---
title: "Kitbase vs Superlines: Pick-Your-Engines vs the Full Stack | Kitbase Blog"
description: "Kitbase vs Superlines compared on tiered engine selection, tracking method, crawler analytics and what sits behind an AI visibility number."
canonical: https://kitbase.dev/blog/kitbase-vs-superlines
---

**Superlines lets you choose which AI engines you pay to track. Kitbase bundles engines into plans and spends the difference on the layers underneath the answer.** Both are reasonable ways to price the same underlying cost, which is that every prompt sent to every engine is a paid API call.

We build Kitbase, so read accordingly.

## Superlines' model

Superlines tracks across ten or more engines with tiered selection, so you pick three to ten depending on your plan rather than paying for surfaces you don't care about.

That solves a real annoyance. If your buyers use ChatGPT and Perplexity and nothing else, most tools either give you a narrow base tier that excludes something you need, or charge you for Copilot and Meta AI coverage you'll never open. Choosing your own set is a cleaner fit, particularly for teams in non-English markets where the relevant engines differ from the standard list.

It also tracks through real interfaces rather than APIs alone, which some buyers prefer on the grounds that it reflects what a user would actually see. That's a genuine methodological difference worth understanding before you choose, because API responses and consumer interface responses aren't always identical.

## Kitbase's model

Kitbase reads the consumer surfaces too. For ChatGPT and Gemini it captures the real chatgpt.com and gemini.google.com answers rather than an API completion, alongside Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Access is tiered by plan rather than selected: ChatGPT on Starter, plus Gemini and Perplexity on Pro, and up to ten on Business.

That's less flexible than Superlines. What you get for it is everything that isn't the answer layer:

**Verified crawler data.** Requests forwarded from your server or edge, each resolved to a named crawler and vendor, then checked against that crawler's published identity before it counts. Per-path crawl frequency shows which sections are being read and which stopped. AI crawlers don't run JavaScript, so no tag-based tool can see any of this.

**Cookieless web analytics on the same pipeline.** Autocapture, custom events, funnels, journeys, retention, page durations and rage-click detection, with a server-side anonymous ID and no consent banner needed for anonymous tracking. An AI referral becomes a row in the same system that recorded the crawl of the page that produced it.

**Everything after the diagnosis.** Backlink opportunities built from the domains AI cites for your category where you're absent, a link marketplace ranked by those citation signals, a site audit, keyword research, workflows and an MCP server on every plan.

## Side by side

| | Superlines | Kitbase |
|---|---|---|
| Engine selection | Pick 3–10 by tier | Fixed per plan; up to 10 on Business |
| Tracking method | Real interfaces | Consumer surfaces + direct providers |
| Paid placements inside answers | Not documented | Yes, on ChatGPT and Google's AI surfaces |
| Engines at entry tier | Your choice of 3 | ChatGPT only |
| Mentioned vs cited split | Yes | Reported separately |
| Cited-page mapping with source types | Basic | Yes |
| Sentiment, recommendation, list position | Sentiment | All three, per mention |
| Auto-detected competitors with backfill | No | Yes |
| AI crawler detection | No | Yes, with identity verification |
| Cookieless web analytics | No | Yes |
| Backlinks / link marketplace | No | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes, every plan |
| Price band | Mid-market | From $99/mo, 7-day trial |

## Consumer surfaces versus API completions

The least discussed difference between tools in this category, and it changes what your numbers mean.

Querying a model's API is cheap to build and measures the wrong thing. The API answers as a configured model; chatgpt.com answers as the product a buyer actually opens, with its own retrieval, its own defaults and its own formatting. A tool that reports the API's answer is reporting something no customer will ever see.

Both Superlines and Kitbase read the consumer surfaces rather than settling for API completions, which is why they agree more than the feature grids suggest.

The consequence worth knowing: ads. ChatGPT sells placements inside its answers, and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode carry them too. Reading the consumer surface means those placements are visible and reportable. An API-based competitor structurally cannot report them, because a completion has no ad slots in it. If paid placements in AI answers are becoming a channel you care about, that rules out a large part of this category on methodology alone.

Sample repeatedly either way, because [answers vary between identical runs](/blog/ai-answers-non-determinism) regardless of method.

## Which one fits

**Choose Superlines if** engine flexibility is the constraint, your relevant surfaces don't match anyone's standard bundle, or you specifically want interface-based tracking.

**Choose Kitbase if** your buyers use the mainstream engines and your open question is why the number moved. The crawler, citation-source and conversion data is what you're paying for, not the engine count.

## FAQ

**How many engines does each tool track?**
Superlines covers ten or more with tiered selection. Kitbase reaches ten on Business: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Neither covers Grok or Meta AI.

**Does Superlines track AI crawlers?**
Not as of writing. It works on the answer layer. Kitbase, Hall, Scrunch AI and Profound report crawler activity.

**Is API or interface tracking more accurate?**
They measure slightly different things. APIs give reproducible series; interfaces reflect what a user sees. Pick based on which question you're answering.

**Do both offer an MCP server?**
Yes. Kitbase includes one on every plan so an AI assistant can query presence rate, crawl data and funnels directly.

**Which is better value?**
Superlines if you only want answer tracking on specific engines. Kitbase if you'd otherwise pay separately for analytics, crawler tracking and backlink tooling.

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