Two different products at two different prices.
Otterly sells access. Cited sells citations.
Otterly.ai is a tracker — a SaaS tool you pay for monthly to see who ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and a few other engines cite for your queries. Its entry tier is around $29/month (verify on otterly.ai before publish) and it reportedly powers more than 20,000 users. It is the right first tool when you are a founder or solo marketer who wants to know the shape of your AI-visibility problem before you hire anyone to solve it.
Cited is a service. The $1,500–$7,500/month retainer includes everything Otterly gives you plus the content strategist, content writer, content QA, distribution planner, and citation-probe agents that actually close the gaps. The monthly deliverable is 0 (Monitor), 6–10 (Growth), or 15–20+ (Dominate) citation-optimized off-site assets, produced and distributed. A report comes free at the end; the report is not the product.
Feature-by-feature.
| Capability | Cited | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| AI engines probed | 5 (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AIO, Gemini, Claude) | 6 (verify) |
| Queries tracked | 30 / 100 / 200+ by tier | Capped per plan |
| Citation share dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| Competitor tracking | 3–5+ by tier | Limited on entry tier |
| Volatility / drift tracking | Rolling 4-week | Weekly snapshots |
| Content drafted for you | Yes — 6–20 assets / month | No |
| Distribution executed for you | Yes — directory, Reddit, LinkedIn, PR | No |
| Strategy call / human support | Monthly / bi-weekly / weekly by tier | Help desk only |
| PDF report | Auto-generated, delivered monthly | Export from dashboard |
| Entry price | $1,500/mo | ~$29/mo (verify) |
Who actually buys each.
Otterly.ai buyer
- Solo founder or 2–5-person team.
- Exploring AI search visibility as a possible channel, not yet as a budgeted program.
- Category with 10–50 natural queries to track.
- Willing to do the content work themselves on LinkedIn, Reddit, and their own blog.
Cited buyer
- Series A–C SaaS, professional-services firm, or $2M–$50M e-commerce brand.
- AI visibility is a CMO-level priority; budget is allocated.
- Category with 50–200+ natural queries to track across 5 engines.
- Does not have (or want to hire) an in-house content + distribution team for a channel that’s 18 months old.
The “cheap Otterly alternative” question.
Search volume for “cheap Otterly alternative” is climbing — usually from buyers who tried Otterly, hit the plan cap, and want 2× the tracked-query count without 10× the price. Fair. Peec AI at EUR 89/month and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit (bundled in existing Semrush tiers) are the direct budget alternatives. See our Cited vs Peec breakdown for the numbers.
If you’re specifically looking for cheaper than Cited’s $1,500 Monitor tier but more than Otterly can do, Peec or Semrush are the honest answers. Cited’s value starts when you want the work done, not just tracked.
What changes when you buy Cited.
The same five engines get probed, the same citation-share math runs, the same gap list appears. What changes is what happens the next day. Cited’s gap-analysis agent produces a prioritized content brief. The content-strategist agent proposes 6–20 assets aimed at the highest-impact gaps. The content-writer agent drafts them. The content-qa agent checks sourcing, hierarchy, schema, claim density. The distribution-planner agent chooses channel fit and writes per-channel variants. A human approves each asset. The distribution ships. The citation-probe agent measures the lift. Every loop reduces the gap by 3–8 percentage points on your top 20 queries, measured monthly.
Start with the free 48-hour audit — same gap list, no commitment. If it confirms what Otterly already showed you, Cited Growth at $3,500/month is the fastest way to close it.