# Elmo — Open-source AI visibility and citation tracker, self-hosted free or managed cloud. > Source: CitedIndex — https://citedindex.com/elmo (structured, researched, re-verified) > Facts last verified: 2026-09-01 Elmo is an open-source answer engine optimization tool that tracks how AI answer engines describe a brand, analysing citations, share of voice and competitors. The same product runs as a managed cloud service or as a self-hosted Docker stack. | Fact | Value | | --- | --- | | Website | https://elmohq.com | | Price | from $29/month billed monthly, $24.17/month billed annually | | Free tier | Yes | Self-hosting is $0 forever with unlimited prompts, all models, citation analysis and competitor tracking; you pay only your own infrastructure and AI provider API keys, and support is community-only. ## What it does **Monitors AI answers** · Yes — Core product: tracks brand mentions and citations across AI models. > Track your brand's visibility across any AI model. Monitor mentions, analyze citations, and benchmark competitors. > — https://www.elmohq.com/ · Hero section, paragraph under the headline "Know How AI Talks About Your Brand" **Optimises your content** · Partly — Opportunities recommends pages to refresh and content to create, but the vendor states it does not optimise content for you. > Turn your data into action with AI-generated recommendations — content to create, pages to refresh, and third-party sources to pitch — each ranked by impact. > — https://www.elmohq.com/features · Feature 06/OPPORTUNITIES, body text **Generates content** · Partly — The tracker generates recommendations, not content; article drafting exists only in the separate managed Off-Site AEO service. > After we come up with a plan, we create drafts of the guest posts using the best AI models. Then, we humanize the articles > — https://www.elmohq.com/off-site-aeo · WHY IT WORKS section, "Drafted with AI, and humanized" card **Publishes to your site** · Partly — The managed service places articles on third-party sites; no CMS publishing integration is documented for the product. > We plan, write, humanize, and place that month's posts on high-authority sites, showing you which post maps to which prompt. > — https://www.elmohq.com/off-site-aeo · HOW IT WORKS, step 02 "Live within 30 days" **Done-for-you service** · Yes — Off-Site AEO is a managed monthly service: their team plans, writes, humanizes, places and reports. > Every plan is a managed monthly subscription: planning, writing, humanization, placement, and reporting included. > — https://www.elmohq.com/off-site-aeo · PLANS section intro line above the three plan cards _Not established: Technical AEO_ ## Answer engines **ChatGPT** · Yes — Scraped ChatGPT surface is on every cloud plan, including the $29 Starter. > ChatGPT only > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Starter card, platform row **Perplexity** · Partly — Available from the $99 Basic plan as one of four chosen platforms; Starter is ChatGPT only. > Choose any 4 platforms > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Basic card, platform selector row above the scraped-engine list containing Perplexity **Gemini** · Partly — Scraped Gemini is one of the four selectable platforms from Basic upward, not on Starter. > Choose any 4 platforms > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Basic card, platform selector row above the scraped-engine list containing Gemini **Google AI Overviews** · Partly — Google AI Overview is a selectable scraped surface from Basic upward; Starter is ChatGPT only. > Google AI Overview > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Basic card, Scraped Engines list **Google AI Mode** · Partly — Google AI Mode is a selectable scraped surface from Basic upward; Starter is ChatGPT only. > Google AI Mode > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Basic card, Scraped Engines list **Claude** · Partly — Claude via LLM APIs from Basic upward; the grounded web Claude surface is on Pro and Business only. > Premium grounded models on Pro & Business > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · Cloud plan card (01), feature bullet list **Microsoft Copilot** · Partly — Copilot is a selectable scraped surface from Basic upward; absent from Starter's ChatGPT-only row. > Copilot > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Basic card, Scraped Engines list **Grok** · Partly — Grok (web) appears only in the Premium LLM APIs block of Pro and Business, sampled once daily. > Grok (web) > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Pro card, "Premium LLM APIs 1×/day" list **DeepSeek** · Partly — DeepSeek is in the LLM APIs block from Basic upward; not on Starter. > DeepSeek > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Basic card, "LLM APIs 4×/day" list **Meta AI** · No — Meta AI is absent from the documented list of trackable surfaces. > model — the AI surface being tracked (chatgpt, claude, google-ai-mode, google-ai-overview, gemini, perplexity, copilot, grok, kimi). > — https://www.elmohq.com/docs/user-guide/providers · SCRAPE_TARGETS format section, bullet defining the model segment **Coverage in the vendor’s words** · Yes — Scraped consumer surfaces plus model APIs; Starter is ChatGPT only, higher plans pick any four platforms and add premium grounded models. > See exactly what ChatGPT and other AI search users see exactly with web scraping. Track LLM responses with their APIs or OpenRouter. Bring your own keys. > — https://www.elmohq.com/ · MODEL COVERAGE section, body text under "Track any AI model." ## What it reports **Names the cited sources** · Yes — Citations view shows which domains and URLs models cite, with new/dropped sources and category breakdown. > See which domains and URLs AI models cite most, track new and dropped sources over time, and break down citations by category — brand, competitor, social, and more. > — https://www.elmohq.com/features · Feature 05/CITATIONS, body text **Competitor tracking** · Yes — Share of voice leaderboard compares mention share against every tracked competitor. > Compare your brand's mention share against every competitor. A live leaderboard ranks who AI engines name most > — https://www.elmohq.com/features · Feature 03/SHARE OF VOICE, body text **Brand sentiment** · Partly — Sentiment scoring exists and needs a direct model API key; no attribute-level brand-perception view is documented. > Pick one scraper, add one direct API key for onboarding analysis and sentiment scoring, and you're done > — https://www.elmohq.com/docs/user-guide/providers · Recommended setups section, "Starter (scrape the two that matter)" paragraph **Recommendations** · Yes — Opportunities turns the data into ranked recommendations rather than reporting only. > Turn your data into action with AI-generated recommendations — content to create, pages to refresh, and third-party sources to pitch — each ranked by impact. > — https://www.elmohq.com/features · Feature 06/OPPORTUNITIES, body text **AI crawler analytics** · No — The enumerated product surfaces and API resources cover answers and citations; no AI-bot crawl log analytics. > Analytics — visibility, share of voice, citations, per-model, prompt, and query fan-out metrics > — https://www.elmohq.com/docs/api · Endpoints list, Analytics bullet **Wrong answers about you** · No — Responses are inspectable per prompt, but no accuracy or false-claim flagging is offered. > Drill into any prompt to see exactly what each AI model said, which brands were mentioned, what sources were cited, and how the response was constructed. > — https://www.elmohq.com/features · Feature 08/DEEP DIVE, body text ## Plans and signing up **Prompt or credit allowance** · Yes — Cloud: 50 prompts on Starter and Basic, 150 on Pro, 350 on Business; self-hosting is unlimited. > 50 tracked prompts > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Starter card, allowance bullet **Projects or brands** · Yes — 1 brand on Starter and Basic, 2 on Pro, 5 on Business, multiple on Custom. > 5 brands > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS, Business card, allowance bullet **Countries** · No — Country localization is not exposed in the tracking-target configuration. > Country localization is intentionally not exposed in SCRAPE_TARGETS yet because support differs by DataForSEO surface and underlying model. > — https://www.elmohq.com/docs/user-guide/providers · DataForSEO section, closing paragraph **How often it checks** · Yes — Cloud samples scraped surfaces up to 4×/day (1×/day for premium grounded models); self-hosted default is every 24 hours. > Scraped surfaces sampled up to 4× daily > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · Cloud plan card (01), feature bullet list **Card required to start** · Partly — Self-hosting needs no account or card; the vendor publishes nothing about a card-free cloud trial. > No. Self-hosting Elmo does not require an account or a credit card. Clone the open-source repository, deploy with the CLI, and start tracking your AI visibility. > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · FAQ, "Do I need a credit card to get started?" **Self-serve signup** · Yes — Cloud plans are self-serve with monthly or annual billing; only White Label and Custom require a conversation. > Self-serve cloud, billed monthly or annually. > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · CLOUD PLANS section heading ## Access and integrations **API** · Yes — REST API on every cloud plan, Bearer-authenticated with scoped keys; self-hosted instances serve the same API. > API access on every plan > — https://www.elmohq.com/pricing · Cloud plan card (01), feature bullet list **MCP server** · Yes — MCP endpoint at /api/mcp on cloud and every self-hosted instance, with per-scope tool exposure. > Elmo serves a Model Context Protocol endpoint at /api/mcp, so an AI client can read your visibility data and manage prompts without you copying numbers between windows. > — https://www.elmohq.com/docs/mcp · Opening paragraph _Not established: BI export_ ## Platform record (as of 2026-08-30) Reported by the code-hosting platform, not by the vendor. | Fact | Value | | --- | --- | | Licence | MIT | | Stars | 280 | | Forks | 64 | | Last push | 2026-08-30 | ## Answer-engine source observations 0 of 4 collected answers have source URL/title annotations naming CitedIndex. These are the latest stored observations per engine, not current consumer-UI results. They do not measure product mentions or establish that a source supports a claim. | Engine | Model | Collected on | Query | CitedIndex in source annotations | Source annotations | Other source hosts (up to 6) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | ChatGPT | gpt-4o-mini | 2026-09-04 | Elmo alternatives | Not assessable — no source annotations | 0 | — | | Claude | claude-haiku-4-5 | 2026-09-04 | Elmo alternatives | Not assessable — no source annotations | 0 | — | | Gemini | gemini-2.5-flash | 2026-09-04 | Elmo alternatives | Directory domain not found in observed annotations | 26 | etsy.com, walmart.com, target.com, momsandcrafters.com, reddit.com, ranker.com | | Perplexity | sonar | 2026-09-04 | Elmo alternatives | Directory domain not found in observed annotations | 20 | g2.com, reddit.com, getapp.com, capterra.co.nz, capterra.com, sentrient.com.au | ## Provenance 1 of 9 sources behind the facts above are independent of the vendor. ## Coverage elsewhere None recorded. Every fact above comes from the vendor and is not independently corroborated yet. ## What changed - 2026-09-01 — Capabilities · Free tier - 2026-08-31 — Capabilities · Free tier · Price - 2026-08-23 — Documentation link · One-liner · Repository · Summary - 2026-08-20 — One-liner · Summary ## Correcting this record Anything marked "Not established" is a question we have not answered — it is not a No. If you represent Elmo, or anything here is wrong or out of date, you can supply it with a source: the operations this site accepts from an agent are listed at https://citedindex.com/.well-known/agents.json — that catalogue needs no key to read, and each entry states its own auth. Supplying evidence is free. Nothing that can be bought here changes what a field says, whether a gap is closed, or how this record is scored.