Profound alternatives: where to go and how to keep your tracking
Seven destinations in detail, one per reason for leaving, and a seven-step migration plan.
The short answer: Peec AI if you want simple tracking at a published price, Scrunch if you want the closest thing to Profound without a sales call, AthenaHQ if you want to start free, Otterly.AI for a small team that mostly needs alerts, and Semrush, Ahrefs or SE Ranking if you already pay for an SEO suite. One thing to know before you pick: Profound lets you export your prompts and topics, but not your score history. Your trend lines start from zero. We compared these seven tools and read their official pricing pages in 2026.
The ranking is editorial: a sponsored spot is always labeled on its card, and no affiliate link changes a rating.
Why so many teams are looking elsewhere
Profound measures how your brand shows up in AI answers (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews), the work people now call AEO or GEO. It's a serious, well-funded, very complete product. People leave for other reasons: access, price, and what you actually do with all that data. Six reasons, all checked in 2026.
No paid self-serve plan anymore
In 2026, Profound removed the paid plans you could buy without talking to sales. On the pricing page, a brand now has two options: a free 7-day trial, or Enterprise at "custom" pricing, meaning a quote after a demo. If you were on a small monthly plan, there's no direct replacement. If you're new, you can't just put in a card.
You only learn the price after the demo
Enterprise has no published price. Going over your quota either gets billed or pauses the account, with no published overage rate. For a lean team that needs budget sign-off, that's a real blocker. Users on forums who sat through the demo talk about a four-figure monthly budget.
Lots of data, not much of a plan
The most common complaint in reviews: dashboards show the current state but not what to do next. Several users say there's "almost too much" data for anyone who isn't an analyst. Some teams end up paying a consultant on top to turn the numbers into tasks.
A heavy onboarding
The learning curve shows up in most reviews. Setup takes weeks, not hours: prompts (the questions you track, like "best payroll software for a small business"), topics, competitors, regions. On the trial, the 50 prompts are fixed and can't be edited, so they tell you little about your own market.
Data you have to double-check
Users describe slow dashboards, a URL tracking tab that doesn't always delete entries, duplicate prompts, and, during one demo, citation links that went to 404 pages. None of it is a dealbreaker alone. At this price point, every doubt costs you.
Agencies pay per client
Profound has an agency mode with client workspaces and pitch workspaces that last about 30 days. The self-serve agency plan includes 400 credits per client workspace per month, but the price isn't shown on the official page. Per-workspace billing climbs fast once you track ten brands. Tools with unlimited seats and public prices change the math.
You're leaving because… go to…
The right Profound alternative depends on what's pushing you out. Usually only one line applies. Each card jumps to the full write-up below.
From $95 a month, unlimited seats, CSV export on every plan.
You want the closest thing to ProfoundScrunch350 prompts on the first plan, 7-day trial with no card.
You want to start without payingAthenaHQA permanent free plan, then 11 engines on paid.
You already pay for SemrushSemrushAI tracking inside the SEO tool your team already opens.
You want SEO and AI on a mid-size budgetSE Ranking25 AI prompts a day included from $129 a month.
You're a small team that wants alertsOtterly.AINo-card trial, monthly billing, export included.
Profound alternatives, tool by tool
For each tool: why switch to it, who it's for, its limit, how to bring over what you tracked in Profound, and what it costs. Prices come from the official pricing pages in 2026, before tax. One thing they all share: none of them imports your Profound history. You bring your prompt list, not your charts.
Peec AI: clear tracking at a published price
SimplestWhy switch to Peec AI. The Berlin-based team does the opposite of Profound on access: three public plans, online checkout, unlimited seats on all of them. Starter is $95 a month for 50 prompts, 3 active models, 1 country and 1 project. Pro is $245 for 150 prompts, 3 countries and API access. Advanced is $495 for 350 prompts. CSV export and MCP (the protocol that lets you plug your data into an AI assistant) come with every plan.
Who it's for. Small and mid-size marketing teams that want to know each week whether their brand shows up in ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews, without turning into analysts. Users who moved from other tools like seeing the Reddit threads that feed the answers.
Who it's not for. Teams that mostly track Perplexity or Claude: those models sit in the Enterprise plan, on quote.
Its limit. Three active models at a time on public plans, picked from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot, Gemini and Naver. And not much in the way of recommendations: one user notes that most of the work still runs through exports and manual filtering.
How to migrate. Export your prompts and topics from Profound as CSV, then rebuild them in a Peec project. Keep the wording identical: change one word and the AI answer changes, and you lose your before-and-after. Start with your main country, since Starter only tracks one.
- Price
- Starter $95/mo, 50 prompts
- Seats
- unlimited
- Best for
- weekly tracking, lean teams
- Limit
- Perplexity is Enterprise-only
Scrunch: the closest to Profound, self-serve
Most completeWhy switch to Scrunch. It covers the most ground without a sales call. Starter is $300 a month, or $250 billed annually, for 3 users and 350 prompts. Growth is $500 ($417 annually) for 5 users and 700 prompts. Engines tracked: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews and Meta. The trial runs 7 days, no card.
Who it's for. Mid-size teams that used Profound for its coverage and want to keep Perplexity and Claude without negotiating a contract.
Who it's not for. A solo marketer or a small brand: 350 prompts is a lot if you only track 30.
Its limit. The data API is Enterprise-only, and each extra seat costs $25. Sitecore also acquired Scrunch in 2026, so before you sign an annual plan, check that the roadmap and pricing still look the way you expect.
How to migrate. Enter your prompts by topic, the same way you organized them in Profound. Use the 7-day trial to run both tools on the same list and compare prompt by prompt.
- Price
- Starter $300/mo, $250 annual
- Prompts
- 350 on Starter
- Trial
- 7 days, no card
- Limit
- API on Enterprise
AthenaHQ: start free, then track everything
Free to startWhy switch to AthenaHQ. It has what Profound dropped: a permanent free way in. The Essential plan gives you 300 credits across 5 engines. Starter is $295 a month (17% off annually) for 3,600 credits, unlimited prompts and 11 engines, including Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral. One credit equals one AI answer analyzed.
Who it's for. Teams that want to measure first, for free, and pay once they know what they're after. Also teams that track engines others skip, like DeepSeek or Mistral.
Who it's not for. Anyone who needs a fixed budget: extra credits are billed separately, and that price isn't published.
Its limit. 300 free credits means 300 answers: a snapshot, not daily tracking. CSV export only comes with Starter.
How to migrate. Since prompts are unlimited on Starter, paste your whole Profound export in one go. Then watch credit burn in the first week: 11 engines per prompt adds up fast.
- Free
- Essential, 300 credits
- Paid
- Starter $295/mo
- Engines
- up to 11
- Limit
- extra credits unpriced
Otterly.AI: monitoring without the big bill
Small teamsWhy switch to Otterly.AI. The Austrian team focuses on monitoring rather than deep analysis. Three plans: Lite for 15 prompts, Standard for 100, Premium for 400. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews are included; AI Mode, Gemini and Claude are paid add-ons. You pay monthly or annually by card, and the trial needs no card. Current amounts are on the vendor's pricing page.
Who it's for. Freelancers and small teams that want an alert when their brand shows up in, or drops out of, an answer, and don't need ten engines.
Who it's not for. Teams that want guidance on how to improve. One user put it simply: fine for monitoring, not optimization.
Its limit. Engine add-ons push the bill up fast. Adding Gemini and AI Mode to Standard changes the final price, so price it with the engines you actually need.
How to migrate. On Standard and Premium, prompts come in packs of 100. Sort your Profound export and keep your 100 most useful prompts before you pick a plan.
- Plans
- 15, 100 or 400 prompts
- Price
- see the pricing page
- Trial
- no card
- Limit
- Gemini, Claude are add-ons
Semrush: AI tracking inside your SEO suite
SEO suiteWhy switch to Semrush. If your team already lives in Semrush, another tool doesn't always make sense. Starter, at $199 a month ($165.17 annually), tracks 50 AI prompts a day and includes MCP access. Pro+, at $299 ($248.17 annually), goes to 100 prompts a day. The base SEO plan at $139 a month doesn't track prompts. You can also buy the AI Visibility Toolkit on its own: $99 a month for 25 prompts, plus $60 a month for 50 more.
Who it's for. Marketing teams that want classic SEO and AI visibility on one invoice, from one vendor. We rate it 4.2 out of 5 in our Semrush review.
Who it's not for. Teams that don't do SEO and only want AI visibility: you'd pay for a whole suite to use one module.
Its limit. 25 prompts on the standalone toolkit is thin next to the hundreds Profound tracked on Enterprise.
How to migrate. Keep the prompts closest to a purchase (comparisons, "best tool for…"): those matter most when space is tight.
- Our rating
- 4.2/5
- Price
- AI toolkit alone $99/mo
- Prompts
- 50/day on Starter
- Limit
- 25 prompts on the toolkit
Ahrefs Brand Radar: AI mentions next to your backlinks
SEO suiteWhy switch to Ahrefs. Brand Radar AI follows your brand across seven AI platforms, next to the backlink and keyword data Ahrefs is known for. It starts at $199 a month. The appeal is reading your AI presence with the same data you already use for SEO. We rate Ahrefs 4.2 out of 5 in our Ahrefs review.
Who it's for. Teams already on Ahrefs that want one tool for links, keywords and AI answers.
Who it's not for. Teams that don't do SEO: Brand Radar is billed on top of Ahrefs and only makes sense if you use the rest.
Its limit. Metrics get recalculated with each index update, so a line can move without anything changing on your side. Read trends over several weeks.
How to migrate. Rebuild your most important Profound topics in Brand Radar, then compare your presence topic by topic. Torn between the two suites? Our Semrush vs Ahrefs comparison settles it.
- Our rating
- 4.2/5
- Price
- Brand Radar AI from $199/mo
- Best for
- existing Ahrefs users
- Limit
- metrics recalculated
SE Ranking: SEO plus AI on a mid-size budget
SEO and AIWhy switch to SE Ranking. It's the cheapest SEO suite with AI tracking built in. Core is $129 a month ($103.20 annually), Growth $279 ($223.20 annually), and both include 25 prompts a day across 5 engines. The standalone AI visibility add-on starts at $71 a month, with tiers at 75, 200 and 1,000 prompts. The trial lasts 14 days with no card and 20 prompts a day.
Who it's for. Small businesses and small agencies that want Google rankings and AI answers in one place, without Semrush pricing.
Who it's not for. A brand tracking hundreds of questions across several countries: you'd need the add-on and its upper tiers.
Its limit. The AI quotas in the plans are modest. 25 prompts a day is a sample, not a map.
How to migrate. Use the 14-day trial to rebuild your 20 most important prompts and confirm the engines you care about are covered.
- Price
- Core $129/mo
- AI included
- 25 prompts/day
- Trial
- 14 days, no card
- Limit
- modest AI quotas
The 7 alternatives side by side
Our default pick: Peec AI for a team that wants clear tracking at a public price. Scrunch if you want to keep Profound's breadth. Watch the units: Peec and Scrunch count prompts, AthenaHQ counts credits (one prompt on three engines uses three), and Otterly sells engines as add-ons. Left column: what the tool covers. Right column: its entry price and how you migrate.
| Coverage and trial | Entry price and migration | |
|---|---|---|
| ProfoundWhere you're leaving | Up to 9 engines on Enterprise; 7-day trial on 50 fixed prompts | Enterprise on quote; prompts and topics export to CSV or JSON, no history |
| Peec AISimplest | 3 active models (ChatGPT, AI Mode, Gemini…), unlimited seats | Starter $95 a month, 50 prompts; import your list |
| ScrunchMost complete | 7 engines incl. Perplexity and Claude; 7-day no-card trial | Starter $300 a month ($250 annual), 350 prompts |
| AthenaHQFree to start | 5 engines free, 11 on paid | Starter $295 a month, unlimited prompts |
| Otterly.AISmall teams | 4 engines included; Gemini, AI Mode, Claude as add-ons | See pricing page; prompts in packs of 100 |
| SemrushSEO suite, 4.2/5 | AI tracking from Starter, 50 prompts a day | AI toolkit alone $99 a month, 25 prompts |
| AhrefsSEO suite, 4.2/5 | Brand Radar AI across 7 AI platforms | Brand Radar AI from $199 a month |
| SE RankingSEO and AI | 25 prompts a day on 5 engines; 14-day trial | Core $129 a month; AI add-on from $71 |
Entry prices before tax, subject to change. Always compare on your real number of prompts and engines.
Leave Profound in seven steps
Switching AI visibility tools won't lose you customers, but it can lose you your baseline. Each step protects the continuity of your tracking.
Export your prompts and topics before the contract ends
Day 1In Answer Engine Insights, open the Prompts tab and click the download icon. Pick the date range, then CSV or JSON. The gotcha: to export prompts, leave "Group By" empty; to export topics, group by topic. Pull both files.
The free trial has no export at all. If you're still on the trial, write your questions down by hand.
- Formats
- CSV or JSON
- Risk if rushed
- prompt list lost
Save your history, because it won't move
CriticalYour scores, mentions and citations stay in Profound. No tool imports them. Screenshot your main dashboards and export results period by period while you still have access.
You'll need those numbers to explain to leadership why the new tool's charts don't start at the same level.
- Keep
- screenshots, period exports
Clean up your prompt list
Cut duplicates, prompts nobody looks at, and ones that no longer match what you sell. Sort the rest into three groups: buying questions ("which tool for…"), comparisons with competitors, and awareness questions.
Fewer, better prompts often let you fit a 50 or 100 prompt plan instead of paying for the next tier.
- Payoff
- a smaller plan
Work out the real cost at your destination
Multiply prompts by engines by frequency. On AthenaHQ, one prompt on three engines burns three credits each run. On Otterly, each add-on engine raises the plan price. On Peec, Perplexity and Claude need Enterprise.
Check country and language too: Peec Starter tracks one country, just like the Profound trial did.
- Formula
- prompts × engines × frequency
Rebuild your prompts word for word
Paste your prompts exactly as they were. An AI answers "best payroll software" differently from "best payroll software for a small business". Reword during the move and you'll never know whether your visibility changed or the question did.
Recreate your tracked competitors with the same names so share-of-voice stays comparable.
- Rule
- same wording
Run both tools side by side
Two to four weeksKeep Profound running for a few weeks if your contract allows, and compare prompt by prompt, not aggregate scores: every vendor computes its score its own way. What matters is whether your brand appears on the same questions in both tools.
AI answers vary a lot from run to run, and the same list of brands rarely comes back twice. Look at presence rates across several runs, never at a single answer.
- Duration
- two to four weeks
- Compare
- prompt by prompt
Move reporting and the team over
Rebuild your reports in the new tool, point its exports or API wherever Profound's used to go, and walk the team through the new scoring. Note the switch date in your monthly report. Without it, a step in the chart will read as a real drop.
- Risk if rushed
- false alarm on the chart
Is your tool missing from this page? Email us: hello@hackceleration.com
What makes a Profound exit go wrong
Nobody loses revenue by switching AI visibility tools. What you lose is the ability to prove you're improving. These mistakes come up again and again, and each one breaks your before-and-after.
Losing access before you export
Once access is cut, there's no export. Start pulling prompts, topics and period results at least two weeks before the contract ends, and store the files outside the tool.
Comparing scores that don't compare
A visibility score of 42 in Profound and 30 elsewhere means nothing: the formulas differ. Compare your brand's presence question by question, and where your competitors rank.
Rewording prompts mid-move
It's tempting to fix a badly phrased question during import. Do it after the parallel run, not before, or you're mixing two changes.
Forgetting add-on engines
A plan with a low sticker price may not cover Gemini, Claude or Perplexity. List the engines that matter in your market before comparing prices.
Tracking too many prompts
Five hundred prompts a day is expensive and unreadable. A hundred well-chosen questions, daily for the key ones and weekly for the rest, covers most small and mid-size businesses.
Ignoring the SEO suite you already pay for
If you pay for Semrush, Ahrefs or SE Ranking, their AI module may already cover the basics. Our ranking of the best AI visibility tools puts them next to the specialists, and our switch from Ahrefs and Semrush alternatives pages help if the suite itself is the problem.
- Prompts exported with no grouping, topics exported grouped by topic
- Screenshots and period exports saved
- Prompt list cleaned up and sorted
- Real cost worked out: prompts × engines × frequency
- Country and language checked at the destination
- Prompts rebuilt word for word, competitors included
- Two to four weeks of parallel tracking
- Switch date noted in your reports
Profound alternatives: frequently asked questions
How much does Profound cost in 2026?
There's no public price for brands anymore. The pricing page offers a free 7-day trial, then Enterprise on quote after a demo. The trial tracks 50 fixed prompts in one language and one region, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with no export and no history.
Does Profound still have a self-serve plan?
Not for brands. Profound dropped its paid self-serve tiers in 2026. Agencies still have a self-serve Agency Growth plan with 400 credits per client workspace per month, but its price isn't listed on the pricing page, so ask before you budget.
What's the cheapest alternative to Profound?
Among tools with published prices, Peec AI starts at $95 a month for 50 prompts. If you already pay for Semrush, its standalone AI Visibility Toolkit costs $99 a month for 25 prompts. Always compare at the same number of prompts and engines.
Is there a free Profound alternative?
Yes, to get started. AthenaHQ has a permanent free plan with 300 credits across 5 engines. Scrunch offers a 7-day trial and SE Ranking 14 days, both with no card. Open-source projects exist too, but you host and maintain them yourself.
Profound vs Peec AI: which should you pick?
Peec AI if you want a published price, unlimited seats and readable tracking: $95 a month for 50 prompts. Profound if you need 9 engines, SOC 2, SSO and dedicated support, and you're fine with a quoted contract.
What's the best Profound alternative for agencies?
Look for unlimited seats and clear per-project pricing. Peec AI keeps seats unlimited on every plan. Scrunch charges $25 per extra seat. On Profound, agency billing runs on credits per client workspace, with no listed price.
Can I export my data from Profound?
Partly. You can export prompts and topics as CSV or JSON on paid plans, but not your past scores, mentions and citations. Screenshot and export results by period before your access ends.
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