Key takeaways
- Plenty of trackers cover Perplexity for under $100 a month. The cheapest paid entry points are around $29 (Otterly.AI Lite, Keyword.com), with Rankscale at $20 on yearly billing only.
- Headline price is a poor guide. Otterly's $29 buys 15 prompts, and one vendor claims full engine coverage pushes it to about $76. SE Visible works out far cheaper per answer.
- Perplexity is the easiest engine to trend-track, because it cites almost exactly 10 sources per answer, day after day.
- Prices below were taken from vendor blogs and pricing pages in September and October 2026, and several sources disagree. Confirm on each vendor's pricing page before buying.
- Cheap tiers mostly stop at monitoring. If you also need to fix what you find, budget for that separately.
Why Perplexity is worth tracking on a small budget
Perplexity is the friendliest engine for a cheap tracker. According to Promptwatch Data's average sources per response report, it cites almost exactly 10 sources per answer with barely a decimal of movement. ChatGPT sits around 5 for web-search answers, and Copilot has swung from under 2 to nearly 17 within a few weeks.
That stability matters when you only have 15 to 50 prompts. If your citation pickup changes on Perplexity, it is more likely your own content than engine noise. The same report suggests specialised, mid-authority sites have a realistic path to citations there, which is good news for small brands.
So a $29 to $99 tracker can give you a trustworthy trend line on Perplexity. Just don't read too much into weekly swings on Copilot or ChatGPT.
What a cheap plan really buys
Every tracker sells the same unit: one prompt run once on one engine. Prompts x engines x runs per month is what you pay for. Squirrelscan did the arithmetic on entry plans it read on 27 October 2026:
| Tool and entry plan | Monthly price | Prompts | Engines | Answers a month | Cost per answer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Visible Basic | $99 ($79 annual) | 200 | 4 | ~30,000 stated (24,000 on four engines) | about $0.003 |
| Otterly.ai Lite | $29 ($25 annual) | 15 | 4 | 1,800 | about $0.016 |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar (custom prompts) | $50 | Your choice | Up to 7 | 2,500 checks | about $0.020 |
| Rankscale Pro | $99 | Credit-metered | 17+ | Up to 4,800 | about $0.021 |
| Peec AI Starter | $95 ($80 annual) | 50 | 3 of your choice | 4,500 | about $0.021 |
| Frase Starter | $49 ($39 annual) | 20 | 2 | 1,200 | about $0.041 |
| HubSpot AEO | $50 ($45 annual) | 25 | 3 | Not published | n/a |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | $99 per domain | 25 | Not stated | Not published | n/a |
Two things jump out. First, the cheapest sticker is not the cheapest answer. Second, SE Visible's headline number comes from a period when its plans listed Perplexity as a fifth engine. Squirrelscan notes that the plan now runs on four engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews), and the engine list changed on 23 October 2026. Check that Perplexity is still in your plan before you pay.
The cheap Perplexity trackers, one by one
Otterly.AI, from $29 a month
Otterly's Lite plan is the lowest-priced dedicated entry point. It covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with 15 daily prompts, and has a free trial. Standard jumps to $189, so there is no comfortable middle step.
The catch: Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude are paid add-ons. Geoptie claims that adding them takes Lite to about $76, though GetIntel says Perplexity itself has no per-engine upsell. For a solo marketer who just wants to see if Perplexity names the brand, it is a low-risk test.
Otterly.AI
Rankscale, from $20 a month
Rankscale is the cheapest entry in the research at $20 (Essentials, yearly billing only), and it covers Perplexity as one of many engines. Pro is $99 with 1,200 monthly credits. It runs on credits rather than a fixed prompt allowance, which suits people who like to tinker and annoys people who want a predictable bill.
Keyword.com, from $29 a month
Searchable's roundup calls this the cheapest paid way to start tracking Perplexity, tied with Otterly. It suits teams that already think in keywords. Advanced Web Ranking is the next step up at $49 in the same list.
HubSpot AEO, from $50 a month
HubSpot AEO covers ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity with 25 prompts, and a 28-day trial. It is also included in Marketing Hub Pro and Enterprise. The free AEO Grader is a decent one-off Perplexity check if you aren't ready to pay anything.
LLM Pulse, from 49 euros a month
GetIntel lists LLM Pulse with five models at entry including Perplexity, though refreshes are weekly. Fine if you only care about trends.
Geoptie, from $49 a month
Geoptie Starter covers four engines of your choice, Claude included, and bundles audits, recommendations and content generation. Professional at $99 gives 100 prompts across 10 brands, white-label reports, API and MCP. It is a vendor-written comparison that ranks itself first, so read its claims with that in mind, but the bundled action tools are the interesting part.
AIclicks, from $59 to $79 a month
Sources disagree on the entry price (Omnia says $59, Searchable lists $79), but all agree on six engines including Perplexity at roughly that range. Good value if the lower figure holds.
ZipTie, from $42.75 a month
A usage-based configurator. The Starter preset gives 50 daily prompts on three engines (ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity). Technical SEOs will like the control.
Peec AI, $85 to $95 a month
Peec Starter gives 50 prompts and three models of your choice. That is the problem for Perplexity fans: it competes with ChatGPT and Gemini for one of three slots. Peec is strong on languages and sentiment. Price is listed as 85 euros by one source and $95 by another.
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, $99 per domain
Perplexity is one of four engines, 25 prompts, and the price is per domain. Worth it mainly if you already live in Semrush.
SE Visible, $89 to $99 a month
Best raw volume for the money at 200 prompts, but verify Perplexity coverage given the October 2026 engine change noted above.
Others worth a look
PromptRush lists daily Perplexity scans from $19 a month, and GetIntel lists 25 buyer questions at $29 across four engines daily. Both are vendor-written roundups, so I'd test with the free trials rather than trust the copy. Dageno has a $79 Visibility line, but note it also sells a cheaper, separate Market Intelligence product that is not a tracker.
LLMrefs
LLMrefs offers 500 prompts for $79 on a single plan, with weekly data.
Promptwatch, for when you want to fix things too
Promptwatch starts at $95 a month for Essential (50 prompts, 6,000 responses, all AI models, 500 Agent Credits), which just fits under $100. It monitors Perplexity through the real interface and adds crawler logs, site audits and content gap analysis, which most cheap trackers skip. Check promptwatch.com/pricing for the current numbers. A free Explore plan covers ChatGPT only.
Which one to pick
| Situation | Pick |
|---|---|
| Tightest budget, one brand, want a number this week | Otterly.AI Lite ($29) or HubSpot AEO ($50) |
| Most answers for the money | SE Visible Basic (confirm Perplexity) |
| Want audits and content help included | Geoptie Starter ($49) or Promptwatch Essential ($95) |
| Want Perplexity plus many other engines, happy with credits | Rankscale |
| Already pay for an SEO suite | Semrush toolkit |
| Keyword-led team | Keyword.com or LLMrefs |
Before you buy
- Count prompts. Fifteen prompts is a probe, not a program. Aim for 25 to 50 buyer-style questions.
- Confirm Perplexity is in the base tier, not an add-on.
- Check refresh rate. Daily and weekly are very different products.
- Check seats and brands if you work with clients.
- Use annual pricing only after a monthly trial.
- Pair any tracker with crawler data. A tracker shows missing citations, but Promptwatch's AI crawler traffic report points out that if a provider has a large share in the chart but is near zero in your logs, you are probably blocked in robots.txt, CDN or WAF rules.
For wider lists, the GEO software directory and AI rank tracking directory are good places to keep browsing. Pricing in this category moves fast, so treat every number here as a starting point and verify it.