Comparison
Alternatives to Profound for AI search visibility tracking
Six by choice: four that Perplexity named for our eight questions on 1 October 2026, and two inside tools you may already pay for. Which one you want turns on a single question: do you need a cheaper dashboard, or do you need someone to do the work?
Why people switch
Why people look for an alternative
Peec AI, Otterly, AthenaHQ, Scrunch AI, and the AI visibility features inside Semrush and Ahrefs. Which one you want turns on a single question: do you need a cheaper dashboard, or do you need someone to do the work?
Profound is the most established name in this category. People look for alternatives for three reasons — price, a tool broader than their actual need, or wanting the fixing done rather than reported. Those three reasons lead to three different products, and picking from the wrong group is the expensive mistake.
Which tool fits youWhat do you actually want instead?
01 · You wantThe same thing, cheaper
Otterly, Peec AI or AthenaHQ
Count the questions you need tracked and the markets you need them in before you look at a single price.
02 · You wantAI visibility inside a tool you already pay for
Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit or Ahrefs Brand Radar
A feature you already own and will actually open beats a better tool in a tab nobody visits.
03 · You wantThe work done, not reported
A managed subscription, ours or an agency’s
If nobody on your side is going to write the pages a dashboard tells you to write, a cheaper dashboard does not help.
Or you needMany markets and languages at once
Stay with Profound
Breadth is what enterprise pricing buys and the cheaper tools do not match it. When to stay
The alternatives
The alternatives, by the problem they solve
Seven options, each with the price our stored runs reported and the case where it replaces Profound.
-
Otterly.AI
otterly.aiRun A~$29/month
Run B~$29/month
Reported by Perplexity · 19 September 2026
- Replaces Profound when
- You are a small team or agency and want mentions, citations and sentiment across several countries at the lowest price
-
Peec AI
peec.aiRun A~$95/month
Run B~$89–$95/month
Reported by Perplexity · 19 September 2026
- Replaces Profound when
- You want prompt-level visibility, share of voice and citation analysis, and someone in-house will act on it
-
AthenaHQ
athenahq.aiRun A~$295/month
Run Bno price given
Reported by Perplexity · 19 September 2026
- Replaces Profound when
- You need the closest thing to a Profound-shaped platform — broad coverage, dashboards, recommendations — at a self-serve price
-
Scrunch AI
scrunch.comRun Ano price given
Run B~$250/month
Reported by Perplexity · 19 September 2026
- Replaces Profound when
- Your question is less “am I named” and more “how do AI systems describe us, and what do they see when they visit”
-
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
semrush.comRun A~$99/month per domain
Run Bno price given
Reported by Perplexity · 19 September 2026
- Replaces Profound when
- You already pay for Semrush and want AI visibility beside your existing keyword and competitor data
-
Ahrefs Brand Radar
ahrefs.com/brand-radar Bundled with Ahrefs plans
Our own characterisation; neither run priced it
- Replaces Profound when
- You want AI mentions connected to backlinks and broader brand research, with prompts derived from real search demand
-
Managed subscription
Bungad AEO
bungad.com$99 to $799a month, month to month
Our own plans, published on pricing
- Replaces Profound when
- You do not want a dashboard at all — you want the tracking done and a person doing part of the fixing
The same figures as one table
| Tool | Reported entry price | Replaces Profound when |
|---|---|---|
| Otterly.AI otterly.ai |
run A: ~$29/month run B: ~$29/month |
You are a small team or agency and want mentions, citations and sentiment across several countries at the lowest price |
| Peec AI peec.ai |
run A: ~$95/month run B: ~$89–$95/month |
You want prompt-level visibility, share of voice and citation analysis, and someone in-house will act on it |
| AthenaHQ athenahq.ai |
run A: ~$295/month run B: no price given |
You need the closest thing to a Profound-shaped platform — broad coverage, dashboards, recommendations — at a self-serve price |
| Scrunch AI scrunch.com |
run A: no price given run B: ~$250/month |
Your question is less “am I named” and more “how do AI systems describe us, and what do they see when they visit” |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit semrush.com |
run A: ~$99/month per domain run B: no price given |
You already pay for Semrush and want AI visibility beside your existing keyword and competitor data |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar ahrefs.com/ |
Bundled with Ahrefs plans | You want AI mentions connected to backlinks and broader brand research, with prompts derived from real search demand |
| Bungad AEO bungad.com |
$99 to $799/month | You do not want a dashboard at all — you want the tracking done and a person doing part of the fixing |
On these prices: we put this question to Perplexity twice on 19 September 2026, about a minute apart, and stored both answers. They do not report the same prices, so every cell above names its run rather than presenting one of them as what the engine said that day. In run A the numeric figures were Otterly ~$29, Peec AI ~$95, Semrush ~$99 per domain and AthenaHQ ~$295, with the sources it cited. In run B Otterly was ~$29 again, Peec AI widened to ~$89–$95, Scrunch AI acquired a price of ~$250, and Semrush and AthenaHQ were given no price at all. “Bundled with Ahrefs plans” is our own characterisation rather than either run’s, because neither run priced Ahrefs Brand Radar. We have not independently verified any vendor’s pricing and it changes often — check their own page. Our $99 is ours and it is exact.
What AI says
What the engines themselves currently recommend
“Alternatives to Profound for AI search visibility tracking”
We asked this through its API as one of the eight questions in our own published audit. It named, in order: Otterly.AI, Peec AI, AthenaHQ, Scrunch AI, the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit, Ahrefs Brand Radar and SE Ranking. It did not name Bungad.
This was the only one of our eight questions in which five competitors were named at once, and we were in none of them. If your criterion is “the tool the assistants already recommend”, this page is a list of them and we are not on it.
Three groups
The three groups, and how to tell which you are in
- Yes
- No
- Not in this group
| Group | Otterly.AI | Peec AI | AthenaHQ | Scrunch AI | Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Ahrefs Brand Radar | Bungad AEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 · The same thing, cheaper | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group |
| 02 · Inside a tool you already pay for | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group | Yes | Yes | Not in this group |
| 03 · The work done, not reported | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group | Not in this group | Managed subscription |
| Named by Perplexity for “alternatives to Profound”19 September 2026 | Named | Named | Named | Named | Named | Named | Not named |
Sources: the three groups as this page defines them below, and the Perplexity answer quoted in the section above. Scrunch AI answers a different question, how AI systems describe you, so it sits in none of the three.
You want the same thing, cheaper
Then you are choosing between Otterly, Peec AI and AthenaHQ, and the question is how much coverage you lose on the way down. Count the questions you need tracked and the markets you need them in before you look at a single price — that, rather than seats, is what every meter in this category actually charges for. A tracker that covers half your markets at a third of the cost is not a saving, it is a smaller purchase.
You want AI visibility inside a tool you already pay for
Then look at Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit or Ahrefs Brand Radar before buying anything new. The dedicated tools go deeper, but a feature you already own and will actually open beats a better tool in a tab nobody visits. The honest version of this advice costs us a sale and it is still the right advice.
You want the work done, not reported
This is the group a dashboard serves worst. If nobody on your side is going to write the pages a dashboard tells you to write, a cheaper dashboard does not help — it just costs less to ignore. That is the case for a managed subscription, ours or an agency’s. We compare all three shapes, with prices, on AEO tools compared and what AEO costs per month.
Us
Where we fit, and where we do not
Bungad is a managed monthly subscription: we track the questions, find why you are skipped, and fix the content and structured data. The report is in the app after every check rather than emailed, because the monthly report is written and tested but dormant. $99, $299 or $799 a month, month to month. We are the newest and least proven name on this page, and three things follow from that which you should weigh before switching to us:
We cover one engine automatically
Perplexity is the only engine we hold an API key for. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini adapters are built and awaiting keys; Google AI Overviews and Copilot have no public consumer API, and we do not track them on any plan. If you are leaving Profound for price but still need broad automated coverage, we are not your replacement — AthenaHQ is the closer fit.
We have no enterprise procurement story yet
If your purchase needs a security review, a DPA negotiation and a multi-year contract, stay where you are.
Our own audited visibility score is 0 out of 100
Published in full at our score, updated monthly whether it improves or not. We know of no other vendor that publishes theirs. That is either the most or the least reassuring thing here, depending on what you value.
Stay or go
When to stay with Profound
- Many markets and languages at once. Breadth is what enterprise pricing buys and the cheaper tools do not match it.
- Procurement requires an established vendor. Security review, contracts, references. That is a real requirement and not one to route around.
- Several brands or product lines in one place. Consolidation has a value that per-domain pricing elsewhere will erase.
- You have a team whose job is to act on the analytics. Then depth is worth paying for, and you should not be reading a page about doing the work for you.
Before you switch
Five questions to ask any replacement
- Which engines do you query through an API, and which do you check by hand?
- How many tracked questions, brands and markets does the price cover?
- Can I export my question history and results if I leave?
- How do you handle a failed engine call — is it recorded as “not mentioned”?
- Can I see one real report before I buy?
The fourth is the one nobody asks and the one that quietly ruins a trend line. If a timeout is scored as an absence, you are measuring the vendor’s reliability and calling it your visibility. Ours are recorded separately and never counted as a miss — the rule is written out on how we measure.
FAQ
Common questions
What are the main alternatives to Profound?
Otterly.AI and Peec AI for self-serve tracking at a fraction of the price, AthenaHQ for the closest enterprise-style replacement, Scrunch AI for how AI systems describe and experience your brand, and the AI visibility features inside Semrush and Ahrefs if you already pay for one of them. Bungad AEO is a different shape again: a managed subscription that does the fixing rather than a dashboard.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Profound?
Yes. Profound is quoted per contract and generally enterprise-priced, while the self-serve trackers reported entry prices, in run A on 19 September 2026, of roughly $29 a month for Otterly, $95 for Peec AI, $99 per domain for the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit and $295 for AthenaHQ. We asked the same question again a minute later and run B priced Otterly at $29 and Peec AI at $89 to $95, gave Scrunch AI $250, and gave Semrush and AthenaHQ no price at all. Those are reported figures rather than prices we have verified, so check each vendor’s own page.
When should you stay with Profound?
When you need many markets and languages at once, when procurement requires an established vendor with security review and contracts, when several brands or product lines share one dashboard, or when you have a team whose job is to act on the analytics. Switching to a cheaper tracker to save a few hundred dollars while losing coverage you actually use is a false economy.
Is Bungad an alternative to Profound?
Only for a specific reader. Bungad is a managed subscription at $99 to $799 a month that tracks questions, and a person then does part of the work for you (structured data from Starter up, content fixes from Growth up, source building on Scale), rather than a platform you operate. It is narrower than Profound: Perplexity is the only engine we hold an API key for today. If your reason for leaving Profound is price but you still need broad automated engine coverage, we are not the replacement.
See where you stand before you switch
Enter your domain. We ask Perplexity three of your buyers’ questions and show you whether you were named and which domains the engine cited.
3 questions on Perplexity, free. A domain checked in the last week is served from that stored run rather than asked again, and the daily free allowance resets at midnight UTC.
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