# Profound Alternatives 2026: Cheaper AI Visibility Tools for Agencies

Author: Quentin Megevand
Published: 2026-10-27
Source: https://getnamedrop.ai/en/blog/profound-alternatives-2026-cheaper-ai-visibility-tools-for-agencies

Profound alternatives with public pricing pages include Otterly.AI, AthenaHQ, Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit, Ahrefs Brand Radar and Namedrop. Profound's own page, consulted on 27 October 2026, offers a free trial of 50 prompts run daily for 7 days and routes paid access through a demo. The right choice depends on prompt volume, engines and client count.

## What Profound costs in 2026, and what its pricing page publishes

On 27 October 2026, Profound's pricing page described its entry offer as: "Trial Free For companies who want to trial Profound before getting a demo - Limited AI Marketer credits - 50 prompts run daily for 7 days - ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews".

The trial is framed as a step before a demo, so paid access runs through a sales conversation. The trial text carries no dollar price, and we found no self-serve monthly price for Profound to cite on that date. Paid-plan terms such as engine coverage, seats, single sign-on and compliance attestations are not in the page text we could verify, so they belong on your list of demo questions.

A demo-led purchase usually points to a product sold to larger marketing teams, and we read Profound's positioning that way. Its scope can exceed what a freelancer or a small agency with a handful of clients needs. That is a question of fit, not quality.

Older Profound tier prices circulate online, but we could not verify them on a primary source, so they do not appear here. Because Profound's paid price is a quote, request one sized to your own workload rather than relying on figures repeated elsewhere.

## What drives the bill for an agency: prompts, engines, seats and client workspaces

**Engines.** An engine count is only comparable once you know which engines it names. Profound's trial lists ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Otterly.AI's page lists "ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, MS Copilot". AthenaHQ states "Visibility across 11 models" and Namedrop describes a score "across the 4 engines", without names in the text we quote. Google alone splits into AI Overviews in search results, AI Mode as a separate search experience, and the Gemini app. A plan that covers Google may track one and not the others, so compare names, not counts.

Claude appears in neither the Profound trial list nor the Otterly.AI list quoted above. If a client's buyers use Claude, ask each vendor in writing whether it is tracked, and whether it is included or sold separately.

**Prompts and credits.** Prompt volume is the main cost driver, and the unit that matters is prompt runs per period. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit page reads "Track 25 custom prompts (daily AI rankings)", and Profound's trial also runs prompts daily. A prompt checked daily produces far more runs per month than one checked weekly, so a tool that meters credits per run can price the same prompt set very differently. Where a page mentions credits, as Profound's does, ask how a credit converts into prompt runs on each engine.

**Seats.** None of the pricing text we quote states a seat limit or a per-seat price. Ask whether client viewers count as paid seats and what an extra seat costs.

**Client workspaces.** A plan may count projects, brands or domains, and each unit changes the bill differently when you add a client. Ask whether a client is one project, brand or domain, whether its tracked competitors draw on the same allowance, and whether prompts pool across clients or stay fixed per workspace. A tool can also sit inside a wider subscription: Ahrefs' Brand Radar page says "Free for every paid Ahrefs Lite plan and above. Starts at $50/mo".

**Hidden costs and contract terms.** The charges to look for are engine add-ons, prompt overage, API or export access, and annual-only billing. Apart from the Ahrefs page linking Brand Radar to paid Ahrefs plans, the page text we verified documents none of these terms, and silence does not mean the cost is absent. Ask sales:

- Is each engine we need included at this tier, or sold as an add-on?
- What happens past the prompt or credit allowance: a hard stop, an overage charge or an upgrade?
- Is the listed price monthly, or the monthly equivalent of an annual contract?
- Can we export prompt-level results, and is API access included?
- What is the cancellation notice, and do we keep our data afterwards?

## Profound alternatives compared: price, engines, prompts and seats

The table records what each official pricing page said in the text we could verify, consulted on 27 October 2026. Where a term was not in that text, the cell says not verified rather than repeat a figure we cannot back. Prices change, so check each page again before you buy. Peec AI is left out because we could not verify its pricing terms. The author of this article founded Namedrop, and its row follows the same rules as every other row.

| Tool | Lowest paid plan and price as published | Engines at that tier | Prompts or credits included | Seats | Free trial or free tier | Date consulted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | No self-serve price found; paid access after a demo | Trial: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews | Trial: 50 prompts run daily for 7 days | Not verified | Free trial, limited AI Marketer credits | 27 Oct 2026 |
| Otterly.AI | Not verified | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, MS Copilot (tier not verified) | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified | 27 Oct 2026 |
| AthenaHQ | Not verified | Visibility across 11 models (tier not verified) | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified | 27 Oct 2026 |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Not verified | Not verified | 25 custom prompts, daily AI rankings (tier not verified) | Not verified | Not verified | 27 Oct 2026 |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Starts at $50/mo; free for every paid Ahrefs Lite plan and above | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified | 27 Oct 2026 |
| Namedrop | Not verified | Score /100 across 4 engines (tier not verified) | Not verified | Not verified | Not verified | 27 Oct 2026 |

### How to read the table

Read the engine column before the price column: a lower price on different engines buys a different product. Not verified means the term was absent from the page text we could confirm, not that the vendor lacks it. The setup each tool suits:

- Profound: teams ready for a demo-led purchase that want to trial ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews first.
- Otterly.AI: teams whose clients' audiences use Perplexity or Microsoft Copilot as well as ChatGPT.
- AthenaHQ: teams that want to monitor a wide set of models.
- Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit: teams that want a fixed set of custom prompts ranked daily.
- Ahrefs Brand Radar: teams already paying for an Ahrefs plan.
- Namedrop: teams that want a single visibility score per brand across its 4 engines.

## What each tool costs at the same agency workload

Take a hypothetical workload: several client brands, one prompt set per client, tracked daily on ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, with a few seats. Each client's set is the size of the 25 custom prompts on Semrush's page. The engine pair is the set named both in Profound's trial and on Otterly.AI's page; for every other tool, confirm both are included before comparing.

The method is identical for every tool: add up the monthly list cost of the plans needed to cover every client at that frequency, then divide by the total prompts tracked. That cost per tracked prompt is the figure to compare, not the entry price.

| Tool | Covers the engine pair | Same daily prompt set per client | Monthly list cost at this workload |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Yes, in the trial | Trial cap of 50 daily prompts falls short with several clients | Quote required |
| Otterly.AI | Yes | Not verified | Not computable from verified text |
| AthenaHQ | Not verified | Not verified | Not computable from verified text |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Not verified | 25 custom prompts, daily: one client's set | Not computable from verified text |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Not verified | Not verified | Starts at $50/mo; full cost not computable |
| Namedrop | Not verified | Not verified | Not computable from verified text |

No row combines a verified price with a verified prompt allowance, so a cost per tracked prompt cannot be computed honestly from the verified page text. That gap is itself a finding: your written workload is the input every vendor needs, and the per-prompt figure has to come from your trial, the full pricing page on the day you buy, or a quote. List prices are the reference here because quotes are not public, and a real quote may differ, especially with an annual commitment.

Once you have the numbers, the break-even reasoning is simple. Stacking entry plans costs the entry price multiplied by the number of clients. A higher tier becomes cheaper once its price divided by its prompt allowance falls below the entry plan's price divided by its allowance, provided that allowance can be shared across clients. A custom-quoted platform is worth a sales call when the stacked cost keeps climbing with each new client, or when a client needs a compliance term no self-serve plan documents.

## Which Profound alternative fits which agency setup

**Freelancer or small agency with a few clients.** The trade-off is engine coverage against price. Pick a plan whose named engines match where the client's buyers search, and check how it counts each client. It also helps to [run a free AI visibility check before you pay for a tool](/en/blog/how-to-check-your-ai-search-visibility-for-free-and-what-free-checkers-miss).

**Agency managing many brands.** The trade-off is prompt volume. Per-client counting can make stacked entry plans expensive, so prompt pooling and the counting unit matter more than the entry price.

**Teams already paying for an SEO suite.** The trade-off is engine coverage and seats inside a familiar interface. Ahrefs links Brand Radar to its paid plans, and Semrush sells an AI Visibility Toolkit; check which engines and seats each includes.

**Enterprise clients that need SSO or compliance attestations.** The trade-off is compliance against cost. A demo-led platform such as Profound is one route for requesting those terms in writing; see [how Profound, Evertune and AthenaHQ compare on methodology and coverage](/en/blog/how-to-choose-between-profound-evertune-and-athenahq).

A tracker records whether a brand is mentioned or cited for each prompt. Diagnosing why a competitor is cited instead, and the content and outreach work that follows, often remain the agency's job, so check what each tool actually reports during the trial. Accuracy and repeatability across these tools are not, to our knowledge, independently benchmarked in public sources, so your own pilot has to measure them.

## Where to start this week: pilot two tools on one locked prompt set

A week is enough to compare tools on your own data.

- Write down the workload: clients, prompts per client, engines by name, seats and run frequency.
- Shortlist two tools from the table whose named engines match that workload.
- Start trials or entry plans on the same day and load the same locked prompt set into both, with no edits during the pilot.
- Run the prompts on both tools over several days and compare mention and citation results prompt by prompt. Treat differences between tools as a finding to report, not noise to average away.
- Record the cost per tracked prompt and every limit you reach: prompts, engines, seats or exports.
- Export the baseline and keep it, so a later switch does not erase your history. It also gives you the data to [build a monthly AI visibility report for clients](/en/blog/how-to-build-a-client-report-for-ai-visibility).
- Before signing, ask about the billing period, overage charges, data export and the cancellation notice.

Before you start a paid trial, [run a free Namedrop scan](/en?src=blog-article#scanner) on one client brand to see which engines mention it today and which competitors they cite instead.

## Sources

- [Profound, Pricing - Profound, consulted 2026-10-27](https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing)
- [Namedrop, Namedrop pricing, consulted 2026-10-27](https://getnamedrop.ai/en/pricing)
- [Otterly.AI, OtterlyAI Pricing - Transparent & Simple, consulted 2026-10-27](https://otterly.ai/pricing)
- [AthenaHQ, Plans & Pricing | Action on AI Search, consulted 2026-10-27](https://athenahq.ai/plans)
- [Semrush, AI Visibility Toolkit Pricing | Semrush, consulted 2026-10-27](https://www.semrush.com/pricing/ai/)
- [Ahrefs, Ahrefs Brand Radar: See ANY brand's AI visibility, consulted 2026-10-27](https://ahrefs.com/brand-radar)

## Frequently asked questions

### How much does Profound cost per month in 2026?

Profound's pricing page, consulted on 27 October 2026, describes a free trial for companies that want to try Profound before getting a demo, with 50 prompts run daily for 7 days. We found no self-serve monthly price to cite on that date, so treat paid access as quote-based and request a quote sized to your own prompts, engines, seats and client count.

### Does Profound have a free plan or a free trial?

Profound's pricing page lists a free trial. On 27 October 2026 it described the trial as 50 prompts run daily for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with limited AI Marketer credits. The trial is framed as a step before a demo, so prepare your test prompts in advance to make good use of the week.

### What is the cheapest alternative to Profound for an agency?

It depends on the engines and clients you need to cover. On 27 October 2026, the one entry price we could verify in quoted page text was for Ahrefs Brand Radar, whose page says it is free for every paid Ahrefs Lite plan and above and starts at $50/mo. For other tools, compare cost per tracked prompt at your own workload, using each pricing page on the day you buy.

### Which AI visibility tool can track several client brands at once?

Check how each plan counts clients: by project, by brand or by domain, and whether competitor tracking draws on the same allowance. The pricing text we verified on 27 October 2026 did not state these limits, so ask each vendor how a client is counted, whether prompts pool across clients, and what each additional brand costs before you commit to a plan.

### Is Profound worth it for a small agency?

It depends on workload, engines and compliance needs rather than reputation. Profound's paid access runs through a demo, and its scope can exceed what a small agency with a handful of clients needs. If your clients require SSO or compliance attestations, request a quote. If not, pilot Profound's trial against an alternative on the same locked prompt set and compare cost per tracked prompt.