Research

We Tested 97 SaaS Brands on Gemini. Most Are Invisible.

When someone asks AI for software recommendations, who gets cited? We ran the experiment to find out.

· 7 min read

More people are asking AI for recommendations instead of searching Google. When a potential customer asks Gemini "what's the best form builder?" and your competitor gets cited while you don't, you've lost a sale you'll never know about.

We wanted to understand this new landscape. So we tested 97 SaaS brands across 15 categories to see who Gemini actually cites in its responses.

Key finding: 62% of SaaS brands we tested scored below 50/100 on AI visibility. Many well-known brands with strong SEO are essentially invisible to AI recommendations.

How We Tested

For each brand, we ran 3 queries through Google Gemini based on what the product actually does:

  • Beehiiv: "best newsletter platform", "newsletter tools for creators", "beehiiv vs substack"
  • Tally: "best form builder", "free form tools", "typeform alternatives"
  • Linear: "best issue tracking software", "jira alternatives", "project management for developers"

We scored each brand on:

  • Citation (50 pts): Was the brand's URL actually linked in the response?
  • Mention (20 pts): Was the brand named without a link?
  • Position (30 pts): Where did it appear in the response?

The Winners

These brands consistently get cited when users ask relevant questions:

Brand Score Category Cited
Beehiiv 96 Newsletter 3/3
Resend 78 Email API 2/3
Dub.co 75 Link shortener 2/3
Cal.com 74 Scheduling 2/3
Lemon Squeezy 62 Payments 2/3

The Invisible Brands

These well-funded, well-known brands are not getting cited:

Brand Score Category Cited
Tally 20 Forms 0/3
Contra 36 Freelancer platform 0/3
Loops 50 Email for SaaS 1/3
Typefully 56 Twitter tools 1/3
Ashby 56 Hiring 1/3

What the Winners Have in Common

Looking at the high-scoring brands, we noticed patterns:

  1. Strong documentation and educational content. Beehiiv has extensive guides that explain newsletter growth strategies. This content gets indexed and cited.
  2. Clear product positioning. Cal.com is "the open-source Calendly alternative." That specific framing appears verbatim in AI responses.
  3. Active in public discourse. These brands have founders or team members writing publicly, appearing on podcasts, and contributing to discussions.
  4. Comparison pages. "X vs Y" pages that honestly compare to competitors seem to help AI understand where the product fits.

What SEO Ranking Doesn't Tell You

Several brands that rank well on Google scored poorly on AI visibility. Traditional SEO signals like backlinks and domain authority don't directly translate to AI citations.

AI platforms seem to weight:

  • Factual, structured content over marketing copy
  • Third-party mentions and reviews
  • Clear explanations of what the product does
  • Recency of content updates
The irony: Every SEO tool we tested (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Clearscope, Surfer) scored zero. The companies that teach us how to rank in search are invisible in AI search.

Check Your Own Score

We built a free tool to check any domain's AI visibility score. It runs your brand through the same queries and shows:

  • Your overall score (0-100)
  • Which queries you're cited for
  • Which competitors are getting cited instead
  • Sentiment analysis of how AI describes you

Check your AI visibility score (free)

Methodology Notes

A few caveats on this research:

  • We tested Gemini only. ChatGPT and Perplexity may rank brands differently.
  • AI responses change daily. This is a snapshot from March 2026.
  • 3 queries per brand isn't exhaustive, but it's enough to spot patterns.
  • Scores are relative within our framework, not an absolute measure of brand quality.

If you're interested in the raw data or want us to run specific brands, reach out on GitHub.

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