Why answer engine optimization exists now
An AEO agent (answer engine optimization) exists because buyers changed where they ask. The question that used to go into a search box now goes into ChatGPT or Perplexity, and the assistant answers with a handful of citations instead of ten links. If your product is not in those citations, the buyer never sees a page to click. There is no position two.
That changes the unit of work. In search you fought for a ranking you could watch move. In answer engines you fight for a mention inside a generated answer, and the answer shifts with the phrasing of the question. So the work is not optimize a page once. It is ask the real questions, see who gets cited, publish what closes the gap, and ask again.
How a citation check run works, step by step
A citation check is one run. The agent asks the assistants 50 tracked prompts — the questions your buyers actually phrase — and records who gets cited on each one. The price shows at the approval gate before anything fires: 2 credits. If the run fails, the credits come back automatically.
Nothing publishes from a check. It is read-only: the agent asks, records, and reports. Acting on a gap — writing the page that earns the citation — is a separate run you approve separately, priced on its own line.
- You pick the prompts, or start from the buyer questions already in the agent's memory.
- The agent runs all 50 against the assistants and logs every citation — yours and everyone else's.
- What comes back is a gap list: prompts where someone else gets cited and you do not.
- To repeat it weekly, you say so in one sentence in chat. It becomes a scheduled run and fires with your laptop closed.
AEO vs SEO: what actually changes in the work
Call it AEO, GEO, or LLM SEO — the names describe the same job with a new gatekeeper. In practice, less changes than the naming wars suggest. The page that earns a citation looks a lot like the page that earns a ranking: it answers a real question directly, in plain structure, with facts an assistant can lift. You do not need a second content team.
What does change is the feedback loop. Rankings move on a scale you can watch. Citations flip when an assistant re-answers a question, so AEO runs on a check, publish, recheck rhythm instead of a monthly report. And measurement is honestly murkier: a page can shape an answer without being cited, and no tool sees inside the model. Treat citation counts as a signal, not a ledger.
In Moatt, both jobs run from one memory. A keyword gap report from the SEO side tells the AEO side which questions matter. A lesson about what earned a citation — backed by a measured outcome, not a hunch — feeds the next page either way.
What ChatGPT citations cost to track
The rate card is flat. A citation check across 50 prompts is 2 credits. A keyword gap report is 2. A page written and formatted to close a gap is 3. A weekly check costs 2 credits a run, and asking the agent questions about the results costs nothing — conversation is free.
Plans: Starter is $99 a month with 60 credits, Growth is $299 with 250, Scale is $799 with 800. Annual gets two months free. Unused credits roll over up to twice your monthly amount. If you run past your plan, overage bills at 1.25x and caps at 3x, with alerts at 50, 80 and 100 percent so nothing surprises you.
The trial is 14 days with 25 credits, card required. That is enough to run real citation checks and read real gap lists before the first invoice.
When AEO is not the move yet
If you ask an assistant your category's buying questions and nobody in your space gets cited at all, buyers are not choosing on citations there yet. A monthly check is enough to watch for the shift — spend the rest of your credits where buyers already are.
If your site has a handful of thin pages, there is nothing for an assistant to cite. Write the pages first; the citation check will tell you which ones to write. And if your rankings already earn citations, do not rebuild anything — a 2-credit check confirms it. The honest sequencing is one check to see where you stand, then decide. That is why the check is priced as its own small run instead of a platform commitment.