Best Profound Alternatives for AI Visibility Tracking (2026)

Profound built its name as the AI-visibility tool enterprise marketing teams reach for once they realize nobody on the team can say, with a straight face, how often ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews mentions the brand. It's a good product. It's also priced and packaged for a specific buyer, and a lot of people searching for it aren't that buyer. This is a rundown of what Profound actually does, what it costs as of October 2026, and ten tools worth comparing it against, including the ones that undercut it badly on price and the ones that beat it on coverage.

We pulled every figure below from the vendors' own pricing and product pages between October 6 and October 9, 2026. Where a company doesn't publish a number, we say so instead of guessing.

At a glance

How we evaluated

We compared documented features and public pricing pages, not private test accounts or live demos. The criteria: engine coverage (how many AI platforms a plan actually tracks, not just mentions in marketing copy), prompt volume (how many queries you can monitor before hitting an overage or add-on), pricing transparency (is there a number on the page or do you need a sales call), data freshness (daily vs. weekly refresh), reporting and export options, and whether an API or MCP connection exists for pulling the data into your own stack. None of these vendors gave us a demo account, and we're not claiming hands-on test results. Everything here is what the vendor itself states publicly.

What Profound actually is

Profound (tryprofound.com) is an AI marketing platform built around Answer Engine Optimization: tracking how ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, Claude and Perplexity describe and cite a brand, then feeding that back into content and PR decisions. The product line goes beyond tracking. It includes an "AI Marketer" agent for drafting and optimizing content, Prompt Volumes for seeing what real people are asking AI assistants in a category, Agent Analytics for measuring traffic that AI systems send to a site, a Context Manager for feeding brand facts to the models, and a Shopping module for product visibility inside AI shopping flows.

The company says a third of the Fortune 100 use it, and named customers from recent coverage include Comcast, Walmart and the Estée Lauder Companies. In September 2026, Profound raised a $180 million Series D at a $1.8 billion valuation, led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, seven months after its Series C. TechCrunch reported the company had crossed 1,000 enterprise customers and tripled revenue in six months. That's the context worth knowing before you fill out the "Get a Demo" form: this is a company selling into big accounts, and its product and support structure reflect that.

Who it's for: enterprise marketing, comms and SEO teams that need RBAC, SCIM provisioning and SOC 2 compliance to get the tool past procurement, and that have budget for a named account rep rather than a self-serve checkout.

Profound pricing, as of October 2026

Profound doesn't publish self-serve pricing. There are two named tiers on its pricing page:

• Trial (free): limited AI Marketer credits, 50 prompts run per day for 7 days, visibility tracking across ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, unlimited seats. No access to Projects, ChatGPT Shopping, Agent Analytics, or Prompt Volumes history/exports/API.
• Enterprise (custom, contact sales): AI Marketer credits sized to the team, a tailored prompt-tracking plan, up to 9 answer engines tracked, SSO/SAML and SOC 2, and support tiers up to a dedicated specialist with a 24-hour SLA.

There's no middle tier. If the free trial's 50-prompts-a-day cap doesn't cover your brand, the next stop is a sales conversation, not a credit card. That gap is exactly why a lot of smaller and mid-market teams go looking for an alternative, and it's also why some of the names below (Semrush, Ahrefs) make sense if you already pay for their core SEO product and don't want a second vendor relationship for AI visibility.

The alternatives

1. Peec AI

Peec AI tracks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini (Claude isn't listed on its site as of this writing), with prompt tagging, competitive benchmarking, cross-country tracking, and AI-suggested prompts with search-volume context. It exports to CSV, connects to Looker Studio, and offers API access. Peec says it's used by 3,000+ brands and agencies and carries a 4.7/5 rating on G2.

Pricing isn't public. The site lists four named tiers, Starter, Pro, Advanced and Enterprise, each with a short description of who it's for, but no dollar figures or prompt caps are shown without starting a trial or booking a sales call.

Choose this over Profound if you're an SEO or content team, not a brand/comms team, and you want a tool scoped to SEO workflows (Looker Studio, keyword-style prompt data) rather than an AI-marketing agent platform with a shopping module and enterprise compliance stack you won't use.

Honest limitation: narrower engine coverage than most of this list (three engines, no Claude), and pricing opacity means you can't budget for it without talking to someone.

2. Otterly.AI

Otterly.AI is the clearest self-serve option here. Its Lite plan starts at $29/month for 15 search prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with daily tracking. Standard jumps to $189/month for 100 prompts, unlimited workspaces, API and MCP access (2,000 requests each), and a Google Data Studio connector. Premium runs $489/month for 400 prompts and higher API/MCP ceilings. Claude and Google AI Mode/Gemini are paid add-ons on top of any tier ($29-$439 and $9-$149 respectively, scaling with plan). Annual billing saves roughly 15% across tiers. Otterly reports 40,000+ users and was named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2025.

Choose this over Profound if you want to start paying today, on a card, at a price a solo consultant or small agency can justify, and you're fine assembling engine coverage piece by piece through add-ons rather than getting everything bundled.

Honest limitation: the core plans only include four engines; Claude and Gemini cost extra, which makes the "real" price higher than the headline $29 once you need full coverage.

3. Scrunch

Scrunch (formerly marketed as Scrunch AI) pairs visibility tracking with something most of this list doesn't offer: an Agent Experience Platform that builds a lightweight, machine-readable version of a site for AI agents to crawl, separate from the human-facing design. Monitoring covers ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode/Overviews and Meta, with prompt-level analytics, citation source mapping and crawl-traffic visibility. Scrunch names Lenovo, Skims, Crunchbase and Penn State as customers.

Pricing: Starter is $250/month billed annually ($300 month-to-month) with 3 user licenses, 350 custom prompts and 1,000 industry prompts. Growth is $417/month annually ($500 monthly) with 5 licenses and roughly double the prompt allotment. Enterprise is custom.

Choose this over Profound if you want the agent-readable-site piece (increasingly relevant as AI shopping and agent checkout flows grow) bundled with visibility tracking, at a published starting price instead of a quote.

Honest limitation: $250-300/month is a real step up from the Otterly/ZeroRank end of this list for a comparable feature set if the AXP agent-site layer isn't something you need yet.

4. AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ covers the most engines of anything on this list: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral, with more available on request. There's a genuinely free Essential tier (a $25 credit, roughly 300 credits), then Starter at $295/month for 3,600 credits with unlimited team members and competitor tracking, content recommendation agents, and integrations with Shopify, Webflow, GA4 and Search Console. Enterprise adds SAML SSO, audit logs and BI tool support (Tableau, Power BI, Looker) with white-glove setup.

Choose this over Profound if model coverage is the deciding factor, you want Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral tracked alongside the usual names, and you'd rather start free and scale than start with a demo call.

Honest limitation: the credit-based model means your actual usage (how many prompts, how often refreshed) is harder to estimate up front than a flat "X prompts per month" number.

5. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Semrush folded AI visibility tracking into its existing platform rather than selling it as a separate product. It draws on a database the company says covers 317 million-plus LLM prompts, tracks brand presence in AI answers, and benchmarks AI-search market share against competitors, with MCP integration for pulling data into other AI tools. We couldn't find a standalone price for the AI Visibility feature; it's part of a Semrush subscription, and as of October 2026 Semrush's plans are SEO ($117.33/mo), Starter ($165.17/mo), Pro+ ($248.17/mo) and Advanced ($455.67/mo), all billed annually.

Choose this over Profound if you already run Semrush for keyword and backlink tracking and would rather have AI visibility data in the same login and the same invoice than manage a second vendor relationship. We've covered how Semrush stacks up against Ahrefs on value if that comparison matters to you.

Honest limitation: it's an add-on to a broader SEO suite, not a purpose-built AI visibility product, so if you don't already need the rest of Semrush, you're paying for a lot you won't touch.

6. Ahrefs Brand Radar

Brand Radar tracks AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and AI Mode, and it goes further than most competitors by also tracking source signals on YouTube, TikTok and Reddit, which Ahrefs' own research (across 75,000 brands) found to be the strongest single signal for AI visibility. Custom Prompts, Ahrefs' tool for tracking specific buyer questions with daily refreshes, comes free with any paid Ahrefs plan starting at Lite ($129/month, 150 AI prompt checks/month). A standalone AI Visibility Index, searching across a reported 462 million-plus monthly prompts, starts at $199/month with 83 prompts/day and 2,500 checks/month before overage. Ahrefs added Grok tracking and quadrupled API limits in an April 2026 update.

Choose this over Profound if you already have Ahrefs for backlinks and keywords and want brand-mention tracking plus off-site source attribution (YouTube, Reddit, TikTok) in the same tool, without adding a dedicated AEO vendor.

Honest limitation: the free-with-plan version is capped fairly low (150-600 checks/month depending on tier); serious volume means the separate $199+/month AI Visibility Index.

7. ZeroRank

ZeroRank is the independent, newer entrant on this list, and it earns its spot on coverage and price, not because we're promoting it. Starter is $39/month for up to 2,400 AI answers analyzed monthly and 10 prompt-research runs across 17 tracked AI platforms, unlimited prompts and models, daily/weekly/monthly tracking cadence, API access and unlimited seats. Growth is $199/month (13,500 answers analyzed), Agency is $499/month (31,500 answers), and Enterprise is custom. Every tier gets all 17 platforms; there's no per-engine upsell structure like Otterly's.

Choose this over Profound if you want the broadest engine list at the lowest self-serve entry price on this page, with no add-on pricing games for Claude or Gemini.

Honest limitation: it's a newer product than Peec, Otterly or the established SEO-suite incumbents, so there's a thinner public track record (case studies, third-party reviews) to lean on when you're deciding.

8. Promptwatch

Promptwatch tracks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek, AI Overviews and Grok, and its standout feature is multi-language prompt tracking across English, Dutch, German, Portuguese and Japanese, plus offsite citation tracking (Reddit, YouTube) that feeds its visibility scoring. Essential is $95/month for 50 prompts across 4 tracked models and 6,000 responses a month. Professional is $245/month (150 prompts, 5 AEO articles/month). Business is $579/month (350 prompts, shopping insights, ads radar, audit logs).

Choose this over Profound if you're tracking visibility for a brand that operates in non-English markets and need prompt tracking in the local language rather than an English-only tool with translation as an afterthought.

Honest limitation: "track 4 models" is the stated cap across every tier here; you don't get more engine coverage by paying more, you get more prompts and response volume.

9. Rankscale

Rankscale covers 17-plus engines across every tier, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini and AI Overviews plus DeepSeek, Grok, Copilot and Mistral, and adds page audits with what it describes as 94-plus technical AI-readiness checkpoints. An Essentials tier starts around $20/month billed yearly for a single brand. Pro is $99/month (1,200 credits, tracking up to 4,800 AI answers, 10 brand dashboards, 50 page audits). Pro+ is $229/month (3,000 credits, REST API, 5 prompt researches). Growth is $385/month and Enterprise is $780/month, both adding dashboards, audits and white-label options.

Choose this over Profound if you want to start tracking one brand for under $25/month before deciding whether to commit to anything larger, with a clear, published upgrade path instead of a jump straight to a sales call.

Honest limitation: the credit system across plans makes direct comparison with flat-prompt competitors (Otterly, ZeroRank) take a bit of arithmetic.

10. SE Ranking (SE Visible)

SE Ranking built its AI visibility product as a semi-standalone platform called SE Visible, tracking ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, Perplexity and AI Overviews, with Claude listed as "coming soon" as of October 2026. Basic is $99/month for 200 prompts and roughly 30,000 AI answers monitored monthly across 3 projects. Core is $189/month (450 prompts, 5 projects). Plus is $355/month (1,000 prompts, 10 projects). A 10-day free trial is available.

Choose this over Profound if you're already running SE Ranking for rank tracking and want AI visibility billed and reported from the same account, at fixed, published per-project pricing rather than a custom quote.

Honest limitation: Claude coverage isn't live yet, which matters if a meaningful share of your AI traffic or citations comes from Claude specifically. If that's your main concern, read our Claude rank tracker roundup instead.

So which one actually replaces Profound

If budget is the real objection to Profound, Otterly.AI or ZeroRank get you tracking within the hour at under $40/month. If you need Profound's breadth of AI-engine coverage without the enterprise sales cycle, AthenaHQ or Rankscale cover more platforms than Profound's Enterprise tier (9 engines) at a fraction of the likely cost. If you already pay for Semrush or Ahrefs and the AI visibility piece is secondary to your core SEO work, use what's already bundled before adding a fourth login to your stack. And if you're actually the Fortune 100 marketing team Profound is built for, with a compliance team that needs SOC 2 paperwork and a buyer who wants a dedicated Slack channel with a 24-hour SLA, none of the ten alternatives above fully replace that, and you're probably going to end up on a call with Profound's sales team anyway.

Whichever tool you land on, the first week matters more than the plan tier: set up 15-20 real buyer prompts (not brand-name searches), check daily for the first two weeks, and compare what you see against the metrics framework in our AI visibility KPI guide before you decide the tool "isn't finding anything." Most of the time it's the prompt list, not the software.

Agencies have different needs (client workspaces, white-label reports); see the best AI visibility tools for agencies.

FAQ

Is there a free alternative to Profound?

AthenaHQ has a genuinely free Essential tier (a one-time $25 credit, roughly 300 credits), and Rankscale and ZeroRank both start under $40/month, which is close enough to free for most small teams to try without a budget approval process. Profound's own free trial is time-limited to 7 days at 50 prompts/day.

Does any alternative track more AI engines than Profound?

Yes. AthenaHQ (11 engines including Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral), ZeroRank and Rankscale (17 engines each) all claim broader coverage than Profound's Enterprise-tier maximum of 9.

Can I use Semrush or Ahrefs instead of a dedicated AI visibility tool?

If you already pay for either platform, their bundled AI tracking (Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit, Ahrefs' Brand Radar) covers the basics: brand mentions, competitor comparison, and in Ahrefs' case, off-site source tracking. Neither matches a dedicated tool's prompt-research depth or content-recommendation features, but for many teams "good enough and already paid for" beats a new line item.

What does Profound cost for a mid-market company, not an enterprise?

Profound doesn't publish a mid-market tier. The only options are the 7-day free trial and a custom Enterprise quote, which is exactly why smaller and mid-sized teams tend to land on Otterly, Peec, ZeroRank or Rankscale instead.

How do I know if a tool's "prompt" count is enough for my brand?

Start by listing the actual questions buyers ask in your category, not just your brand name, and count them. Most brands need 20-50 recurring prompts tracked across their top 2-3 engines to get a usable signal; see our guide on how to check if ChatGPT mentions your brand for the method.