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By · Published April 20, 2026 · 14 min read

Athena HQ Alternatives (2026): 9 GEO Tools Compared

9 Athena HQ alternatives compared on engines tracked, prompts per plan, price and whether they help you fix AI visibility or only measure it.

Part of our GEO & AI Search guide.

For a mid-market team that finds AthenaHQ's credit pricing hard to budget, Peec AI and SE Visible are the strongest alternatives: both charge by prompt, so you know exactly how much tracking you get each month. If what you like about AthenaHQ is its site and content actions, Okara does similar work (site audit, citation gaps, outreach targets and fixes as GitHub pull requests) for $129 a month, though it tracks 3 engines, not 11. If you mainly want a cheaper way in, Otterly.AI starts at $29 a month. If you need SSO, multi-region tracking and an account team, look at Profound, Conductor or BrightEdge, but expect a sales call because none of them publishes a price.

What AthenaHQ costs and what you get

AthenaHQ (often searched as "Athena HQ") sells credits, not prompts. One credit buys one AI response, and you spend them across prompts, engines, locations and refresh frequency.

PlanPriceUsage allowanceEnginesMain limits
EssentialFree300 credits5Unclear if credits are one-time or monthly
Starter$295/month ($245 annual)3,600 credits/month11One region and language; API and extra credits priced by sales
EnterpriseCustom (contact sales)Custom credits11, more on requestNone published

The 11 Starter engines are ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. That's more engines than any other entry-level plan we compared. The free plan drops AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral.

Starter also goes beyond tracking: unlimited seats with role-based access, a base content optimization agent, on-page and off-page actions, smart robots.txt and llms.txt handling, and GA4 and Search Console integrations. Multi-region tracking, persona targeting, the Athena Citation Engine, SSO, BI dashboards and included API access are Enterprise-only.

The plans page doesn't explain whether the free credits renew or what the "$300/month free credit" on the Starter card means, so we've left both out of the math below.

Why teams look for AthenaHQ alternatives

The credits are the main reason. 3,600 responses a month is 120 a day. Run every prompt on all 11 engines daily and you can track about 10 prompts. Cut to 4 engines and you get about 30. Check all 11 weekly and it's roughly 75. Every setting changes your prompt count, which makes it hard to tell finance what the tool covers.

Topping up has no public price either. Extra credits and API access on Starter are "contact sales" add-ons, so once you outgrow 3,600 responses you're negotiating.

Then there's the entry price. $245 to $295 a month is the floor for paid tracking, and several tools here start below $100 with fixed limits, though fewer engines.

Finally, the features mid-market teams often need (multiple regions or languages, SSO, BI exports, included API) sit behind an unpriced Enterprise plan. If you're booking a sales call anyway, compare vendors built around enterprise contracts.

AthenaHQ alternatives at a glance

ToolStarting pricePrompts at entryEngines at entryBeyond trackingBest for
Peec AI$95/mo ($80 annual)503 (you pick)Gap analysis, recommended actionsPredictable pricing
SE Visible$99/mo ($79 annual)2005APIMost prompts per dollar
Okara$129/mo ($108 annual)153Site audit, citation gaps, outreach targets, fixes as pull requestsActing on AI visibility
Scrunch$250/mo1254Site audits, page optimizationMid-market site fixes
Otterly.AI$29/mo ($25 annual)154GEO audits, weekly recommendationsLowest entry price
Goodie AI$478.80/mo ($399 annual)1205Content, technical, outreach and social agentsDone-for-you actions
ProfoundNot public (free 7-day trial)Custom (trial: 50)Up to 9AI Marketer agents, agent analyticsEnterprise brands
ConductorNot publicCredit-based9 engine modesContent creation, site monitoringEnterprise SEO and content teams
BrightEdgeNot publicNot public5 named, "and others"Content briefs, automated schemaExisting BrightEdge customers

Peec AI: predictable pricing at a third of the cost

Peec prices brand plans by prompts, not credits. Starter is $95 a month ($80 billed annually) for 50 prompts tracked daily on 3 engines you choose from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. That's 4,500 answers a month, more than AthenaHQ Starter's 3,600, at about a third of the price. Pro is $245 ($205 annually) for 150 prompts and 13,500 answers.

The trade-off is engines. Three per plan is far short of AthenaHQ's 11. Extra models are a paid add-on (Peec lists $30 a month on Starter next to an annual label, so monthly billing is likely higher), and Claude, Grok and DeepSeek only appear on Enterprise. API access and SSO are listed as Enterprise features too.

It does more than track: gap analysis shows which sources cite competitors but not you, alongside ranked recommended actions and crawler analytics. Users are unlimited. Pick it if predictable billing matters more than engine count. Our Peec AI alternatives guide covers its downsides in more depth.

SE Visible: the most tracking for the money

SE Visible is SE Ranking's standalone AI visibility product. Basic costs $99 a month ($79 annually) for 200 prompts refreshed daily across 5 engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity and AI Overviews. SE Ranking puts that at about 30,000 answers a month, over eight times AthenaHQ Starter's allowance, for less than half the price. Answers are collected through real browser sessions rather than APIs, and an API is available.

It's thinner on everything else. Claude is "coming soon", as are advanced analytics, reporting and user management, and Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI aren't tracked. The packaging is confusing too, with built-in GEO prompts in SE Ranking plans, a separate AI Search add-on and SE Visible all priced differently. The real site is visible.seranking.com (sevisible.com redirects to an unrelated agency).

Pick SE Visible for high-volume daily tracking on the main engines if you don't need content or fix tools. There's a 10-day free trial.

Okara: acting on AI visibility for less

AthenaHQ's appeal is that it acts on what it finds, with a content agent and on-page and off-page actions, starting at $295 a month. Okara's GEO Agent also does the work, for $129 a month ($108 annually), and it sells a fixed 15 prompts instead of credits.

It runs a site audit across 100+ GEO data points. Citation gaps show, for each tracked prompt, which competitor domains get cited instead of you, rated by priority, with the reason. Outreach research runs the query in ChatGPT and AI Mode, pulls the cited sources and names the blogs, publications and YouTubers that mention competitor tools, with who to contact, why they matter and what to send them. Codeable fixes ship through the Coding Agent as reviewable GitHub pull requests, with content and distribution fixes listed alongside. Everything waits for your approval.

The trade-off is tracking. Fifteen prompts on 3 engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode) is much narrower than AthenaHQ's 11 engines, and Okara isn't an enterprise tracker: no SSO, multi-region tracking or API.

Pick Okara if you want to act on AI visibility, from audit to outreach to shipped fixes, more than you want the largest tracking dataset.

Scrunch: mid-market monitoring with site fixes

Scrunch's Core plan is $250 a month for 125 prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews and Copilot: close to AthenaHQ's price, with a fixed prompt count instead of credits. Core includes 5 users, 5 site audits and one page optimization a month, basic content generation, recommendations and AI bot traffic reporting.

The limits are real. Core covers one brand, one country and one language, and there's no annual discount (that's for Enterprise only). Gemini, Claude, AI Mode, Grok and Meta AI require Enterprise, as do the API, MCP, Looker Studio and SAML SSO. Refresh frequency isn't published.

Scrunch is now a Sitecore company, and Enterprise adds an Agent Experience Platform that serves an optimized version of your site to AI agents. Pick it if you're on Sitecore, or want site-level fixes with a path to an enterprise contract. There's a 7-day trial.

Otterly.AI: the cheapest way to start

Otterly's Lite plan is $29 a month ($25 annually) for 15 prompts tracked daily on ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. It includes unlimited team members, 1,000 GEO URL audits a month and 3 recommendations a week. Standard jumps to $189 ($160 annually) for 100 prompts, unlimited recommendations, API and MCP access.

Compared with AthenaHQ, you give up breadth. Google AI Mode and Gemini cost $9 each on Lite and $59 on Standard, and Claude is $29 on Lite, $109 on Standard and $439 on Premium. Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI aren't offered. The jump from 15 prompts to 100 is also steep.

In return you get a price you can predict. Otterly was a 2025 Gartner Cool Vendor for AI in Marketing, and its audits and recommendations make it more than a dashboard. Pick it to test AI visibility tracking cheaply before a bigger commitment. The trial runs 7 days with 50 prompts, no card needed.

Goodie AI: more hands-on help with the fixes

Goodie is the option for teams that like AthenaHQ's actions and want more of them. Core is $399 a month billed annually, or $478.80 monthly, for 120 prompts across ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, AI Mode and Copilot, with 2 countries, 2 languages and 5 seats.

Every plan includes agents that write AEO content, optimize pages, run outreach and social tasks, and repair llms.txt and sitemaps. Core allows 50 optimization actions a month, meters the chat agent in tokens, and includes revenue attribution.

It's more expensive than AthenaHQ Starter and covers fewer engines. Gemini needs Pro ($999 a month annually), and Claude, Meta AI, DeepSeek and Grok need Enterprise. Goodie's own page is inconsistent on Enterprise engine count, saying 13 in one place and 12 in another. Only Core is self-serve, with a 7-day trial. Pick Goodie if the bottleneck is doing the work rather than measuring it.

Profound: the enterprise pick for multi-engine depth

Profound publishes no paid brand plan price. You get a free 7-day trial (50 industry-recommended prompts you can't customize, on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews), then a custom Enterprise contract. Enterprise covers up to 9 engines, custom regions and languages, ChatGPT Shopping, API, exports, SSO, SOC 2 and a dedicated specialist option.

Profound now calls itself an "AI Marketer" platform, with agents that research, write and report, plus analytics for AI-driven traffic. Those agents run on credits with possible overage billing, so the budgeting problem doesn't fully go away.

Compared with AthenaHQ, Enterprise fills the gaps mid-market teams hit on Starter: multiple regions, SSO and API in one package. Its newsroom reports a $180M Series D, if vendor stability matters to you. Pick Profound if you need enterprise controls and accept demo-only pricing. Our Profound alternatives post covers cheaper routes to similar coverage.

Conductor: AI tracking inside an enterprise SEO suite

Conductor tracks 9 engine modes: ChatGPT (Auto and Search), Claude Sonnet, Gemini, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Grok, Copilot and Perplexity. Tiers are public (Essentials, Growth, Enterprise) but dollar prices aren't. Vendr, a third-party marketplace, reports a median contract of $49,020 a year. That figure is Vendr's, not Conductor's.

Conductor is also credit-based, and credits cost different amounts per engine: 0.1 per response on AI Overviews or AI Mode, 2.0 on ChatGPT Search or Gemini. Growth includes 2,500 AI Search credits a year. Conductor's pricing page contradicts itself on whether Essentials includes any.

You get the rest of the suite: a writing assistant with AEO recommendations, 24/7 site monitoring, AI crawler log analysis, and SSO from Growth up. There's a free 3-week trial. Pick Conductor if your content and SEO teams want AI visibility in the system they already publish from.

BrightEdge: for teams already on BrightEdge

BrightEdge has no public pricing page, and every call to action is a demo request. Its AI Catalyst module names ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini "and other AI platforms", and BrightEdge doesn't say whether it's included in the platform or sold as an add-on. Vendr reports a median of about $50,000 a year for BrightEdge overall, with multi-year terms common. Again, that's third-party data.

Its strength is acting on findings. AI Recommendations compares your page with the one being cited and generates a content brief. The Site Agents Suite automates internal linking and JSON-LD schema, and pushes approved title and meta changes to WordPress, Drupal and other CMSs.

Prompt limits, refresh frequency and seats aren't published, so you can't compare it with AthenaHQ on paper. Pick it if you already run BrightEdge and want AI search in the same contract.

How to choose

If your problem is unpredictable credits, move to prompt-based pricing. Peec AI gives you 50 prompts on 3 engines for $95, and SE Visible gives you 200 prompts on 5 engines for $99.

If you want the lowest entry price to prove the value internally, start with Otterly.AI at $29 and upgrade later. Check the GEO checklist first so your 15 prompts cover the queries that matter.

If you need help acting on findings, compare Okara's audit, outreach targets and pull-request fixes with Goodie AI's agents and Scrunch's site optimization. AthenaHQ Starter already has a content agent, so ask each vendor what it does beyond that.

If you need SSO, multiple regions and a dedicated contact, book demos with Profound and Conductor, and keep BrightEdge on the list if you already use it for SEO.

If you like AthenaHQ's engine breadth and don't mind credits, only the price, see our Rankshift alternatives roundup of credit-based trackers.

For the whole category compared on engines tracked and price, see our guide to the best GEO tools.

Frequently asked questions

How much does AthenaHQ cost in 2026?

As of September 26, 2026, AthenaHQ has a free Essential plan with 300 credits, a Starter plan at $295 a month (or $245 billed annually) with 3,600 credits, and a custom-priced Enterprise plan. One credit equals one AI response, so 3,600 credits covers about 10 prompts checked daily on all 11 engines (our arithmetic). Extra credits and API access on Starter are priced through sales.

Is there a free AthenaHQ alternative?

None of the nine tools above has a free plan with ongoing tracking. Qwairy has a free plan with 120 credits, and AthenaHQ's own free plan gives 300 credits on 5 engines. Otherwise, use trials: Otterly.AI (7 days, 50 prompts), SE Visible (10 days), Profound (7 days) or Conductor (3 weeks). Checked September 26, 2026.

What's the cheapest AthenaHQ alternative?

Otterly.AI Lite at $29 a month ($25 billed annually) for 15 prompts tracked daily on 4 engines. Rankscale Essentials is $20, but its 120 credits cover only about 480 single-engine answers. For volume, SE Visible Basic at $99 ($79 annually) covers 200 prompts on 5 engines daily. Prices as of September 26, 2026.

AthenaHQ vs Peec AI: which should I pick?

AthenaHQ Starter covers 11 engines but sells credits, so your prompt count moves with your settings. Peec AI Starter costs $95 a month for a fixed 50 prompts on 3 engines, about 4,500 answers a month versus AthenaHQ's 3,600. Choose AthenaHQ for engine breadth and Peec for predictable, lower billing (prices as of September 26, 2026).

AthenaHQ vs Profound for enterprise teams?

AthenaHQ lists Starter at $245 to $295 a month plus a custom Enterprise plan. Profound publishes no paid price: a free 7-day trial, then a custom Enterprise contract with up to 9 engines, SSO, SOC 2 and API. If you need those controls, compare both Enterprise quotes. If not, AthenaHQ Starter is the only published price of the two (as of September 26, 2026).

Prices checked September 26, 2026 on each vendor's pricing page.

Sources