What's the best way to track and analyze prompts in AI search engines?
A practical method to track and analyze prompts in AI search engines: build a prompt set, measure share of voice and citations, and the tools that make it practical.
You can track prompts by hand. Open ChatGPT, type a question, copy the answer into a spreadsheet, repeat for Perplexity and Gemini. People do this for a week and then stop, for two reasons. It does not scale, and a single answer tells you very little, because AI answers change from one run to the next.
So the best way to track and analyze prompts is a method first and a tool second. The method is below. The tools come after, ranked by how well they support it.
The method in six steps
1. Build a prompt set that mirrors real buying questions
Start with 30 to 50 prompts. Mix questions that never name your brand ("best option for a small team"), questions that compare you with a named rival, and direct questions about you. Tag each by topic, intent and, if relevant, persona and country. The structure matters more than the count, because it is what lets you slice results later.
Your own data is a better source than brainstorming. Search Console queries, People Also Ask and pages you already rank for all suggest real phrasings.
2. Run the same prompts on a schedule
One run is an anecdote. Daily runs across several engines produce a trend. The sample is still a sample: it represents what people might ask, not everything they do. Treat movements over weeks as signals and single-day swings as noise. One tool in our directory, Rankscale, even advises 30-day rolling averages in its own documentation because audit scores fluctuate run to run.
3. Measure four things per prompt
- Visibility: is your brand mentioned at all?
- Share of voice: among the brands named, how much of the answer is yours?
- Position: are you first, or buried in a list?
- Sentiment: when you are named, how are you described?
4. Read the answers
Aggregates hide problems. Read a sample of the actual responses every week. A mention might be a passing reference, or a brand alias might be missing from the tracking rules.
5. Analyze the sources
The answer is built from sources. Which pages and domains are cited, and is it your site, a competitor's, a Reddit thread, a YouTube video? Also look at the sub-queries the engine ran before answering, called query fan-outs, since they show what the engine actually looked for.
6. Connect it to your site and your traffic
Two checks close the loop. Can AI crawlers reach your pages? And do AI-referred visits convert? Without these, you can see that a prompt is lost but not why, or whether winning it is worth anything.
Which tools support the method
1. Promptwatch
Promptwatch maps onto each step, which is why we place it first.
Prompts are tracked daily per model, country and language, with topics, tags, prompt types (organic, brand, competitor comparison), intent and personas. Prompt Explorer suggests prompts from Search Console, ranking keywords, People Also Ask or any page, and Prompt Volumes add search volumes and difficulty scores. Dashboards report Visibility Score, Share of Voice, Sentiment and Position in Answer, with a heatmap comparing any two dimensions and A/B period comparison. A Brand Book plus brand aliases control what counts as a mention.
For sources, citation analytics go to page and domain level, with Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn reports and a Page Tracker for specific URLs. Query fan-outs are shown per model. Agent Analytics provides IP-verified AI crawler logs, and visitor analytics attribute AI-referred visits and conversions. Agent Chat can then answer follow-up questions on live data, and the Action Board lists prioritized to-dos.
Plans: Explore is free (10 prompts, ChatGPT only), Essential is $95 a month, Professional $245 (crawler logs begin here), Business $579, and agency plans start at $199 with unlimited prompts.
2. AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ covers tracking and a GEO score, then moves to an Action Center. Starter is $295 a month on credits across 11 models. It does not publish crawler logs, so the step connecting to your site is thinner.
3. Scrunch AI
Scrunch AI Core is $250 a month, with 125 prompts across four LLMs, site audits and agent traffic reporting. Refreshes are weekly, which slows the trend step.
4. Profound
Profound has Prompt Volumes and enterprise-scale engine coverage, with custom pricing and an earlier estimate of about $40k a year. It is now sold as a broader AI Marketer.
5. Suite add-ons and budget trackers
- Ahrefs Brand Radar offers Custom Prompts on paid plans with small daily quotas, which suits a few prompts.
- Semrush AI Toolkit was listed at $99 a month per domain with 25 tracked prompts, unconfirmed on the vendor page.
- Mentionable shows fan-out queries and the domains engines reuse, from 79 euros a month.
- Rankscale starts at $20 a month on credits, with credit burn that varies by engine.
6. Basic trackers
Peec AI has a clear prompt-level method, though each tier tracks only some models and it will not tell you what to change. Otterly.AI is quick to set up from $29 a month, with a 15-prompt allowance on Lite.
Method against tool: a quick check
| Step | Needs | Promptwatch | Most trackers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prompt set | Topics, tags, discovery | Yes, Prompt Explorer and volumes | Varies by tool |
| Schedule | Daily, multi-engine | Daily per model | Varies, some weekly |
| Measure | Visibility, SoV, position, sentiment | All four | Varies by tool |
| Sources | Citations, fan-outs | Page, Reddit, YouTube, fan-outs | Varies by tool |
| Site link | Crawler logs, conversions | Yes | Often not published |
Who should pick which
You are building a program and need the whole chain: Promptwatch, since the same workspace holds prompts, citations, crawler logs and conversions.
You want to test the method cheaply: the free Explore tier or a budget tracker, then move up when you hit its ceiling.
You are an enterprise team with procurement: AthenaHQ or Scrunch AI demos, with questions about reporting and refresh rate.
No tool can guarantee that an engine will recommend you. What the method does is tell you where you stand, why, and what to fix first.