AI visibility tools, head to head
Gumshoe vs Waikay
Pricing, features and differences, researched August 2026.
Gumshoe and Waikay both help teams track how AI models describe, recommend, and cite brands. Buyers often compare them when they need a clearer view of brand visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and other AI search tools. The main differences come down to how each platform gathers insights and guides next steps. Gumshoe centers on persona-based buyer conversations across 11 AI models, then connects visibility, competitor, citation, content, and technical findings to actions. Waikay takes an entity-first approach that checks AI-generated claims, flags errors, compares competitors, and prioritizes content and authority work. This comparison looks at AI model coverage, monitoring methods, competitor research, citation and entity analysis, recommended actions, and fit for in-house teams and agencies.
At a glance
Gumshoe
Pick it if persona-generated prompts suit how you work, keeping in mind the entry plan is 80 prompts a month and there is no trial.
- Entry price
- $99/mo
- Tracked prompts
- 80/mo - 8 personas × 10 prompts
- Free trial
- No trial - 1 free sample audit
Waikay
Pick it if you want an entity graph behind the analysis, and read the $24.95 tier as a way in rather than the plan you stay on.
- Entry price
- $24.95/mo
- Tracked prompts
- 120–880 by plan; extras purchasable
- Free trial
- None - free plan instead
Hi, MooseOur AEO tool
Pick it if you want the fix shipped rather than scored: an agent that publishes the change, audio repurposing no other tool here offers at any price, and a built-in model so the AI can cost you nothing.
- Entry price
- $39/mo BYOK; $79/mo AI included
- Tracked prompts
- No hard limit on any plan
- Free trial
- n/a - free plan, no expiry
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Full comparison
202 rows across 20 categories. Values are quoted as published; where a vendor does not publish a number, the cell says so.
| Feature | Gumshoe | Waikay | Hi, Moose Our AEO tool |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing & cost model | |||
| Free plan available | No - one free sample audit | Yes - 3 one-time credits, no card | Yes - free forever, no card |
| Free daily visibility runs, no cap | No | No | Yes - local runs unlimited on every plan |
| Engines free to run daily | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Entry paid price | $99/mo | $24.95/mo | $39/mo BYOK; $79/mo AI included |
| Annual billing discount | Not published - monthly only | Not published - monthly only | Yes - BYOK 2 months free; managed plans ~10% |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly, billed per project | Tiered plans + monthly credits | Flat plan with monthly AI credit balance, or BYOK |
| Bring your own API key | No | No | Yes - OpenRouter |
| Can run with $0 AI cost to vendor | No | No | Yes |
| Usage metered in one transparent unit | No - separate audit, URL and content caps | Yes - credits | Yes - AI credits, published rate card |
| In-app usage dashboard | Yes - usage tab per workspace | Partial - per-prompt cost estimates | Yes - % used, reset date, pace warning |
| Agency / reseller tier | Partial - partner discount, no separate plan | Partial - agency-oriented tier, no reseller program | Yes - $149 BYOK Agency; $449+ AI included |
| Affiliate program | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Annual contract required | No | No | No |
| Free trial length | No trial - 1 free sample audit | None - free plan instead | n/a - free plan, no expiry |
| Paid plans pricing range | $99–$299/mo + custom | $24.95–$449.95/mo + enterprise | $39–$1,999/mo |
| Deployment, privacy & data ownership | |||
| Native desktop app | No | No | Yes - Windows and macOS |
| Browser-based app | Yes | Yes | No |
| Local-first data storage | No - cloud SaaS | No - cloud SaaS | Yes - local database on the device |
| Works offline | No | No | Partial - local models and stored data; engine checks need the web |
| On-device AI Inference | No | No | Yes |
| Local model sizes offered | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Data export on cancellation | CSV, JSON and API anytime | Not published - CSV/JSON while active | CSV, PDF, DOCX exports plus full local backup |
| SOC 2 certification | None published | Not published | Pending |
| ISO certification | None published | Not published - UK ICO registered | No |
| Local backup and restore | No | No - vendor-side only | Yes - export and import a backup file |
| Visibility & prompt tracking | |||
| Engines tracked | 11 claimed; ~8 families, 6 per audit | 6 | 10; 5 of them also collected locally |
| Real consumer-surface capture | No - official APIs, interface spot-checks | Partial - 4 scraped, 4 via API | Yes - 5 engines read from the device, no API |
| ChatGPT | Yes | Yes - API and scraped | Yes |
| Claude | Yes | Yes - API only | Yes |
| Gemini | Yes | Yes - API and scraped | Yes |
| Google AI Mode | Not published | Yes - scraped | Yes |
| Google AI Overviews | Yes | Partial - AI Mode only | Yes |
| Grok | Yes | No | Yes |
| Bing Copilot | Unclear - listed on one page only | Yes - scraped | Yes |
| DeepSeek | Yes | No | Yes |
| Meta AI | No | No | Yes |
| Tracked prompts included | 80/mo - 8 personas × 10 prompts | 120–880 by plan; extras purchasable | No hard limit on any plan |
| Samples per prompt configurable | No - each prompt asked once per model | Not published | Yes |
| Run cadence options | Monthly audit; weekly or daily snapshots | Daily, every 2 days, weekly | Multiple times a day, weekly, monthly, and on-demand |
| On-demand run now | Partial - within plan audit limits | Yes - report updates | Yes |
| Instant one-off check | No - free tools not launched | No - project setup required | Yes |
| Prompt manager | Partial - generated from personas and topics | Yes - topic groups, per-prompt config | Yes |
| Branded vs non-branded classification | Not published | Partial - knowledge vs commercial split | Yes |
| Prompt categories and topics | Yes - topics per prompt | Yes - topic clusters and tags | Yes |
| Per-prompt model selection | No - set per audit | Yes - models and cadence per prompt | Yes |
| Brand name variant support | Not published | Partial - normalised to parent brand | Yes - secondary brand terms |
| Brand multi-domain support | Not published | Not published - one URL per project | Yes - secondary owned domains |
| Suggested prompts from Google Search Console | No | No - no Search Console connection | Yes - real GSC questions |
| Suggested prompts from competitor gaps | Partial - persona and topic gaps | Yes | Yes |
| Perplexity | Yes | Yes - API only | Yes |
| Scoring & analysis | |||
| Mention detection | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Citation detection | Yes - URL and domain | Yes | Yes - domain and page level |
| Sentiment scoring | Yes - $299 plan | No - deliberately excluded | Yes |
| Average position / rank | Yes - rank per answer | Partial - competitor rank, not answer position | Yes |
| Share of Voice | Yes - visibility percentage | Yes | Yes |
| Share of Mentions | Yes - leaderboard mention counts | Yes | Yes |
| Share of Citations | Partial - source counts, no share metric | Partial - citation counts, no share metric | Yes |
| Narrative drift detection | Partial - theme and sentiment over runs | Partial - claims refresh each report update | Yes - scored against a brand truth profile |
| Feature-parity / accuracy scoring | No | Yes - claim-level check and flag | Yes |
| Untracked brand extraction | Yes - every brand in the answers | Yes - competitors auto-detected | Yes - with sentiment and average rank |
| Cited source categorization | Yes - $299 plan | Yes - knowledge vs commercial | Yes - 8 source types |
| Topic-level breakdown | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Engine-level breakdown | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Competitor tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes - or promote any brand seen in results |
| Competitors included | Up to 30 | 2 in reports; auto-detected in prompts | 15 |
| Visibility gap analysis | Yes - persona, topic and competitor | Yes | Yes |
| ChatGPT fan-out capture | No | No - fan-out used to generate prompts | Yes |
| AI Mode grounding queries capture | No | Not published | Yes - the live grounding searches |
| Bing Index probe | No | No | Yes |
| AI crawler access check | Yes - per URL | Partial - vendor rates it as limited | Yes - retrieval, live fetch and training |
| Reporting & exports | |||
| Executive dashboard | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI-written narrative summary | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Data export | Yes - CSV, JSON, API, share links | Yes - CSV, JSON, API | Yes - CSV |
| Branded PDF report | No | Partial - PDF/PNG export, no custom branding | Yes |
| Scheduled email reports | Partial - run-complete emails | Not published | Yes - paid, per-user opt-in |
| Action log with export | No | Partial - claim review status, no export | Yes - CSV on paid managed plans |
| Historical data retention | Not published | Not published | No cap - stored on device,. Paid plans offer 400 day backup on-cloud; audio analytics 180–365 days |
| Taking action (the AEO loop) | |||
| Covers full loop: track → fix → verify → deploy | Partial - no deploy step | Partial - no publishing step | Yes |
| Page-level AEO audit | Yes - 10–50 URLs/mo by plan | No | Yes |
| Scored categories | 6 named categories | 0 | 9 |
| Retrieval-readiness scoring | Partial - topics grouped by retrieval issue | No | Yes - deterministic dense retrieval |
| Evidence tiers on recommendations | No - priority ranking only | Partial - ranked by impact and effort | Yes - proven, directional, best-practice |
| Element-level rewrite suggestions | Partial - page-level content plans | Partial - issue list, not rewrites | Yes - element, character budget, before and after |
| Second-model QA pass | No | Partial - manual paste into Claude or Gemini | Yes - pass, revised or needs human review |
| Static crawler-view snapshot | Not published | No | Yes - full-page screenshot, JavaScript off |
| Audit input sources | Entered URLs + site crawl | Site pages crawled, LLM responses | Live URL, pasted text, file, WordPress, Webflow, Grav |
| Baseline vs verification re-runs | Yes - score history per page | Partial - score history via report updates | Yes - compares against the baseline |
| Recommendation status tracking | Not published | No - claim review only | Yes - planned, staged, completed |
| Visibility data sets page priority | Yes - audit gaps drive recommendations | Partial - topic-level, not page-level | Yes - defend, recover, convert, earn |
| Search Console sets page priority | No | No | Yes - protect, balanced or expand |
| Branded audit PDF | No | No - unbranded share URL | Yes |
| CMS integration & publishing | |||
| WordPress | No | No | Yes - official plugin, production and staging |
| Webflow | No | No | Yes - OAuth MCP, pages and collection items |
| Framer | No | No | On roadmap |
| Grav | No | No | Yes - official plugin |
| Shopify | No | No | On roadmap |
| Surgical element-level edits to live page | No | No | Yes |
| Preview before applying | No | No | Yes |
| Staging environment support | No | No | Yes - WordPress, with promote to production |
| One-click rollback | No | No | Yes - WordPress |
| Patch history per site | No | No | Yes - WordPress |
| Visual placement picker | No | No | Yes - pick the spot on the rendered page |
| Push Schema JSON-LD into page | No - flags gaps only | No - entity files via paid service | Yes - FAQPage schema |
| Publish approval gate | n/a - never publishes | No | Yes - always, including scheduled runs |
| Agentic capability | |||
| Truly agentic (agent chooses its own steps) | No | No - vendor states no agents | Yes - plans and executes against the live web |
| Fixed-workflow automation only | Yes - scheduled audits only | Yes - scheduled runs only | No - workflows exist alongside the agent |
| Agents can run on local model at zero cost | No | No | Yes |
| Multi-agent panel | No | No | Yes - two extra agents, paid plans |
| Live browser view | No | No | Yes |
| Take control mid-run | No | No | Yes |
| Steer agent while running | No | No | Yes - talk to any agent mid-job |
| Background execution | Partial - audits run server-side | No - scheduled tracking only | Yes - with notify on completion |
| Approval gate before real-world actions | n/a - no real-world actions | No - takes no external actions | Yes |
| Long-running deep work jobs | No | Partial - deeper crawl run takes 5–6 min | Yes |
| Scheduled agent jobs | No - scheduled audits, not agents | No | Yes - daily, weekdays, weekly, monthly |
| Agent produces saved artifacts | No | Partial - saved reports and plans | Yes - briefs, drafts, FAQs, audits |
| Evidence capture | Partial - full audit transcripts kept | Yes - full responses and citations | Yes - screenshots and captured proof |
| Searchable job history | Partial - audit run history | Partial - report history only | Yes |
| Chat & assistant | |||
| Agentic chat with mid-answer tool calls | No | No - external assistants only, via MCP | Yes |
| Model picker per conversation | No | No | Yes |
| LLM models available | n/a | 0 | 27 hosted + 3 local; any model on BYOK |
| Chat memory across conversations | No | No | Yes - semantic search over past chats |
| Live web search | No | No | Yes |
| Fetch and read URLs | Partial - audits URLs you enter | No | Yes |
| Semantic search over your own site | No - crawl feeds content audit only | No | Yes - on-device index |
| Topic coverage check | Yes - $299 plan | Yes - topic breadth scoring | Yes - covered, partial or not covered |
| File attachments | No | No | Yes - txt, md, doc, docx, pdf, images |
| In-app screenshot capture | No | No | Yes - screen or window, with crop |
| Custom specialists with own tool access | No | No | Yes - plus 6 presets |
| Image generation | No | No | Yes |
| Content generation | |||
| Research-backed briefs | Yes - content plans from audit gaps | No - vendor states it does not generate content | Yes |
| Live SERP / PAA research | No | No | Yes - plus related searches and AI search snapshots |
| Full draft generation | Yes | No | Yes |
| Brand voice grounding | Partial - brand voice style toggle | No | Yes |
| Brand truth profile | Not published | Partial - checked and flagged claim list | Yes |
| Internal linking placement | Not published | No - sister product only | Yes |
| Featured image generation | No | No | Yes |
| FAQ generation with schema export | Partial - FAQ format, no schema export | No | Yes - HTML and JSON-LD |
| Key points extraction | No - key points are a manual input | No | Yes - pushable into the live pag |
| AI-tell removal pass | No | No | Yes - paid, toggleable |
| Artifact library | Partial - generated pieces stored per project | No | Yes |
| Export formats | Not published | CSV, JSON, PDF, PNG | Markdown, HTML, DOCX, PDF, TXT |
| Revise artifacts in place | Not published | No | Yes |
| Deploy directly to CMS | No - manual publish | No | Yes |
| Content repurposing / audio | |||
| Turn any page into audio | No | No | Yes - URL, pasted text or file |
| Two-voice conversation format | No | No | Yes |
| Voices | 0 | 0 | 30 |
| Languages | 0 | 0 | 24 |
| Length options | n/a | n/a | Short, standard, deep dive |
| Embeddable audio player | No | No | Yes |
| Player theming and layout | No | No | Yes - theme, layout, accent, title, transcript |
| White-label audio attribution | No | No | Yes - agency plans |
| Attribution backlink to agency | No | No | Yes - real link in page HTML |
| Listening analytics | No | No | Yes - plays, completion, listen time |
| BYOK audio generation | No | No | Yes |
| Site crawl & monitoring | |||
| Automatic site discovery | Yes - crawls the site for content gaps | Yes - top pages crawled at setup | Yes |
| Scheduled full-site crawl | Partial - monthly, $299 plan | No - crawl runs per report | Yes - weekly or on demand |
| Monitored page management | Yes - audited page list with scores | No | Yes |
| Batched change digests | No | No | Yes |
| On-device semantic index | No | No | Yes |
| Page freshness tracking | Partial - audit score history per page | No | Yes |
| Entity & knowledge graph | |||
| Site-wide entity graph | No | Yes - built from crawled pages | Yes |
| Inferred relationships | Partial - brand and attribute co-mentions | Yes | Yes |
| Salience scoring | Partial - theme frequency counts | Partial - association strength heatmap | Yes |
| Graph readable by AI agent | No | Partial - entity files via paid service | Yes |
| Graph export | No | Partial - JSON via paid service | Yes - CSV and PDF |
| Automation & workflows | |||
| Visibility-threshold triggers | No | No | Yes - mentions or citations, all or one topic |
| Pre-built recovery recipe | No | Partial - prioritised plan, executed manually | Yes - detect, locate, audit, stage a fix |
| Conditional branching | No | No | Partial - branches on whether a matching page exists |
| Scheduled content cadence | No | No | Yes - daily to monthly |
| Workflow reports | No | No | Yes - posted to the inbox |
| Alerts & inbox | |||
| Unified project inbox | No | No | Yes |
| Native OS notifications | No | No - web only | Yes - Windows and macOS |
| Customized notifications with severity thresholds | No | Not published | Yes - per project |
| Email digest | Partial - audit-complete emails | Not published | Yes |
| Teams & workspaces | |||
| Seats included | Unlimited - no per-seat fee | 1 / 2 / unlimited by plan | Unlimited on paid managed; 10 BYOK Premium, 25 BYOK Agency |
| Cost per additional seat | $0 | Not published - upgrade required | $0 on paid managed plans, +$7 per seat for BYOK plans |
| Shared allowance across team | Yes - allowance sits on the project | Yes - credits pooled per account | Yes |
| Per-member usage visibility | Partial - usage tab, not per member | Not published | Yes |
| Multi-project workspaces | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Projects included | Unlimited; each billed its own plan | Unlimited from $69.95 | 1 free, 3–10 managed, 25–unlimited agency; +$10 each |
| Archive and restore projects | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Per-project API keys | Not published | No - one account key | Yes - rotatable |
| SSO / SAML | Not published | Not published | Roadmap |
| Agency & white-label | |||
| White-label PDF reports | No - stated as roadmap | No | Yes - visibility report and audit |
| Custom logo, color and link | No | No | Yes |
| White-label audio player | No | No | Yes - custom attribution text and link |
| Client-facing backlink | No | No | Yes |
| Dedicated agency tier | No - partner discount on same plans | Partial - agency-oriented tier, no separate program | Yes - four tiers |
| Client sub-accounts | Yes - client workspaces, viewer role | Partial - unlimited seats and projects, no client roles | No - clients are projects, no client logins |
| Integrations | |||
| Google Search Console | No | No | Yes - OAuth, credentials stay on device |
| Google Analytics | No | No | Roadmap |
| MCP connector support | Not published | Yes - read-only, 5 tools | Partial - Webflow connects over MCP |
| Public API | Yes - read-only | Yes - $69.95 and above | No - project keys for own plugins only |
| Slack | No | No | No |
| Zapier | No | Partial - via API, no native app | No |
| Custom connection support | API and exports only | Partial - JSON API only | Yes - request a connection, paid plans |
| Platform & support | |||
| UI languages | 1 (English) | Not published - analyses 13–47 languages | 6 |
| Troubleshooting and recovery tools | Not published | Partial - crawler whitelisting docs | Yes |
| In-app help agent | Yes - AI chat with human handoff | No - live chat with staff | Yes |
| Done-for-you service available | No - agency partner network | Yes - entity map managed service | Yes |
| Team | |||
| Founders have SEO backgrounds | No. Founded in 2025 by Todd Sawicki, previously CEO of ad platform Zemanta, and Patrick O'Donnell, previously a co-founder of Urbanspoon. | Yes. | Yes. Founder Sam Morris has 15+ years in SEO and software engineering. |
Which one to pick
Gumshoe suits teams that want persona-based audits, up to 30 competitors, unlimited seats, and a read-only public API. Waikay suits buyers who need a browser-based tool at the lowest paid entry price, starting at $24.95 per month, or who focus on entity and claim checks. Both tools track core AI engines and report on brand mentions, citations, and competitors.
Hi, Moose fits teams that need to move from visibility tracking to page changes. It tracks 10 engines, including Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Grok, Meta AI, and DeepSeek. It also captures live AI Mode grounding queries and ChatGPT fan-out queries. Its page-level AEO audits score nine categories, provide evidence tiers, and create element-level rewrite suggestions with before-and-after text.
The desktop, local-first model also gives Hi, Moose a different cost and data setup. The free plan has no expiry or card requirement. Every plan includes unlimited local daily visibility runs across five engines. Teams can use an OpenRouter key, run local models, and reduce vendor AI costs to $0. Hi, Moose stores project data locally and supports full backup and restore, while paid plans add cloud backup.
Hi, Moose also covers steps that Gumshoe and Waikay leave to manual work. It can prepare edits, let users preview them, and publish only after approval through its WordPress, Webflow, and Grav connections. WordPress users also get staging support, rollback, patch history, and visual placement controls. Agencies can create branded PDF reports and white-label audio players. For SMBs and agencies that need tracking, audits, content work, and controlled publishing in one tool, Hi, Moose offers the broadest path from finding an AI visibility gap to verifying a fix.
Sources and research date
Researched August 2026
Every value comes from vendor pricing pages, public docs or a live account. Where a vendor does not publish a number, the cell says not published instead of an estimate. Plans change often. If a row is wrong, tell us and we will date the correction.
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