Profound Alternatives (2026): 9 Cheaper AI Visibility Tools

If you want coverage across many AI engines without a sales call, AthenaHQ and Rankshift are the closest Profound alternatives: both publish prices and track 9 to 11 engines on their entry plans. Peec AI is the cleanest pick if three engines are enough, and Rankscale or Otterly.AI are the cheapest ways to start. On every self-serve plan below, what you give up is Profound's enterprise layer: SSO, all-time history, ChatGPT Shopping data and a dedicated specialist.

What Profound costs and what you get

Profound publishes two options for brands: a free 7-day trial and a custom Enterprise plan you reach through a demo. There is no self-serve paid brand plan and no Enterprise price on its pricing page.

Plan	Price	Prompts	Engines	Notes
Trial	Free for 7 days	50 daily, industry preset	3: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews	1 language and region; no history, exports, API or support
Enterprise	Custom, via demo	Custom, daily	Up to 9: adds Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Exa Search	API, exports, all-time history, SSO/SAML, SOC 2, ChatGPT Shopping, specialist with 24-hour SLA
Agency Growth	Base price not shown	Not stated	Not stated	Client workspaces $399/month each; 5 extra trial workspaces $199/month

Profound is no longer just a tracker. It sells itself as an "AI Marketer" platform, with credit-metered agents that research, write and report, plus Agent Analytics and Prompt Volumes. It is also very well funded: its newsroom announced a $180M Series D.

Why teams look past Profound

The reasons are mostly about how Profound sells, not what it measures.

There's no published price, so you can't build a budget request before a sales call. The only dollar figure is $399/month per agency client workspace.
The trial can't be customized. Fifty preset prompts for a week shows you the product, not how your brand does on your buyers' questions.
History, exports, API, SSO, support and Shopping data are all Enterprise-only.
Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, AI Mode and DeepSeek aren't in the trial. Several tools below include them on a plan you can buy with a card.
SOC 2 and dedicated Slack support matter to enterprise buyers; a five-person team may pay for depth it won't use.

A benchmark used below: Profound's trial is 50 prompts on 3 engines daily, or 4,500 answers over 30 days (our arithmetic).

Profound alternatives compared

Tool	Starting price	Prompts at entry	Engines at entry	Beyond tracking	Best for
AthenaHQ	Free plan; Starter $295/mo ($245 annual)	3,600 AI responses/mo, no fixed count	11	Content agent, on-page and off-page actions	Widest self-serve engine coverage
Rankshift	$92/mo ($82 annual)	"150/day" on one model; about 52 on three	9	Content briefs, AI writer, API and MCP	Every engine at a low price
Peec AI	$95/mo ($80 annual)	50	3 of your choice	Gap analysis, recommended actions, agent analytics	Simple daily tracking, unlimited seats
Qwairy	Free plan; Starter €79/mo ($89)	Up to 100 (1,300 credits/mo)	10	Action Center, Content Studio, MCP	Broad coverage on a small budget
Scrunch	$250/mo	125	4	Site audits, recommendations, basic content generation	A self-serve start toward enterprise
Okara	$129/mo ($108 annual)	15	3	Site audit, citation gaps, outreach targets, fixes as pull requests	Smaller teams that want to act on visibility
SE Visible	$99/mo ($79 annual)	200	5	API	Most prompts per dollar
Otterly.AI	$29/mo ($25 annual)	15	4	GEO URL audits, weekly recommendations	Cheapest start with fixed prompts
Rankscale	$20/mo ($17 annual)	Unlimited terms; 120 credits (about 480 answers)	10	Page audits, Scout recommendations, MCP	Lowest entry price

Each alternative in detail

AthenaHQ: the closest match on engine breadth

AthenaHQ's Starter plan costs $295/month, or $245/month billed annually, and covers 11 engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. That includes Grok and Meta AI, which Profound doesn't list. A free Essential plan gives 300 credits on 5 engines, though AthenaHQ doesn't say whether those are one-time or monthly.

The catch is credits. One credit is one AI response, and Starter includes 3,600 a month. With all 11 engines running daily, that's roughly 10 prompts, well short of Profound's trial volume. Starter includes a content optimization agent and on-page and off-page actions. Multi-region tracking and SSO are Enterprise-only, and API access is an add-on priced through sales.

Pick it if engine breadth is why you looked at Profound. AthenaHQ alternatives covers its credit model in more depth.

Rankshift: every engine for under $100

Rankshift puts all nine of its engines on every plan: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Mistral, Meta AI, Claude and Microsoft Copilot. Starter costs $92/month or $82/month billed annually (€77 and €69 in euros, its default currency), with a 30-day free trial and no card required.

It is credit-based too. The "150 prompts / day" headline assumes one model at 2 credits per run. Track three standard models daily and capacity drops to about 52 prompts; Claude and Copilot cost 5 credits a run. Unlimited projects and seats, API, MCP, Looker Studio, content briefs and an AI writer come with every plan, more data access than Profound offers outside Enterprise.

What you give up: Rankshift is a small, independently funded Belgian team, SSO and an SLA are Enterprise-only, and there's no DeepSeek or Grok. Still, it's the best value here for broad coverage. See Rankshift alternatives for other credit-based tools.

Peec AI: simple daily tracking, fewer engines

Peec AI prices by prompts, which is easier to budget than credits. Starter is $95/month ($80 billed annually) for 50 prompts run daily on 3 models you choose from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. That's 4,500 answers a month, the same volume as Profound's trial, on prompts you choose. Pro is $245/month for 150 prompts and Advanced $495/month for 350, all with unlimited users. (Prices showed in USD; European visitors may see euros.)

Three engines per plan is the limit. Extra models cost $30/month on Starter, shown next to annual pricing, so monthly billing is likely higher. Perplexity is an add-on; Claude, Grok and DeepSeek appear only on Enterprise (up to 13 models), as do API and SSO. Trial length isn't published.

Peec also offers gap analysis of sources citing competitors, ranked recommended actions, AI crawler analytics and AI Shopping visibility. More in Peec AI alternatives.

Qwairy: ten engines and a free plan

Every Qwairy plan includes 10 providers: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Grok, Claude, Mistral and DeepSeek. The last three run through APIs, not the consumer apps. The free plan has 120 credits and needs no card. Starter is €79/month or €65/month billed annually; the USD toggle shows $89/month.

Starter says "up to 100 prompts", but it has 1,300 credits a month, and one credit is one prompt on one engine for one day. That's about 43 answers a day, so 100 prompts on 3 engines works weekly, not daily. Unused credits roll over. The REST API needs Growth (€199), crawler analytics need Business (€449), and SSO needs Enterprise.

You also get an Action Center, a Content Studio in 45+ languages, and llms.txt analysis. It suits European teams wanting breadth on a small budget.

Scrunch: a self-serve start with an enterprise path

Scrunch targets mid-market and enterprise brands and is now a Sitecore company, so it sits closer to Profound than most tools here. Unlike Profound, it has a self-serve Core plan: $250/month with a 7-day trial. Core tracks 125 prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot for 1 brand, 1 country and 1 language, with 5 user licenses. Refresh frequency isn't published.

Engines are the weak point. Gemini, Claude, Google AI Mode, Grok and Meta AI need Enterprise (9 engines, custom price), which puts you back in a sales conversation. API, MCP, Looker Studio and SAML SSO are Enterprise-only, and Core has no annual discount.

Core includes 5 site audits and 1 page optimization a month, recommendations, basic content generation and AI bot traffic. Pick Scrunch if you'll grow into an enterprise contract or already run Sitecore.

Okara: audits, outreach targets and fixes, not enterprise tracking

Okara won't give you what most Profound buyers are after. Its GEO Agent tracks up to 15 prompts on 3 engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. There's no SSO, no multi-region tracking and no API, and Peec, SE Visible and Rankshift all track more prompts or engines for less. If enterprise breadth and depth are why you looked at Profound, that's what you give up here.

Its case is what it does with the data. Profound sells agents and research at enterprise prices; Okara publishes its price: $129/month, or $108 billed annually. That covers a site audit across 100+ GEO data points and citation gaps that show, for each tracked prompt, which competitor domains get cited instead of you and why, ranked by priority. Outreach research runs your target queries in ChatGPT and AI Mode, names the blogs, publications and YouTubers that mention competitors, and tells you who to contact and what to send them. Codeable fixes ship through the Coding Agent as reviewable GitHub pull requests, with content and distribution fixes listed alongside. Nothing goes out without your approval.

Pick Okara if you're a smaller team that wants to act on AI visibility rather than build the largest dataset, or run it as a companion to a broader tracker above.

SE Visible: the most prompts for the money

SE Visible is SE Ranking's standalone AI visibility product. Basic costs $99/month, or $79/month billed annually, for 200 prompts refreshed daily across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. That's about 30,000 answers a month, several times most entry plans here, with a 10-day trial and an API.

It's a young product. Advanced analytics, reporting and user management are marked "coming soon", as is Claude, and there's no Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek or Meta AI. Monitoring runs in five languages. Packaging is confusing, since SE Ranking also sells GEO prompts inside its SEO plans and a separate AI Search add-on. The real site is visible.seranking.com; sevisible.com goes to an unrelated agency.

Pick it for high prompt volume on Google surfaces, ChatGPT and Perplexity, without enterprise features.

Otterly.AI: the cheapest start with fixed prompts

Otterly.AI Lite is $29/month ($25 billed annually) for 15 prompts tracked daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. On Lite, Gemini and Google AI Mode cost $9/month each and Claude $29. Lite includes 1,000 GEO URL audits a month, 3 recommendations a week and unlimited team members. The 7-day trial gives 50 prompts with no card.

The next step is steep: Standard is $189/month for 100 prompts, where API, MCP and unlimited workspaces begin. Add-on engines scale with the plan, so Claude on Premium costs $439/month extra. There's no Grok, DeepSeek or Meta AI.

You get fewer engines and far less enterprise depth than Profound, but your own prompts from day one. It's a cheap way to test whether tracking earns a budget.

Rankscale: the lowest entry price with every engine

Rankscale Essentials is $20/month (about $17 billed annually) and includes every engine it supports: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Grok (marked experimental), Claude, DeepSeek and Mistral. Search terms are unlimited; credits are not.

Essentials has 120 credits a month. Consumer-app engines cost 0.25 credits a run, so that's about 480 answers, for example 40 prompts on 3 engines once a month. Claude costs 2 credits and DeepSeek 1. For ongoing tracking, Pro is the real entry: $99/month for up to 4,800 answers (slightly above Profound's trial volume), with exports, sentiment, a team workspace and a 7-day trial. The REST API needs Growth at $385.

There's no content creation or automated fixes, just page audits and Scout recommendations. Pick it to spot-check many engines cheaply, or run Pro as a low-cost daily tracker.

How to choose

Broad engine coverage with a public price: AthenaHQ (11 engines, $245 to $295/month) or Rankshift (9 engines, $82 to $92/month). Model your credit use first; both shrink fast when every engine runs daily.
Profound's trial volume on your own prompts: Peec AI Starter (50 prompts, 3 engines, daily, $95/month) or SE Visible (200 prompts, 5 engines, $99/month).
A tiny test budget: Rankscale at $20/month for spot checks across 10 engines, or Otterly.AI at $29/month for 15 daily prompts on 4 engines.
Heading for an enterprise contract anyway: Scrunch Core at $250/month, with 9 engines, SSO and API on Enterprise.
Tracking data that never turns into action: Okara at $129/month (15 prompts on 3 engines) for a site audit, citation gaps, named outreach targets and fixes as pull requests, alone or next to a broader tracker.

For more options, see our full comparison of GEO tools.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Profound cost?

As of September 26, 2026, Profound doesn't publish a price for any paid brand plan. Brands get a free 7-day trial (50 preset prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews) or a demo for custom Enterprise pricing, which covers up to 9 engines. The only published figures are for agencies: $399/month per client workspace and $199/month for 5 extra trial workspaces.

Is there a free Profound alternative?

Two tools have free plans. AthenaHQ's Essential plan includes 300 credits (one credit is one AI response) on 5 engines, and Qwairy's free plan gives 120 credits with no card. Both are small, so treat them as tests. Rankshift offers the longest trial: 30 days, no card. Checked September 26, 2026.

What's the cheapest Profound alternative?

Rankscale Essentials at $20/month (about $17 billed annually) is the lowest published price and includes all 10 of its engines, but 120 credits a month buys only about 480 answers. Otterly.AI Lite at $29/month tracks 15 prompts daily on 4 engines. For daily multi-engine tracking, Rankshift Starter at $92/month ($82 annually) is the cheapest plan with 9 engines. Checked September 26, 2026.

Which Profound alternative tracks the most AI engines?

AthenaHQ Starter covers 11 engines ($295/month, or $245 billed annually), including Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI. Qwairy and Rankscale include 10 on every plan, with Claude, DeepSeek and Mistral run through APIs. Rankshift covers 9. Profound Enterprise tracks up to 9, including Exa Search, which none of these alternatives list.

Profound vs AthenaHQ: which is better?

It depends on how you buy. Profound is sales-led: a 7-day trial on 3 engines, then a custom Enterprise contract with up to 9 engines, SSO and API. AthenaHQ publishes a $295/month Starter plan ($245 annually) with 11 engines and content agents, but caps usage at 3,600 AI responses a month and keeps SSO on Enterprise. As of September 2026, AthenaHQ suits self-serve teams and Profound suits enterprise procurement.

Profound vs Peec AI: what's the difference?

Peec AI publishes its prices: $95/month for 50 prompts daily on 3 engines you choose, up to $495 for 350. Profound's trial also runs 50 prompts on 3 engines, but only for 7 days on preset prompts. Profound Enterprise tracks up to 9 engines; Peec's self-serve plans stop at 3 plus paid add-ons. Checked September 26, 2026.

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