Are there free AEO tools for startups?

Yes. Otterly offers a free plan for basic brand monitoring across ChatGPT and Perplexity. Google Search Console provides limited AI Overviews visibility data at no cost. Custom GPTs built on ChatGPT can audit your website for AI search readiness and generate llms.txt files, and open-source tools like llmstxt-generator provide free technical AEO infrastructure. A startup can build a functional AEO stack for zero dollars per month using these free resources.

What can I do with free AEO tools versus paid?

Free AEO tools cover basic citation monitoring (10 to 25 queries, 2 to 3 AI platforms), basic content auditing, and technical infrastructure setup. Paid tools unlock higher query limits, competitive tracking, sentiment analysis, API access, and automated reporting. For startups with fewer than 50 target queries and no immediate competitive intelligence needs, free tools are sufficient for the first 3 to 6 months of AEO work.

Can I do AEO without any tools?

Yes, you can manually query ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews for your target queries and record the results in a spreadsheet. Manual monitoring is time-consuming — roughly 2 to 3 hours per week for 50 queries across 3 platforms — but it captures the most important data: whether your brand appears in AI answers for the queries that matter to your business.

Best Free AEO Tools for Startups Getting Started With AI Search

The best free AEO tools for startups include Otterly's free tier for basic citation monitoring, Google Search Console for AI Overviews visibility data, custom GPTs for website AEO auditing, and open-source tools for technical infrastructure. A startup can build a functional AEO monitoring and optimization stack for zero dollars per month using these resources, graduating to paid tools when query volume, competitive tracking needs, or reporting requirements exceed free tier limits.

Otterly Free Tier

Otterly offers a free plan that includes brand monitoring across ChatGPT and Perplexity for up to 25 queries. The free tier provides citation frequency tracking, basic sentiment analysis, and weekly monitoring updates. While it lacks competitive tracking, API access, and advanced reporting, it is sufficient for startups that want to answer the most important AEO question: "Are we showing up in AI search results for the queries that matter?"

What you get: Citation tracking for 25 queries across ChatGPT and Perplexity, weekly monitoring, basic dashboard with citation frequency and position data, and email alerts for significant changes. No credit card required.

What you don't get: Google AI Overviews monitoring, Claude monitoring, competitive share-of-voice tracking, sentiment analysis depth, API access, custom reporting, or query volume above 25.

Best for: Early-stage startups validating whether AI search is a meaningful visibility channel for their category. The free tier answers the fundamental question of whether you have an AI visibility problem before you invest in solving it.

Google Search Console AI Overviews Data

Google Search Console now includes limited AI Overviews visibility data in the performance report. The data shows which queries triggered AI Overviews where your content appeared, the click-through rate from AI Overviews, and the pages that were surfaced. While the data is less detailed than dedicated AEO tools — it does not show competitive positioning or sentiment — it provides a free, authoritative view of your Google AI Overviews presence.

How to access it. In Google Search Console, navigate to Performance → Search Appearance → AI Overviews. The data is available for all verified properties at no cost.

What you get: Query-level AI Overviews visibility data, click-through rates from AI Overviews, and page-level performance in AI Overviews.

What you don't get: Visibility on non-Google platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude), competitive positioning, sentiment analysis, or citation context.

Best for: Any website with Google Search Console already configured. The AI Overviews data is free, takes five minutes to check, and provides a baseline for your Google AI search presence.

Custom GPTs for AEO Auditing

OpenAI's custom GPTs, accessible through ChatGPT Plus and Team subscriptions, can be configured to audit your website for AI search readiness. A custom AEO GPT can analyze your robots.txt for AI crawler access, score your content for citation probability factors (FAQ presence, statistic density, source citation practices), and generate an llms.txt file that tells AI engines how to index your content.

How to build one. Create a custom GPT in ChatGPT with instructions to audit websites for AEO readiness — check AI crawler access in robots.txt, analyze content structure for citation probability, and generate an llms.txt file. The audit takes 30 minutes and provides actionable diagnostics at no additional cost beyond a ChatGPT Plus subscription.

What you get: AI crawler access verification, content structure audit, llms.txt generation, and basic AEO recommendations. No continuous monitoring or competitive analysis.

Open-Source Technical AEO Tools

llmstxt-generator is an open-source tool that creates llms.txt files — the standard for telling AI search engines which pages on your site are most important and how to parse them. Paired with free AI crawler access checkers that verify GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and PerplexityBot access, these tools provide technical AEO infrastructure at zero cost.

What you get: llms.txt generation, crawler access verification, and basic site readiness reporting — the technical foundation of AI search visibility. No monitoring or content optimization capabilities included.

Manual AEO Monitoring (Zero Cost)

The original AEO tool is manual querying. Open ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google, enter your target queries, and record whether your brand appears in the results. A spreadsheet tracking 50 queries across three platforms, checked weekly, provides the most important AEO data — citation presence and trend direction — at zero cost.

What you get: Citation presence data for any number of queries across any AI platforms, complete control over monitoring cadence and scope.

What you don't get: Sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, automated alerts, historical trend data beyond what you record, or scalability.

Best for: Founders doing AEO themselves for the first time. Manual monitoring builds intuition for how AI engines surface and cite content that tool-based monitoring does not develop.

How Conbersa Makes AEO Accessible for Early-Stage Startups

Conbersa's AEO pricing starts with accessible tiers designed for startups that are establishing AI search visibility for the first time. The managed service includes tool-based monitoring — eliminating the need to choose and configure free or paid AEO tools — plus content production structured for AI citation and distribution infrastructure that amplifies authority signals.

For startups on a budget, the free tools in this guide provide a functional AEO stack. When query volume, competitive pressure, or the need for execution support exceeds what free tools can provide, Conbersa's managed service is the upgrade path from do-it-yourself AEO to managed AI search visibility. Learn more at https://www.conbersa.ai.