What is the best Profound alternative?

Cituna. It tracks all 7 AI engines, writes the fix for every gap, shows which AI crawlers read your pages and publishes to your CMS, from $49 a month billed monthly, with a 3-day free trial that needs a card. By need: Promptwatch for MCP and API on a $95 plan, AthenaHQ for a free plan, Otterly.AI for a $29 entry, Peec AI for unlimited users, Rankscale for more than 17 engines, and Semrush or Ahrefs Brand Radar for teams already in those suites.

Does Profound publish its prices?

For brands, no. Its pricing page, read on 24 September 2026, shows a 7-day free trial and then an Enterprise plan priced by quote. The $99 Starter and $399 Growth brand plans it listed earlier in 2026 are no longer there. For agencies it lists full client workspaces at $399 a month each, as an add-on to Agency Growth, whose own price is not published.

Is there a free Profound alternative?

Only AthenaHQ lists a free plan: Essential, with $25 of free credit (300 credits), and its page does not say whether the credit renews. The others offer trials: Cituna 3 days with a card, Promptwatch, Scrunch and Rankscale 7 days, SE Visible 10 days, and Otterly.AI and Peec AI with a length not stated. Ahrefs Brand Radar and the Semrush toolkit have no free trial.

Which Profound alternative tracks the most AI engines?

Rankscale says it tracks more than 17 AI engines. AthenaHQ's Starter plan covers 11 models. Cituna covers 7 on every plan and Ahrefs Brand Radar 7 platforms, while Profound's Enterprise plan lists up to 9 engines.

Which Profound alternatives track Claude and Grok without an Enterprise contract?

Cituna checks both every day from its $49 Starter plan. AthenaHQ includes both on its $295 Starter, Rankscale includes both on credits from $99, and Promptwatch lets you pick them among its four models at $95. Peec AI and Scrunch list Claude and Grok on their custom Enterprise plans, and Otterly.AI sells Claude as an add-on.

Who publishes this comparison?

The Rank Master editorial team. Every rival price links to the vendor's own page with the date it was read, and the ranking rules are set out under How we chose.

10 Best Profound Alternatives in 2026, With Prices

The best Profound alternative for a B2B team is Cituna: it tracks all 7 AI engines, writes the fix for every gap, shows which AI crawlers read your pages and publishes to your CMS, from $49 a month. Starter covers 1 brand and 10 buyer prompts, billed monthly. For other needs, Promptwatch puts MCP and API access on a $95 first plan, AthenaHQ starts free and then covers 11 models at $295, and Scrunch adds content work for larger brands at $250. Otterly.AI, Peec AI and Rankscale pair tracking with audits or recommendations from $29 to $99 a month, Semrush and Ahrefs Brand Radar suit teams already in those suites, and SE Visible suits PR reporting.

Profound is the baseline, not an entry. To have a team get your product recommended by the engines buyers ask first, book a 30-minute call.

The 10 side by side

"Read" is the date the vendor's page was recorded.

#	Tool	Best for	Entry price (billed monthly)	AI engines on the entry plan	Free plan or trial	Read
1	Cituna	Fixes written and published for each gap	$49/month (Starter)	7, checked daily	3-day trial, card required	22 Oct 2026
2	Promptwatch	MCP and API on the first plan	$95/month (Essential)	4 models you choose	7-day free trial	8 Oct 2026
3	Scrunch	Mid-size and enterprise brands	$250/month (Core)	4	7-day trial of Core	24 Sep 2026
4	AthenaHQ	A free plan, then 11 models	$295/month (Starter)	11 models	Free Essential plan	24 Sep 2026
5	Otterly.AI	A few prompts on a small budget	$29/month (Lite)	4, with 3 more as add-ons	Free trial, length not stated	24 Sep 2026
6	Peec AI	A whole team on one account	$95/month (Starter)	3 models of your choice	Free trial, length not stated	17 Oct 2026
7	Rankscale	Engines other tools skip	$99/month (Pro)	More than 17, paid in credits	7-day trial of Pro	17 Oct 2026
8	Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit	Teams already on Semrush	$99/month	4	No free trial of the toolkit	24 Sep 2026
9	Ahrefs Brand Radar	Benchmarking an established brand	From $50/month (custom prompts)	7 platforms, metered in checks	No free trial	24 Sep 2026
10	SE Visible	Marketing and PR reporting	$99/month (Basic)	5	10-day free trial	24 Sep 2026

Why teams look for a Profound alternative

Profound is a capable enterprise platform. The reasons teams shop around are about access, not data quality:

There is nothing to buy without a sales call. Earlier in 2026 Profound listed self-serve brand plans, a $99 Starter and a $399 Growth. By our read of its pricing page on 24 September 2026 they were gone: a brand gets a 7-day free trial, then an Enterprise contract priced by quote. A team with a monthly budget line rather than a procurement cycle has no plan to pick.
The trial shows Profound's prompts, not yours. It runs 50 prompts a day on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews from a recommended set that cannot be customised, so you see a view of your category rather than your own buyer questions.
Most engines wait for the contract. The Enterprise plan lists up to 9 answer engines, and the trial covers 3. B2B buyers who research in Claude, Perplexity or Google AI Mode are outside the trial.
Agents run on credits. AI Marketer comes with limited credits on the trial, and more than the allotment needs an Enterprise package.

How we chose these 10

This is a desk comparison of published pages, not a test of the tools. Every fact comes from each vendor's own pricing and feature pages on the dates in the table. How we handle rival claims is set out in our guide to SaaS alternatives and comparison pages.

The bar. A tool is on the list if all three hold:

Its pages say it tracks a brand's mentions or citations in at least three AI answer engines.
It publishes the price of at least one plan a team can buy without talking to sales.
Its pages were recorded within 30 days of this page's date.

All ten met the bar; Profound itself is not ranked.

The order. Profound's job is to track a brand in AI answers and then put agents to work on what it finds, so we ranked on what each tool does after it measures:

First group: the tool's pages name written fixes, content generation, articles or a content agent. These are Cituna, Promptwatch, Scrunch and AthenaHQ.
Second group: the pages name an audit, recommendations or a gap analysis, but not written content. These are Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Rankscale and Semrush.
Third group: reporting and benchmarking. These are Ahrefs Brand Radar and SE Visible.

Inside each group the lower first paid plan billed monthly comes first, so AthenaHQ's free plan and Rankscale's yearly-only Essentials do not count, and a tie goes to more engines on the entry plan. Nothing here is scored by opinion.

Profound, the baseline

Profound is an AI marketing platform built around AI search. Its Answer Engine Insights tracks how a brand and its competitors appear in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and other engines, and Prompt Volumes estimates what people ask AI assistants. An agent called AI Marketer uses that data to research, write and report, and Agent Analytics tracks traffic from AI sources.

On 24 September 2026 its pricing page showed brands a 7-day free trial with limited AI Marketer credits, then Enterprise by quote, listing up to 9 answer engines, an API and SAML SSO. For agencies, Agency Growth has no published base price, full client workspaces are a $399/month add-on each, and Agency Enterprise is custom.

Source: Profound's pricing page, read 24 September 2026.

1. Cituna: best for getting the fixes written, not only reported

Cituna checks seven AI engines every day (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode) with the questions buyers ask about a market, and records the brands each names and the pages it cites. For each gap it writes the fix, such as schema, FAQ markup, llms.txt files and articles, and can publish to WordPress, Shopify, Sanity, GitHub or any CMS by signed webhook. It joins its data to Google Search Console. Its MCP server gives Claude or another agent 22 read tools from Starter and 9 write tools on Pro that run scans, edit prompts and queue articles.

Best for: getting the fixes for AI visibility gaps written and published, read next to Search Console data, for up to 10 brands on one plan.

What it costs (read 22 October 2026): Starter is $49/month, billed monthly, for 1 brand, 10 buyer prompts checked daily on all seven engines, 30 AI-written articles a month and read-only API and MCP access. Pro is $119/month for 3 brands, 30 buyer prompts, alerts, competitor tracking and MCP write tools. Max is $399/month for 10 brands and 90 buyer prompts. The 3-day trial needs a card, covers 5 buyer prompts on all seven engines, becomes Starter unless cancelled, and does not include MCP.

Where it falls short: there is no free plan, and it does not track Microsoft Copilot. Starter tracks 10 buyer prompts for one brand, and competitor tracking is listed from Pro. Cancelling stops renewal but does not refund a partial month.

Start the Cituna free trial to see which engines name you.

Source: Cituna's pricing page and MCP page, read 22 October 2026, and SEO Autopilot page, read 17 October 2026.

2. Promptwatch: best for MCP and API access on a $95 first plan

Promptwatch tracks a brand in AI answers on four models you pick from OpenAI, Perplexity, Google, Claude, Gemini, Meta, DeepSeek and Grok, each checked daily. Its first paid plan already includes an MCP server and API access, and its integrations list includes Google Search Console. The plan above it adds Agent Analytics, its view of AI crawler visits, and AEO articles, which is why it sits in the content group here.

Best for: a team that wants an agent or a script to read its AI visibility data from the first paid plan, on a flat fee rather than credits.

What it costs (read 1 October 2026, plan contents re-read 8 October 2026): Essential is $95/month for 50 prompts and 6,000 responses on 4 models, in one project, with a 7-day free trial. Professional is $245/month for 150 prompts. Business is $579/month and is sold through a demo.

Where it falls short: every self-serve plan tracks four models at a time, so matching seven engines means choosing which ones to leave out. Essential holds one project, and articles start at $245.

Source: Promptwatch's pricing page, read 1 October and 8 October 2026.

3. Scrunch: best for several teams inside a larger brand

Scrunch monitors how a brand shows up in AI search, tracking prompts, citations, competitors and sentiment, and audits websites for how AI agents read them. Its feature list includes insights and recommendations, page optimisations and content generation. On Enterprise it adds the Agent Experience Platform, which serves AI agents an optimised version of a site without changing what people see. Scrunch's about page says it was acquired by Sitecore in 2026 and continues to operate as a standalone platform.

Best for: several teams inside a mid-size or enterprise brand; controlling what AI agents read on a site without changing the pages people see.

What it costs (read 24 September 2026): Core is $250/month and covers 125 unique prompts, 4 AI platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot), 5 site audits a month, 1 brand workspace and 5 users. Enterprise is custom. Agency Core is $500/month. The 7-day free trial is of Core, and it becomes a paid plan unless cancelled.

Where it falls short: there is no free plan, and Core covers four AI platforms, one country, one language and five competitors. API, MCP and Looker Studio access, SAML SSO and the Agent Experience Platform are Enterprise-only. Our Scrunch AI alternatives check ten tools against what Core leaves for Enterprise.

Source: Scrunch's pricing page and about page, read 24 September 2026.

4. AthenaHQ: best for a free plan, then 11 models

AthenaHQ tracks how a brand appears in AI search and suggests what to change. Its Starter plan covers 11 models, among them ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral, and usage is measured in credits, where one credit is one AI response. It adds source and competitor insights, content recommendations, a content optimisation agent, and integrations with Google Analytics and Search Console.

Best for: trying AI visibility tracking free before paying, then 11 models with content recommendations.

What it costs (read 24 September 2026): Essential is free, with $25 of free credit (300 credits) on ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot; the page does not say whether the credits renew. Starter is $295/month billed monthly, or $245/month billed annually, with 3,600 credits a month. Enterprise is custom.

Where it falls short: the only paid self-serve plan costs $295 a month. API access and extra credits are paid add-ons on Starter, priced on request. Tracking in multiple regions and languages is an Enterprise feature.

Our AthenaHQ alternatives set nine cheaper plans against its $295 Starter.

Source: AthenaHQ's plans page, read 24 September 2026.

5. Otterly.AI: best for a handful of prompts on a small budget

Otterly.AI runs your prompts daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with Google AI Mode, Gemini and Claude available as paid add-ons, and it reports brand mentions, website citations and a brand visibility index. It also audits URLs for generative engine optimisation and includes a prompt research tool.

Best for: a handful of prompts for a small team; several clients in separate workspaces on Standard.

What it costs (read 24 September 2026): Lite is $29/month billed monthly, or $25/month billed annually, for 15 search prompts, 4 AI engines, daily tracking and 3 recommendations a week. Standard is $189/month billed monthly, or $160/month billed annually. Google AI Mode or Gemini cost from $9/month and Claude from $29/month as add-ons, at Lite prices. The free trial's length is not stated.

Where it falls short: there is no free plan, Lite tracks 15 prompts, and Google AI Mode, Gemini and Claude cost extra on every plan. API, MCP and Agent Analytics start at $189.

Our Otterly.AI alternatives compare eight tools against Lite.

Source: Otterly.AI's pricing page, read 24 September 2026.

Peec AI tracks visibility, position and sentiment in AI answers across models such as ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. Plans are priced by the number of prompts tracked daily, and every plan includes unlimited users. It analyses the sources AI engines cite, suggests prompts, runs a gap analysis with recommended actions, and reports on AI crawler visits and referrals.

Best for: an SEO or content team that wants source analysis shared with everyone, since every plan has unlimited users.

What it costs (read 17 October 2026): Starter is $95/month billed monthly, or $80/month billed annually, for 50 prompts on 3 models in 1 project. Pro is $245/month for 150 prompts and Advanced $495/month for 350, billed monthly. The free trial's length is not stated.

Where it falls short: there is no free plan, and each extra model costs extra on every self-serve plan. API access, SSO and tracking of Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral are Enterprise-only.

Source: Peec AI's pricing page, read 17 October 2026.

7. Rankscale: best for engines other tools skip

Rankscale monitors brands across more than 17 AI engines, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Usage is paid for in credits: each check of one prompt on one engine costs a fraction of a credit, and you choose how often each prompt runs, from hourly to monthly. It adds citation and sentiment analysis, page audits of any URL and an MCP server on every plan.

Best for: engines that many tools skip, such as DeepSeek, Mistral and Grok; many client brands, with white-label dashboards on Growth.

What it costs (read 17 October 2026): Essentials is $17/month, billed yearly only ($204 a year), with 120 credits a month and 2 brand dashboards. Pro is $99/month billed monthly, or $84/month billed yearly, with 1,200 credits a month. Pro+ is $229/month and Growth $385/month. The 7-day trial of Pro has a limited credit allowance and becomes paid only if you continue.

Where it falls short: credits make costs harder to predict: a Claude check uses 2 credits and DeepSeek 1, against 0.25 for ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Mode. Essentials has no credit rollover, and the REST API starts on Pro+ ($229/month).

Source: Rankscale's pricing page, read 17 October 2026.

8. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: best for teams already on Semrush

Semrush's toolkit scores a brand's AI visibility against its competitors, tracks chosen prompts daily on platforms such as ChatGPT and Google AI Mode, researches prompts and topics, reports on sentiment and share of voice, and audits whether AI crawlers can read a site. Its Competitor Research shows the prompts and topics where rivals are cited and you are not.

Best for: adding AI visibility data to a Semrush account already used for SEO, and benchmarking share of voice against competitors.

What it costs (read 24 September 2026): the toolkit alone is $99/month, for 25 tracked prompts and 1 domain for Brand Performance reports. Semrush One Starter is $199/month billed monthly, or $165.17/month billed annually, and tracks 50 prompts daily alongside SEO. Enterprise is custom.

Where it falls short: Semrush says the toolkit has no free trial. The $99 toolkit tracks 25 prompts; 50 more cost $60 a month, and each extra domain for Brand Performance costs $99 a month. Each user needs their own toolkit licence. Brand Performance reports update weekly rather than daily.

Source: Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit article, read 24 September 2026.

9. Ahrefs Brand Radar: best for benchmarking an established brand

Brand Radar is Ahrefs' tool for measuring how often brands are mentioned and cited in AI answers. Its AI Visibility Index looks up any brand across a database of search-backed prompts that Ahrefs runs through ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, AI Overviews and AI Mode, with no setup. Custom Prompts tracks the questions you choose, including on Claude.

Best for: benchmarking an established brand's AI share of voice without setting up prompts, or adding a small prompt set to an Ahrefs account.

What it costs (read 24 September 2026): Custom prompts are $50, $100 or $250 a month for 2,500, 7,000 or 25,000 checks, with overage charged per check. The AI Visibility Index (Brand Radar AI) is from $199/month. Ahrefs Lite, at $129/month, includes 5 tracked AI prompts in Brand Radar.

Where it falls short: there is no free trial; Ahrefs' pricing FAQ points to Ahrefs Free instead. Ahrefs says the AI Visibility Index may have limited coverage for brands with little or no search volume. Each Claude update uses 8 checks. The Index's question sets are re-tested monthly on a 90-day reporting window, so it is not a daily feed.

Source: Ahrefs' pricing page and Brand Radar page, read 24 September 2026.

10. SE Visible: best for marketing and PR reporting

SE Visible is SE Ranking's AI visibility tool for brands and agencies. It tracks prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews, recording brand mentions, sentiment, competitors and the domains and URLs cited, from answers collected through each platform's own interface rather than its API. Plans are priced by prompts and projects, with unlimited users.

Best for: marketing and PR teams tracking how AI answers describe a brand, and finding the publications and forums AI engines cite.

What it costs (read 24 September 2026): Basic is $99/month billed monthly, or $79/month billed annually, for 200 prompts and 3 projects. Core is $189/month for 450 prompts and 5 projects, and Plus is $355/month for 1,000 prompts and 10 projects, sold through a demo. There is a 10-day free trial.

Where it falls short: there is no free plan. Country tracking covers seven countries in five languages. Claude, query fan-out analysis and local AI visibility are listed as coming soon.

Source: SE Visible's site, read 24 September 2026.

Which Profound alternative is best for a B2B SaaS team?

A SaaS team needs to see the engines its buyers shortlist in and then change the pages those engines read. Cituna checks seven engines daily from $49, writes the schema, FAQ or article for each gap and reads the result next to Search Console. If your growth engineers want the data in their own tools first, Promptwatch puts MCP and API access on its $95 plan, with four models you choose. If the whole marketing team needs a login, Peec AI includes unlimited users from $95.

Which Profound alternative is best for agencies?

Profound's own agency route is Agency Growth, with no published base price, plus $399 a month for each full client workspace. Among the alternatives, Cituna Max covers 10 brands and 90 buyer prompts for $399 a month in total, Rankscale Growth adds white-label dashboards and an agency programme at $385 a month, Scrunch Agency Core is $500 a month, and Otterly.AI Standard has unlimited workspaces at $189 a month.

Which Profound alternative is best on a small budget?

Cituna Starter is the site's pick on a budget: $49 a month for 10 prompts on all 7 AI engines, with the fix for every gap written. The lowest monthly bills are Otterly.AI Lite at $29 for 15 prompts on four engines and Ahrefs Brand Radar custom prompts from $50 for 2,500 checks. AthenaHQ's Essential plan is free with $25 of credit. Rankscale Essentials works out at $17 a month but is billed as $204 a year up front.

Which Profound alternative is best for enterprise?

Cituna, the site's pick for most teams, tops out at Max: $399 a month for 10 brands and 90 buyer prompts, on a published plan. If you need procurement, SSO and a contract, three of these have one: Scrunch Enterprise adds the Agent Experience Platform, SAML SSO, API and MCP; AthenaHQ Enterprise adds tracking across regions and languages; Peec AI Enterprise adds Claude, Grok, API access and SSO. If your need is demand-level prompt-volume data on a contract, Profound itself may still be the right call.

Which Profound alternative has an API or MCP server?

Cituna includes 22 MCP read tools from its $49 Starter plan and 9 write tools on Pro at $119, hosted at https://mcp.cituna.com/mcp or run locally with npx -y cituna-mcp. Promptwatch includes MCP and API access on its $95 Essential plan. Rankscale lists MCP on every plan, with its REST API from Pro+ at $229. Otterly.AI starts API and MCP on its $189 Standard plan, and Peec AI includes MCP on its paid plans but keeps its API for Enterprise. Our guide to AI visibility tools with an API or MCP server covers what a SaaS team can do with one.

What comes after the tool

A tool measures; being recommended takes work on the pages and sources the engines read. See our guides to getting your SaaS product recommended by AI engines and measuring brand visibility in ChatGPT, or the best AI visibility tools for the whole category. To have a team run that work, book a 30-minute call.

Some listings on this page may be paid placements.