Key takeaways
- Authoritas has a free tier and transparent public pricing starting at £90/mo; Meridian requires a demo call and offers only custom pricing.
- Authoritas is a combined AI search + traditional SEO platform. Meridian is AI search only -- no rank tracking, no site audits, no keyword research.
- Meridian leans into a managed/agency execution model ("expert-led, agent-powered"). Authoritas is self-serve with optional professional services.
- Authoritas covers eCommerce, publishers, and brands with distinct product tracks. Meridian targets brands and agencies looking to drive revenue from AI search specifically.
- Meridian monitors 9 AI models including Meta AI and Grok; Authoritas covers 7 (no Meta AI or Grok on the public feature list).
- If you want to start immediately without a sales call, Authoritas is the only option here -- Meridian's pricing is entirely gated behind a demo.
Overview
Meridian
Meridian positions itself as a growth system, not just a tracker. The pitch is that it combines multi-agent AI systems with hands-on human execution to turn AI search into a "primary revenue channel." In practice, that means you get visibility monitoring across the major LLMs, but the differentiating claim is that Meridian's team helps you act on the data -- think of it somewhere between a SaaS tool and a managed service.
The platform covers brand visibility, sentiment scoring, citation tracking, and competitive benchmarking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI, Meta AI, Claude, Copilot, Grok, and DeepSeek. The UI shows visibility scores, sentiment percentages, and position rankings per prompt, with multi-language and multi-region support visible in their demo examples (English, Japanese).
What Meridian does not offer: traditional SEO features, a free plan, or public pricing. You need to book a demo to find out what it costs.
Authoritas AI Tracker
Authoritas has been an SEO platform for years, and its AI Tracker is an extension of that existing toolset rather than a standalone product. The result is a platform that lets you monitor AI search visibility AND manage traditional SEO in one place -- rank tracking, site audits, keyword research, and backlink analysis sit alongside LLM brand monitoring.
The AI Search Platform uses a credit-based pricing model, which is unusual in this space but gives you granular control over query volume. There's a free tier (50 credits), and paid plans scale from £90/mo up to £1,125/mo for enterprise. It covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Google AI Overviews, and Bing AI, with specific product tracks for eCommerce brands, publishers (including content licensing insights), and general brands.
Side-by-side comparison
| Feature | Meridian | Authoritas AI Tracker |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes (50 credits) |
| Starting price | Custom (demo required) | £90/mo (AI Search P1) |
| Traditional SEO tools | No | Yes (rank tracking, audits, keywords, backlinks) |
| AI models monitored | 9 (incl. Meta AI, Grok) | 7 (incl. Google AIO, Bing AI) |
| Sentiment tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Citation tracking | Yes | Yes |
| Competitive benchmarking | Yes | Yes (Share of Voice trend charts) |
| Multi-language support | Yes | Yes |
| Publisher-specific features | No | Yes (content licensing insights) |
| eCommerce-specific features | No | Yes |
| Managed/expert execution | Yes (core differentiator) | No (self-serve) |
| Pricing transparency | None (demo only) | Full public pricing |
| Credit-based query model | No | Yes |
| Free trial | No | Yes (free tier) |
Head-to-head feature deep-dive
Pricing and accessibility
This is the starkest difference between the two tools. Authoritas publishes its pricing openly:
| Plan | Authoritas AI Search | Authoritas SEO Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 50 credits | N/A |
| P1 / Essential | £90/mo (2,000 credits) | £99/mo |
| P2 / Advanced | £225/mo (6,000 credits) | £399/mo |
| P3 / Expert | £495/mo (15,000 credits) | £799/mo |
| Enterprise | £1,125/mo (42,000 credits) | Custom |
Meridian shows none of this. No pricing page, no plan tiers, no ballpark figures. You book a demo, talk to sales, and get a custom quote. That's not inherently bad -- enterprise GEO tools often work this way -- but it creates friction for anyone who wants to evaluate the tool independently before talking to a salesperson.
Authoritas's credit model is worth understanding: each AI query costs a certain number of credits depending on the model (GPT-4o mini costs fewer credits than Claude 3.5 Haiku, for example). This gives you control but also means you need to estimate query volume before choosing a plan. For high-volume monitoring, credits can run out faster than expected.
Verdict: Authoritas wins on accessibility. Meridian might be competitively priced, but you can't know without a call.
AI model coverage
| AI Model | Meridian | Authoritas |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT / OpenAI | Yes | Yes |
| Perplexity | Yes | Yes |
| Google AI Overviews | Yes | Yes |
| Gemini | Yes | Yes |
| Claude | Yes | Yes |
| DeepSeek | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Copilot | Yes | Yes (Bing AI) |
| Meta AI | Yes | No |
| Grok | Yes | No |
| Google AI Mode | Unclear | Unclear |
Meridian covers Meta AI and Grok, which Authoritas doesn't list. For most brands, the missing models won't matter much -- Meta AI and Grok are lower-priority for B2B or eCommerce use cases. But if your audience skews toward social-native platforms or X/Twitter, Meridian's broader coverage is a real advantage.
Verdict: Meridian covers more models, though the practical difference is small for most teams.
Traditional SEO integration
Authoritas built its AI tracker on top of an existing SEO platform. That means you get rank tracking, site audits, keyword research, and backlink analysis in the same tool. For teams that want a single platform for both traditional and AI search, this is genuinely useful -- you can correlate organic ranking drops with AI visibility changes, or use keyword data to inform which prompts to monitor.
Meridian has no traditional SEO features. It's AI search, full stop. If you already use Ahrefs, Semrush, or another SEO tool and just need AI monitoring on top, that's fine. But if you're looking to consolidate your stack, Meridian won't help.
Verdict: Authoritas wins for teams that want SEO and AI monitoring in one place.
Managed execution vs. self-serve
Meridian's biggest differentiator is its "expert-led, agent-powered" positioning. The claim is that you're not just getting a dashboard -- you're getting a team that helps you execute on the insights. This is closer to a managed service model than a pure SaaS tool.
Authoritas is self-serve. You get the data, the charts, the reports -- and then you figure out what to do with them. There are no built-in content generation tools or expert execution layers mentioned in their feature set.
Whether Meridian's managed approach is worth it depends entirely on your team's capacity. If you have a lean marketing team with no one to own GEO execution, paying for expert support makes sense. If you have an in-house SEO team that just needs better data, the managed layer is overhead you're paying for but not using.
Worth noting: if you want a platform that bridges the gap -- giving you both the data and built-in tools to act on it (content gap analysis, AI writing, crawler logs) -- Promptwatch is worth looking at as a third option in this space.
Verdict: Depends on your team. Meridian's managed model suits resource-constrained teams; Authoritas suits teams that want control.
Sentiment and citation tracking
Both platforms track sentiment and citations, but the implementations differ. Meridian shows sentiment as a score (e.g., "Sentiment: 93, +6%") alongside visibility and position metrics per prompt. The UI appears clean and prompt-level granular.
Authoritas shows Share of Voice trend charts across competitors, response analysis comparing brand mentions, and citation source breakdowns. The publisher-specific track adds content licensing insights -- useful for media companies that want to know when AI models are using their content without attribution or payment.
Verdict: Roughly comparable for brand monitoring. Authoritas has a unique edge for publishers.
Reporting and personas
Authoritas explicitly supports persona-based query modeling -- you can define customer journeys and question types (informational, where-to-buy, branded, location-based) to structure your monitoring. This is a thoughtful approach that mirrors how real customers actually prompt AI engines.
Meridian's demo examples show multi-language, multi-region monitoring (English prompts, Japanese prompts), which suggests regional persona support, but the specifics aren't publicly documented.
Verdict: Authoritas is more transparent about persona and journey modeling. Meridian's regional support looks solid but is harder to evaluate without a demo.
Pricing comparison
| Plan | Meridian | Authoritas AI Search |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Not available | 50 credits |
| Entry | Custom (demo required) | £90/mo (2,000 credits) |
| Mid-tier | Custom | £225/mo (6,000 credits) |
| Upper-mid | Custom | £495/mo (15,000 credits) |
| Enterprise | Custom | £1,125/mo (42,000 credits) |
Note: Authoritas also sells a separate SEO Platform (£99-£799/mo) that can be bundled with the AI Search plans. Meridian pricing is entirely undisclosed.
Pros and cons
Meridian
Pros:
- Covers 9 AI models including Meta AI and Grok
- Managed/expert execution layer for teams without in-house GEO capacity
- Multi-language and multi-region monitoring
- Clean, prompt-level visibility and sentiment scoring
- Positions itself as a revenue-focused growth system, not just a tracker
Cons:
- No public pricing -- requires a demo to get any cost information
- No free plan or trial
- No traditional SEO features
- Harder to evaluate independently before committing to a sales process
- Managed model may be overkill (and expensive) for teams that just need data
Authoritas AI Tracker
Pros:
- Free tier available (50 credits) -- you can test it today
- Transparent, public pricing with clear plan tiers
- Combines AI search monitoring with a full traditional SEO platform
- Publisher-specific track with content licensing insights
- Persona and customer journey modeling built in
- Share of Voice trend charts for competitive benchmarking
- Credit-based model gives granular control over query volume
Cons:
- Doesn't cover Meta AI or Grok
- Credit model can be confusing to estimate upfront
- No managed execution layer -- you're on your own with the data
- No built-in content generation or optimization tools
- The AI tracker and SEO platform are separate products with separate pricing, which can add up
Who should pick which tool
Pick Meridian if:
- You want a managed partner, not just a dashboard -- someone to help you execute on AI search strategy
- Your audience is active on Meta AI or X/Grok and you need those models monitored
- You're a brand or agency willing to invest in a premium, hands-on GEO service
- You don't need traditional SEO features and already have another tool for that
Pick Authoritas AI Tracker if:
- You want to start immediately without a sales call -- the free tier lets you test right now
- You need traditional SEO and AI monitoring in one platform
- You're an eCommerce brand or publisher with specific needs (the publisher licensing track is genuinely unique)
- You want transparent, predictable pricing
- You have an in-house team capable of acting on the data without managed support
Final verdict
These two tools solve adjacent problems but for different buyers. Authoritas is the more practical choice for most teams: you can start for free, pricing is clear, and you get traditional SEO alongside AI monitoring. Meridian is for teams that want expert execution baked in and don't mind a sales process to get there. If you're evaluating both, start with Authoritas's free tier to benchmark your current AI visibility -- then decide whether Meridian's managed layer is worth the additional investment.