Side-by-side matrix
| What you get | CitunaThat’s us | LLMrefs | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price / month | $39 | $79 | $29 |
| Pricing model | Flat tiers | Flat monthly | Flat |
| AI engines at entry | 7 | 11 | 4 |
| Claude tracked | Add-on | ||
| Grok tracked | |||
| Microsoft Copilot | |||
| Google AI Overviews | |||
| Refresh cadence | Daily | Weekly | Daily |
| Search Console integration | |||
| MCP access at entry | $189+ tier | ||
| Generated fixes | Free tools | 3 / week | |
| Content generation | Not published | Not published | |
| Publishes to your CMS | Not published | Not published | |
| Content languages | 50+ | Not published | Not published |
| Free trial | 3 days (card) | 7 days | Yes, length not stated |
Compiled from each vendor’s public pricing page: LLMrefs figures from llmrefs.com/pricing, checked October 1, 2026; Otterly.ai figures from otterly.ai/pricing, checked October 1, 2026. Otterly.ai: 4 engines with 15 prompts; Gemini, AI Mode and Claude sold as add-ons. “Not published” marks a row the vendor does not state publicly; it is not a “no”. Cituna checks all seven engines daily and does not track Microsoft Copilot. MCP read tools are included from $39, write tools from Pro ($119); MCP is not exclusive to us. Prices change often: verify before buying. Spot an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
Published entry-tier price per month from each vendor’s pricing page (dates in the matrix note above). Read it against what each tier includes, a lower price can mean fewer engines or prompts.
| Engine | Cituna | LLMrefs | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | ? | ||
| Grok | |||
| Microsoft Copilot | |||
| Google AI Overviews |
The four engines coverage varies most on. A dash-ringed “?” means we have not confirmed that vendor’s position on that engine (shown as “Not published” in the matrix), never a no we have not earned.
Reading the difference
On cost per engine at entry, the crudest useful way to normalise these two, LLMrefs works out at about $7.18 per engine per month ($79 across 11) and Otterly.ai at about $7.25 ($29 across 4). LLMrefs is the better ratio, by roughly $0.07 per engine. Treat that as a sanity check rather than a verdict: an engine you do not care about is not worth anything, and Otterly.ai’s number improves immediately if its engine mix happens to be the one you need.
The confirmed capability split between these two is narrow enough to state exactly: LLMrefs covers Grok and Otterly.ai does not; Otterly.ai covers an MCP server ($189+ tier) and LLMrefs does not. That is the whole difference on the rows both vendors publish, everything else in the matrix either matches or is unpublished by one of them, and an unpublished row is not a “no”.
Worth knowing before you shortlist either: neither LLMrefs nor Otterly.ai offers Search Console integration. If any of those is a requirement, this comparison is the wrong shortlist and you should widen it rather than pick the better of two tools that both miss what you need.
The tier ladders are worth reading side by side, because the entry price means something different on each. LLMrefs: One plan at $79 a month, marked “Limited time only” on its page: 500 prompts on every engine it lists, no per-engine fees. Otterly.ai: Lite $29 (15 prompts) · higher tiers add prompts and MCP at $189+. That is where most of the apparent price gap between these two either disappears or widens sharply, depending on which engines you actually need.
They also genuinely overlap on Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews and generated fixes, so those rows should not carry weight in the decision even though both vendors market them.
One practical difference that does not appear in any feature list: LLMrefs bills as flat monthly and Otterly.ai as flat. A credit-metered plan and a flat plan are hard to compare over a year because only one of them has a predictable ceiling, so run your expected prompt volume through both before treating the entry prices as comparable at all.
Which to choose
Choose Cituna if…
For seven AI engines checked daily and the fixes written, on one plan from $39 a month, the pick is Cituna rather than LLMrefs or Otterly.ai.
- ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, all seven checked daily on the $39 Starter
- the generated fixes to close the gaps, and articles written and published to your site
- a Search Console integration to prove the result; neither LLMrefs nor Otterly.ai offers one
- MCP access from the $39 Starter; Otterly.ai ($189+ tier) offers it too
What you give up:
- Microsoft Copilot, which LLMrefs and Otterly.ai track and Cituna does not
- more engines, which LLMrefs lists
Choose LLMrefs if…
LLMrefs is an eleven-engine list on one flat plan, refreshed weekly. Against Otterly.ai specifically, you are paying $50 a month more than Otterly.ai for it, it covers more engines at entry (11 against 4) and it bills as flat monthly where Otterly.ai bills as flat.
- eleven engines, including Claude, Grok and Copilot, with no per-engine fees
- a 7-day free trial, then one flat plan with 500 prompts
- a set of free standalone tools alongside the tracker
What you give up:
- a weekly refresh rather than daily, so a change made on Monday may not be visible until the following week
- no Search Console integration and no MCP server
- the $79 price is marked “Limited time only” on its pricing page, so it may not hold
Choose Otterly.ai if…
Otterly.ai is a low fixed price for a small prompt set, with Microsoft Copilot included at entry. Against LLMrefs specifically, it is the cheaper entry by $50 a month, it covers fewer engines at entry (4 against 11) and it bills as flat where LLMrefs bills as flat monthly.
- a $29/mo Lite plan: a low fixed monthly price, and a real product rather than a stripped free tier
- Microsoft Copilot tracked at entry: a genuine blind spot for most of this category, including us
- straightforward flat pricing with no credit calculator to reason about
What you give up:
- the $29 tier carries 15 prompts, which is a very small sample to draw conclusions from
- Gemini, AI Mode and Claude are add-ons rather than included, so the real four-engine price is not the four-engine-plus price
- no Grok at any tier, and no Search Console integration
Drafted with AI assistance from our own research and Search Console data, and reviewed by Rahul A before publishing. Rules and prices change; check the linked official source before you act.