Unsourced vs Conductor
Updated 2026-07-04 · maintained by Unsourced
Conductor and Unsourced both want to know whether AI answers cite you, but they are built for opposite ends of the market. Conductor is an enterprise organic-marketing platform that now positions itself as a system of record for AEO — consolidating SEO, AI content generation and real-time monitoring for large organizations, sold through a demo and a budget to match. Unsourced is a focused evidence layer an independent can open today. The dividing line is who each is for, and how much you must commit to see anything.
An estimate from sampled prompts. Cited in which answer? By whom? Did an AI actually read your page? The number can’t say — so when it moves, you’re guessing why.
The actual answer, the verified fetch behind it, and the exact topic where a competitor won instead — open it, check it, act on it.
A consolidated enterprise platform, or a focused tool you can start alone
Conductor's pitch is consolidation: bring SEO and AEO into one end-to-end platform, add scaled AI content generation and real-time website monitoring, and run it as the single system of record for a large organization's organic search. For an enterprise standardizing many domains and teams on one vendor, that breadth and governance is the point. But consolidation at that scale comes with a scale of commitment — a demo, a contract, and a budget most independents do not have — and a system of record still reports presence rather than handing you the individual proof underneath it.
Unsourced is the opposite shape: no platform to adopt, no sales process, just the recorded citation and the verified crawl, on a plan you can start this afternoon.
The proof under the platform
- The answer itself. Open the specific AI response that named a competitor over you, and the question that produced it — not a platform-level presence metric.
- A verified crawler. Bot Trust matches each bot to the operator's published IP ranges and forward-confirmed reverse DNS, so a “GPTBot” visit is confirmed, not assumed.
- Confirmed lift. Flag a gap as handled and Unsourced re-checks that exact topic about a week later, recording a win only when a real citation appears.
Enterprise consolidation, or an independent price
The gap in commitment is stark. As published at the time of writing, Conductor does not list public pricing and routes you to a demo, the standard enterprise motion, with independent pricing analyses putting typical deployments in the six figures a year. Unsourced is a flat £39 a month with a 10-day free trial and no card, built for the publisher or small team who need the same core answer — does AI cite me, and can I prove it — without adopting an enterprise platform to find out. Same question, opposite ends of the market.
Unsourced and Conductor, point by point
| Unsourced | Conductor | |
|---|---|---|
| Buying model | Self-serve — start in minutes, no sales call | Demo-led enterprise sales, annual contract |
| Starting price | From £39/mo — Studio £89, Agency £199; free trial, no card | No public pricing — enterprise, annual contract |
| Shape | A focused evidence layer for AI search | Consolidated SEO + AEO platform / system of record |
| Core output | The cited answer plus the verified crawl behind it | Enterprise AEO+SEO intelligence, content generation and monitoring |
| Verified crawler identity | Yes — published IP ranges + reverse DNS (Verified / Impostor / Unverifiable) | Not stated |
| Proof a fix worked | Re-checks the exact topic, confirms a citation only on evidence | Real-time platform monitoring |
| Exportable client reports | AI Visibility Audit + Evidence Report PDFs | Enterprise reporting and dashboards |
The Conductor column is drawn from Conductor’s own published information and was accurate at the time of writing; “not stated” means the company does not publish that detail. Pricing and features change — see the source link below.
The number most visibility tools never check
Conductor consolidates SEO and AEO into an enterprise system of record. Even a system of record reports presence; it still can't hand an independent the individual cited answer, or confirm the crawler behind it was genuinely the AI it claimed to be.
In a two-week study, Human Security found 5.7% of traffic claiming to be a well-known AI crawler was fake, and DataDome reports the same agents are routinely impersonated. A tool that trusts the user-agent counts those spoofs as real AI interest. Unsourced checks every crawler against the operator’s published IP ranges and forward-confirmed reverse DNS — Verified, Impostor or Unverifiable — so the crawl behind a citation is evidence, not a string anyone can type.
Common questions
Conductor is enterprise software — is Unsourced aimed at the same buyer?
No, and that is the clearest difference. Conductor is an end-to-end enterprise platform built for large organizations and adopted through a demo and an annual contract. Unsourced is for the independent publisher or small team who want the same core answers — does AI cite me, who is really crawling me, did my fix work — without adopting a platform or booking a sales call. Same category, opposite ends of the market.
Does Conductor publish pricing I can start from?
As published at the time of writing, Conductor does not list public pricing, so the entry point is a demo and an annual contract, with independent analyses putting typical deployments in the six figures a year. Unsourced lists its plans openly from £39 a month with a 10-day free trial and no card, and for that you get citation checks across seven assistants, verified crawler identity, the competitor gap report and measured lift — inspectable on your own site before you pay.
Conductor calls itself a system of record for AEO — what does Unsourced record instead?
A system of record at Conductor's scale tracks presence and performance across an organization's whole search footprint. Unsourced records something more granular and checkable: for each topic, the exact answer that cited a competitor over you, the verified crawl proving whether an AI read your page, and the before-and-after when you fix a gap. Less organizational breadth, more individual proof you can open and hand to a client.
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What you walk away with
Whichever tool you choose, ask what it hands you. Every Unsourced account generates two reports built from your own live data — open them, check them, hand them to a client or your boss:
Sources & disclosures
This comparison is based on Conductor's own published information, accurate as of 2026-07-04. Pricing and features change — follow the link for Conductor's current details.
All competitor names, logos and brands are the property of their respective owners and are used here solely for nominative, comparative identification; their use does not imply affiliation with or endorsement by them. Each comparison is drawn from the competitor’s own publicly available information and was accurate as of the date shown — pricing and features change, so check the linked source for current details.
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