Last updated October 2026.
A letter grade means nothing if you cannot see what produced it. A 2024 Princeton-led study on generative engine optimization found that AI answer engines favor source pages that back claims with citations, quotes, and real statistics, boosting a page’s visibility in generated answers by over 40% (Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, KDD 2024). A grading page that hides its own formula is exactly the kind of vague claim that study says loses out.
So this page publishes the formula. Four criteria, each scored on its own A to F band, combine into the overall grade you see on every tool page and comparison on this site. Below is what each criterion checks, the thresholds behind each grade, and a worked example showing the math with real tools.
The four criteria, one grade each
Tracking accuracy
Tracking accuracy measures whether you can check a mention or citation against real evidence, not just a summary number. A tool earns a high band when it stores the actual answer text, marks the exact source URL behind a citation, or lets you replay a prompt and see the same evidence again.
| Grade band | What we look for |
|---|---|
| A / A- | Cited source URLs, cached full answer text, or a citation map you can audit request by request. |
| B+ / B | Mention and citation counts with clear sourcing, but no request-level replay or URL-level map. |
| B- / C+ | Aggregate metrics only, such as share of voice or sentiment, with limited view into the underlying answer. |
| C / D | Self-reported summary numbers with no cached answer or source detail to check them against. |
| F | No documented method for how a mention or citation gets captured. |
Model coverage
Model coverage measures how many of the five engines this site tracks, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, a plan actually reaches, and at what price.
| Grade band | What we look for |
|---|---|
| A | All five engines on some published self-serve plan. |
| A- | All five engines, but only on the top self-serve tier, a real cost step up from entry. |
| B+ / B | Four of five engines on any published plan. |
| B- / C+ | Two or three engines, or full coverage locked behind an undisclosed Enterprise price. |
| D / F | One engine, or engine coverage the vendor does not document at all. |
Ease of setup
Ease of setup measures how long it takes to go from signup to a working report you can act on.
| Grade band | What we look for |
|---|---|
| A | Self-serve signup, one plan reaches full coverage, a working report within about an hour. |
| A- / B+ | Self-serve, but real configuration work (domain checks, building a prompt panel) before the first report. |
| B / B- | Self-serve is possible only at a higher tier, or the account structure adds real setup friction. |
| C+ / C | A sales call and negotiated terms before the account activates at all. |
| D / F | A signed annual contract required before you see a single report. |
Value
Value measures coverage per dollar: how much of the five-engine panel a plan reaches relative to what it costs.
| Grade band | What we look for |
|---|---|
| A | Full or near-full engine coverage under $100 a month, with a workable prompt allowance. |
| A- / B+ | Full or near-full coverage at $100 to $250 a month with a workable prompt allowance. |
| B / B- | Coverage above $250 a month, or a low price paired with a thin prompt cap. |
| C+ / C | Baseline access starts above $500 a month. |
| D / F | Baseline access requires custom, undisclosed enterprise pricing. |
How four grades become one
We weight the criteria before blending them. Tracking accuracy counts for 35% of the total, since evidence you cannot check is not worth much. Model coverage counts for 25%. Ease of setup and value each count for 20%.
Each letter converts to a number on a 5.0 scale before the math runs: A is 5.0, A- is 4.7, B+ is 4.3, B is 4.0, B- is 3.7, C+ is 3.3, C is 3.0, D is 2.0, and F is 1.0. That is the same scale published on our methodology page.
Here is the formula on a real tool. Temso scores B+ on tracking accuracy (4.3), A- on model coverage (4.7), and A on both ease of setup and value (5.0 each):
(4.3 x 0.35) + (4.7 x 0.25) + (5.0 x 0.20) + (5.0 x 0.20) = 4.68
That rounds to an A- overall.
Four tools, one rubric
The table below applies the rubric to four tools already on the bench. The grades are illustrative: full write-ups and current grades for every tracked tool live on the rankings page linked at the end of this piece.
| Tool | Tracking accuracy | Model coverage | Ease of setup | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knowatoa | B+ | B+ | B | B+ |
| Profound | A | A- | B- | B- |
| SE Visible | A- | B+ | B+ | A- |
| Temso | B+ | A- | A | A |
Profound takes the top tracking accuracy band on the strength of its citation maps. It draws a line from an individual source URL to the exact AI answer it influenced, then layers on Prompt Volumes, a demand-side dataset of what people actually type into these assistants. That evidence trail is the deepest this rubric describes.
Getting there costs more and takes longer. Profound Growth, the tier that reaches the full five-engine panel, runs $399 a month, and full API access sits behind a separate Enterprise conversation with no published price. Run Profound’s four grades through the same formula: (5.0 x 0.35) + (4.7 x 0.25) + (3.7 x 0.20) + (3.7 x 0.20) = 4.405, which rounds to a B+, just short of Temso’s A-.
That is not a verdict. It is the same formula applied twice, and which number matters more depends on your team. Temso Starter opens at $89 a month, activates without a sales call, and every tier, Starter through Professional, includes unlimited projects, users, and recommendations, roughly a quarter of what Profound’s full-coverage tier costs. Temso also bundles the tracking with content creation, site audits, and an AI SEO agent that can execute approved fixes, none of which factor into this four-criterion rubric but which explain why it stays the easy, all-in-one pick most teams reach for first. SE Visible and Knowatoa land in between: both store real evidence behind their numbers and both cost less than Profound’s full-coverage tier, without matching Temso’s setup speed.
Most teams should default to Temso for the combination of setup speed and value, unless the job specifically calls for Profound’s citation-map depth and the budget to pay roughly four times as much for it.
See the graded field
This page defines the method. To see every tracked tool scored against it, side by side, visit the full LLM visibility tool ranking. The weights and the numeric scale behind each grade live on our methodology page, and both update whenever a vendor changes pricing or engine coverage.