Counting mentions is step one. Moving them is the job.
Visibility tools tell you how often you appear. Retained services interpret what the answers mean and write you a brief. Butterfly does both and then closes the loop as software: fix drafted, pull request opened, answer re-asked, result verified. Here is where each option is strong, including where it is not us.
Visibility tools
Best when the question is "is this even a problem?" Clear dashboards, fast setup, lowest entry price. They measure. Fixing is your job.
Retained services
Best when you want a senior analyst reading your brand every week and briefing the board, and you are ready for an engagement-sized budget and a multi-week onboarding.
Automated GEO
Best when you want the whole loop to run every week without a meeting, with a published price, pull requests you can review, and a verified result for every fix.
The honest matrix.
Competitor capabilities are summarized from their public sites and documentation, last reviewed November 2026. Where they are stronger or equivalent, the table says so. Spotted something out of date? Email us and we will correct it.
| Capability | Butterfly | AYAN | Profound | Peec AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Listen | ||||
| Tracks mentions across major engines | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Share of answer vs competitors | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi-market, multi-language | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Trace | ||||
| Extracts and scores every claim, not just mentions | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | — |
| Traces each claim to its source page or listing | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | — |
| Machine-readable brand truth file you own | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Fix | ||||
| llms.txt and JSON-LD generated | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | — |
| Opens pull requests against your repo | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Hosted MCP server for agents | ✓ | ✓ | Partial | — |
| Fixes drafted automatically, same day | ✓ | — | Partial | — |
| Prove | ||||
| Re-asks and verifies each fix landed | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Weekly brief | Automated, Monday 8:00 | Written by an analyst | Dashboard | Dashboard |
| Buying | ||||
| Self-serve with published pricing | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Starting price | $0 scan, $149/mo | Retained engagement | $99/mo (annual) | €89/mo |
| Time to first reading | 48 hours | Weeks (onboarding) | Days | Days |
| Data residency | Canada | EU | US | EU |
Pick the right one.
Choose Peec AI or Profound if…
- You need a dashboard of mentions and nothing more yet.
- Your buyer is an SEO lead measuring before acting.
- You want to generate AI-optimized content at volume (Profound).
Choose AYAN if…
- You want a human analyst writing a one-page reading every Monday.
- You are a CMO at a large brand with a retained-engagement budget.
- Your fixes need to land across retail, sales and care teams with a consultant driving them.
Choose Butterfly if…
- You want the loop to run every week without waiting on a person.
- You want fixes as pull requests and tickets, with proof attached.
- You want a published price and a first reading in 48 hours.
- You want every fix verified by re-asking the models, not by a slide.
Honest caveat: Butterfly does not write bespoke board narratives by hand. If your organisation needs a consultant in the room, a retained service is the right answer and we will say so on the call. Butterfly's Scale plan adds a strategist review of each weekly brief, which covers most teams.
See the difference on your brand.
The free scan runs the same loop once: 25 questions, 3 engines, sources traced, one fix recommended.