On this page
Your company can publish its own roundup, a page that ranks the products in your category with yours among them, and still be left off the short list of products an assistant recommends from it. In one help desk answer we read, two of three vendors whose lists the answer read were left off its shortlist.
Publishing it commits someone to keeping rival facts current, not just finishing a draft.
A Roundup Nobody Owns Goes Stale
Being cited and being named are two different events. A cited page is a source the answer lists; a named company is one the buyer reads about.
These records cannot separate the two: the page may give the answer a reason to name you, or an answer already favoring you may fetch it.
What goes stale first is the rivals’ side. Prices, plan limits and integrations are what move when a rival changes its plans, and what a buyer comparing plans checks.
Say that you make one of the products on the list, where nobody can miss it: the FTC’s rule on consumer reviews bars a business from misrepresenting a site it controls as one that "provides independent reviews or opinions" about a category that includes its own products.
The person who already owns how you position against rivals should own the page: in a company your size often product marketing, sometimes the head of sales.
What the Monthly Check Costs
Keeping the facts on a roundup of eight rivals true, five facts each, means opening every rival’s pricing and plan pages each month: about 10 hours of a product marketer’s month on our assumptions, about $15,240 a year at a marketing manager’s pay.
What Qvery’s Agents Do Each Month
On the first business day of each month, and whenever your own pricing page changes, the agents read your source sheet, release notes, pricing page and the month’s answers. They flag rival facts past their check date and claims on the page that an answer or your release notes now contradict.
They do not read rivals’ websites unless their terms allow automated access. They list the pages due, with the fields to confirm on each, and once the owner updates the sheet they draft every change tied to its source row in a marked-up copy of the page, your own entry held to the published criteria like everyone else’s.
The calculator prices that check for a software company of about 250 people: one product marketer on a roundup of eight rivals, about 6% of the year. At about $254,000 a year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ mean pay for marketing managers with benefits, that is about $15,240 a year.
With the agents taking about 65% of it, the flagging and drafting, at about $150 a month to run, it costs about $7,134, saving about $8,106 a year and 81 hours; $10,000 of build pays back in about 14.8 months. Each figure is our assumption, to replace with your own.
Rival Fact Refresh ROI Calculator
What Checking Each Rival's Prices, Plan Limits And Integrations Against The Page And Drafting The Changes Costs You, And What An Agent Saves
Saved Per Year
$8,106
81.1 hours handed back, after $1,800 a year to run it
- Hours Handed Back
- 81.1 hours a year
- Agent Running Cost (Estimate)
- $150 a month
- Payback Per $10,000 Of Build
- 14.8 months
On these numbers, the agent saves $8,106 a year after its own running cost, and every $10,000 of the build is earned back in 14.8 months.
Behind the monthly check, the GEO Agent builds questions around your software category, brand and rivals, runs them daily on ChatGPT and Google AI Mode in your chosen countries, and keeps the complete answers and their sources. The owner needs those answers to see whether they name you.
Together we decide which comparisons need work, and each week we count the hours the refresh no longer takes and the wrong comparison claims caught before publication.
What Stays With Your Page Owner
The owner opens the rival pages the agents list and records what changed, with the date. The page owner signs every change before it goes live, and legal reads the disclosure and any new claim about a rival. Nothing publishes itself.
What the agents may read and do is set in a written agreement, your data is processed where that agreement says, and every action the agents take is logged.
Bring Us Your Rival Price Sheet
Bring your rival list and the pricing and plan pages behind it. We have the agents running within two weeks once access is in place, and the page owner signs every change.
Frequently asked questions
Should we rank our own product first in our roundup?
Our records cannot say whether ranking yourself first changes how an assistant names you. Google asks reviewers to back a best-for-purpose recommendation with firsthand evidence, so rank your product by the criteria you publish.
Do we need a separate roundup for ChatGPT and for Google AI Mode?
No. In our September research ChatGPT cited a confirmed vendor roundup equally often on both kinds of buying question, and Google warns against pages made for every variation of a question to sway AI answers. Write one good page and measure it per assistant and per question list.
How many competitors should a SaaS roundup include?
The ones your buyers shortlist, which your sales team can name from memory. Every roundup we counted compared at least three products, its own among them; the records say nothing about a best number. Adding tools nobody shortlists makes the page less useful to the buyer reading it.
How often should we update a SaaS comparison page?
Check every fact about a rival once a month, and your own entry whenever your pricing or packaging changes. Give each fact a source and a check date so the owner knows what needs review.
Can an AI tool write the roundup for us?
An AI tool can draft facts from supplied sources; a person must judge who each product suits and where yours loses. Google distinguishes firsthand reviews from summaries of existing material, so a draft still needs your own knowledge of the market.
Do we have to say that we wrote the roundup?
The FTC rule on company-controlled review sites prohibits presenting your own site as an independent reviewer of a category that includes your products. Say in the opening that your company makes one of the products on the list and have your lawyer review the disclosure before publication.
How do we know whether our roundup is working?
Compare how often ChatGPT names you when it cites your roundup with its other answers to the same questions; in our September research the first was well above the second. Read that alongside Google AI impressions and ChatGPT visits.
Who should own our SaaS comparison page?
Choose the person who owns your positioning against rivals, often a product marketing or sales lead. They need to hear which competitors buyers mention and have authority to correct your own entry as well as the others.
What does it mean if ChatGPT cites our page but leaves us out?
The answer may be using your page to describe competitors rather than recommending your product. Revisit your entry and the selection criteria, especially where another product fits the buyer better, before treating the citation as a success.
Which buyer questions should we track?
Keep one list of situations from sales calls and support tickets, and another of questions asking which tools to compare. Hold both lists steady for a quarter so a change in the questions does not get mistaken for a change in performance.
What do the comparison-page agents read?
Your source sheet, release notes, pricing page, published criteria and the month's answers to both question lists. Each rival fact needs a source and a check date; a person supplies updates from websites the agents cannot read under their terms.
Can the agents publish comparison changes by themselves?
No. The page owner approves each proposed change against its source row, and legal reviews the disclosure and any new claim about a competitor, so a routine refresh never introduces an unchecked allegation.
How do we judge whether automating the refresh is worthwhile?
Time one refresh by hand before the agents start, then compare the time spent checking their work. Count changed facts separately from facts merely due for review, so a long list of reminders does not pass for useful corrections.
