Cairrot at $39/mo is agency-first AEO monitoring with white-label reporting. Lantern at $99/mo is purpose-built pipeline attribution for B2B SaaS CMOs. Here is the honest read on which wedge fits which job.
The dimensions that matter for a B2B SaaS CMO's decision — and the agency that might support them.
| Feature | Lantern | Cairrot |
|---|---|---|
| Primary buyer | B2B SaaS CMO / Head of Growth | Marketing agency operator |
| Product positioning | AEO pipeline attribution | Agency-first AEO monitoring |
| Entry price | $99/mo flat | $39/mo |
| Top public tier | Enterprise (custom) | $99/mo Pro |
| AI engines tracked | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek |
| DeepSeek coverage | Not in V1 | |
| White-label dashboards | Not in V1 | Flagship |
| Free API | Paid API (Enterprise) | |
| WordPress plugin | Free | |
| HubSpot CRM integration | Native, day-one | |
| Citation → opportunity attribution | ||
| Monthly pipeline ROI report (PDF) | ||
| Deal-stage mapping | ||
| Pre-publication content check | ||
| Multi-client management | Enterprise tier | Built-in |
Pricing verified against cairrot.com/pricing as of April 17, 2026. Lantern pricing at runlantern.com/#pricing.
Cairrot launched in December 2025 as a bootstrapped, agency-first AEO monitoring tool from St. Petersburg, Florida. No institutional funding. Small team. Clear positioning: they are not trying to be Profound or Peec. They are trying to be the cheap, reliable, white-label-friendly AEO tool for small-to-mid agencies who need to report AEO visibility to multiple clients at once without blowing a hole in the retainer.
The product does that well. Six-engine coverage including Claude, Grok and DeepSeek. A free API for data pipelines. A WordPress plugin so agencies can embed AEO visibility reporting into client-facing sites. White-label dashboards at the $99 Pro tier. Entry pricing at $39/mo is low enough that managing ten clients costs a marketing agency $390/mo — less than a single Profound Growth tier.
For an agency, the economics make sense. For a single-brand B2B SaaS CMO, the positioning is less directly relevant. Cairrot is optimized for the service provider, not the service receiver.
Lantern is optimized for the service receiver — specifically, the CMO at a 50–500 person B2B SaaS running HubSpot who is sitting in a monthly board review, being asked about AEO impact, and needs one PDF that closes the loop.
V1 does four things: AI citation tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini; HubSpot-native pipeline attribution that matches citations to touchpoints on opportunity records; a monthly pipeline ROI report as a PDF; and a pre-publication AEO content check. HubSpot is the V1 integration; Salesforce is V1.5.
The thing Lantern ships that Cairrot does not — and explicitly is not trying to — is the end-to-end chain from AI citation to closed-won ARR in a CRM. The gap is the CRM integration. Cairrot would need to build a HubSpot deal-object integration, a deal-stage mapping engine, a UTM schema parser and a touchpoint-attribution model. None of that is on their public roadmap, and none of it would fit the agency-first pricing model.
Cairrot and Lantern are in the same category (AEO tools for B2B) but solve for different economic actors. Cairrot's unit economics are built around an agency managing 5–20 SMB clients. Lantern's are built around a single CMO managing a single brand at mid-market scale.
A useful way to think about it: Cairrot is to agencies what Otterly is to SMB marketers — the cheap, clean, good-enough visibility tool. Lantern is to B2B SaaS CMOs what HubSpot is to marketing ops — the one that does the work the buyer actually pays for.
There is no conflict. Most healthy AEO stacks at scale include multiple tools. An agency running Cairrot for 15 clients can absolutely add Lantern as the retainer's pipeline-attribution layer for the three clients on HubSpot. The combined monthly cost is still less than a single Profound Growth tier per client, and the reporting depth is meaningfully better.
Monitoring, not attribution. The category-level phrase applies to Cairrot the same way it applies to every other visibility tool. Cairrot is open about its positioning; it is not trying to close the loop. Lantern is.
Cairrot covers six engines — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Grok and DeepSeek. Lantern V1 covers four — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini. Grok and DeepSeek are not on Lantern's V1 roadmap.
For most B2B SaaS ICPs, Grok and DeepSeek are low-priority. Grok sees most of its traffic from consumer audiences on X, and DeepSeek is strongest in APAC markets. For the target Lantern buyer — a B2B SaaS CMO selling to US/EU buyers — the ChatGPT/Perplexity/Claude/Gemini mix captures the overwhelming majority of pipeline-relevant model traffic. V1 engine scope is a deliberate choice, not a gap.
If Grok or DeepSeek coverage is load-bearing for your ICP (niche developer communities, APAC-heavy SaaS), Cairrot covers those engines and is a legitimate pick for that specific monitoring job — though still not as a pipeline attribution tool.
Lantern ships HubSpot-native pipeline attribution at $99/mo. Connect HubSpot + GA4 + Search Console in 10 minutes. First board-ready PDF in 7 days.
Join WaitlistRetainers of $2K–$5K/mo per client. AEO is a line item, not the headline. Need white-label reporting. Pick Cairrot. $39/mo × 12 = $468/mo total agency tool cost. Add Lantern at $99/mo per HubSpot-using client where the retainer explicitly includes pipeline attribution reporting.
No agency involved. CMO + Head of Growth + RevOps own the stack. Quarterly board review. Pick Lantern. Cairrot's agency-first features don't apply. The $99/mo Lantern tier answers the one question the quarterly board review keeps asking. No white-label needed.
Agency handles content + AEO execution; in-house CMO owns strategy and budget. Run both. Cairrot goes on the agency's side for multi-client visibility. Lantern goes on the brand's side for the CMO's monthly HubSpot ROI report. The agency gets its workflow tool; the CMO gets the board-ready artifact.