To get your SaaS recommended by ChatGPT, publish a clear page for each question software buyers ask, from "best tool for" to "X vs Y" to "how much does it cost", and put your pricing in plain text ChatGPT can read. Then ask those questions again after the pages go live and check whether ChatGPT names your product.
Software buyers ask an assistant for a shortlist. "What is the best scheduling software for a small clinic?" The answer names a few products. When ChatGPT searches the web for that question, it reads the pages it can reach. OpenAI's crawler documentation, read on 29 September 2026, puts the first condition plainly: "Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers." Being readable gets you considered. Being quotable gets you named.
How ChatGPT builds a software shortlist
ChatGPT answers in one of two ways. It answers from the web, by searching when someone asks and reading the pages it finds. Or it answers from its memory, from what its model learned in training. Either way, it can only put a product on a shortlist if it can read about it.
For software, the facts a shortlist needs are specific:
- What the product does, and for whom. "Scheduling for clinics with two to ten practitioners" beats "the all-in-one platform for modern teams".
- What it costs. Plan names, prices and what each plan includes, in words.
- How it compares. Your product against the rivals buyers name, with facts on both sides.
- What it works with. The tools it connects to, each named.
Those facts live on your own pages and on other people's: comparison posts, alternatives lists, review sites and directories. You control your own pages. When they state the facts plainly and the other pages agree, ChatGPT has one version of your product to repeat.
How to get your SaaS recommended by ChatGPT
Five steps, in order. Each one removes a guess from the next.
Step 1: List the questions software buyers ask
Write down the questions a buyer asks while building a shortlist, in their words. For a software company, Rankli drafts questions from shapes like these:
- "What's the best scheduling software for a small clinic?"
- "Is [your product] worth it?"
- "What are the best alternatives to [a rival]?"
- "[your product] vs [a rival]: which is better?"
- "How much does [your product] cost, and is there a free plan?"
Fill them with your category, the buyers you serve and the two or three rivals that come up in your sales calls. Aim for 10 to 20 questions. That is enough to see a pattern and few enough to track by hand.
Step 2: Ask ChatGPT and record the shortlist
Ask every question the way a buyer would. For each answer, record whether your product was named, which products were named instead, which pages were linked and the date.
Ask each question more than once, on different days. Answers change from one ask to the next. A product named in most of your asks is on that shortlist. A product named once is noise.
The questions where rivals make the shortlist and you do not are the questions you are losing. They are your list for step 4.
Step 3: Make your pricing and product facts readable
Prices an agent can quote. Put your starting price in the text of your homepage and your pricing page, not only in an image or a calculator that needs a script to run. Buyers ask "how much is it". An assistant that cannot find your price cannot quote it.
Words AI can see on your pages. Some software sites build their pages in the browser with JavaScript. A crawler that reads only what your server sends can find an almost empty page. Your product description, pricing and comparisons should be in the page as it is served.
Labels that tell AI who you are. Your site can carry labels that state your product's name, category and prices in a form software reads directly. Developers call this structured data.
Settings that let AI visit your site. OpenAI's documentation recommends "allowing OAI-SearchBot in your site's robots.txt file." Check that no rule blocks it.
Rankli's free check reads your site the way an AI visitor does, with no JavaScript. It looks for a price on your homepage, links from your homepage to comparison or alternatives pages, the labels, your settings for AI visitors by name and the words AI can see. It asks no AI assistant anything, so it is free and needs no account. To see whether your product makes ChatGPT's shortlist, the free AI visibility checker for SaaS asks it three buyer questions in your category.
Step 4: Publish a page for each question you are losing
Each kind of question gets its own kind of page:
- "Best [category] for [buyer]" questions get a guide that names the options and says who each one fits, your product included.
- "[your product] vs [a rival]" questions get a comparison page with facts on both sides and a table a buyer can scan.
- "Alternatives to [a rival]" questions get an alternatives page that lists the options, your product first, with who each one suits.
- "How much does it cost" questions get a pricing page with every plan in plain text, and what each plan includes.
- "Does it work with [a tool]" questions get one integration page per tool.
On comparison and alternatives pages, read every fact about a rival off the rival's own page and date it. Write "their pricing page lists" rather than claims about what their product cannot do. A dated fact a reader can check is a fact an assistant can repeat. Rankli's own comparison pages work this way: every figure about another product was read off that product's page on a stated date.
Step 5: Ask again after the pages go live
A week after a page goes live, ask its question again, a few times, and compare with what you recorded in step 2. Then ask once more a week later.
Two checks after publishing, set against the answers from before, show whether the page changed anything. Rankli runs the same schedule: 7 and 14 days after an article goes live, it asks the article's question again, 3 times on each assistant your plan tracks, and shows before and after on the article.
The shortlist questions, and the page that answers each
| Question buyers ask | Page that answers it |
|---|---|
| What is the best [category] for [buyer]? | A guide that names the options and says who each fits |
| [your product] vs [a rival]: which is better? | A comparison page with dated facts about both |
| What are the alternatives to [a rival]? | An alternatives page, your product first |
| How much does [your product] cost? | A pricing page with every plan in plain text |
| Does [your product] work with [a tool]? | An integration page for that tool |
Check which of these pages your site already has. The questions you are losing show you which one to write next.
What not to do
Do not hide your prices. A price that only appears after a script runs, or inside an image, is a price an assistant cannot quote.
Do not write rival facts from memory. Prices and plans change. Read their page, write down the date, and update the comparison when you re-read it.
Do not say what a rival cannot do. Say what their pages list. "Not listed on their pricing page" is checkable. "They do not do it" invites a correction.
Do not leave old pricing pages live. An old page with an old price gives ChatGPT two numbers to choose from.
Do not judge on one answer. Ask each question several times, on different days, before you decide where you stand.
How Rankli runs these steps for a SaaS company
Rankli runs this loop every week, in four steps:
- Ask. Every week, Rankli asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions your customers ask. Perplexity too, on Scale and Agency.
- See what you're losing. You see each question where AI recommends someone else, and who it picks instead.
- Publish the answers. Rankli writes an article aimed at each question you're losing and publishes it to WordPress, Webflow, Shopify or the other connected platforms.
- Re-ask and show what moved. 7 and 14 days after each article goes live, Rankli asks its questions again and shows you before and after.
For a software company, Rankli drafts questions from your category, your buyers and the rivals you name, and plans comparisons, buyer's guides and pricing explainers for the questions you are losing. Rankli for SaaS shows how it fits a software company, and the questions and articles in each plan are on the pricing page.
Rankli starts with a 7-day free trial. A card starts it, and starting it runs your first analysis: your questions put to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, with the ones you are losing listed. On day 8 it becomes your plan unless you cancel, which is one click in the app. Cancel during the trial and nothing is charged.
Questions
Should a SaaS company publish comparison pages against rivals?
Yes, when every fact about the rival is read off their own page and dated. Buyers ask "[your product] vs [a rival]", and Rankli plans an article for each of those questions you are losing.
Why does ChatGPT describe my pricing wrong?
It repeats what it reads, and that includes old pages, third-party listings and review sites, not only your pricing page. Keep one set of prices everywhere, and Rankli's free check confirms whether an assistant can find a price on your site.
What questions should a SaaS company track?
The shortlist questions: the best tool for a job, your product against rivals, the alternatives to a rival and what you cost. Rankli drafts questions in those shapes from your site and your rivals, and you can add your own and remove any you do not want.
Which assistants does Rankli ask?
ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini on every plan, and Perplexity on Scale and Agency. Rankli asks each one with its web search turned on and records which products it names.