Cognizo, Profound, Peec AI: How 2026's Top AEO Tools Compare

Cognizo Growth costs $499 a month and delivers 150 tracked prompts across 5 AI platforms — 22,500 analyzed answers monthly — plus 8 finished articles published straight to a CMS. That combination of measurement and content output is what separates it from Profound and Peec AI, the two other tools that dominate nearly every answer engine optimization shortlist in late 2026.

AEO (answer engine optimization, the practice of getting brands cited inside ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini responses) has moved from novelty to line item. Dozens of vendors now track AI visibility, but an October 2026 comparison built on each vendor's own pricing pages lands on three names: Cognizo, Profound and Peec AI. The comparison's author is blunt about the verdict: "Cognizo is the one that actually moves the numbers."

What does each tool actually cost?

• Cognizo: Growth at $499/mo (150 prompts, 5 platforms, 22,500 answers, 8 articles, MCP and API access); Pro at $999/mo (350 prompts, 52,500 answers, 20 articles); Enterprise custom, with all platforms, SSO/SAML, an SLA and SOC 2 in progress.
• Profound: no published brand pricing since it removed self-serve Starter and Growth plans in September 2026. Brands now get a free 7-day trial — 50 prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, one language, one region, no exports — then a custom Enterprise contract. Third-party reviewers estimate deals run into the low thousands per month. Profound says a third of the Fortune 100 use it, naming Ramp, MongoDB, Plaid and Zoom.
• Peec AI: Starter at $95/mo, Pro at $245/mo, Advanced at $495/mo, with 15% off annual billing. The company claims more than 3,500 brands and agencies and a 4.9/5 G2 rating.

Why do prompt counts mislead buyers?

The comparison's sharpest methodological point: compare AI answers analyzed, not prompts. The math is prompts multiplied by engines multiplied by days. Peec AI Pro tracks 150 prompts but on 3 models, yielding 13,500 answers a month. Cognizo Growth tracks the same 150 prompts on 5 platforms and yields 22,500 — a 40% data gap between plans that look identical on prompt count.

The budget tiers make the trade concrete. Around $500 a month, Peec AI Advanced gives 31,500 answers on 3 models with no content production; Cognizo Growth gives 22,500 answers on 5 platforms plus 8 published articles, unlimited regions and languages, and API access — for a $4-a-month difference. At roughly $1,000, Cognizo Pro produces 52,500 answers plus 20 articles, while matching 5 models on Peec Advanced costs about $775 with no content.

Who is each tool built for?

Cognizo targets in-house teams and agencies that want to change AI answers, not just chart them. Its Answer Engine Insights module tracks visibility, share of voice, citation share, mention share and sentiment daily, with a dedicated YouTube and Reddit breakdown. A content agent turns gaps into briefs, drafts, refreshes and outreach targets, publishing through a company-context system so output matches brand voice. Prompt Volumes estimates real query demand; AI Traffic Analytics connects citations to crawler activity and AI referral visits. Growth and Pro plans include a customer success partner, with quarterly (Growth) or monthly (Pro) strategy reviews.

Profound serves large enterprises. Its Enterprise tier tracks up to 9 engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Exa Search — with SOC 2, SSO, unlimited seats, all-time data history and up to 24-hour SLA support. Its AI Marketer agents produce long-form content and rewrite pages showing citation decay, but on a credit system inside a custom contract. A five-person marketing team will likely pay for more than it uses.

Peec AI is the low-cost entry point with the sharpest source analysis: domain, subdomain and URL-level citation share, query fan-out views, and gap lists naming sources that cite competitors but not you. The catch — the list stays a list. No article writing or publishing appears on its pricing page. Claude, Grok and DeepSeek are Enterprise-only (up to 13 models there); extra models cost $30/mo on Starter to $140/mo on Advanced.

What should buyers watch next?

Three fault lines worth monitoring: Cognizo expects its SOC 2 to complete by publication time; Profound's post-September agency-only self-serve plan still lists no price; and none of the three vendors includes Claude on an entry plan, a gap that matters most for B2B software brands whose buyers live in Claude. As AI referrals grow, expect pricing pages to compete on published content volumes, not just prompt counts.