AI Search Visibility Tracker

Does ChatGPT or Perplexity recommend your brand? This Actor asks ChatGPT (OpenAI API) and Perplexity the questions your buyers ask. It then measures how often your brand is named, where it ranks against your competitors, which websites the AI cites, and the tone of the mention. Schedule it weekly to track your AI search visibility (GEO / AEO) over time.

By Steadfeed.

How it works

1. You list your brand, a few competitors and the questions buyers ask (or a category and use cases, and the Actor writes the questions).
2. The Actor sends each question to each AI you select, using your own API keys.
3. Every answer is analysed. You get one dataset row per answer, plus a SUMMARY record with the totals for each AI.

Bring your own API keys (required)

AI usage is billed by OpenAI or Perplexity directly to your key. This Actor never uses keys of its own. Keys are Apify secret inputs: they are encrypted, sent only to the provider's official API, and never logged or written to the output.

Provider	Input field	Default model	Citations	Get a key
openai (ChatGPT)	openaiApiKey	gpt-6-luna	URLs written in the answer	https://platform.openai.com/api-keys. Add a few dollars of prepaid credit under Billing.
perplexity	perplexityApiKey	sonar (Agent API, "fast" effort, web search)	yes, the sources it searched	https://console.perplexity.ai. Paid credit is required; the minimum top-up is $10.

You only need a key for the providers you select. You can change models with models, for example {"openai": "gpt-5-mini", "perplexity": "sonar-pro"}. For Perplexity, sonar/sonar-pro = effort "fast", sonar-reasoning-pro = "low", sonar-deep-research = "high". You can also pass fast/low/medium/high or a provider/model name.

What AI usage costs you

Measured on real runs on 2026-11-04. These are provider list prices, so check the provider's pricing page.

Provider	Typical cost per answer
OpenAI gpt-6-luna	about $0.0001–0.0003
Perplexity sonar (fast)	about $0.0017–0.002 (includes the ~$0.001 web search fee)

Each row reports inputTokens, outputTokens and aiCostUsd. The SUMMARY record has the run total. For Perplexity, the cost is the one Perplexity reports (provider-reported). For OpenAI, it is tokens × the published list price (estimated-list-price). Your provider bill is the final word.

Number of AI calls = prompts × providers × runsPerPrompt. For example, 10 prompts × 2 providers × 3 runs = 60 calls. maxCalls (default 50, max 500) is a hard cap: if the plan is bigger, the run stops before making any AI call.

Quick start

1. Get an API key for at least one provider (table above).
2. Fill in Brand, Your domain, Competitors and Prompts, select the AI assistants, and paste the matching key(s).
3. Optional: run once with Dry run on. This uses fake answers with no keys and no cost, so you can check the setup and output format.
4. Start the run. Open the Overview table in the Output tab, and the SUMMARY record in the key-value store.
5. To track over time, save the input as a task and add a weekly schedule.

Example input

{
  "brand": "HubSpot",
  "brandDomain": "hubspot.com",
  "competitors": ["Salesforce", "Pipedrive", {"name": "Zoho CRM", "aliases": ["Zoho"], "domain": "zoho.com"}],
  "prompts": ["What is the best CRM for a small business?", "Which CRM would you recommend for a startup? Give me your top 5."],
  "providers": ["openai", "perplexity"],
  "openaiApiKey": "<your OpenAI key>",
  "perplexityApiKey": "<your Perplexity key>",
  "runsPerPrompt": 3
}

Input

Field	Required	Description
brand	yes	Your brand name. Matching ignores case and uses whole words, so "Acme" does not match "Acmeville".
brandAliases		Other names that count as your brand (product names, old names).
brandDomain		Your domain, e.g. acme.com. Subdomains count as cited.
competitors		Names, or objects {"name", "aliases", "domain"}. Up to 25.
prompts	one of	Buyer questions, up to 100.
category + keywords	one of	Used if prompts is empty. Generates questions such as "What is the best {category} {keyword}?" and "Which {category} would you recommend {keyword}? Give me your top 5."
providers	yes	openai, perplexity or both.
openaiApiKey / perplexityApiKey	for each selected provider	Your keys (secret).
models		Model overrides per provider.
runsPerPrompt		1–10 (default 1). AI answers vary, so repeat questions to measure consistency.
sentimentMode		rules (default, free), llm (an extra small call per answer on your OpenAI key, which is not counted in aiCostUsd), or off.
maxCalls		Safety cap on AI calls (default 50).
maxConcurrency, maxRetries, requestTimeoutSecs		Throttling.
dryRun		Fake answers: no keys, no AI calls, no AI cost.

Strict validation: the whole input is checked before any AI call. If anything is wrong, the run fails with a list of every problem and writes no rows. Problems include a missing key for a selected provider, an unknown field, an invalid domain, a number out of range, your brand listed as a competitor, or a plan above maxCalls. A missing key, for example, gives: perplexityApiKey is missing: provider "perplexity" is selected, so add your own Perplexity API key from https://console.perplexity.ai (or remove "perplexity" from providers, or turn on dryRun to test without keys).

Output

Dataset: one row per prompt × provider × run

Field	Meaning
brandMentioned	Did the answer name your brand (or an alias)?
brandMentionCount	How many times it was named.
brandRank	Your position among the tracked brands (yours + competitors), ordered by first mention. 1 = named first. Empty if not named. Brands you didn't list do not count.
competitorsMentioned, competitorMentions	Which competitors were named, with their count and rank.
citedUrls, citedDomains	Sources the AI cited or linked.
brandDomainCited	Was your website among the sources?
competitorDomainsCited	Competitor websites among the sources.
sentiment	Tone about your brand: positive / neutral / negative. Pros/cons lists are scored on your own entry only, so a balanced "Strengths / Weaknesses" entry is not marked negative.
snippet	The text around your first mention.
answer	The full answer.
inputTokens, outputTokens, aiCostUsd, aiCostSource	AI usage and cost of this call, billed to your key.
status, error	ok or error with the reason. Other calls continue if one fails.

SUMMARY record (key-value store)

For each provider (perProvider.openai, perProvider.perplexity):

Metric	Meaning
visibilityShare	Share of successful answers that named your brand (0–1).
avgBrandRank	Average brandRank over the answers that named you (1 is best).
firstPlaceShare	Share of successful answers where you were named first.
brandDomainCitedShare	Share of answers that cited your website.
shareOfVoice	Each tracked brand's share of all tracked-brand mentions. It adds up to 1 and is empty if every call to that provider failed.
answersMentioning	Number of answers naming each brand.
sentiment	Count of positive / neutral / negative answers.
aiCostUsd, inputTokens, outputTokens	AI usage for that provider.

At the top level, you also get overallVisibilityShare, topCitedDomains, the run's total aiCostUsd, and call counts (totalCalls, succeeded, failed).

Failed calls (bad key, no credit, outage) are recorded as error rows and left out of every metric. 429 errors, timeouts and 5xx errors are retried with backoff. The run is marked failed only if every call failed.

Limitations

• API answers can differ from what people see in the ChatGPT or Perplexity apps. The apps use different system prompts, browsing and personalization. Treat the results as a consistent benchmark, not a screenshot of one user's screen.
• OpenAI answers come from the model without live web search, so they show what the model "knows" and usually have no citations. Perplexity searches the web and cites sources.
• Only brands you list are tracked. Rank and share of voice ignore brands you did not list.
• Text matching is literal. Add aliases for nicknames ("Zoho" for "Zoho CRM"). Common-word brand names can over-match.
• Rule-based sentiment is a rough signal. Use sentimentMode: "llm" for better labels.
• Answers are random. Use runsPerPrompt of 3 or more for decisions.
• Only OpenAI and Perplexity are supported for now.

FAQ

Do I need both keys? No. Select only the providers you have keys for.

Who pays for the AI calls? You do, directly to OpenAI or Perplexity, through your own key. This Actor has no built-in keys.

Is my API key safe? Keys are Apify secret inputs, encrypted at rest, sent only to the provider's official API, and never logged or saved to the dataset.

Can I test for free? Yes. Turn on dryRun for fake answers with no keys and no AI calls.

Why is my Perplexity call failing with 401/403? The key is wrong, or the account has no paid credit. Top up at console.perplexity.ai. The error row shows the provider's message.

How do I stop a run from costing too much? Keep maxCalls low. The run will not start any AI call if the plan is bigger. You can also set a maximum run cost in Apify.

How do I track over time? Save a task, schedule it weekly, and compare the SUMMARY records or export the dataset.