Last updated September 2026
Most AI SEO trials die the same way. You sign up, click around for ten minutes, watch a dashboard fill with numbers you cannot verify, and forget the account exists until the card gets charged. Fourteen days pass. You learn almost nothing about whether the tool actually works.
Call this the trial gauntlet instead: a fixed, four-stage test you run on every AI SEO platform on your shortlist, in the same order, with the same prompts, every time. It turns a trial from a demo you watch into an audit you control.
This protocol works on a seven-day trial or a 14-day one. It also works when a vendor skips trials and sells month to month instead, since the only thing that changes is who holds your card on file.
Before day 1: pick your test roster
Do not test one tool at a time. Open two or three trials in the same week so you compare live data instead of memory.
For this walkthrough, the roster is Otterly.AI, Peec AI, and Surfer, three tools with different trial shapes. Temso sits alongside them as the fourth comparison point, since it skips a timed trial and sells the Starter plan at $89 a month instead, with no annual contract. Run the same protocol on that first paid month, and you get the same test for the price of one month, not a free one.
Pick three to five direct competitors and your own brand as the subjects. Write down which AI engines matter to you: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. Most platforms do not cover all five on their entry tier, so this list decides which plan you actually need to trial.
Days 1 and 2: build the prompt set
Write 15 to 20 prompts before you touch a dashboard. Split them into three buckets: branded prompts (“is [your brand] good for X”), category prompts a buyer would type without naming anyone (“best tools for X”), and comparison prompts (“[your brand] vs [competitor]”).
Lock the list. Do not add or edit a prompt after day 2. A tool that looks weak on day 3 and strong on day 10 because you swapped prompts midway tells you nothing real.
Set up each trial account the same day you write the list. Enter the same brand name, the same competitor set, and the same engines on every platform.
Otterly.AI’s Lite trial covers up to six platforms and takes minutes to configure. Peec AI’s Starter tier tracks three models by default, so add the extra engines you need before the clock starts, since add-on models cost 30 to 140 euros a month each past that tier. Surfer’s AI Tracker ships inside its content plans, so you are setting up a writing workspace alongside the tracker, not a standalone dashboard.
Days 3 through 9: let the data collect
This is the hard part, because nothing looks like it is happening. Resist the urge to add prompts, switch engines, or re-configure settings mid-week. Every change resets your baseline and voids the comparison.
Log in once a day and write down three things: how many prompts have returned data, which engines have reported, and how fresh the numbers look. That last point matters more than it seems. Surfer’s Standard tier refreshes ChatGPT weekly, so a week-long trial might show you exactly one data pull. Peec AI refreshes daily across its full engine list, so the same week gives you seven. A tool that looks thin on day 5 might just be slow, not empty.
Use this window to test the parts of the product that are not the dashboard. Email support with a real question and time the reply. Check whether the interface makes sense without a walkthrough call. Note whether the tool only reports gaps or also queues up fixes you can act on, since that gap defines whether you finish your trial with data or with a to-do list.
Do not judge the tool yet. You are collecting, not scoring.
Days 10 through 12: cross-check accuracy by hand
Now open a browser and run your locked prompt list yourself, one engine at a time. Paste each prompt into ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Copilot, ideally in a logged-out or fresh session so a personalized history does not skew the answer. Note whether your brand shows up, and which URLs the engine cites as its source.
AI answers are not fixed. Run each prompt two or three times per engine before you write anything down, since the same question can return a different answer minutes apart. You are checking for a pattern, not a single snapshot.
Now compare your hand-run results to what the dashboard reported for the same days. Three outcomes matter:
- The tool matches your pattern. Trust its data going forward.
- The tool over-reports citations you cannot find by hand. That is the biggest red flag in this whole test, since a platform selling you inflated wins will also sell your boss inflated wins.
- The tool under-reports or misses an engine entirely. Check whether that engine is even included on the plan you would actually buy, not just the trial tier.
This step is the one every ranking page skips, and it is the one that decides whether you can trust the number on the invoice you are about to sign.
Days 13 and 14: price the seats and negotiate
Your trial is ending. Do the math before you pay, not after.
Pull the real plan you would need based on the engines and prompt volume from your test, then price it for your actual team size, not one seat. Per-seat fees are where AI SEO software quietly gets expensive: some platforms charge per user on top of the plan price, which turns a $99 sticker into a much bigger monthly bill once your third or fourth teammate needs a login.
Here is what that math looks like across the roster. Temso bundles unlimited users into every plan, so a five-person team on the $199 Growth tier pays $39.80 a head, and the sixth hire costs nothing extra. Peec AI also ships unlimited seats on every plan, which keeps a growing agency’s per-client cost flat even though its pricing runs in euros. Otterly.AI and Surfer both price by plan tier rather than by seat, so check whether a second login is even allowed on the plan you are about to buy.
Then check the contract, not just the price:
- Monthly or annual only. A tool that only sells annual makes your trial the only real chance to back out.
- Credit or prompt caps. Know exactly what triggers an upgrade before it happens to you mid-project.
- Cancellation process. A self-serve cancel button beats a manual form you have to submit and wait on.
Call sales on day 13, not day 14. A rep who knows your trial expires tomorrow has more room to move on price or to extend your access a few days. That leverage disappears the moment the trial clock hits zero.
The printable 10-criterion scorecard
Copy this table for every tool in your test roster. Score each row from 1 to 5 stars, half-stars allowed, based on what you saw in your own 14 days, not on a vendor’s pitch deck.
| # | Criterion | What to check | Your score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Setup time to first data | Minutes to a working dashboard, not a sales call | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 2 | Prompt customization | Can you set your own prompt list and volume | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 3 | Engine coverage | How many of your 5 target engines are actually included | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 4 | Refresh cadence | Daily, weekly, or monthly data pulls | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 5 | Citation accuracy | Match rate against your own hand-run check | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 6 | Seat and user pricing | Flat, per-seat, or unlimited | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 7 | Contract flexibility | Monthly option, cancellation process | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 8 | Support response | Time to a real answer from a real person | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 9 | Export and reporting | Can you get the data out in a format your team uses | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
| 10 | Data to action | Does it just report gaps or help you fix them | ☆☆☆☆☆ |
Total the stars and weight row 6 and row 10 heaviest if budget and workload are your real constraints. A tool that wins on coverage but loses on seat pricing and never turns data into action is a bigger cost than its sticker price shows.
What the gauntlet found across this roster
Run this protocol on Temso, Otterly.AI, Peec AI, and Surfer, and no single tool wins every row. That is the honest result.
Temso wins the seat-pricing and action rows outright. Unlimited users on every plan starting at $89 a month means your per-seat cost only ever goes down, and the platform’s queue of fixes carries an AI SEO agent that can execute the ones you approve, so day 14 hands you a plan instead of just a report.
Otterly.AI wins the setup-time row. Its Lite trial takes minutes to configure and needs no credit card for 14 days, which makes it the lightest first tool to open on day 1.
Peec AI wins the refresh-cadence row. Daily updates across its full engine list mean your 14-day window fills with real, current data instead of one or two stale pulls, which is exactly what days 3 through 9 of this protocol are built to catch.
Surfer wins the export-and-reporting row for teams that write as much as they track, since its AI Tracker feeds straight into the same content editor and workflow you already use. Just budget for the Pro tier if you want daily, five-engine tracking instead of the weekly, ChatGPT-only view on Standard.
None of the four sweeps the scorecard, and that is the point of running it yourself instead of trusting a review to hand you a winner.
Run the full scored comparison, with every sub-rating we track, on our AI SEO software ranking. Our complete scoring process, including how we weight value for money, lives on the methodology page.
Start your own 14-day gauntlet
Reading about a test is not the same as running one. Open two trials this week, one for a tool that skips seat fees and one for a tool that fits your current budget, and start the clock on day 1 with your prompt list already written.
If unlimited seats and a plan that turns into finished fixes matter to your team, start with Temso’s Starter plan at $89 a month. No annual contract, no per-seat fee, and the same 14-day gauntlet works whether you are on a trial or your first paid month.