Profound alternatives
By Matvei Belov, founder of Glowsearch · Updated
Glowsearch Lite is $19.99 a month, our recommended Profound alternative for small businesses. Get your own questions, repeated browser scans, an action plan and drafts.
Profound is one of the most complete AI search platforms there is. It's also built for large brands: apart from a free 7-day trial, its only plan for brands is Enterprise, priced through sales. Here are six alternatives and what each costs.
The short version
- Glowsearch: ours, and the lowest paid price here at $19.99 a month. Peec's $95 is about 4.8× as much, Scrunch's $250 about 12.5× and AthenaHQ's $295 about 14.8×. Profound has custom Enterprise pricing. Try Glowsearch for seven days for $1.
- AthenaHQ: the closest to Profound with a published price. $295 a month.
- Peec AI: daily tracking with a clean dashboard for marketing teams. $95 a month.
- Scrunch: a self-serve plan from another enterprise vendor. $250 a month.
- Otterly: daily tracking on four assistants for very little. $29 a month.
- Semrush or Ahrefs: if you already pay for one.
We make Glowsearch; prices are from each vendor's pricing page, checked on October 21, 2026 and rechecked on October 22, 2026.
Why people look for an alternative
- No price on the page. Profound's pricing page lists the free trial and Enterprise, "Custom". To find out what it costs, you book a call.
- The trial isn't your questions. The trial tracks 50 prompts a day for 7 days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Overviews, but they're a set Profound recommends for your industry, and you can't edit them. You see the product, not necessarily your position on the questions your customers ask.
- More than a small team needs. Enterprise adds up to nine assistants, more credits for agents that write content, history and exports, SSO and a support package. That's a lot to pay for if you want to know whether ChatGPT names you and what to do about it.
If you're a large brand with a budget and a team for AI search, Profound may well be the right choice. When to stay with Profound covers that.
Profound's pricing page on October 22, 2026: a free trial and custom Enterprise pricing, no Starter or Growth plan.
The alternatives at a glance
| Tool | From | Monthly price vs Lite | Prompts | Assistants included | Updates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Glowsearch | $19.99/mo | 1× | 80 weekly to 10 daily | ChatGPT, Claude (Pro), Gemini, AI Mode | Weekly to daily, asked twice (Claude once) |
| Profound | Custom (free 7-day trial) | Quote required | Tailored plan | Up to 9 | Daily |
| Otterly | $29/mo | 1.5× | 15 | ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot | Daily |
| Peec AI | $95/mo | 4.8× | 50 | Any 3 of 6 | Daily |
| Scrunch | $250/mo | 12.5× | 125 | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot | Daily |
| AthenaHQ | $295/mo | 14.8× | Unlimited, 3,600 answers a month | 11, including Claude | Set by your credits |
Per month in US dollars, billed monthly. Several of these are cheaper paid yearly.
Glowsearch
Glowsearch Lite is $19.99 a month, saving $75 against Peec Starter, $230 against Scrunch Core and $275 against AthenaHQ Starter each month. Profound has custom Enterprise pricing. Lite includes tracking for one website and 80 questions once a week, 40 twice a week, 25 three times or 10 every day, on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI Mode, twice each per scan, in real browsers signed out from your country. Pro is $99.99 for three websites with 130 questions each once a week (or fewer, scanned more often), and adds Claude through its API on 50 questions a week per website.
Every Glowsearch scan turns into an action plan sorted by priority: sites and lists to get onto, Reddit and forum threads to join, pages to write or improve, wrong facts to correct and crawler fixes. A drafting button writes the email or page text for each action.
- A published price, from $19.99
- Your own questions from day one, including on the $1 trial
- An action plan after every scan, with drafts written for you
Start your seven-day trial for $1 with your own questions. There's a full Glowsearch vs Profound comparison too.
AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ is the closest thing to Profound with a price on the page. Starter is $295 a month for 3,600 credits, where one credit is one AI answer, across 11 assistants: ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. Topics, prompts and competitors are unlimited, and it includes a content optimization agent. A free Essential plan gives you 300 credits to try it.
Better than Profound at
- A published self-serve price
- 11 assistants on the entry plan
- A free plan to try it on your own prompts
Worse than Profound at
- Credits cap the answers: 3,600 a month goes fast across 11 assistants
- API access is a paid add-on
- Multi-country, SSO and BI dashboards are Enterprise only
Peec AI
Peec AI is the tool most marketing teams compare with Profound. Starter is $95 a month for 50 prompts tracked daily on any three of ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot, with unlimited users. Each extra assistant costs more per month. Pro is $245 for 150 prompts.
Better than Profound at
- A published price and a self-serve start
- Your own prompts on the trial and every plan
- A dashboard non-specialists pick up quickly
Worse than Profound at
- Three assistants on each self-serve plan
- Built for measuring, with less help on what to change
- No content agents on the self-serve plans
If Peec is on your list, see Peec AI alternatives and Glowsearch vs Peec AI.
Peec AI's pricing page on October 22, 2026, billed monthly, seen from the US.
Scrunch
Scrunch sells to enterprises like Profound does, but it has a self-serve plan. Core is $250 a month for 125 prompts on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, with five site audits a month, AI bot traffic analytics and five user licenses. There's a 7-day free trial. Claude, Gemini and AI Mode are Enterprise only.
Better than Profound at
- A published self-serve price
- AI bot traffic analytics on the entry plan
- Site audits included
Worse than Profound at
- Four assistants on Core, without Gemini or AI Mode
- One brand, one country, five competitors
- API and Looker Studio are Enterprise only
Otterly
Otterly is a low-cost way to get daily tracking on four assistants. Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot, with unlimited team members. AI Mode is $9 a month more on Lite and Claude $29. Standard is $189 for 100 prompts.
Better than Profound at
- $29 a month, published
- Daily tracking on four assistants from the first plan
- GEO audits of your pages included
Worse than Profound at
- 15 prompts on Lite, and Lite can't add more
- Claude, Gemini and AI Mode cost extra
- Lighter on recommendations and content help
Otterly's pricing page on October 22, 2026, billed monthly, seen from the US. Gemini, AI Mode and Claude are listed as add-ons without a price.
Semrush or Ahrefs
If your team already pays for Semrush or Ahrefs, start there. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month for 25 prompts, where tracking the same prompt on another assistant uses another prompt. Ahrefs sells custom prompt tracking from $50 a month for 2,500 checks, without an Ahrefs subscription.
When to stay with Profound
Stay with Profound if you need the full set of assistants, crawler analytics from your CDN or server logs, agents that write content using your brand context, SSO and SOC 2, and dedicated support.
Switching from Profound
- Bring your questions, not just your prompts. If you only used the trial, the prompts were Profound's. Write down the 10 to 20 questions your customers would actually ask an assistant before buying from you, and track those.
- Expect different numbers. Every tool asks differently: different assistants, signed in or out, API or the real page, once or several times. Compare the trend in one tool over a few weeks, not one tool's score against another's.
- Keep what you exported. Profound's paid plans export CSV and JSON. Keep the last month as your baseline.
Questions people ask
No. It has a free 7-day trial on 50 prompts Profound picks, on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews. After that, brands move to Enterprise.
Profound doesn't publish a price for brands. Enterprise is quoted by its sales team. See Profound pricing for what the plans include and what the alternatives cost.
Glowsearch is the cheapest of the tools here at $19.99 a month. It covers ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Mode, with an action plan sorted by priority after every scan and drafts. Pro adds Claude for $99.99 a month. Start your seven-day trial for $1. Otterly starts at $29, covers four assistants and tracks 15 prompts daily.
AthenaHQ: 11 assistants, unlimited prompts, a content agent and a published $295 Starter plan. Its credits limit how many answers you get each month.
AthenaHQ includes it on Starter. Glowsearch includes it on Pro, on 50 questions a week per website. Otterly sells it as an add-on.
For the wider field, see the best AI visibility tools for small businesses and AI visibility tool pricing.