Which tools track which sources AI models cite? A 2026 comparison
Compare the tools that show which sources ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini cite: page and domain citations, Reddit and YouTube reports, pricing, and who should pick which.
Citations are the part of an AI answer you can actually influence. A model that cites your page is sending a reader to you, and a model that cites a rival's review of you is shaping your reputation without your input. Tools that track cited sources let you see both, but they vary a lot in depth. Some give you a list of domains. Others go down to the URL, the position in the answer, the content type and whether the source is yours, a competitor's or a third party's.
What good citation tracking includes
- Page-level and domain-level views, not only domains.
- Position, since the first citation gets more attention than the sixth.
- Third-party and community sources, especially Reddit and YouTube, which models cite often for commercial prompts.
- Offsite mentions: places where your brand is named without a link.
- Tracking of specific URLs, yours or a competitor's.
- Crawler data, to separate "never fetched" from "fetched but not cited."
- Trends over time, so you can see whether a content change made a page more citable.
The ranking
1. Promptwatch
Promptwatch goes deepest on sources. Citation analytics reports page- and domain-level citations with URL positions, and Page Tracker follows specific URLs, including a competitor's. Offsite mentions show where your brand appears in third-party pages without a link. Dedicated Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn citation reports break out the community sources, and "My channels" filtering separates your own properties from everyone else's. ChatGPT News citations are covered too.
Citation Trends classifies every citation by content type and source type, and tracks citation rate over time with first-cited date, ramp-up days, peak rate and decay half-life per page. That last part is unusual: it shows how long a page keeps being cited, which tells you when to refresh it.
The citation data connects to crawler logs. Agent Analytics records IP-verified AI crawler visits (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and others) with a citation rate per page, so you can tell whether an uncited page is ignored or simply never crawled. Plans: Explore is free (10 prompts, ChatGPT only), Essential $95 a month, Professional $245, Business $579, with agency plans from $199. Crawler logs start on Professional. Live-search monitoring covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Gemini, Perplexity and Meta AI.
2. AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ puts its Athena Citation Engine on the Enterprise plan, which is custom priced, so the entry-level Starter ($295 a month) leans on its GEO score and Action Center. It tracks 11 models, and credits are metered per AI response. It has no crawler analytics and no Reddit monitoring.
3. Scrunch AI
Scrunch AI tracks visibility and competitors, adds site audits and AI bot traffic reporting, and sells an Agent Experience Platform. Core is $250 a month for 125 prompts and four LLMs.
4. Profound
Profound reports citation share and answer-level analytics, and covers up to nine engines on Enterprise, with Agent Analytics alongside. Pricing is custom, earlier estimated near $40k a year, and its focus is a broader marketing agent suite.
5. SEO suite add-ons
Ahrefs Brand Radar reports on YouTube and Reddit sources and AI crawler activity, with an AI Visibility Index from $199 a month and Custom Prompts included on paid Ahrefs plans. Semrush AI Toolkit tracks mentions and links in AI answers, though its pricing could not be re-verified.
Simple trackers
Otterly.AI lists citation source tracking on its plans, and Peec AI offers source and citation breakdowns. Both are quick to set up.
Comparison table
| Tool | Page-level citations | Reddit and YouTube | Specific URL tracking | Crawler logs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Promptwatch | Yes, with positions | Dedicated reports | Page Tracker | Yes, from Professional |
| AthenaHQ | Enterprise citation engine | No Reddit monitoring | Not stated | No |
| Scrunch AI | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Bot traffic reporting |
| Profound | Citation share | Not stated | Not stated | Agent Analytics |
Who should pick which
- You want to know which URLs, which communities and how long citations last: Promptwatch.
- You work from an action queue and may go Enterprise later: AthenaHQ.
- You need enterprise breadth and agents: Profound.
- You already use Ahrefs: try Brand Radar as a directional check.
How to use the data
Pick your ten most valuable prompts, open the citations, and sort sources into yours, competitors' and third parties'. For third-party sources, ask whether you can be present there. For yours, check which pages win and copy their structure. Keep the prompt set stable so trends are comparable.
No tool can force a model to cite you. Citation patterns shift with every model update, so treat the data as a living picture and review it weekly.