Profound Alternatives: Cheaper Ways to Track AI Visibility
Competitor data as of September 2026 · source: Profound — pricing, Otterly.AI — pricing, Peec AI — pricing, Scrunch AI — pricing, Semrush — AI Visibility pricing
Profound's published tiers are $99/mo for Starter (ChatGPT only) and $399/mo for Growth (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews), both billed yearly, with Enterprise custom and up to nine engines. Teams look for alternatives when Starter's single engine is too narrow, when Growth's price is hard to justify against a 30-prompt measurement need, or when yearly billing is the blocker. The realistic options are Otterly.AI (four engines from $29/mo, 15 prompts), Semrush AI Toolkit ($99/mo per domain billed annually, four surfaces, 25 prompts), Scrunch AI (six platforms from $250/mo billed annually), Peec AI (self-serve, price not published) and TAMGIO (our product: three engines, evidence behind every metric, setup included). If you need Claude, Grok or DeepSeek coverage and enterprise analytics, Profound Enterprise remains the broadest option here.
What you are actually paying for at each Profound tier
Profound's published shape is unusual in this category: the entry tier is not a smaller version of the product, it is a single-engine version of it. Starter at $99/mo tracks ChatGPT alone. Growth at $399/mo adds Perplexity and Google AI Overviews for three engines total. Enterprise, priced on request, reaches up to nine engines, and Claude is only available there.
That structure has a clear consequence for buyers. If your buyers research in Perplexity or through AI Overviews, the $99 tier does not measure them at all — so the real comparison for most teams is Growth at $399/mo against everything else on this page, not Starter.
The second consideration is billing. Both published tiers are billed yearly. In a category where prompt sets and engine mixes are still being figured out, a twelve-month commitment is a bet that your measurement design will not change.
The alternatives, with published numbers
| Tool | Published entry price | Prompts at that tier | Engines at that tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profound (today) | $99/mo Starter · $399/mo Growth, billed yearly | not published as a count | Starter: ChatGPT only · Growth: 3 · Enterprise: up to 9 (Claude included) |
| Otterly.AI | $29/mo Lite · $189/mo · $489/mo | 15 · 100 · 400 | 4 (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot); Claude/Gemini extra |
| Semrush AI Toolkit | $99/mo per domain, billed annually | 25 | ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity |
| Scrunch AI | $250/mo Starter, billed annually ($300 monthly) | 350 custom + 1,000 industry | 6, including Claude, Google AI Mode and Meta |
| Peec AI | not published | not published | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini |
| TAMGIO | $39/mo and up, setup included | 30-40 per project, sampled N× | 3 ongoing + Google AI Overviews in Audit Mode |
Two comparisons are worth making explicitly. Against Profound Starter, almost everything here covers more engines for similar or less money. Against Profound Growth, the question is whether you are buying the engines or the enterprise analytics around them — traffic attribution, agentic-referral analysis and an account team are part of that price, and no $29-$99 tool on this list replaces them.
When Profound is still the right answer
If your shortlist requires Claude, Grok or DeepSeek coverage, if you need AI-answer analytics connected to referral traffic and revenue rather than mention counts, or if procurement prefers a sales-led vendor with enterprise security review, Profound Enterprise is the broadest published option in this comparison. Paying for a smaller tool and rebuilding that analysis by hand is rarely cheaper.
How to compare without getting fooled
- Count engines at the tier you will actually buy, not at the top of the pricing page.
- Ask for the prompt count in writing. Engine coverage without prompt volume is half a measurement, and Profound does not publish a prompt count on either tier.
- Ask what N is, and whether you can raise it. Non-deterministic answers make a single run per prompt a coin flip.
- Ask for the raw answer behind one metric during the demo. Every vendor on this list, including us, should be able to produce the answer text, the citations and the timestamp for a specific number.
Related reading
- TAMGIO vs Profound — the head-to-head comparison.
- Best AI visibility tracking tools in 2026 — the wider roundup.
- What AI-visibility tracking costs — engines × prompts × samples, priced out.
- How TAMGIO measures — statuses, formulas and the evidence trail.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Profound cost?
- Its pricing page lists Starter at $99/mo and Growth at $399/mo, both billed yearly with two months free, and Enterprise as custom. Starter tracks ChatGPT only; Growth tracks three answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews); Enterprise goes up to nine, and Claude sits in that Enterprise set.
- Is there a cheaper Profound alternative with more than one engine?
- Yes. Otterly.AI publishes four engines on its $29/mo Lite tier (15 prompts) and $189/mo for 100 prompts, and Semrush AI Toolkit publishes ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini and Perplexity at $99/mo per domain billed annually for 25 prompts. Both cost less than Profound Growth while covering more engines than Profound Starter.
- Why does yearly billing matter in this category?
- Because AI-visibility tooling is still young and prompt sets change fast. A yearly commitment locks a measurement design in place for twelve months; if your prompt set or engine mix shifts after one quarter, you are paying for the old design. Month-to-month options usually cost more per month and are worth it during the first cycles.
- Where does TAMGIO fit?
- TAMGIO is our product, so read this as a vendor description rather than a review: three engines tracked continuously plus Google AI Overviews in Audit Mode, 30-40 prompts sampled N times, the raw API answer behind every metric, published formulas, no percentage promises. Pricing is public — Weekly Scan $39/mo · Daily + Competitors $99/mo · Agency / White-label $249/mo · one-off audit from $60, setup included — and there is no self-serve signup.
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