12 Best Profound AI Alternatives in 2026 (With New Pricing)

Profound raised a $180M Series D in September 2026 and removed its self-serve plans the same month. Using it now means an Enterprise contract.

Here are 12 alternatives, compared on price, AI engines and what each tool does once it finds a problem. Pricing checked September 27, 2026.

Disclosure: we build Orchly, an agentic AI search optimization platform, so we're one of the tools here. We've signed up for and used most of the others ourselves, and some of what we share comes from customers who switched to us from them. Either way, we've tried to give you the good and the bad on every tool, ours included, so you can make the right call.

Profound alternatives compared (September 2026)

1. Orchly: best agentic Profound alternative to improve AI visibility

Orchly tracks how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and other engines describe your brand, puts your Search Console and GA4 data next to it, then runs agents that write, publish, earn links and fix technical issues.

Profound and most tools on this list started as monitors and added actions later. Orchly was built around the loop: find the gap, do the work, measure the change.

AI visibility from real answers

• Real answers, not API responses. Orchly's AI search monitoring runs prompts through the engines' own interfaces from different locations, so you see what buyers see. ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews are included, with Gemini, AI Mode, Claude and Grok as add-ons.
• Prompts split the way buyers ask. Every prompt is tagged branded or non-branded and by intent: commercial, informational or transactional. You might win "Orchly vs Profound" and vanish on "best AI visibility tool for agencies," which is where new buyers come from.

• Prompt research. Orchly suggests real questions from your market, site and competitors, so you track prompts that match demand instead of guessing.

Citations and Mention Gap

• Every source AI cites. Domains and URLs split by your pages, competitors, editorial, UGC and reference sites.

• Mention Gap. For each top-cited source, see which competitors it mentions and whether it mentions you. A listicle naming three competitors but not you is your next outreach target.

Perception and fact check

• The reasons behind the sentiment score. The attributes AI links to your brand, where each competitor stands on them, and the objections AI raises when buyers compare you.

• Fact check against your Brand Brain. Brand Brain holds your products, pricing, audience and positioning, and grows as the agents learn your business. Every AI claim is checked against it, so wrong pricing or a "missing" feature gets flagged for review.

Query fan-outs and AI shopping

• Query fan-outs. Orchly shows the background searches ChatGPT runs before it answers, so you know what your content has to rank for to get pulled in.

• AI shopping visibility. For e-commerce brands, Orchly tracks which products appear in ChatGPT shopping answers, the price AI quotes against your catalog price, and which competing products show up instead.

Organic search and revenue next to AI data

• Search Console and GA4 in one view. Orchly pulls clicks, impressions, conversions and revenue from Google Search Console and GA4, plus an indexing report. Pages Google hasn't indexed rarely reach AI Overviews either.

• Bots vs real visitors. AI traffic analytics separate AI bot crawls from the people ChatGPT and Perplexity actually send you. Pro and above.

• Page 360 puts each URL's Search Console, GA4 and AI visibility data on one screen, so you can see which pages carry you and which are slipping.

Agents that do the work

• Content Agent turns your data into tasks: new articles to write and pages to refresh. Approve one, and the AI article writer drafts it in your voice and publishes to WordPress, Webflow, Framer, Wix, Sanity or Ghost.

• Activation Agent finds the publishers, Reddit threads, YouTube videos and fresh SERP pages that mention you or your competitors, then runs link building and citation outreach from your Gmail, Zoho Mail or SMTP account.

• Site Health Agent audits every page for technical SEO and AI search issues, like blocked AI crawlers or missing schema, and ranks the fixes.

• Custom agents. Describe the job in chat and Orchly builds the agent, like "Slack me when AI visibility drops 10%" or "refresh pages losing clicks and publish to WordPress." Pro and above.

Orchly vs Profound at a glance

Where Orchly falls short

• Fewer prompts at the entry price. Essential tracks 25 prompts, while Peec's Starter tracks 50.
• Gemini, AI Mode, Claude and Grok cost extra below Enterprise.
• No consumer prompt-volume panel like Profound's Prompt Volumes.
• Essential is a single-user plan. Teams need Pro for 5 seats.

Pricing: Essential $49/month (25 prompts, 20 articles, 1 site, 1 user). Pro $125/month (100 prompts, 50 articles, 3 sites, 5 users, AI traffic analytics, custom agents). 7-day free trial, and yearly billing saves 25%.
Best for: SaaS, e-commerce and agency teams who want AI visibility, organic data and the execution in one tool.

See Orchly pricing or start a free trial.

2. Peec AI: best for clean, affordable prompt tracking

Peec AI is the name that appears on almost every Profound alternatives list, and ChatGPT and Google AI Mode recommend it most often for this query. It does one job well: accurate share of voice, position and source tracking, scraped from the engines' interfaces, in a dashboard that's easy to share.

• What it does better than Profound. Transparent self-serve pricing, unlimited seats on every plan, and support for many countries and languages.
• Source gaps and actions. Peec groups citations into owned, editorial, reference and UGC sources and scores the opportunities.
• Recent additions. In September 2026 Peec added Brand Perception, with attributes, objections and fact checks, plus AI referral tracking through GA4.
• Where it falls short. Every self-serve plan tracks only 3 engines, and each extra engine is a paid add-on. Claude and Grok are premium upgrades on higher tiers or Enterprise. There's still no content creation, outreach, Search Console data or site audit.

Pricing: Starter from about €85/month (€70 billed yearly) for 50 prompts. Pro about €205/month for 150 prompts. Enterprise custom.
Best for: SEO teams and agencies that want reliable tracking on 3 engines and will do the optimization work in other tools.

3. Otterly.AI: best budget pick for small teams

Otterly is the cheapest credible tool on this list. For $29 a month you get 15 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with unlimited seats and a built-in GEO audit.

• What it does better than Profound. A real entry plan at a small-team price, daily refresh, and coverage in 50+ countries.
• Recent additions. Otterly now offers agent analytics for AI bot traffic, plus API and MCP access from the Standard plan.
• Where it falls short. Claude, Gemini and Google AI Mode are paid add-ons, so full engine coverage on 100 prompts can pass $300 a month. There's no content creation, no organic traffic or conversion data, and some users report slow refreshes.

Pricing: Lite $29/month (15 prompts), Standard $189/month (100 prompts), Premium $489/month (400 prompts).
Best for: founders, small brands and freelancers who need to know whether AI mentions them at all.

4. AthenaHQ: best for wide engine coverage at a published price

AthenaHQ tracks up to 11 models, including Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral, on a $295 plan anyone can buy. It pairs tracking with an Action Center that suggests on-page and off-page fixes.

• What it does better than Profound. Broad engine coverage without an enterprise contract, unlimited seats, and a free tier with 5 engines.
• Action Center. Recommendations tied to specific prompts, plus a content optimization agent.
• Where it falls short. Pricing is credit based (1 credit is 1 AI response), and G2 reviewers report using a month's credits in the first week. There's nothing between the free tier and $295. Hallucination detection, the knowledge base and multi-region tracking are Enterprise only.

Pricing: Free tier (300 credits). Starter $295/month (3,600 credits, 11 models). Enterprise custom.
Best for: mid-market growth teams that want many engines and guided actions, and can manage credit usage.

5. Scrunch: best for technical AEO and AI crawler control

Scrunch focuses on the technical side of AI search: how AI agents crawl your site and what they receive. Its Agent Experience Platform (AXP) serves AI-optimized versions of your pages to bots.

• What it does better than Profound. Agent traffic monitoring, persona-based prompts, and a published price for self-serve plans.
• Data collection. Scrunch says it uses a mix of browser automation and official APIs.
• Where it falls short. The floor is $250 a month on yearly billing. Reviewers note that AXP is "closer to an engineering project than a login," and there's no content creation or outreach.

Pricing: Starter $300/month ($250 billed yearly) with 350 prompts and 3 seats. Growth $500/month. Enterprise custom.
Best for: mid-market and enterprise teams with engineers who own the website.

6. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: best if you already live in Semrush

If your team already runs keyword research, audits and rank tracking in Semrush, its AI Visibility Toolkit adds AI answers without another vendor. It covers ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity.

• What it does better than Profound. Organic SEO data, a prompt research database with volume estimates, and an AI search site audit, all in one suite.
• Competitor gaps. Shows prompts where competitors are cited and you aren't.
• Where it falls short. The standalone toolkit tracks 25 prompts per domain, and Brand Performance updates weekly. Pricing is per domain, so agencies pay again for every client. It recommends fixes but doesn't do them.

Pricing: AI Visibility Toolkit $99/month per domain, billed yearly. Semrush One bundles start at $199/month.
Best for: SEO teams already paying for Semrush.

7. Ahrefs Brand Radar: best for market-wide AI research

Brand Radar works differently from the rest of this list. Instead of tracking only the prompts you add, it looks up any brand across an index of more than 470 million prompts modeled from Ahrefs' keyword data.

• What it does better than Profound. Instant competitive research without setup, plus Ahrefs' backlink and content tools next to it.
• Coverage. Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot.
• Where it falls short. The prompt index is synthetic, not real user conversations. Tracking your own prompts costs extra and needs a paid Ahrefs plan, and reviewers note that checks run out fast when you track many engines and locations.

Pricing: AI Visibility Index from $199/month per platform, or $699/month for all. Custom prompts from $50/month need an Ahrefs plan.
Best for: Ahrefs users doing competitor and category research.

8. Writesonic: best for content teams that want tracking bundled in

Writesonic began as an AI writer and added GEO tracking. You get prompt tracking, citation gaps and an Action Center, with content creation and WordPress publishing in the same account.

• What it does better than Profound. Content creation and publishing on self-serve plans, plus Google Search Console on every tier.
• Where it falls short. Plans below Enterprise track only ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Perplexity and Claude need Enterprise. Sentiment starts on the $399 Growth plan, and reviewers say the GEO module is shallower than dedicated tracking tools.

Pricing: Starter $79/month billed yearly (50 prompts, 1 user). Basic $199/month. Growth $399/month.
Best for: content teams whose main job is producing articles.

9. Promptwatch: best mid-priced tool with crawler logs

Promptwatch covers a lot for a mid-market price: prompt tracking, AI crawler logs via a CDN connection, answer gap analysis, content generation and, on higher plans, AI shopping insights.

• What it does better than Profound. Crawler logs on every tier, Search Console attribution, and a self-serve price.
• Where it falls short. The entry plan tracks 4 of its 9 engines at a time, with 1 seat. Reviewers say generated content needs heavy editing, and shopping tracking starts at $579 a month.

Pricing: Essential $95/month (50 prompts, 4 models). Professional $245/month. Business $579/month.
Best for: growth teams that want tracking, bot logs and content in one tool.

10. SE Visible by SE Ranking: best for agencies with many brands

SE Ranking sells AI search tracking two ways: as an add-on to its SEO platform, and as SE Visible, a standalone tool priced by number of brands. Both cover Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

• What it does better than Profound. Multi-brand plans with unlimited seats, linked and unlinked mention tracking, and a full SEO suite if you need it.
• Where it falls short. Claude is still listed as coming soon, there's no Grok or Copilot, and it tracks without creating content or doing outreach.

Pricing: SE Visible from $99/month (200 prompts, 3 brands). AI Search add-on for SE Ranking users from about $89/month.
Best for: SEO agencies already using SE Ranking.

11. Rankscale: best for granular, low-cost engine coverage

Rankscale gives you the most control for the least money. You pick engines and refresh frequency per prompt, from hourly to monthly, and pay in credits that roll over. It also shows query fan-outs and tracks sponsored placements.

• What it does better than Profound. 17+ engines at a low entry price, configurable cadence and a REST API.
• Where it falls short. Credits add up quickly when you track many engines daily. Dashboards are sparse, there's no reporting layer, and it shows what's wrong without helping fix it.

Pricing: Essentials from $20/month. Pro $99/month (1,200 credits). Growth $385/month.
Best for: hands-on SEO leads who want raw multi-engine data cheaply.

12. Goodie: best for retail and SKU-level AI shopping

Goodie is built for commerce. On higher plans it tracks product-level visibility in AI shopping answers, including Amazon's Alexa and Walmart's Sparky, and ties AI visibility to revenue with GA4 and Search Console.

• What it does better than Profound. Retail assistant coverage, revenue attribution, an AEO content writer and a named strategist on its plans.
• Where it falls short. The entry price is $399 a month, Gemini and SKU tracking start at $999, and there's no API on self-serve plans.

Pricing: Core $399/month (5 models, 120 prompts). Pro $999/month. Enterprise custom.
Best for: e-commerce and retail brands with budget for managed AI shopping visibility.

What changed with Profound in September 2026

Most Profound alternatives articles still quote a $99 Starter plan and a $399 Growth plan. Those plans are gone.

• Trial or Enterprise only. The pricing page now lists a free 7-day trial (50 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, no history, exports or API) and a custom-priced Enterprise plan.
• All 9 engines need Enterprise. Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, DeepSeek and Google AI Mode sit behind a sales call.
• It does more than monitor now. AI Marketer agents draft and publish content, and Search Console and GA4 connect. Agent work runs on credits, and there's still no rank tracker, keyword research or site audit.

How we picked these tools

We used Orchly as our own team does. For every other tool we checked the live pricing page and product docs and read recent G2, Capterra and independent reviews. We scored each one on:

• How answers are collected: real engine interfaces or model APIs, which often return different answers.
• Depth past a sentiment score: attributes, objections and factual errors.
• Organic data: Search Console, GA4 and rankings next to AI visibility.
• Ability to act: content, outreach and technical fixes, not only recommendations.
• What the entry plan really includes: engines, prompts and seats.

Which Profound alternative should you choose?

• You want the data and the fixes in one tool: Orchly.
• You only need tracking and will act on it yourself: Peec AI.
• You're on a tight budget: Otterly.AI.
• Your SEO team already lives in Semrush or Ahrefs: their AI add-ons.
• You're a Fortune 500 brand with a team to run it: Profound is still a strong choice.

AI answers shift often, so judge any tool by the trend over several weeks, not a single reading.