Optimist's entry plan is $4,000 a month for 4 to 5 deliverables. Literally.dev is $4,990 for 10 articles, distribution, guaranteed placements, a dashboard, and strategy sessions. Per piece, Literally.dev costs less.

An Optimist alternative for devtool and tech companies

Literally.dev vs Optimist

Q: How much does Optimist cost?

Optimist publishes its pricing: full-service SEO and AEO from $4,000 a month, advisory from $3,000, and a one-time roadmap from $7,500, all month to month. Literally.dev is $4,990 a month with a 3-month minimum and more included: 10 articles, distribution, and guaranteed placements.

Q: Does Optimist do AEO?

Yes. Optimist sells AI Search Optimization with a visibility audit, entity and schema work, and AI-referred lead tracking, under its CORE Framework. Its AEO case studies are anonymized and the tool is not named. Literally.dev measures on its own pipeline and publishes client names.

Q: Who writes the content?

Optimist's site says production runs on an AI-first delivery system with named human editorial review. Literally.dev's content is written by hand-vetted engineers, which matters when developers are the readers.

Q: Should we build an in-house AEO team or hire an agency?

An in-house hire gives you one generalist. An agency gives you a team, the tooling, and the publication network on day one. The people best qualified to write technical content are engineers, and most of them would rather build product. We bring the engineers, measure where AI ranks you, and place the content where AI assistants read. You keep your team on the product.

Q: Self-serve AEO tools or a full-service agency?

A self-serve tool shows you where you stand. It does not write the content, get it published, or get it cited. We run our own measurement pipeline and pair it with engineer-written content and distribution, then re-measure at day 85 so you see what moved. If you already have writers and distribution, a tool may be enough. If you need the work done, you need the agency.

Pick Optimist if you want the lowest commitment and SEO is still your main channel. Pick Literally.dev if your readers are developers and you want the content written by engineers and measured.

Literally.dev

Literally.dev is AEO-first for devtool and tech companies: engineers write, our own pipeline measures AI visibility, and guaranteed placements are built in, for $4,990 a month.

Optimist

Optimist is a founder-led SEO and AEO agency for B2B startups, with published pricing from $4,000 a month, month-to-month terms, and an AI- first production system with human editors.

Let's Chat Get a free AEO analysis

A word from the founder

Andrei Gaspar, Founder of Literally.dev

What each costs

Both prices below come from public pages. Where a vendor does not publish a price, we say so instead of guessing.

Literally.dev

$4,990 / month

3-month minimum engagement

Published. The price is for The 90-Day AI Recommendation Sprint: 10 engineer-written articles a month, distribution, a guaranteed publication and newsletter feature, and a live AEO dashboard.

Let's Chat

Optimist

From $4,000 a month

Month to month, 30-day notice

Full-service from $4,000 a month (4 to 5 deliverables); advisory from $3,000; a one-time roadmap from $7,500.

Verified against Optimist's published pages on 2026-08-28. Prices change. Check their site before you decide.

Side by side

Facts from each vendor’s own site. A line means the vendor does not say, not that the answer is no.

Capability	Literally.dev	Optimist
Team
Who writes the content	Hand-vetted engineers, the top 2.7% of experts	AI-first production with named human editorial review
Where the team is based	Oslo, Norway; core team in Europe	—
Built for	DevTool and tech companies	B2B startups, Series A to IPO
Content
Content volume	10 articles a month in the Sprint	4 to 5 deliverables a month on the entry plan
Technical documentation	Yes	—
AEO and measurement
Named AEO service	Yes	Yes
AEO baseline audit before work starts	Yes	AI search visibility audit
AI visibility measurement	Owned pipeline (xEO), live dashboard	AI-referred lead and revenue tracking; tool not named
Results re-measured and reported	Yes	AI visibility reporting
Distribution
Publishing and distribution handled	Yes	Content repurposing and targeted link building
Guaranteed monthly publication and newsletter features	Yes	—
Commercial
Pricing published	$4,990 a month	From $4,000 a month
Minimum term	3 months	Month to month
Performance guarantee	We keep working free until the numbers move	—
Time to start	5 days or less	CORE roadmap within the first month

Verified against Optimist's published pages on 2026-08-28. Prices change. Check their site before you decide.

Who should pick which?

Pick Optimist if

You want the lowest commitment: month to month, from $4,000.
SEO is still your main channel and AEO is an add-on.
Your readers are B2B buyers and AI-first production with human editing is fine for you.

Pick Literally.dev if

Your readers are developers and you want engineers writing under real bylines.
You want 10 articles a month plus guaranteed publication and newsletter features.
You want AI visibility measured on an owned pipeline with a day-85 re-measure and a guarantee.

What our clients measured

Higher Conversion

5×

AppSignal readers converted at five times the rate of their old content. Measured in 90 days.

* AppSignal engagement, 2026

Seen by AI

4.4×

QA.tech mentions in AI search grew 4.4× after we took over their content.

* QA.tech engagement, 2026

Launches That Land

Product of the Day on Product Hunt for a QA.tech launch we backed with content.

* QA.tech launch, Product Hunt

Chris — Head of Marketing, QA.tech

Antonija — Content Lead, Aviator

Armend — Founder, GlassFlow

“I worked with 5-8 content/marketing agencies and you guys are the best experience I ever had.”

Chris — Head of Marketing, QA.tech

The 90-Day AI Recommendation Sprint

In 90 days, when your buyers ask AI what to use, your name comes up. Our analytics prove it.

Baseline audit: where AI ranks you today, on 25–50 real buyer queries
Live AEO dashboard — watch your rankings move
10 articles a month from the top 2.7% of experts — hand-vetted engineers, posted where AI reads
Guaranteed feature every month in a top tech publication with 4M+ readers
Guaranteed feature every month in a major tech newsletter
A 90-minute marketing workshop to nail your strategy and titles
A content strategy session every two weeks
Day 85: we re-run your baseline and show you exactly what moved
BONUS: you join our client network — amazing tech companies that promote each other with guest posts, backlinks, and mentions