Profound alternatives in 2026: 8 AI visibility tools compared

The best Profound alternatives in October 2026 are Peec AI, Otterly.AI, SE Visible, AthenaHQ, Scrunch, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Writesonic and InkieAI. Which one fits depends on your budget, the AI engines you care about, and whether you want a tracker or a tool that also does the work.

Many people go looking for alternatives for one reason. As of October 24, 2026, Profound's pricing page lists only a free 7-day trial and custom Enterprise pricing. The $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans that many comparison pages still quote are gone, so those pages are out of date.

My picks by need, with entry prices as of October 2026:

• Peec AI for daily tracking at a public price: $95 a month for 50 prompts on 3 engines you choose.
• Otterly.AI for the smallest budget: $29 a month for 15 prompts.
• SE Visible for the most tracked questions per dollar: 200 prompts from $99 a month.
• AthenaHQ for wide model coverage at a published price: 11 models for $295 a month.
• Scrunch for a second enterprise quote: 9 engines on Enterprise, or $250 a month to start.
• Ahrefs Brand Radar if you already pay for Ahrefs: custom prompts come with every paid plan.
• Writesonic for tracking plus AI-written articles: $79 a month billed annually.
• InkieAI for small teams that want the content and fixes done for them: $99 a month, 5 AI services, weekly checks.

Disclosure: I'm Ray, and I make InkieAI, one of the eight. I read every vendor's pricing page on October 24, 2026. I did not test these tools hands-on, so this compares what each vendor documents, not how well each one performs.

What is Profound, and what does it cost in October 2026?

Profound is an AI visibility platform. It checks how answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI features respond to the prompts you choose, and whether your brand appears. Its pricing page now leads with AI Marketer, an agent that researches, writes and reports. Next to it sit Agents, Answer Engine Insights, Agent Analytics, which measures AI traffic through CDN and analytics integrations, and Prompt Volumes, Profound's prompt-volume data.

Why older round-ups say $99 and $399

If you searched "Profound pricing" and saw a $99 Starter plan and a $399 Growth plan, those numbers are stale. Profound's own page no longer shows either plan. Round-ups published in 2026 still list them, including one HubSpot published on October 23, 2026, as do most pages ranking for "Profound alternatives" today. AI App Hunters reported the two-plan page on October 15.

I couldn't find what Profound offers customers on the old plans. If that's you, ask before your next renewal.

When is Profound still the right choice?

For some teams, Profound is still the right pick. Engine breadth is the first reason: 9 engines on Enterprise, including Claude, DeepSeek, Copilot and Exa Search, plus ChatGPT Shopping. Among the alternatives, Scrunch and Writesonic reach 9 engines only on their own custom Enterprise plans.

Demand data is the second. Prompt Volumes puts prompt-volume data next to your tracking. The closest thing here is Ahrefs' AI Visibility Index, which models more than 496 million prompts from keyword data.

Security and agents are the third. Enterprise includes SSO/SAML, SOC 2, an API, exports and dedicated support, and AI Marketer researches, writes and reports. If your security team requires SSO and you want one vendor for tracking, content and AI traffic, Profound is built for that.

Why do teams look for Profound alternatives?

There is no self-serve price. Custom pricing means you need a quote, and a sales process, before you know whether Profound fits your budget. A founder comparing $95 and $99 plans can decide in an afternoon.

The product is aimed at enterprises. SSO, SOC 2, dedicated support and 9 engines suit a large brand with a security review. A five-person team may pay for capacity it never uses.

The trial is short and narrow: 7 days, 3 engines, 50 prompts, and no history, exports or API. Perplexity and Google AI Mode aren't in it. A week is little data, because answers change from run to run. In SparkToro's study of 2,961 runs, there was less than a 1 in 100 chance that ChatGPT or Google's AI returned the same brand list twice. SparkToro ran it with Gumshoe.ai, which sells AI tracking.

Profound alternatives compared

Monthly prices as listed on each vendor's page on October 24, 2026. "Questions" means tracked prompts. Each tool name links to the page I read.

For the wider market, see my comparison of the best AI visibility tools.

The 8 Profound alternatives, one by one

Peec AI

Peec AI is the closest match to Profound's old self-serve plans. Starter costs $95 a month for 50 prompts, Pro $245 for 150, and Advanced $495 for 350 with multi-country tracking. Every self-serve plan tracks 3 models of your choice daily, with unlimited users. A fourth model costs $35 a month extra on Starter.

Peec names ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot as engines, with Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and others as upgrades or on Enterprise. It collects most answers by scraping each engine's interface, per its AI instructions page.

Against Profound, you get a public price and recommended actions across owned pages, editorial, reference sites and user-generated content, plus source gap analysis, crawlability checks, an API and MCP. You get 3 engines at entry, and Peec says it "does not write or publish content itself". It suits marketers with an in-house writer. More in Peec AI alternatives.

Otterly.AI

Otterly.AI has the lowest entry price here. Lite costs $29 a month ($25 billed annually) for 15 prompts, Standard $189 for 100, and Premium $489 for 400. ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot are included. AI Mode and Gemini cost $9 a month each on Lite, and Claude $29.

Against Profound, it's cheap to try and covers Perplexity and Copilot, which Profound's trial lacks. It runs daily, with GEO audits and a crawlability audit, which checks the access issues in my guide to AI crawlers and robots.txt. But 15 prompts is a small sample, Lite gives 3 recommendations a week, and Otterly writes no content. It suits solo marketers who want a cheap first look, on monthly plans you can cancel anytime. More in Otterly.AI pricing and alternatives.

AthenaHQ

AthenaHQ has a free Essential tier with 300 credits, worth $25, on ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter costs $295 a month for 3,600 credits across 11 models, where 1 credit is 1 AI response. Prompts and competitors are unlimited.

It comes closest to Profound's agent pitch at a published price: on-page and off-page actions, a content optimization agent, and GA4 and Search Console integration. The API and extra credits cost more. Watch the credits. Ten prompts on all 11 models once a day for 30 days is 3,300 answers, nearly the whole allowance. It suits teams that want broad coverage and suggested actions without an enterprise contract.

Scrunch

Scrunch Core costs $250 a month for 125 prompts and 5,000 responses a month on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot. It includes 5 site audits, 1 page optimization a month, basic content generation and 5 users. Running all 125 prompts on all 4 engines uses 500 responses, so the cap covers about 10 full runs a month.

Enterprise is custom and covers 9 engines, adding Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, AI Mode and Grok, plus an Agent Experience Platform (AXP), an API and SSO. That makes Scrunch the natural second quote next to Profound Enterprise. Scrunch lists Meta AI and Grok, which Profound doesn't; Profound lists DeepSeek and Exa Search, which Scrunch doesn't. It suits mid-size and enterprise teams.

SE Visible

SE Visible, from SE Ranking, starts at $99 a month for 200 prompts, about 30,000 answers a month and 3 projects. Core starts at $189 for 450 prompts. It tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews daily, collecting answers through each engine's browser interface, and says Claude "will be added soon".

Against Profound, you get far more questions at a visible price and a 10-day trial. It skips Perplexity and Copilot and only tracks: data, sources and sentiment, with no content writing. It suits SEO teams and small agencies who do the work themselves.

Ahrefs Brand Radar

Ahrefs Brand Radar includes Custom Prompts in every paid Ahrefs plan: 5 daily prompts on Lite, 10 on Standard, 20 on Advanced, with Claude available. Add-on packages start at €47 a month. The AI Visibility Index, at €179 a month, models more than 496 million prompts from Ahrefs' keyword data across six engines, re-tested monthly. Ahrefs showed me euros because I'm in Sweden, so check the page from your country.

The Index is the closest thing here to Profound's Prompt Volumes. But 5 prompts on Lite is very few, and Brand Radar gives data and citations, not content or fixes. It suits SEO teams already paying for Ahrefs.

Writesonic

Writesonic Starter costs $79 a month billed annually for 50 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews, 15 AI articles a month, 10 site audits and 1 user. Growth, at $399 a month billed annually, has 200 prompts, 50 articles and a trial of its Action Center. The full Action Center and all 9 platforms are on custom Enterprise. There's a free trial with no card.

Starter mirrors Profound's trial, with the same 50 prompts on the same 3 engines, but as an ongoing plan with articles included. It suits content teams who want tracking and an article generator in one place.

InkieAI

InkieAI is the tool I make, so weigh this section with that in mind. Inkie checks how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode answer the buyer questions you choose. It records whether each answer names your brand, recommends it, or cites a page you own, and which competitors and sources appear instead.

It turns the gaps into four kinds of work: new articles or pages it writes and publishes after you approve the plan and the copy, exact edits you apply to existing pages, website fixes such as crawler access, and outside sources AI already cites. It checks the work is live, re-checks the affected questions and reports what changed, without claiming it caused the change.

Start costs $99 a month, or $79 billed annually, for 1 brand, 30 questions, weekly checks and up to 10 new articles or pages a month. Grow, at $299, checks 100 questions every 3 days. Every plan includes all five services, per the pricing page. The 7-day trial needs a card.

The limits are real. Inkie doesn't track Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek or Meta AI. Start checks weekly where most trackers check daily, and 30 questions is fewer per dollar than SE Visible or Scrunch. There's no prompt-volume data. Inkie was founded in 2026 and is run by one founder, me, in Stockholm. It suits small teams without a writer who are fine with weekly data.

Also consider: HubSpot AEO, Semrush and Rankscale

HubSpot AEO costs $50 a month after a 28-day free trial with no card, for 25 prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, and it's included in Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise. The Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit costs $99 a month with no trial for 25 daily prompts, and each extra user needs another $99 license. Rankscale prices answers in credits, with Pro at $99 a month, and covers Claude, DeepSeek and Copilot.

Peec AI vs Profound

Pick Peec if you want daily tracking at a price you can see and your team writes its own content. Pick Profound if you need 9 engines, a writing agent and enterprise security, and can go through a sales process. My guide to Peec AI alternatives compares Peec with the rest.

How to choose a Profound alternative

Start with who will act on the data. If nobody has time to write pages or fix the site, a cheaper tracker only gives you a clearer view of the same problem.

Before you pick, look at what the answers say about you today. You can check what ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity say about you with Inkie's free report: 5 buyer questions across 5 AI services, no card.

None of these tools can make an answer name you. Getting named, recommended or cited depends on your pages and what other sites say about you, and nobody can guarantee any of the three. I cover what's documented in how to get cited by ChatGPT.

How to switch from Profound without losing your baseline

1. Export your history while you still have access. Profound Enterprise includes all-time history and CSV and JSON exports. The trial has neither, so copy your prompt list by hand.
2. Write down your setup: exact prompts, competitors, engines, language and region. Small wording changes produce different answers.
3. Load the same prompts into the new tool and match engines where you can. Where an engine is missing, note the gap instead of comparing totals.
4. Run the new tool for a few weeks, ideally alongside the old one, before you compare numbers. Treat its first readings as a new baseline.
5. Compare per question and per engine, and keep named, recommended and cited separate.

Why wait? Answers move even when nothing about your brand changes. Envoyra, a vendor in this space, ran 170 questions a week per assistant for four weeks, and 79% of question and assistant pairs changed their brand list at least once, Search Engine Land reported. Leaders stayed steady, though: HubSpot appeared in 305 of 368 small-business CRM answers.

Tools also collect differently. Peec scrapes most engines' interfaces, SE Visible uses the browser interface, and vendors count runs differently. A drop on the day you switch is more likely a method change than a real loss.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Profound cost?

As of October 24, 2026, Profound's pricing page lists no price. It offers a free 7-day trial and custom Enterprise pricing, so you need a quote. The $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans quoted in many round-ups are no longer on the page.

What is Profound AI?

Profound is an AI visibility platform that tracks how answer engines such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI features respond to prompts about your market. It leads with AI Marketer, an agent that researches, writes and reports. Enterprise covers up to 9 engines and adds history, exports, an API, SSO and SOC 2.

Who are Profound's competitors?

Profound's main competitors in 2026 are Peec AI, Otterly.AI, AthenaHQ, Scrunch, SE Visible, Ahrefs Brand Radar, Writesonic, HubSpot AEO, the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Rankscale and InkieAI. Scrunch is closest on enterprise features. Peec AI is the closest self-serve tracker.

Is Profound worth it?

Profound is worth a quote if you need 9 engines, prompt-volume data, a writing agent, SSO and SOC 2, and have an enterprise budget. A small team that wants a published price can start elsewhere from $29 to $295 a month. The 7-day trial lets you judge the product, though it covers only 3 engines.

Is there a free alternative to Profound?

No free tool matches Profound, but several let you start free. AthenaHQ has a free tier with $25 of credit, Ahrefs has a free AI visibility checker, and HubSpot AEO offers a 28-day trial with no card. Inkie's free report checks 5 buyer questions across 5 AI services, also with no card.

Does Profound have a free trial?

Yes. Profound's trial is free for 7 days and runs 50 prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with limited AI Marketer credits, 1 language, 1 region and 5 Prompt Volumes searches. It includes no history, exports or API.

Your next step

Before you book a sales call or start a trial, find out where you stand. Get Inkie's free AI visibility report to see how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews and AI Mode answer 5 of your buyer questions, no card needed. Then use the tables above, or my comparison of the best AI visibility tools, to pick the tool that fits your budget and the work you can take on.