A restaurant buying an “AI visibility platform” should first decide whether it needs cleaner location facts, a measurement of actual AI answers, or a team to make changes. Those are different jobs. On 2 October 2026 we checked the vendors' own product and pricing pages for Uberall, Bloom Intelligence, Malou, Marqii, SOCi and Yext. The category has moved since our July review: Uberall now publishes direct AI-answer tracking and a starter price, so the old claim that only SOCi and Yext measure AI visibility no longer holds.
TL;DR
- Uberall GEO Studio and Yext Scout explicitly track AI-answer visibility by location. SOCi publishes a multi-location AI visibility benchmark alongside its local marketing agents.
- Bloom combines guest data, website work and marketing; Malou centres on restaurant presence and reputation; Marqii centres on listings, menus and reviews. Ask each supplier for a live sample of the exact answer metric you need.
- Public entry prices vary in unit and scope: Uberall GEO Starter is $109 for a prompt-credit plan; Bloom's named CDP tier starts at $105 per location per month on annual billing; Marqii Base is $90 per location per month on an annual contract; Malou currently directs groups to a quote. These are not like-for-like quotes.
- Decide who owns corrections, content, menu updates and reservation-path testing after the dashboard flags a problem.
Compare the job before the price
| Product | Publicly described core job | AI-answer evidence on the vendor site | Buyer fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uberall GEO Studio | AI visibility tracking, source analysis and content actions, alongside Uberall's local-presence stack | Share of voice, mentions and citations by prompt, model and location | Group that wants to measure named venues and act across markets |
| Bloom Intelligence | Guest-data platform, restaurant website/discovery work, marketing and reputation | Discovery audit and website performance claims; request the actual prompt sample, location breakdown and export in a demo | Operator combining guest data and acquisition work |
| Malou | Listings, reviews, local SEO and social for restaurants | SEO and discovery performance is described; ask what named AI answers are sampled and how often | Independent venue or growing restaurant group |
| Marqii | Menu and listing sync, reviews, local search analytics | Pricing page describes search analytics, without an explicit AI-answer tracking specification | Venue whose first problem is wrong menus or listings |
| SOCi | Local listings and marketing execution through brand-trained agents | Its Local Visibility Index measures AI recommendations across a large multi-location sample; ask for your own account's prompt-level reporting | Large distributed brand managing many local teams |
| Yext Scout | Location-level search and AI visibility, citation sources and suggested actions across Yext | Tracks Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity by location and competitor | Large group needing measurement tied to location data workflows |
A vendor's research report is not automatically the same as a dashboard for your venues. SOCi's Local Visibility Index analysed more than 350,000 locations across 2,751 brands and found ChatGPT recommended 1.2% of sampled brand locations against 35.9% in Google's local three-pack. That is useful category evidence, published by SOCi, but the buying test is whether its account view answers your actual venue and occasion questions. SOCi's methodology summary
What do the public prices buy?
| Vendor | Published starting figure checked 2 October 2026 | Important boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Uberall GEO Studio | GEO Starter $109, 1,000 monthly credits, 50 prompts, three answer engines | GEO Scale is $449 with 5,000 credits, 150 prompts, five engines and location-level tracking. Full GEO Studio is custom. Confirm currency, billing term and locations in quote. |
| Bloom Intelligence | Customer Data Platform $105 per location per month billed annually, or $115 monthly | Marketer $160/$175 and Enterprise+ $220/$235 by billing term. “As low as $70” is a multi-location floor, not the named CDP tier. Confirm whether website work is included. |
| Malou | Quote request | Its current public pricing page says the price depends on location count, solutions and support, but does not publish a figure. Ask for the full location and module scope in writing. |
| Marqii | Base $90 per location per month on an annual contract | Pro $145; Kitchen Sync $180; custom Multi-Unit from five locations. Confirm setup, integrations and any managed response package. |
| SOCi | Quote request | Confirm per-location minimums, agent products and measurement access in writing. |
| Yext | Demo/quote request | Confirm which locations, engines, prompts and Yext modules are included. |
Do not divide a prompt-credit subscription by location and compare it with a per-location listings contract. For a ten-venue group, put the same ten venues, the same questions and a twelve-month term into every proposal. Ask each vendor to show the total fee, integration and onboarding work, number of tracked prompts, checking frequency, access to raw answers, export rights and cancellation terms.
What should an AI-search audit cost for a multi-venue restaurant group?
There is no useful flat price for this job. The scope changes with the number of venues and concepts, the places and languages covered, the questions the group needs to win, the state of its location pages and listings, and whether the work stops at findings or includes the fixes. A review of one restaurant's private-dining enquiry path is a different piece of work from checking a 30-site group across two countries.
Ask for a scope that names the venue list, priority occasions, locations and languages, booking and listing systems, question set, the evidence the team will receive, and the owner for each repair. It should also say whether it will test the answer again after a change. That gives an operator something concrete to compare without pretending that a dashboard subscription and an audit are the same purchase. For a first look at the gaps, request a free AI-search audit.
Who does the work after a missing answer?
A platform may show that a room is absent from a “Christmas dinner for 20” answer. Someone still has to confirm the room's capacity, update the public page, fix a stale listing, correct the reservation link, ask the events team for current dates and check again. The division of labour matters more than the number of dashboard widgets.
| Job | Single venue | Restaurant group |
|---|---|---|
| Approve menus, offers, hours and capacity | Owner or general manager | Named local manager per venue |
| Maintain website and booking path | Site owner or agency | Central web team with local sign-off |
| Correct listings and reviews | Manager or platform | Platform plus central policy and local exceptions |
| Check AI answers and sources | Manual fixed prompt set or tool | Location-level prompt set with exportable history |
| Make editorial or press changes | Owner/agency | Central comms or specialist partner |
Bloom says its restaurant websites can be built on open platforms that operators own, including an integration with an existing site. That is a meaningful ownership claim; ask for the contract language, admin access and export path before signing. Bloom website product Yext and Uberall describe agents or content actions within their platforms. Ask whether your team approves publishing, owns the finished pages and keeps them after cancellation. These are procurement questions, not claims that any vendor withholds ownership.
Which route fits?
One venue with incorrect menus or listings: start with the public facts and reservation path. Marqii or Malou may be enough if the team will maintain them. A paid AI tracker is hard to justify until you have enough recurring questions to act on.
A two-to-fifteen-venue group: compare Malou, Marqii and Bloom against the operational gap, then run an Uberall GEO Studio demo with your own locations and seasonal prompts if answer measurement is the buying reason. Check whether location-level tracking is in the quoted tier, since Uberall lists it under GEO Scale.
A large multi-brand estate: compare Uberall, SOCi and Yext on location governance, exports and who can approve an automated action. Test one market before extrapolating a national score.
A team that wants someone to execute: a platform alone is not the full service. Keep the venue's facts and booking operations in-house, then contract a web, PR or AI-search specialist for the work the internal team cannot do. Schmitdy sells managed AI-search work, so read this comparison with that commercial interest in mind. Our restaurant AI-search service explains our scope and pricing page lists the current entry price.
Bring five real questions, including a private-dining or group-booking one, to every demo. Ask the vendor to show the answer, its source, the proposed fix, the owner and the later result for the same venue. That is a clearer buying test than any “AI-ready” badge.
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