Frequently asked questions

Quick answers to the questions customers ask most. For deeper coverage, follow the links in each answer.

Setup and basics

How long until I see useful data?

You see your first snapshot within 60 seconds of saving a prompt and clicking Run now. Useful trend data — enough to make decisions from — takes 2-4 weeks on Growth (3×/week runs) and Agency (daily runs) and 6-8 weeks on Starter (weekly cadence). One snapshot is a data point. Trends are the product.

Do I need to install anything on my website?

No. Geotally doesn't touch your site for tracking. We send prompts to AI engines and parse their answers — no script, no DNS change, no tag manager setup.

The one optional exception: if you use one-click publishing to WordPress and want the Yoast/Rank Math SEO fields filled automatically, the free single-file BD Connector plugin unlocks that. Publishing itself works without it.

Can Geotally publish content to my site?

Yes — that's the Action Plan. For any prompt where an engine cites competitors but not you, it drafts an answer-shaped article and publishes it to your connected WordPress site in one click, with SEO fields, a branded featured image, and internal links. Afterward it watches the prompt and flags the win automatically when the engine starts citing you. See Publishing to WordPress.

How many prompts should I start with?

Three is fine. Five is better if you have the slots. Read Writing good prompts before you write more than two — the quality of your prompts matters more than the count.

Can I track competitors I don't compete with directly?

Yes. Some customers track adjacent or aspirational brands as references — "if X gets cited 80% of the time, that's the ceiling for this prompt." Just be aware that share-of-voice calculations include every named competitor, so adding loosely-related brands dilutes your share number.

Can I track my own brand against itself across regions?

Not directly. The tool treats one brand as one entity. If you have regional brand variations (different names in different markets), the cleanest pattern is to use separate brand slots — but that requires Growth or Agency tier to have multiple brand slots.

Billing

What's the difference between monthly and annual?

All plans bill monthly today — annual billing isn't available yet. When it lands, expect the standard save-two-months shape. If annual invoicing matters for your procurement process, email support@geotally.ai and we'll work something out.

Can I get a refund?

If the tool isn't working for you, email support@geotally.ai with your license key and what went wrong. We handle refunds case by case — no fixed window, but we're reasonable. You can cancel anytime and keep access through the end of your paid term.

What happens if my credit card fails?

You get an email immediately. We retry the charge 24 hours, 72 hours, and 7 days later. If all retries fail, the subscription pauses and the app moves to read-only at that point. Update your card from the Billing page → Manage subscription and the subscription resumes. If you bought through getbdshield.com, update your card at getbdshield.com/my-account instead.

Can I get an invoice for accounting?

Every charge generates a PDF invoice automatically. Download past invoices from the Billing page → Manage subscription (the billing portal lists them). If you bought through getbdshield.com, your invoices are at getbdshield.com/my-account/orders. For invoices with custom fields (PO number, registered business address, VAT ID), email support@geotally.ai and we'll regenerate.

Do you support purchase orders or net-30 terms?

Not for Starter or Growth. For Agency, email sales@geotally.ai and we'll look at invoice-based billing case by case.

Is the price the same in every country?

Yes. Prices are in USD across all countries. Your card issuer handles the currency conversion. We don't currently offer purchasing-power-parity pricing.

Technical limits

What's the max prompt length?

There's no character limit on the prompt text itself. The engines will accept anything you give them. But the engines themselves will start to behave oddly above 500 characters in a single user message — they treat very long prompts as instructions rather than questions. Keep your prompts short and natural and you'll be fine.

Can I run my own custom AI engine?

No custom engines. The set is fixed at 6 — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Google AI Overviews — because those carry the meaningful end-user traffic. You can, however, choose which of the 6 each brand tracks: open the brand's settings and toggle engines on or off (minimum one). New brands track all 6 by default. We'll add a seventh engine when one reaches material market share.

Can I turn off engines I don't care about?

Yes, per brand. Open the brand's settings and untick any of the 6 engines; at least one must stay on. Disabled engines stop appearing in that brand's runs, snapshots, and share-of-voice from the next run forward. New brands track all 6 by default.

How fresh is the engine data?

Each engine has its own training cutoff and its own retrieval behavior. ChatGPT and Claude lean heavily on training data with refreshes every few months. Gemini and Perplexity supplement with live retrieval, so they reflect current pages faster. See Understanding the engines for detail.

Can I run prompts in languages other than English?

Yes. The engines all support multiple languages. We parse English answers most accurately, but mention detection works across major languages (Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian). For less-common languages, the parser may produce noisier results — we'd suggest validating manually for the first 2-3 weeks.

Does the tool work for non-SaaS businesses?

Yes. We have customers in e-commerce, agencies, local services, B2B consulting, and consumer apps. The methodology (prompts → engines → snapshots) is category-agnostic. Read the industry-specific examples in Writing good prompts.

Data privacy

Do you use my prompts to train models?

No. Your prompts go to the 6 AI engines as queries, but we never use them for model training ourselves, and we don't aggregate them for any cross-customer analytics.

Do the AI engines store my prompts?

They get the prompt text as part of each API request. Each provider has its own data-retention policy. We send only the prompt — never your brand identity, never your account info, never your competitor list separately.

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Perplexity, and SerpAPI all offer enterprise data-handling commitments via their APIs that prevent training-data use on customer requests. We're on those tiers where available.

Is the tool GDPR compliant?

Yes. We're a data controller for your account data and a data processor for the prompts you submit. Our Data Processing Agreement is available at geotally.ai/legal/dpa. Email privacy@geotally.ai for a countersigned copy.

What about CCPA?

Yes. California residents can request data access, deletion, or non-sale at privacy@geotally.ai. We don't sell data, so the non-sale provision is automatic. Access and deletion are honored within 30 days.

Where are servers located?

Primary infrastructure is in US-East. Engine API calls go to whichever region each provider operates from (varies). Customer dashboard data and stored snapshots are US-East only. EU-resident customers concerned about cross-border data transfer should review our DPA before purchase.

Comparisons

How is this different from Profound?

Profound is a more enterprise-tier tool with a higher price point, broader engine coverage, and more sophisticated entity-extraction. If your budget is over $1,000/month and you need attribution-level tracking, Profound is a more complete tool. Geotally is for the segment Profound's pricing excludes — solo founders, small in-house teams, and agencies on a tighter budget.

How is this different from Otterly?

Otterly was an early entrant in the GEO-tracking category and pioneered some of the workflow. Their pricing and feature mix overlap with our Growth tier. Honest comparison: try both and see which fits — each has its own refund policy. We're not going to claim we're strictly better on every dimension.

How is this different from Ahrefs Brand Radar?

Brand Radar is bundled into Ahrefs subscriptions. If you already pay for Ahrefs and want AI-search visibility as a check-the-box feature, Brand Radar might be enough. If GEO tracking is a primary workflow for you (weekly review, PDF reporting, competitor share-of-voice as a real metric), a purpose-built tool gives you more control.

Should I use this and another tool together?

Many customers do. Common stacks: Geotally for AI search + Ahrefs/Semrush for Google SERPs + Google Search Console for owned-site analytics. The three tools answer different questions and don't replace each other.

Setup and operational questions

Do I enter a license key at signup?

No. Signup is free and uses only your email and a password — there's no license field. License keys apply only if you bought through getbdshield.com, and you use the key on the login screen via "Sign in with license", not at signup. If the key is rejected there, the usual cause is a leading or trailing space when you paste — re-copy from your email or from getbdshield.com/my-account/licenses. See Troubleshooting if it still fails.

I forgot my password.

Click Forgot password? on the login screen and enter your account email. We send a reset link; follow it to set a new password. If the email doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check spam — and if you're still stuck, email support@geotally.ai.

How do I share access with a teammate?

On Agency, invite them. Account → Team lets the owner send up to 5 invitations; each member signs in with their own email and password, and the owner sets per-brand access — view, run, or edit — for every member. Billing, team management, and account security stay owner-only. On Starter and Growth there are no team seats yet; don't share your password — upgrade or keep access personal.

What time of day do automated runs happen?

Scheduled runs trigger at 06:00 UTC. Agency fires daily; Growth runs each prompt three times a week; Starter runs each prompt once a week, spread across weekdays so the weekly digest has fresh data. Prompts are staggered over a few hours to avoid hitting engine rate limits simultaneously.

Can I change the time of day runs happen?

Scheduled runs fire at 06:00 UTC — daily on Agency, 3× a week on Growth, weekly on Starter. Per-account time-of-day overrides aren't user-configurable yet — if you need fresh data ready for a specific time zone, email support@geotally.ai and we can talk about it.

Do you support passkeys or two-factor authentication?

Both. Account owners can add a passkey (Face ID, Windows Hello, or a hardware key) under Account → Security and sign in without a password — the password stays as a fallback. You can also add an authenticator app (TOTP) for two-factor on password sign-ins.

How do I know if a run failed?

If a single engine in a snapshot fails, the snapshot finalizes with the engines that succeeded, and the failed engine is marked. If all 6 engines fail (rare), the snapshot is marked failed and the scheduler picks up where it left off on the next cadence cycle. The retry timing for individual engine calls follows each engine's own Retry-After header.

Cancellation and offboarding

What happens to my data if I cancel?

By default, your data sits idle on our servers — we don't auto-delete on cancellation. Re-subscribe later and everything resumes where it left off. Want your data wiped immediately? Email support@geotally.ai and we'll process the deletion within 7 business days. See Account management.

Can I export everything before I leave?

Yes. Use CSV export from each brand. See PDFs and exports. Export covers your full history — snapshots stay accessible for as long as your account is active.

Will you keep my prompts after I cancel?

By default, yes — your data sits idle on our servers when the license deactivates, so you can come back and pick up where you left off. We don't auto-delete on cancellation today. If you want your data wiped, email support@geotally.ai from your account address and we'll process the deletion within 7 business days.

Roadmap and feedback

Will you support more AI engines?

When a new engine reaches material end-user share, yes. We're watching DuckDuckGo's AI assistant, You.com, Brave Leo, and Kagi. Adding an engine isn't free for us — engine API costs go up — so we wait until coverage is justified by usage data.

Can you add feature X?

Email feedback@geotally.ai. We read every message. We don't promise timelines, but we do publish a roadmap quarterly. Customer-driven requests have been the source of most of the features that ship.

Is there an iPhone or Android app?

Not today. The dashboard is responsive and works on mobile browsers. A native app isn't on the 2026 roadmap.