, unlimited seats, MCP on every plan. Starter €49/mo annual (1 project, 50 prompts, 5 engines). Growth €99. Scale €299 (API). Scale+ / Scale++ €599 to €999. Month-to-month runs higher than those annual stickers.
Weekly default means a drop can sit for days. Claude and friends are Enterprise. Named customers in our catalog include Softonic and Adevinta. Warm practitioner sentiment, thin third-party review trail. Fine as a transparent weekly board. Not the daily Claude log.
Rankscale: 17 engines from $20, then credit math
Essentials $20/mo (120 credits, all engines). Pro $99 (1,200 credits). Growth $385 (5,500 credits, API, white-label). Enterprise $780 (12,000 credits). That coverage-per-dollar is the pitch.
Own docs say AI visibility leads business results by 4 to 8 weeks with only proxy linkage: no revenue attribution. Audit scores fluctuate run to run; they advise 30-day rolling averages. Credit cost varies roughly 8x by engine, so a mixed set blows the $20 plan. No PDF export. Agencies pitching clients will feel that gap.
CitedSpy: cheapest sticker, least evidence
Entry is listed as about $16 to $19 depending on which page you hit. Top tier about $333 to $399, also inconsistent. White-label, API, and Looker sit on the top tier. Changelog in our catalog documents blank sentiment reports and impossible 100% win rates. Zero independent reviews.
Use it as a cheap experiment if you must. Do not make it the number you read in a QBR.
Promptwatch: cheap to start, complete to run
Explore is ten ChatGPT prompts, free. Essential at $95 already includes the paid engine list, citation analytics, Agent Analytics, visitor events, and 5 AEO articles. That is why a €49 weekly five-engine board and a $20 credit pack are not the same product as Essential, even when the sticker looks friendlier.
Who should pick which
- CitedSpy only as a throwaway test, knowing the vendor trail is empty.
- Rankscale if you are a technical marketer who will watch credits and average audit scores.
- LLM Pulse if euro billing, unlimited seats, and weekly is the actual brief.
- Promptwatch if the cheap tier has to grow into crawler logs, Claude, traffic, and publish without changing vendors.
FAQ
Is Rankscale $20 enough for a real prompt list?
Only if 120 credits survive your engine mix. An 8x swing by engine is how $20 becomes $99. Read the credit table before you call it cheaper than Essential.
Why is Promptwatch in a budget roundup?
Because Explore is free and Essential is $95, which sits next to LLM Pulse Growth (€99 annual) and Rankscale Pro ($99). The budget question is which $99 buys Claude, logs, and visits.
Should an agency white-label CitedSpy?
Our catalog would not. API and white-label are top-tier, prices conflict on the vendor's own site, and there are no third-party reviews. Look at Promptwatch agency Kick-off ($199, unlimited projects and prompts) instead.