HubSpot AEO is the stronger of the two for tracking which of your own pages AI answers cite, because it lists your top owned citations and keeps the exact answer each engine gave, starting at $50 a month. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit records cited pages and sources across more engines, but its own-page detail and answer history are only partly documented. DeepSmith tracks cited pages with each page's share of your citations and the prompts behind them, then writes and publishes the articles that earn more of them.
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit vs HubSpot AEO for citation tracking mostly comes down to how much each tool tells you about your own pages. Both record which sources AI answers cite. They differ on whether you can see your pages by name, and on whether you can look back at what the engines actually said. DeepSmith covers the same ground and also helps you act on it. This page covers that one job, and the full comparison sits elsewhere.
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit vs HubSpot AEO: the short answer
- Choose DeepSmith if you want to see which pages AI cites, which prompts drive those citations, and then produce and publish the next articles from the same platform, from $99 a month with a 7-day free trial.
- Choose Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit if you already work in Semrush and want cited pages and cited domains across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity, at $99 a month for the standalone toolkit.
- Choose HubSpot AEO if you want a documented list of your own cited pages and the exact answers each engine returned, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, at $50 a month with a 28-day trial.
Comparison table
| Criterion | DeepSmith | Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | HubSpot AEO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price (monthly) | $99/mo | $99/mo | $50/mo |
| Annual price | $80/mo | Not listed | $45/mo |
| Prompts at entry tier | 50 | 25 | 25 |
| Engines at entry tier | ChatGPT | ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity (varies by report) | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity |
| Free trial | 7-day | No (7-day through Semrush One Starter and Pro+) | 28-day, no card |
| Citation tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Own-page attribution | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Answer history | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Content generation | Yes | No | Partial (Marketing Hub only) |
| CMS publishing | Yes | Not listed | Partial (HubSpot blog only) |
| Review rating | 4.8/5 on G2 | 4.4/5 on G2 (Semrush suite) | 4.4/5 on G2 |
Pricing and features as of September 2026, from each vendor's site and public reviews.
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
The toolkit sits inside the Semrush platform and measures how often ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity mention and cite a brand. It suits SEO and marketing teams that already use Semrush. For cited pages, its Visibility Overview reports Mentions, Cited Pages and Citations for any domain, and Narrative Drivers lists the top cited domains. Semrush describes a Cited Pages metric for the domain you analyze, but page-level detail is not described, so how far you can drill into your own URLs is unclear.
Prompt Research lets you read AI responses with their mentions and sources, and Prompt Tracking runs your chosen prompts daily. Semrush does not state whether full answer text is stored over time, or for how long. The standalone toolkit is $99 a month with 25 tracked prompts and one Brand Performance domain, and each extra user needs another $99 license. It does not write content, and our Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit review covers the rest of its features. Ratings on G2 (4.4/5 from 4,046 reviews, checked September 2026) cover Semrush as a whole, and reviewers often call add-ons expensive for smaller teams.
HubSpot AEO
HubSpot AEO is HubSpot's answer engine optimization tool, labelled beta. It runs tracked prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and suits marketing teams that want a low-cost start, plus existing Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise customers. Its Citations tab records linked pages and domains by content type and channel, and "Top owned citations" lists the pages on your own site that answer engines cite most. It also shows your owned domain's citation rate against competitors, and a Track URL option in the site audit follows a single page's citations.
Each prompt shows the exact response every engine returned, with trends over time, though HubSpot does not state how long that history is kept. The standalone plan is $50 a month ($45 billed annually) with 25 prompts and 2,500 answers a month, and extra capacity costs $20 a month per 10 prompts. Reviewers on G2 (4.4/5 from 145 reviews, checked September 2026) describe it as easy to set up, and some ask for Claude and wider engine coverage.
DeepSmith: the alternative that goes from cited pages to more of them
Both tools stop at the report. Semrush's toolkit does not write articles, and HubSpot AEO drafts them only inside Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, publishing to a HubSpot blog. DeepSmith's AEO module has a Pages view that shows which of your pages AI actually cites, each page's share of your total citations, and the prompts driving them. Each tracked prompt carries its own mention and citation rate with full answer history, and the competitor view shows who wins citations for your prompts, on which exact pages.
From there the work continues in the same platform. Opportunity Agents such as the one that turns mentions into citations read your visibility data and return ideas with the data point that justifies each one. The Writer in Content Studio turns a planned idea into a finished article, grounded in your Deep IQ brand context, with internal and external links, a cover image and publish-ready metadata. Autowrite can do that on a schedule, and Produced Content publishes straight to WordPress, Webflow, Strapi, Sanity or Contentful.
Pro is $99 a month with 50 tracked prompts and 20 articles, Grow is $199 with 100 prompts and 40 articles, and Scale is $399 with 200 prompts and 90 articles, each with a 7-day free trial. Pro tracks ChatGPT, Grow adds Perplexity, and Scale adds Gemini. The DeepSmith vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit comparison goes deeper on that pairing.
Citation capture and own-page attribution
HubSpot AEO has the clearer answer here. Its documentation describes top owned citations, an owned-domain citation rate against competitors, and a way to follow one URL, so you can name the pages that earn citations. Semrush records citations and cited domains, and it reports a Cited Pages count for the domain you analyze, but detail by page is not described, so it reads as partial. If your question is "which of my pages is AI citing," HubSpot AEO documents the more direct route to an answer.
What DeepSmith does: The Pages view lists your cited pages with citations, citation rate and the number of tracked prompts each page wins, and each page opens to the exact prompts driving its citations. You can use that to see which pages carry your AI visibility and which prompts to protect.
Answer history and review
HubSpot AEO documents the exact response each engine returned for each prompt, with trends over time, and no retention period is stated. Semrush lets you analyze AI responses in Prompt Research and reports daily Prompt Tracking, but storage of full answer text over time and retention are not stated, and one reviewer on Capterra alleges that exported Brand Performance history figures changed later. That is a single unverified account, so we treat it as a reason to ask Semrush about retention rather than a known fault. On this axis HubSpot AEO wins on what is documented.
What DeepSmith does: Every tracked prompt keeps its answer history, and you can open the full answer an engine gave, see where your brand was named and which sources the answer cited, and compare it with the mention rate, citation rate and position recorded for that prompt.
Engines, prompts and price
Semrush has the wider engine coverage for this job. The toolkit names ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity, although coverage varies by report, with Perplexity appearing only in Brand Performance and AI Overviews absent from it. HubSpot AEO covers three engines on every plan, and it does not list AI Overviews or AI Mode. On volume, both start at 25 prompts. HubSpot costs $50 a month against $99 for the Semrush toolkit, and its extra prompts are $20 per 10, while Semrush charges $60 per 50 prompts. For a team that wants cited pages from the most engines, Semrush has the edge. For the lowest cost of entry, HubSpot AEO does. The best AI citation tracking tools list compares more options in the category.
From insight to action
Once you know which pages AI cites, the next step is usually more pages like them. HubSpot AEO gives prioritized recommendations with a projected citation lift, and it can draft a blog post from a recommendation for 1,000 HubSpot Credits, but only in Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, which start at $890 a month. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit gives AI-generated insights and strategic opportunities, and the toolkit itself does not write content. On this axis HubSpot AEO goes further, with a price attached to it.
What DeepSmith does: Opportunity Agents turn your cited-page and prompt data into evidence-backed ideas, the Writer produces the article in your brand voice, and Produced Content publishes it to your CMS. Tracking and production run on one self-serve plan, so a page that earns citations can be followed by the next one in the same week.
Which should you choose
- DeepSmith fits a marketing lead who wants to track cited pages and also produce the content that wins more of them, with one plan, one set of brand context and a published price.
- Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit fits a team already inside Semrush that wants cited domains and cited pages counts across five engines, and can live with partial own-page detail.
- HubSpot AEO fits a team that wants named own-page citations and stored answers on three engines at the lowest entry price, especially one already on HubSpot Marketing Hub.
If you are still deciding between Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit or HubSpot AEO for citation tracking, the table above should show which gaps matter for you.
Try DeepSmith free for 7 days and see which of your pages AI already cites: start your free trial.
