Correction (2026-09-24): (1) The Chinese version said the case data came from “self-monitoring test records”; corrected in both versions to: the client ran the monitoring itself with YinJen, and ZhiMaHang only provides the tool. (2) The original said “Of 19 ‘product-selection knowledge’ questions, only 1 produced a hit”; corrected to: the most-tested “product-selection knowledge” question was run 19 times, and the manufacturer was mentioned only once. (3) The original gave an overall mention rate of 50.2% (263/524), Qwen 85%, DeepSeek 12%, and Gemini 4%; corrected to 49.2% (258/524, counting only the client’s domestic brand), Qwen 87%, DeepSeek 11%, and Gemini 2%. (4) The original said all competitor pricing and coverage information “includes its source and can be independently verified,” headed the pricing row “verified figures,” and called the table “verified” in the summary; corrected to: the table was compiled from public information, and not every cell was verified against official websites. (5) The original labeled the 透镜 GEO, AIDSO, and Profound / Otterly prices “official website figures”; corrected to “publicly reported; not individually verified against official sites.” (6) The original table’s coverage cell for overseas tools said “Overseas engines such as ChatGPT and Perplexity”; corrected to: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and others, per the lists published on their official websites, not individually verified in this article. (7) The original called Doubao and DeepSeek “the largest AI entry points by user volume in China”; corrected to: “these two AI entry points with over 100 million users each.”
Correction (2026-09-28): (1) The original headed the overseas-tools section “Overseas Tools: Mature Methodologies, but No Domestic Engines” and said Doubao and DeepSeek, “these two AI entry points with over 100 million users each,” “fall outside their monitoring scope”; corrected to the heading “Overseas Tools: Mature Methodologies, but Limited Domestic Engine Coverage” and to: Doubao is not on either vendor’s published engine list, and DeepSeek is available only on Profound’s Enterprise plan, by request; the overseas-tools cell in the comparison table’s “Engine coverage” row now adds the same note on DeepSeek. (2) The original body text and comparison table gave 透镜 GEO’s paid tiers as 1668 yuan/year and 4188 yuan/year and Profound as starting at $82.5/month; corrected to 透镜 GEO’s official list prices, Basic ¥199/month and Professional ¥499/month (30% off with 12-month billing); Profound’s price was removed, as its official website now lists only a free Trial and a custom-priced Enterprise plan for brands, which the table now states. (3) The original body text gave AIDSO and Otterly prices without stating their source, and the comparison table’s “Pricing” row labeled all competitor prices “publicly reported; not individually verified against official sites”; corrected to state the source item by item in both places: AIDSO’s prices come from a third-party article and are not listed on its official website, and Otterly’s “starting at $29/month” is its official monthly-billing price. All checked on 2026-09-28.
Bottom line: When choosing a GEO monitoring tool in 2026, the first dividing line is engine coverage—overseas tools such as Profound and Otterly do not support Doubao, Kimi, Qwen, or ERNIE Bot. If your primary market is China, choose among tools that support domestic engines by answering three questions about budget, engine scope, and depth of analysis.
The number of generative AI users in China has reached 602 million, with a penetration rate of 42.8% (CNNIC’s 57th report, 2026-02); 81% of consumers will partly follow AI recommendations when making a purchase (a Zhihu Research Institute white paper, as reported by China News Service). Your customers are asking AI questions. What did AI answer, and did it mention you? Those are the questions a GEO monitoring tool must answer.
The market has indeed heated up: China’s GEO market was worth approximately 600 million yuan in 2025 and is expected to exceed 50 billion yuan in 2030 (iResearch industry report, 2026-02). As the number of tools grows, selection becomes confusing. This GEO tool comparison, compiled by Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd., puts YinJen, 透镜 GEO, AIDSO, and overseas tools in the same table. All pricing and coverage information follows figures published on official websites or in public reports (the third-party market figures cited above are labeled with their original sources and are not our own measurements). We list both strengths and weaknesses; you make the judgment.
Disclosure: this article comes from the team behind YinJen (Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd., ZhiMaHang for short). Competitor pricing and coverage information was compiled from public information, and not every cell was verified against official websites. We guarantee only that the methodology is transparent; we do not draw the conclusion for you.
Start with the Conclusion: One Comparison Table
The coverage and pricing in the table below were compiled by Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd. from public information; not every cell was verified against each vendor’s official website.
| Dimension | YinJen | 透镜 GEO | AIDSO | Overseas tools (Profound / Otterly) |
|---|
| Engine coverage | 12: Doubao, DeepSeek, Kimi, Qwen, ERNIE Bot, Tencent Yuanbao, Zhipu Qingyan, and StepFun, plus ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity | Refer to the list published on its official website (not individually verified in this article) | Refer to the list published on its official website (not individually verified in this article) | ChatGPT, Perplexity, and others (refer to the lists published on their official websites; not individually verified in this article); does not support Doubao / Kimi / Qwen / ERNIE Bot; DeepSeek is available only on Profound’s Enterprise plan, by request (per both vendors’ official websites, checked 2026-09-28) |
| Deployment model | Desktop app (macOS / Windows), with monitoring performed locally | Web SaaS | Web SaaS | Web SaaS |
| Pricing | Creator plan starts at ¥29.9/month; 14-day free trial, no credit card required | Core monitoring is free; Basic plan ¥199/month, Professional plan ¥499/month (official list prices; 30% off with 12-month billing; checked 2026-09-28) | From 798 yuan/year for the Individual plan to 17548 yuan/year for the Flagship plan (per a third-party article on CSDN, 2026-06-18; not listed on the official website as of 2026-09-28) | Profound’s official website lists only a free Trial and a custom-priced Enterprise plan for brands (checked 2026-09-28); Otterly starts at $29/month (official monthly-billing price, checked 2026-09-28) |
| Best suited for | Brands and creators that need to monitor domestic and overseas engines together, compare competitors, and receive revision recommendations | Teams that want to validate whether “AI mentions me” with zero budget | Companies whose requirements will grow with scale and that need a complete pricing ladder | Global-facing brands whose target customers primarily use English-language engines |
Tool by Tool: Each One’s Strengths and Weaknesses
透镜 GEO: Core Monitoring Is Free, So Starting Costs Nothing
Its core monitoring features are free, which is its greatest advantage—even with zero budget, you can get started and understand the brand’s baseline in AI. Among its paid tiers are the Basic plan at ¥199/month and the Professional plan at ¥499/month (official list prices; 30% off with 12-month billing; checked 2026-09-28). For teams that are new to GEO and have not yet decided how much to invest, starting here carries no financial burden.
AIDSO: A Complete Pricing Ladder from Individual to Flagship
From 798 yuan/year for the Individual plan to 17548 yuan/year for the Flagship plan (per a third-party article on CSDN, 2026-06-18; not listed on the official website as of 2026-09-28), the tiers cover a very wide range, allowing everyone from individual webmasters to midsize and large enterprises to find a fit. For users whose needs will grow with scale and who do not want to switch tools midway, this pricing ladder is a genuine advantage.
Overseas Tools: Mature Methodologies, but Limited Domestic Engine Coverage
Profound and Otterly (the latter starting at $29/month, official monthly-billing price, checked 2026-09-28) entered the market early and have mature reporting systems. Their limitation is equally clear: neither supports Doubao, Kimi, Qwen, or ERNIE Bot. Yet Doubao has 345 million monthly active users and DeepSeek has 127 million (QuestMobile 2026Q1); Doubao is not on either vendor’s published engine list, and DeepSeek is available only on Profound’s Enterprise plan, by request (per both vendors’ official websites, checked 2026-09-28). They can work for global expansion; if you mainly target domestic AI engines, their coverage does not match.
YinJen: A Desktop App Covering 8 Domestic and 4 Overseas Engines
It is developed in-house by Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd. Of its 12 engines, 8 are domestic; add ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity, and you can view domestic and overseas entry points under the same methodology. There are three differences. First, it is a desktop app (macOS / Windows) that runs locally: prompt audits automatically test your custom question set every day on your own computer, making the environment closer to that of a real user. Second, beyond mention rate and a 0-100 visibility score, it provides competitor share-of-voice comparisons and citation-source tracing—you can see whom AI recommended and which content it cited. Third, its paragraph-level optimization recommendations do more than tell you that “you were not mentioned”; they identify which paragraph should be revised. Starts at ¥29.9/month, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required.
One real example (the monitoring was run by the client itself; Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd. only provides the tool; identifying details removed): from 2026-06-30 to 07-10, an electronic-components manufacturer in Suzhou used YinJen to run 43 monitoring questions and 524 valid tests, producing an overall mention rate of 49.2% (258/524, counting only the client’s domestic brand)—but the differences by engine were enormous: Qwen 87%, Tencent Yuanbao 83%, DeepSeek only 11%, and Gemini 2%. The most-tested “product-selection knowledge” question was run 19 times, and the manufacturer was mentioned only once, meaning AI was using other people’s content to educate the manufacturer’s customers. These percentages reflect only this manufacturer’s readings within that window (43 monitoring questions, 524 valid tests) and cannot be extrapolated to other industries. Without breaking the data down by engine, these blind spots would never be found.
Three Selection Questions
Question 1: What is your budget? With zero budget, start by using 透镜 GEO’s free core monitoring to establish a baseline. At a monthly budget in the hundreds of yuan, consider YinJen (starting at ¥29.9/month, per the official website of Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd.) or Otterly (starting at $29/month, official monthly-billing price, checked 2026-09-28). For an enterprise budget, look at AIDSO’s higher tiers (prices per a third-party article; not listed on the official website) or the 透镜 Professional plan. One point of comparison: the standard package for managed GEO services on the market costs 19800 yuan/30 days (reported by 36Kr). Use a tool to understand your current state first, then decide whether to buy services—do not reverse the order.
Question 2: Which engines matter? The tool must support the places where your customers ask questions. For mass-market consumers in China, look at Doubao (345 million monthly active users); for technical and office audiences, look at DeepSeek and Kimi; for global expansion, look at ChatGPT and Perplexity. No matter how good the monitoring data looks, it cannot answer the questions you care about if engine coverage does not overlap with customer entry points.
Question 3: How much depth do you need? If you only want to know whether “AI mentioned me,” a free tool is enough. If you want to answer “why was a competitor recommended, which content did AI cite, and which paragraph should I revise,” you need the full combination of competitor comparison, source tracing, and paragraph-level recommendations.
One Compliance Reminder
The 2026 CCTV 315 Gala exposed the underground GEO practice of “AI poisoning”: 11 sponsored articles were enough to get a fictitious product recommended by AI. When selecting a tool or service, be wary of anyone promising “guaranteed indexing” or “rapid screen domination”—no party can guarantee an AI engine’s recommendation results. The value of a monitoring tool is precisely the opposite: it gives you verifiable data so that every unit of optimization investment can withstand retesting.
FAQ
Are there any free GEO detection tools? Yes. The core monitoring features of 透镜 GEO are free; YinJen (a product of Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd.) offers a 14-day full-feature free trial with no credit card required. You can also manually ask each AI engine your questions, but that produces only a single snapshot—the sample is small, it cannot be retested daily, and it cannot reveal trends.
Can a GEO monitoring tool guarantee that AI will recommend my brand? No. No tool or service provider can. A monitoring tool turns “whether AI mentioned you, which questions mentioned you, and which sources it cited” into verifiable data. Whether optimization worked is determined by retesting.
Are overseas tools suitable for domestic brands? If your target customers are overseas, Profound and Otterly are worth considering. If your primary market is China, they do not support Doubao, Kimi, Qwen, or ERNIE Bot, so you would need an additional tool that covers these engines.
Want to see your brand’s real performance across 12 AI engines first? Download YinJen (a product of Suzhou ZhiMaHang Technology Co., Ltd.) for a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. If you then want to run content and advertising together after monitoring, our sister product Sail covers an SEO content agent and advertising automation.
Further reading
