Best Profound Alternatives in 2026: 11 AI Visibility Tools Compared on Real Price
Turn this article into takeaways for your work.
Each assistant summarizes the article only for you and suggests best practices for your work.
Profound built its reputation as the deepest AI visibility tracker on the market, the tool teams pointed to for prompt-level detail on how ChatGPT and Perplexity talked about their brand. Two things changed since then. Profound repositioned around an agent that researches, writes, and reports rather than a pure monitoring dashboard, and it quietly stopped publishing a base price. If the old ~$99/mo figure you saw somewhere doesn't match the site now, that's not a mistake on your end. It's gone.
That leaves a real gap for teams who want ongoing AI visibility tracking and a number they can budget without booking a call first. This guide covers 11 tools that fill it in different ways, from a $20 entry plan to enterprise platforms that bolt AEO onto software you may already own. For a broader look at the category beyond a Profound swap, see our AI visibility tools roundup.
Key Facts
- Only about 12% of URLs cited in AI assistant answers also rank in Google's top 10 for the same query, so strong traditional SEO performance doesn't reliably predict AI citation (Ahrefs).
- Roughly 88% of the URLs ChatGPT actually cites are pulled straight from its live search results rather than training data, so what shows up shifts week to week, not something a one-time check catches (Ahrefs).
- The global generative engine optimization software market is projected at roughly $1.09 billion in 2026, growing at a 40.6% compound annual rate through 2034, which is why so many vendors are still finding their pricing model (Dimension Market Research).
- Transparent pricing has been B2B software buyers' number one wish list item for vendors four years running, since TrustRadius started asking in 2023, which is exactly the gap Profound's current pricing page leaves open (TrustRadius, via Yahoo Finance).
Quick Comparison Table
| Tool | Best For | Starting Price | Key Strength | Key Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Enterprise teams that want an AI marketing agent, not just a tracker | Free trial; Enterprise custom, no self-serve paid tier | Agentic research, writing, and reporting on deep prompt tracking | No base price for any paid tier |
| Peec AI | Agencies managing several brand accounts | $95 / $245 / $495 (Starter / Pro / Advanced) | Unlimited users on every tier; agency plans from $245/mo | Self-serve tiers pick 3 engines; Perplexity is a paid add-on |
| Otterly.ai | Budget-conscious teams wanting a real self-serve plan | $29/mo (Lite) | Cheapest published plan covering 4 core engines | The useful tier for real tracking is $189/mo, not $29 |
| Scrunch | Mid-market teams wanting monitoring plus content action (now owned by Sitecore) | $300/mo (Starter), US-served page | 7 platforms tracked out of the box, including Meta | Domain changed in 2026; nothing under $250/mo, and the layout differs by region |
| Rankscale | Teams wanting the lowest floor price with every engine included | $20/mo list ($17/mo billed yearly) | No per-engine add-on fee, all engines on every tier | Credits are weighted per engine; entry tier ships with zero included credits |
| Trakkr | Agencies wanting flat pricing with no credit math | $100/mo (Growth) | All 8 models included, nothing metered | Base plans include 50 prompts per brand; more cost extra |
| AthenaHQ | Teams who want to try real tracking for free first | Free (Essential); $295/mo (Starter) | Unlimited seats on every tier, 11+ platforms on Starter | Credit system takes time to learn |
| Goodie | Teams wanting tracking plus an agent that takes action | $399/mo (Core, annual billing) | Full closed-loop platform with revenue attribution | Priciest self-serve entry point on this list |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Teams already paying for Semrush (an Adobe company since April 2026) | $99/mo per domain, billed annually | Same dashboard as existing SEO and keyword data | 25 prompts included; extra prompts +50 for $60/mo |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Teams already paying for Ahrefs | Free on Lite plan and up; Custom Prompts from $50/mo | Backed by Ahrefs' existing backlink and keyword index | Grok isn't named |
| HubSpot AEO | A cheap, genuinely standalone first tool | $50/mo ($45/mo annual) | No HubSpot subscription required, free 25-prompt trial | Growing past 25 prompts isn't priced |
| Conductor | Enterprise SEO teams wanting AEO folded into an existing platform | Not published | AEO sits next to full SEO performance reporting | SEO platform with AEO added, not a dedicated tool |
What Profound Actually Is Now
If the last time you looked at Profound it was a dashboard of prompt-level citation data, look again. Its site now leads with "Meet your AI Marketer: Research, write, report, and collaborate with a superintelligent teammate who knows your brand." That's an agent you assign work to, not a tracker you read. Older write-ups comparing it purely on monitoring features describe a product that has moved.
That matters for alternatives, because the honest comparison isn't "which tool tracks the most prompts." It's whether you want an agent that drafts content and files reports off your visibility data, or a tool that shows you the data and lets your team decide. Most of the 11 tools below are the second kind; only Goodie, and to a lesser degree Scrunch and Conductor, ship a comparable action layer. Profound vs Scrunch vs Goodie takes that comparison further, holding Profound against Scrunch (now owned by Sitecore) and Goodie and finding Goodie the closer match to its agent.
Profound's Pricing Problem
Here's why most readers land on this page: Profound publishes a free trial (50 daily prompts, 3 platforms, 7 days) and no base price. Every plan beyond that is "Request a demo." That's different from publishing nothing at all, though: under its "For agencies" toggle, Profound does list a few add-on prices, so the accurate description is "no base price," not "no prices."
| Profound tier | What's published |
|---|---|
| Trial | Free, 50 daily prompts, 3 AI platforms, 7 days |
| Agency view | Client workspace +$399/mo, +5 trial workspaces $199/mo, 10 pitch workspaces, 5 seats, no API; no base price shown |
| Enterprise | Custom, demo required |
On security, Profound's own pages state SOC 2 Type II; treat that as a vendor statement and ask Profound for the report.
If you've seen "~$99/mo" for Profound elsewhere, that number is gone. It isn't on the pricing page or offered at checkout, and for a team that wants to compare three tools before talking to anyone, that's usually reason enough to look elsewhere, exactly what research on buyer frustration with hidden pricing would predict.
If you'd rather keep Profound on the shortlist and negotiate, Profound vs Peec AI is the two-way version: it holds a Profound quote against Peec AI's published ladder and lists nine questions for the sales call.
Pricing at a Real Workload: One Brand, 50 Prompts, Four Engines, Monthly
Headline prices are rarely what you'll actually pay. Here's what it costs to run one brand, 50 tracked prompts, across roughly four AI engines, every month, at each vendor that publishes enough to compute it.
| Tool | Tier that fits | Monthly price | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | None | Not computable | No self-serve monthly tier exists at any price |
| Rankscale | Pro | $99/mo | 1,200 credits covers up to 4,800 engine answers at the lowest 0.25-credit engine weight, all engines included |
| Trakkr | Growth | $100/mo | 50 daily prompts per brand included, all 8 models included |
| Peec AI | Starter plus one add-on model | $130/mo ($95 + $35) | 50 prompts fits Starter; its 3 self-serve engines are picked from ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI, and a fourth is a paid add-on |
| Otterly.ai | Standard | $189/mo | The $29 Lite plan only covers 15 prompts, not 50 |
| Scrunch | Starter (US-served page) | $300/mo ($250/mo annual) | 350 custom prompts covers the scenario with room to spare |
| Goodie | Core | $399/mo (annual billing) | 120 prompts and 5 models covers the scenario comfortably |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Base plan plus one prompt pack | $159/mo ($99 + $60) | 25 prompts included, a +50 pack lifts that to 75; 4 engines per the pricing page |
| HubSpot AEO | Standalone | $50/mo, partial | Covers 25 of 50 prompts across 3 engines; extra prompts aren't priced |
| AthenaHQ | Essential or Starter | $295/mo (monthly rate) | 1 credit = 1 AI response, so Starter's 3,600 credits fits about 18 runs of this 200-response workload a month, weekly checks but not daily |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Not computable | Custom Prompts from $50/mo, region-served currency | Custom Prompts sells in flat check bundles, not a prompt count |
| Conductor | Not computable | Not published | No tier shows a dollar figure |
Default engine sets vary by vendor; this uses whichever four engines each tool ships without a paid add-on.
On the sticker price, Otterly wins at $29. On the workload most real programs run, that math doesn't hold: Rankscale's Pro tier and Trakkr's Growth plan both land near $100 a month, cheaper than the $189 Otterly tier the scenario actually requires. That flip, not the headline number, should drive the shortlist.
1. Otterly.ai: The Cheapest Real Self-Serve Plan
Otterly is the most transparent vendor here. Four tiers, published prices, no sales call required. Lite runs $29/mo for 15 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. Standard, the tier most teams actually need, runs $189/mo for 100 prompts and adds API access, MCP access, and agent analytics. Annual billing cuts 15% off every tier.
The catch is the engine list: Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Mode aren't included by default, each a $9 to $29/mo add-on on Lite and more on higher tiers. For a team whose buyers live in Gemini, that adds up fast.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| Published pricing on every tier, no sales call | Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Mode by default |
| Unlimited team members and brand reports | A free tier to test before paying |
| 50+ country and multi-language tracking | Deep content or technical fix recommendations |
| API and MCP access from Standard up | A credit system (simpler, but less flexible) |
Pricing: Lite $29/mo, Standard $189/mo, Premium $489/mo, Enterprise custom. Annual: $25 / $160 / $422.
Best for: Marketing teams that want a transparent number before evaluating anything else. Not ideal for: Teams whose buyers live in Gemini or Google AI Mode and don't want per-engine add-ons.
2. Rankscale: The Lowest Floor Price, Every Engine Included
Rankscale's pitch is simple: every tier tracks every supported engine, with no per-model add-on fee to budget separately. Credits are weighted per engine, though (0.25 for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Mode, 1 for DeepSeek, 2 for Claude), so there's still an effective per-engine cost. Essentials lists at $20/mo ($17/mo billed yearly) but ships with zero included credits, so real usage means topping up. Pro, at $99/mo with 1,200 credits covering up to 4,800 tracked engine answers, is where most single-brand teams land.
Rankscale GmbH is based in Vienna, worth knowing because the pricing page displays USD with a dollar sign despite the European base, not euros as some third-party roundups have reported.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| Every AI engine tracked on every tier, no add-on fees | Included credits on the cheapest tier |
| A credit ladder that scales to $780/mo Enterprise | A flat per-seat price; it's credit metered throughout |
| Up to 100 page audits per month on Enterprise | The brand recognition of Ahrefs or Semrush |
| REST API access from Pro+ up | Unlimited credits on any published tier |
Pricing: Essentials $20/mo, Pro $99/mo, Pro+ $229/mo, Growth $385/mo, Enterprise $780/mo, all USD.
Best for: Teams that want the broadest engine coverage without paying extra per model. Not ideal for: Anyone who wants to start on the cheapest tier and use it immediately; budget for Pro.
3. HubSpot AEO: The Cheapest Standalone Entry Point
HubSpot sells AEO on its own for $50/mo ($45/mo annual), with no requirement to run any other HubSpot product. The free trial tracks 25 prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity with no card needed, and that same allotment carries into the paid tier. HubSpot says you can buy additional prompts, but doesn't publish what they cost.
If your company already runs Marketing Hub Professional or Enterprise, AEO tracking is included at no extra charge, with a larger allowance and recommendations pulled from your CRM data.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| A genuinely standalone product, no HubSpot subscription required | More than 25 prompts at the published price |
| A real free trial, no card required | Claude, Grok, or Meta AI coverage mentioned anywhere |
| Automatic inclusion in Marketing Hub Pro/Enterprise | A published rate for buying extra prompts |
| The lowest named price here besides Rankscale | Deep content fix recommendations outside the Hub |
Pricing: $50/mo, $45/mo billed annually.
Best for: A team's first AI visibility tool, especially one already inside HubSpot. Not ideal for: Teams that need more than 25 prompts without an unclear add-on negotiation.
4. Peec AI: Multi-Brand Tracking for Agencies, From $95/mo
Peec AI runs four tiers: Starter $95/mo (50 prompts, 1 project), Pro $245/mo (150 prompts, 2 projects), Advanced $495/mo (350 prompts, 5 projects), and a custom Enterprise tier. Every tier includes unlimited users. Some roundups wrongly list it as quote-only. It's built for agencies and sells separate agency plans at $245, $495 and $795 a month on peec.ai/pricing-agencies, the right shape for a shop managing several client brands under one account.
Self-serve tiers let you pick 3 engines from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. Perplexity is a paid add-on, Claude is Enterprise-only on brand plans, and extra models cost $35, $85 or $165 a month depending on tier. The EUR 89/mo figure circulating in other roundups isn't on the site; the real prices are in USD.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| Published prices from $95/mo, unlimited users on every tier | An agent layer like Profound's; Peec AI is a tracker |
| A product built around agency workflows, with agency plans from $245/mo | Perplexity in the base price (a paid add-on) |
| Google AI Overviews among its selectable engines | Claude on self-serve brand plans (Enterprise only) |
| Self-serve signup for Starter, Pro and Advanced | A fourth engine for free; extra models are add-ons |
Pricing: Starter $95/mo, Pro $245/mo, Advanced $495/mo, Enterprise custom, USD, monthly; agency plans $245 / $495 / $795 a month at peec.ai/pricing-agencies.
Best for: Agencies managing several client brands, and teams that want unlimited users. Not ideal for: Teams that need Claude or more than 3 engines without paying for add-ons.
5. Scrunch: Enterprise GEO With a Content Action Layer
Scrunch, which Sitecore announced it would acquire on 3 June 2026, pairs monitoring with an "Agent Experience Platform" that audits and optimizes pages for AI retrieval, not just reports on citations. On the pricing page as served to US visitors, Starter runs $300/mo ($250/mo annual) for 3 seats, 350 custom prompts, and tracking across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and Overviews, and Meta, the broadest default engine list here. Growth roughly doubles that at $500/mo. A page fetched from Vietnam showed a different layout, a single Core plan at $250/mo with 4 engines, so check your own region.
One housekeeping note: the old scrunchai.com domain now 301 redirects to scrunch.com. Pricing lives at scrunch.com/pricing, not the homepage.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| 7 platforms tracked by default, including Meta | A published Enterprise price |
| Page audits and content action built in | A plan under $250/mo |
| A real 7-day free trial | Agency pricing or multi-brand discounts shown publicly |
| Annual billing at roughly a 17% discount | Pricing on the homepage (it's one click deeper) |
Pricing: Starter $300/mo ($250/mo annual), Growth $500/mo ($417/mo annual), Enterprise custom.
Best for: Mid-market teams wanting monitoring and a content fix layer in one subscription. Not ideal for: Tight budgets; there's no tier under $250/mo.
6. Trakkr: Flat Pricing, No Credit Metering
Trakkr is the simplest pricing model here by design. Growth, $100/mo, includes 1 brand tracked daily, 50 prompts, and all 8 AI models (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI), nothing behind a credit wall, no per-engine add-on. Scale, $500/mo, extends that to 10 brands and adds a REST API and white-label client portals, a realistic agency plan.
The trade-off is a modest base allowance: 50 daily prompts per brand, though Trakkr sells prompt packs (+50 for $39, +100 for $59, +200 for $99) and Enterprise starts from $1,000/mo billed annually.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| All 8 models included, zero credit metering | More than 50 prompts per brand without buying a prompt pack |
| Flat, predictable monthly or annual billing | A free tier or trial beyond a sales conversation |
| White-label client portals on Scale | API access on the entry Growth plan |
| The cheapest flat-rate full-engine plan here | Published Enterprise pricing beyond the $1,000/mo floor |
Pricing: Growth $100/mo ($1,000/yr), Scale $500/mo ($5,000/yr), Enterprise from $1,000/mo billed annually.
Best for: Teams and agencies that want every model covered without credit math each month. Not ideal for: Anyone tracking far more than 50 prompts per brand on a tight budget.
7. AthenaHQ: The Most Generous Free Tier
AthenaHQ's Essential plan is genuinely free, not a 7-day trial: $25 of credit and 300 credits a month, tracking ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Copilot, with unlimited seats. Starter moves to $295/mo (the monthly rate) for 3,600 credits and expands to 11+ models including Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, and Meta AI.
Credit metering is the one thing to budget time for, though AthenaHQ states the conversion: 1 credit = 1 AI response. Extra credits are quote-only, so run the free Essential tier for a month before committing, and watch how fast 300 credits burns down for your real prompt list.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| A free tier that isn't time-limited | A published price for extra credits |
| Unlimited seats on every tier, including free | 11+ model coverage without upgrading to Starter |
| An "Oracle discrepancy detection" feature unique here | Flat, predictable pricing; it's credit-based throughout |
| API access and extra credits available as add-ons | Much headroom on free: 300 credits is 300 AI responses |
Pricing: Essential free (300 credits/mo), Starter $295/mo (3,600 credits), Enterprise custom.
Best for: Teams that want to test real AI visibility tracking before spending anything. Not ideal for: Teams that want a flat number instead of learning a credit system.
8. Goodie: Tracking Plus an Agent That Takes Action
Goodie is the priciest self-serve entry point here, by design: Core runs $399/mo on annual billing ($478.80 billed monthly) for 120 prompts, 5 core models at brand level only, and a "closed loop" that goes past monitoring into content optimization, technical fixes, and outreach, plus revenue attribution tied to AI traffic. Pro, $999/mo on annual billing ($1,198.80 monthly), adds SKU-level agentic commerce visibility and 8 tracked models.
This is the one vendor where third-party coverage calling it "demo-gated" with no published price is now out of date. Its pricing page shows real numbers for Core and Pro; only Enterprise stays custom.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| Published self-serve pricing for Core and Pro | A tier under $399/mo (annual rate) |
| A real action layer: content, technical, and outreach agents | API or export access below Enterprise |
| Direct revenue attribution tied to AI traffic | Unlimited seats below Pro (Core caps at 5) |
| A 7-day free trial on Core | The lowest price here, by a wide margin |
Pricing: Core $399/mo, Pro $999/mo, Enterprise custom. Agency Growth $275/mo, Agency Enterprise custom. The $399, $999 and $275 figures are annual-billing rates; monthly is $478.80 and $1,198.80 for the brand tiers, and agency Growth is $330 billed quarterly.
Best for: Teams that want visibility tracking and a built-in team to act on the gaps it finds. Not ideal for: Budget-conscious teams; this is priced closer to a managed service than SaaS.
9. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: AI Data Next to Your Existing SEO Dashboard
If your team already pays for Semrush, now an Adobe company since the acquisition closed on 28 April 2026, the AI Visibility Toolkit adds citation tracking for $99/mo per domain, billed annually: 25 tracked prompts, mentions across ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, and Perplexity (per the pricing page), plus an AI-readiness site audit. Semrush's knowledge base prices extra prompts at +50 for $60/mo. Add-ons: extra users (from $45/mo), Lead Generation ($90/mo), two report tiers ($10 and $20/mo).
Worth flagging: Semrush's own pages disagree on three things. The pricing page mentions a 7-day free trial, but the knowledge base article for this specific toolkit says there's no free trial; the pricing page says extra users start "from $45" while the knowledge base says each needs a $99 license; and the pricing page says billed annually while the knowledge base says "$99 per month." We'd rather say that plainly than guess.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| AI visibility data in the same dashboard as your SEO data | More than 25 prompts included (extra packs are +50 for $60/mo) |
| An AI-readiness site audit bundled in | A confirmed free trial (the vendor's own pages disagree) |
| Daily, weekly, and monthly reporting cadence | Claude or Grok coverage mentioned on the pricing page |
| 300 reports per day included | A standalone product; you're already paying for Semrush |
Pricing: $99/mo per domain, billed annually per the pricing page. Additional users from $45/mo per the pricing page, a $99 license per the knowledge base. Extra prompts +50 for $60/mo.
Best for: Marketing teams already running Semrush for SEO who want AI tracking in the same login. Not ideal for: Teams that aren't already Semrush customers; no reason to add it standalone.
10. Ahrefs Brand Radar: Free If You Already Pay for Ahrefs
Ahrefs takes the same approach as Semrush: fold AI visibility into the product you already use. Custom Prompts comes free with every paid plan from Lite up, scaling by tier (5 on Lite, 83+ on Enterprise). Standalone, it sells in flat check bundles: Basic $50/mo for 2,500 checks, Growth $100/mo for 7,000, Scale $250/mo for 25,000. The separate Brand Radar AI product starts from $199/mo, though Ahrefs shows more than one starting point depending on which page you land on, and it prices by region (USD, EUR and GBP have all been served with no currency switcher), so confirm at checkout. It also publishes an Enterprise price of $1,499/mo with an annual commitment.
Engine coverage is the gap to check: Ahrefs covers Claude (its page says a Claude prompt uses 8 checks per update) but doesn't name Grok.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| Free inclusion with an Ahrefs plan you may already pay for | Grok coverage |
| Backed by Ahrefs' own backlink and keyword index | A single, unambiguous entry price across Ahrefs' own pages |
| Two products (Custom Prompts and Brand Radar AI) to match depth needed | A single simple price; it scales with your Ahrefs tier |
| A path that starts at effectively $0 for existing customers | Flat seat-based pricing; this one meters on checks |
Pricing: Free with Ahrefs Lite+; Custom Prompts from $50/mo (2,500 checks), Brand Radar AI from $199/mo.
Best for: Existing Ahrefs customers who want AI tracking without adding a new vendor. Not ideal for: Teams needing Grok coverage or a price not tied to an SEO subscription.
11. Conductor: An SEO Platform With AEO Added, Not a Dedicated Tool
Conductor is worth including for one reason: it's enterprise-grade and increasingly common in RFPs, but it isn't a native AI visibility tool the way the other ten here are. It's an SEO performance platform (Conductor Intelligence) with AEO reporting layered in, metered in "AI Search Credits," plus a separate tool (Conductor Creator) for AI-ready content drafts. None of its three tiers, Essentials, Growth, Enterprise, show a price; every path leads to a free trial, demo, or sales contact.
Conductor does offer a genuinely useful no-cost starting point: a free AI Visibility Report that checks how your brand shows up across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews without an account.
| What you get | What you don't |
|---|---|
| AEO data alongside full SEO performance reporting | Any published price, at any tier |
| A genuinely free visibility check with no signup | A dedicated, AI-first product (it's SEO software plus AEO) |
| A separate AI content drafting tool (Conductor Creator) | Fast time-to-value; this is an enterprise sales cycle |
| Credibility in large-company RFPs | A fit for a team that just wants a monitoring dashboard |
Pricing: Not published at any tier; free trial, demo, or contact sales only. Free checker needs no account.
Best for: Enterprise SEO teams wanting AEO folded into a platform they're already evaluating. Not ideal for: Smaller teams who just want a priced AI visibility tool, no enterprise sales process.
A Different Purchase Entirely: Citation Placement Services
Everything above is software you buy to measure your own AI visibility. A separate category pays a service to get your brand mentioned on third-party pages AI engines are likely to cite. Noble and Anchorial both work this way, and neither belongs in a ranking next to the tools above; you're not buying a dashboard, you're buying placements. That's a separate comparison, not a few rows bolted onto this one.
When Profound Is Still the Right Call
None of this makes Profound a bad buy, it makes it a specific one. It fits an enterprise team that genuinely wants an agent doing research, drafting, and reporting against visibility data, not just a chart to read in a weekly meeting, and that has the budget and patience for a custom Enterprise negotiation over a self-serve checkout. If your team would rather own the dashboard and act on it themselves, one of the 11 tools above gets you there for a fraction of the price and far less sales process. If another vendor is on your shortlist beside Profound, pick the head-to-head that matches it rather than reading them all: AthenaHQ vs Profound vs Peec AI adds AthenaHQ's free, credit-based tier and Peec AI's agency-built tracker, and Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit vs Profound vs HubSpot AEO sets Profound's quote against a per-domain toolkit from Semrush (an Adobe company) and HubSpot's standalone beta.
How to Choose: Decision Framework
| If you need... | Pick... | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The cheapest tool that actually publishes a usable price | Rankscale | $99/mo Pro covers a real workload with every engine included |
| Flat pricing with zero credit metering | Trakkr | $100/mo Growth, all 8 models, nothing to calculate |
| The lowest-friction first tool to try | HubSpot AEO | $50/mo, standalone, real free trial, no card required |
| To add AI tracking to a tool you already pay for | Ahrefs Brand Radar or Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Same login, same dashboard as your existing SEO data |
| Monitoring plus a team that fixes what it finds | Goodie or Scrunch | Both pair tracking with content, technical, or outreach action |
| Agency-grade multi-brand tracking | Peec AI or Trakkr Scale | Unlimited brands or seats, built for client management |
| An AI marketing agent, not a dashboard, and budget to match | Profound | The only tool here actually built around that job |
| A free test before spending anything | AthenaHQ Essential or Conductor's free checker | Both offer a genuinely free first look |
Frequently Asked Questions about Profound Alternatives
Why doesn't Profound publish pricing anymore?
Profound repositioned in 2026 around an AI marketing agent rather than a pure visibility dashboard, and has no base price, only a free trial and a demo-gated Enterprise tier. It does list some agency add-ons (client workspace +$399/mo, five trial workspaces $199/mo). The ~$99/mo figure that still circulates in other roundups no longer applies.
What's the cheapest real AI visibility tool in 2026?
On headline price, Rankscale lists Essentials at $20/mo and Otterly's Lite plan runs $29/mo. For a realistic 50-prompt, 4-engine workload, Rankscale's Pro tier ($99/mo) and Trakkr's Growth plan ($100/mo) both end up cheaper than the Otterly tier that actually covers that volume ($189/mo).
Which Profound alternatives still publish no price at all?
Only Conductor, and Profound itself, publish no base price; every tier of both routes to a trial, demo or sales call. Peec AI publishes $95, $245 and $495 a month (USD). Goodie used to be in the no-price group but now publishes Core and Pro prices, both annual-billing rates.
Is Rankscale priced in dollars or euros?
Dollars. Despite Rankscale being based in Vienna, its pricing page shows every tier with a USD sign; some third-party roundups report it in euros, which is incorrect as of this writing.
Should I add a separate tool if I already use Ahrefs or Semrush?
Not necessarily. Brand Radar and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit both add AI citation tracking to a subscription you may already pay for, usually cheaper than a new vendor, unless you need coverage like Grok, which neither names, or want to check Semrush's engine list, since its pricing page names only four engines.
Are Noble and Anchorial alternatives to Profound?
No. Noble and Anchorial are citation placement services, you pay them to get your brand mentioned on third-party pages, not software that monitors your own visibility. They're a different purchase with their own comparison.
Is there a genuinely free way to check AI visibility first?
Yes. AthenaHQ's Essential tier is free and not time-limited, and Conductor offers a no-signup AI Visibility Report. Both are good first looks before committing budget to an ongoing tool.
What to Do Next
Don't shortlist on headline price. Write down your real tracking scenario, prompts, engines, brands, and check it against the tables above instead of the number in bold on a pricing page. Coming here because Profound's pricing page left more questions than answers, start with Rankscale or Trakkr for the cheapest real coverage, or HubSpot AEO for the lowest-friction first look. For the engines themselves, Claude vs ChatGPT vs Gemini and the best AI search engines are useful starting points, and our glossary entries on generative AI and semantic search cover how AI engines decide what to cite in the first place.
On this page
- Key Facts
- Quick Comparison Table
- What Profound Actually Is Now
- Profound's Pricing Problem
- Pricing at a Real Workload: One Brand, 50 Prompts, Four Engines, Monthly
- 1. Otterly.ai: The Cheapest Real Self-Serve Plan
- 2. Rankscale: The Lowest Floor Price, Every Engine Included
- 3. HubSpot AEO: The Cheapest Standalone Entry Point
- 4. Peec AI: Multi-Brand Tracking for Agencies, From $95/mo
- 5. Scrunch: Enterprise GEO With a Content Action Layer
- 6. Trakkr: Flat Pricing, No Credit Metering
- 7. AthenaHQ: The Most Generous Free Tier
- 8. Goodie: Tracking Plus an Agent That Takes Action
- 9. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: AI Data Next to Your Existing SEO Dashboard
- 10. Ahrefs Brand Radar: Free If You Already Pay for Ahrefs
- 11. Conductor: An SEO Platform With AEO Added, Not a Dedicated Tool
- A Different Purchase Entirely: Citation Placement Services
- When Profound Is Still the Right Call
- How to Choose: Decision Framework
- What to Do Next