Choosing an AI visibility tool starts with a plain question: what does each plan let you see, how often, and what can you do with what you see? Most pricing pages in this category are built from the same few variables: how many questions are tracked, how many AI engines are covered, how often checks run, and how many people can use the account. Two tools at the same monthly price can differ a lot on all four.
No tool can promise that an AI will recommend your business. What a tool can do is show you where you appear and where you don't, and give you something to do about it.
The sections below set out what we think a fee should cover. Each one stands alone, so you can use it as a checklist against any tool, ours included.
Which AI engines are covered
Different engines cite different sources. In "The Consensus Gap" (Growth Memo, 11 May 2026), Kevin Indig reported that only 2.37% of cited URLs appeared across all three engines tested for the same prompt. Tracking one engine tells you about that engine.
Ghostart samples up to six, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Starter covers four of them. Claude and Google AI Mode unlock at Basic.
How often the checks run
AI answers move. Researchers at the University of St. Gallen found that only 34–42% of cited sources overlap between consecutive days. A single snapshot tells you what happened on one day, so we sample repeatedly instead.
Starter re-checks monthly. Basic and Growth re-check your core questions weekly, and the wider question set and the site crawl run monthly.
How each question is asked
The wording of a question changes the answer. Every paid Ghostart plan asks each tracked question in three different phrasings, rotated weekly, so a result doesn't depend on the luck of one wording.
When you compare tools, ask whether a tracked prompt is one fixed sentence or several. It changes what "one question" means in a plan.
What happens when you get cited
A citation for one question usually points to the next ones worth tracking. When Ghostart sees you cited, it proposes three to five adjacent questions to track.
Nothing is added until a person approves it, so the list stays yours. In the product the line is "The map grows as you win."
Where the content comes from and where it goes
Tracking shows you the gap. Closing it means publishing something an AI engine has good reason to quote. Ghostart helps you and your team write in your own voices, then publishes to LinkedIn, WordPress, Ghost and your own site blog.
The fee covers the loop from question to published piece, and the next check shows whether anything changed. That check is an observation, and we don't treat it as proof that a particular post caused the change.
The dimensions side by side
| What to ask any tool | What Ghostart does |
|---|---|
| Which engines are sampled? | Up to six: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Claude, Google AI Mode |
| How often are checks repeated? | Monthly on Starter. Weekly for core questions on Basic and Growth |
| How is each question worded? | Three phrasings, rotated weekly, on every paid plan |
| What happens after a win? | 3–5 adjacent questions proposed, added only on approval |
| Where can you publish from the tool? | LinkedIn, WordPress, Ghost and your own website. If your site runs on a platform like Wix, you can connect it and publish straight to it. |
Where Ghostart is the better choice
Ghostart is the better choice if you run an expertise-led business, or a marketing team of a few people, and you want the whole loop in one place: finding the questions where you're missing, writing the answer in a real person's voice, publishing it, and checking again.
The repeated sampling is built for how AI answers behave. Three phrasings rotate weekly, so one unlucky wording doesn't define your result.
Weekly core-question checks on Basic and Growth give you a trend to read, where a one-off snapshot gives you a single data point. Starter gives you four engines, and Basic adds Claude and Google AI Mode for the full six.
The approval step on suggested questions keeps your tracking list under your control. And because publishing runs through LinkedIn, WordPress, Ghost and your own blog, what you learn from a check becomes a published piece in the places your buyers already look.
Our own monitor has been running on our own tracked questions since July 2026. That's internal testing, not third-party research, and it means we use the loop we sell.
Ghostart is at ghostart.io.