Why we built our own AI brand monitoring tool

Last year, clients started asking us a question we couldn't answer: "Does ChatGPT recommend my business?"

We tried every tool on the market — OtterlyAI, Peec AI, AthenaHQ, Profound. Each one had a different problem. OtterlyAI charged extra for Gemini and Google AI Mode. Peec AI's base tier only covered 3 of 6 platforms. AthenaHQ started at $295/mo per entity — fine for a single brand team obsessing over one product, untenable for agencies tracking 50+ local businesses. Profound was excellent, but $499/mo for a single platform.

After three months of testing, we mapped what was actually needed:

1. Coverage across all 6 AI platforms at one price (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews).

2. Done-for-you query setup — clients don't want to write 50 prompt variations; they want results.

3. A single composite score that translates "are you visible in AI search?" into one number a non-technical client can understand.

4. A recommendation engine that doesn't just show the data but tells you what to fix next.

None of the existing tools checked all four boxes. So we built AI Pulse.

Today, AI Pulse covers all 6 AI platforms at the $67/mo entry tier. Done-for-you onboarding. A single 100-point Visibility Score. Built-in recommendation engine. At $67/mo, we're cheaper than any competitor's full-coverage tier, and most agencies that tested us against the alternatives just switched.

What's next: tracking how AI platforms cite local businesses by geography — early data shows ChatGPT recommends differently for the same query depending on the searcher's location.