Canada's Most-Cited Independent Source in AI Answers About Mortgages
Seven months after launch, HomeCalc.ca is cited by AI engines more often than Ratehub, WOWA, nesto and every big bank across 50 Canadian mortgage and home-buying questions. Only the federal government is cited more. No ad spend.
Measured on Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. Where it is winning, where it is not, and why. HomeCalc is my own product.
From 164 to 1,065 AI Citations a Day
Microsoft Copilot citations of homecalc.ca, weekly average per day (Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance).
In the week of July 27, Copilot cited HomeCalc about 164 times a day. By the week of September 28 it was 1,065. Over the full quarter that adds up to 61,900 citations, with a single-day peak above 1,500. On an average day Copilot cited 49 different HomeCalc pages: a whole site being used, not one lucky article.
The last point is a partial week.
Only the Federal Government Gets Cited More
Share of the 50 prompts in which each domain was cited, all four engines combined (Oct 13 to 19, 2026).
Grey bars are federal government sources. Among everyone else, homecalc.ca is first, ahead of Ratehub, WOWA, nesto, Scotiabank, NerdWallet and RBC.
Two Engines Won. Two Still to Go.
Each AI engine builds its own picture of the market. HomeCalc’s position, engine by engine.
Ratehub, WOWA and the Big Banks, Ranked
Brand coverage: the share of AI answers that mention each brand. 50 Canadian prompts, 4 engines, Oct 13 to 19, 2026.
| Brand | All engines | Copilot | Perplexity | ChatGPT | Google AIO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CMHCGOV | 38% #1 | 53% #1 | 20% #1 | 30% #1 | 47% #2 |
| Ratehub | 19% #2 | 4% #10 | 6.5% #3 | 16% #2 | 47% #1 |
| WOWA | 13% #3 | – | 4.3% #5 | 8.6% #4 | 40% #3 |
| HomeCalc | 11% #4 | 23% #2 | 18% #2 | 3.1% #8 | – |
| Canadian Mortgage App | 6.5% #5 | – | 1.9% #10 | 4.6% #6 | 19% #4 |
| Mortgage Squad | 5.3% #6 | 12% #3 | – | 9.1% #3 | – |
| CIBC | 5.3% #7 | 4.3% #9 | 2.5% #8 | – | 14% #5 |
| NerdWallet | 4.1% #9 | – | 5.3% #4 | – | 10% #6 |
| Scotiabank | 3.6% #10 | 4.9% #7 | 2.2% #9 | – | 6.1% #10 |
| nesto | – | 4.6% #8 | 3.4% #7 | – | – |
| CalcCanada | – | 5.4% #5 | 4.3% #6 | – | – |
“–” = outside that engine’s top 10. HomeCalc on Google AI Overviews: 3%, outside the top 10. CMHC is a federal Crown corporation, not a commercial competitor.
The Pages Doing the Heavy Lifting
559 citations of homecalc.ca across 42 different URLs in one week. The top 10:
| Page | Citations |
|---|---|
| Homepage homecalc.ca/ | 77 |
| Free embeddable calculators homecalc.ca/embed | 41 |
| White-label calculators homecalc.ca/white-label-calculators | 34 |
| Closing cost calculator homecalc.ca/tools/closing-cost-calculator | 32 |
| Land transfer tax calculator homecalc.ca/tools/land-transfer-tax-calculator | 31 |
| Calculators for mortgage brokers homecalc.ca/white-label-mortgage-calculators/mortgage-brokers | 28 |
| How to calculate cap rate homecalc.ca/blog/how-to-calculate-cap-rate | 22 |
| All calculators homecalc.ca/tools | 22 |
| Income needed for a mortgage homecalc.ca/blog/income-needed-for-mortgage-canada | 22 |
| Cap rate calculator homecalc.ca/tools/cap-rate-calculator | 20 |
Calculators and B2B pages lead: AI engines cite the tool that answers the question, then the page that explains it.
Two Independent Tests, One Verdict
The Otterly results are not a one-tool artefact. On October 13 I ran a separate test through the engines’ own APIs: 10 broker and realtor questions, 15 runs each, 300 answers. Perplexity cited homecalc.ca in 63%of its answers. OpenAI’s search-enabled model cited it in 0 of 150. A week of tracking on 50 prompts shows the same split: strong on Perplexity and Copilot, nearly absent on ChatGPT.
Where HomeCalc Is Still Invisible
- Google AI Overviews: 3% brand coverage, outside the top 10; named in only 2 of 50 prompts. AI Overviews lean on sites that already rank in Google, where Ratehub and WOWA have a decade of links.
- ChatGPT: #8 at 3.1%, and 0 of 150 in the unbranded API test. 16 of its 28 HomeCalc citations come from a single prompt.
- Everyday consumer questions: HomeCalc is strongest on tool and B2B prompts (white-label, embeddable, API). Renewal and penalty questions are still uncovered.
Next: off-page. Earned media from original data, expert mentions and directory presence. Engines that lean on the open web’s link graph need links before they cite you.
Could Your Brand Be Next?
The same measurement works for any Canadian business whose buyers ask AI before they call: mortgage brokers, realtors and boards, lenders and fintechs. Every engagement starts with an AI visibility audit: where you stand on each engine, who is cited instead of you, and a fix list ranked by impact.
Book Your AI Visibility Audit →How This Was Measured
- Disclosure: HomeCalc is Hami Tahm’s own product, and he chose the prompt set.
- Otterly.AI brand report: 50 tracked prompts, country Canada, October 13 to 19, 2026. Engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot. 12,555 citations in the prompt-level data. Each prompt appears to run once per engine per day.
- Bing Webmaster Tools, AI Performance: first-party Microsoft Copilot citation data for homecalc.ca, 3-month view read on October 20, 2026 (61.9K total citations, 49 cited pages per day on average). The chart shows weekly averages.
- API test, October 13, 2026: Perplexity Agent API and OpenAI Responses API with web search, 300 answers. These are APIs, not the consumer apps.
- Brand coverage = share of AI answers that mention the brand. Domain coverage = share of prompts in which the domain is cited.
- Results describe this benchmark, not all AI traffic in Canada. CMHC, FCAC and canada.ca are federal government sources. Figures as measured; no guarantee of similar results.
Earlier chapter: how HomeCalc went from near-zero to its first AI citations.