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MarketHQ
Alternatives

Profound alternatives for AI visibility and brand monitoring

Updated October 2026

Profound is the name most people reach for when they start worrying about how AI assistants describe their product. It removed its self-serve $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans around September 2026; the entry point is now a free 7-day trial, with a credit-based Agency Growth plan or a custom Enterprise tier beyond that, neither showing a public dollar figure. This page lists the realistic alternatives and says where Profound is still the better buy. Competitor facts were re-checked on each vendor's own site on September 30, 2026.

Quick answer

MarketHQ checks six AI engines weekly on every paid plan from $29 and turns gaps into an action plan, with chat, an API and MCP. Profound no longer lists a self-serve monthly price: as of September 2026 it offers a free 7-day trial, a credit-based Agency Growth plan or custom Enterprise pricing. Others: AthenaHQ, Otterly.ai, Rankscale.ai, Scrunch AI, Goodie AI, Evertune and Brand24.

Key points

  • MarketHQ includes weekly AI visibility, gap analysis and an action plan from Lite at $29; Profound's free trial tracks ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews at 50 prompts a day for 7 days, then Enterprise pricing is custom.
  • MarketHQ countries run from 1 on Lite to 3 on Startup, 5 on Growth and 10 on Enterprise, with AI questions shared across them.
  • Rankscale.ai and Otterly.ai publish flat monthly prices; Profound, Evertune's Enterprise tier, and Goodie AI's Enterprise tier do not.

Why choose MarketHQ instead of Profound?

MarketHQ is built for teams that need to know what an AI answer means and what to do about it, not just which engine names them.

Profound is the right choice when you need per-engine dashboard depth and up to nine answer engines on its custom Enterprise plan. MarketHQ runs the weekly visibility check on six engines on every paid plan from $29, with a published price at every tier.

Profound delivers a dashboard of engine scores; MarketHQ runs gap analysis with one move per gap and an action plan, sends a Slack daily digest, answers questions about your evidence in chat, and includes API and MCP access on paid plans, with countries from 1 on Lite to 10 on Enterprise. Every paid plan, from Lite, also covers blogs, forums, RSS feeds you add and Bluesky.

What sources does MarketHQ cover?

Every plan: Hacker News, GitHub, RSS, Stack Overflow, Dev.to, Lobsters, Reddit, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, Perplexity, Broader web crawl, Bluesky.

Hacker NewsGitHubStack OverflowDev.toLobstersRSSRedditLinkedInXYouTubeBlueskyDocs & changelogs
  • Grouped Slack daily digest
  • Drafted replies from your own strengths
  • Gap analysis and action plans
  • Weekly AI-answer visibility (paid plans)
  • Chat over your own evidence
  • API and MCP on every paid plan
  • Flat capacity pricing, tiers differ by tracking volume only
  • 4-day trial on Lite and Startup, charged on day 4
  • Free one-time check, no account needed

Each tool was checked on its own pricing and product pages in September 2026; entries are ordered by fit, not by price.

  1. MarketHQ

    Market intelligence rather than a GEO dashboard. A weekly read on six engines on every paid plan from $29, joined to the web conversation behind those answers, then gap analysis and an action plan. Chat rather than charts. This is our own product, listed first because the page is ours.

    Best for
    Teams that want the AI-answer question, the web conversation and a plan for what to do next in one place.
    Pricing
    Lite $29, Startup $99, Growth $199/mo. Lite and Startup start with a 4-day trial, charged on day 4. Growth is charged at signup. Tiers differ by tracking capacity only.
    Sources covered
    The weekly AI-answer read, labelled mentions, X, Reddit, LinkedIn, blogs, forums, RSS feeds you add and Bluesky — all on every paid plan from Lite.
    AI visibility
    Yes

  2. AthenaHQ

    The closest like-for-like swap, and the only one in the category with a free entry point. A Y Combinator company whose site says the team was built with experience from Google, DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic. Tracks 11 or more models and sells API access as a paid add-on rather than bundling it.

    Best for
    Teams that want to try AI-visibility tracking before committing a budget to it.
    Pricing
    Essential free with $25 of free credit, listed as 300 credits; Starter $295 a month with 3,600 credits monthly and 17% off annually; Enterprise custom. As of September 2026.
    Sources covered
    ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot on every plan; Starter adds AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral.
    AI visibility
    Yes

  3. Otterly.ai

    The cheapest way into the category from a vendor that publishes every number. Search-prompt counts are the unit you buy, and extra engines are priced as add-ons instead of being bundled into a higher tier.

    Best for
    One brand, a short prompt list, and a budget that stops at about $30 a month.
    Pricing
    Lite $29 a month for 15 search prompts, Standard $189 for 100, Premium $489 for 400, Enterprise custom starting from 1,000 search prompts (no dollar price published); 15% less billed annually. A free trial is offered for new users. As of September 2026.
    Sources covered
    ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot on every plan; Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are paid add-ons.
    AI visibility
    Yes

  4. Rankscale.ai

    The widest published engine list at the bottom of the market. Credits and tracked answers are the metering unit, and search terms are listed as unlimited on the Pro plan, which is unusual at this price.

    Best for
    Buyers who want many engines checked and will do their own interpretation.
    Pricing
    Essentials starting at $20 a month, Pro $99, Growth $385, Enterprise $780, with 15% off yearly. Pro offers a 7-day free trial with no charge until day 7. As of September 2026.
    Sources covered
    ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini, DeepSeek, Mistral, Claude, Grok and Copilot.
    AI visibility
    Yes

  5. Scrunch AI

    Built around personas and page audits rather than raw prompt counts. It ships industry prompt sets alongside your own, so you start with a category view instead of a blank keyword list, and it monitors agent traffic to your site.

    Best for
    Marketing teams that want a category benchmark, not just their own brand.
    Pricing
    Core at $250 a month; Enterprise custom. A 7-day free trial is listed. As of September 2026.
    Sources covered
    Core: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot. Enterprise adds Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, Google AI Mode and Grok.
    AI visibility
    Yes

  6. Goodie AI

    Sells the work as well as the measurement: optimisation actions and tracked pages are plan limits alongside prompts, and there is a separate agency ladder.

    Best for
    Teams that want the fixes produced for them rather than a list of gaps.
    Pricing
    Core $399 a month, Pro $999, Enterprise custom; a 7-day free trial is listed on Core. Agency Growth is $275 a month. As of September 2026.
    Sources covered
    Five models on Core, including ChatGPT, AI Overview, Perplexity, AI Mode and Copilot; eight on Pro; up to twelve on Enterprise.
    AI visibility
    Yes

  7. Evertune

    The enterprise end. One published plan, a very large prompt allowance, and a bundle of production work (AI-optimised articles, retargeting, affiliate partnerships) wrapped around the tracking.

    Best for
    Brands running answer-engine work as a funded channel with headcount behind it.
    Pricing
    Pro $800 a month; Enterprise custom. No free tier or trial is listed on its pricing page. As of September 2026.
    Sources covered
    The Pro plan states 100,000 prompts tracked across 11 AI models; the models are not named on the pricing page.
    AI visibility
    Yes

  8. Brand24

    The reverse of a GEO tool: media and social monitoring first, with AI Visibility sold separately. Worth knowing if you also need mainstream press coverage.

    Best for
    Companies whose first problem is press and social, not AI answers.
    Pricing
    Individual $249 a month or $199 billed annually, Team $349 or $299, Pro $499 or $399, Business $699 or $599, Enterprise from $1,499 billed annually. A 14-day free trial needs no card. As of September 2026.
    Sources covered
    Facebook, Instagram, X, news, blogs, Reddit, LinkedIn, Medium, Quora, YouTube, TikTok, reviews, Twitch, newsletters and podcasts.
    AI visibility
    Yes

What does Profound actually cost?

As of September 2026, Profound no longer publishes a self-serve monthly price: it offers a free 7-day trial, a credit-based Agency Growth plan, and a custom Enterprise tier.

The free trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews at 50 prompts a day. Beyond the trial, Profound sells Agency Growth on credits (400 a month per client workspace, no listed dollar price) or a custom Enterprise plan covering up to nine answer engines, SSO/SAML, SOC 2, full history export and API access.

So the real comparison is a free trial and a sales call against a published monthly number.

Which Profound alternative is cheapest?

Rankscale.ai, which lists Essentials starting at $20 a month, with Otterly.ai Lite at $29 the next rung up.

Rankscale Pro at $99 a month lists 1,200 credits and up to 4,800 tracked answers across ten named engines. Otterly meters search prompts instead: 15 on Lite, 100 on Standard at $189, 400 on Premium at $489.

AthenaHQ is the other way to spend nothing at first: its Essential plan is free with $25 of credit, listed as 300 credits.

Do any of these watch Hacker News, GitHub and Stack Overflow as well as AI answers?

One does. MarketHQ covers Hacker News, GitHub and Stack Overflow, and adds Reddit, a weekly AI-answer check and gap analysis on paid plans; the rest of this list tracks answer engines only.

Profound's own site does not name Reddit, Hacker News, GitHub or Stack Overflow as monitored sources, and neither do the other answer-engine tools here. Brand24 lists Reddit among a mostly consumer-social set.

An assistant that recommends a competitor is usually repeating what it read in a thread, an issue or an answer. Seeing the answer without the thread tells you that you lost; seeing both tells you where, and an action plan tells you what to do about it. That is the pairing MarketHQ is built around.

  • Answer-engine tracking only: Profound, AthenaHQ, Otterly.ai, Rankscale.ai, Scrunch AI, Goodie AI, Evertune.
  • Consumer-social plus an AI Visibility add-on: Brand24.
  • AI answers, gap analysis, an action plan and public communities: MarketHQ.

Where does Profound beat the alternatives?

Profound wins on answer-engine depth and prompt-volume data. Choose MarketHQ when you need the evidence behind the score plus a clear next step.

Prompt Volumes and Answer Engine Insights are built for teams running answer-engine optimisation as a channel. Enterprise's nine-engine coverage, SSO and full data export are real advantages at that scale.

MarketHQ wins for any company tracking its market: weekly AI-answer checks on six engines sit next to news, blog and social mentions, a Slack digest, gap analysis with an action plan, and API plus MCP from Lite at $29.

  • Choose Profound if prompt-volume data on what millions of people ask assistants is the goal.
  • Choose Profound if up to nine engines with full CSV/JSON export on its custom Enterprise plan is the requirement.
  • Choose Profound if enterprise SSO and a dedicated answer-engine suite are procurement requirements.

What does the same month look like on each tool?

Roughly the same measurement, very different amounts of work left over. The numbers below are illustrative, not measured.

Illustrative: you sell a managed queue service and you want to know how assistants answer twelve buying questions, including "best managed queue for Postgres" and two competitor comparisons.

On Profound's free trial, twelve prompts fit inside the fifty-a-day allowance, but you watch ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews for seven days before Profound asks you to talk to sales. On Otterly Lite the twelve fit inside fifteen prompts across four engines for $29. On Rankscale Pro at $99 search terms are unlimited across ten engines. On MarketHQ the same questions are checked weekly, and the Hacker News and GitHub threads that shaped those answers arrive in the same digest.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Profound cost?

As of September 2026, Profound does not publish a self-serve monthly price. It dropped its old $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans; the entry point is now a free 7-day trial, followed by a credit-based Agency Growth plan or a custom Enterprise tier, neither with a listed dollar figure.

Does Profound have a free plan?

MarketHQ has no free plan; neither does Profound. Profound offers a free 7-day trial (50 prompts a day across ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews) instead. AthenaHQ publishes a standing free Essential tier with $25 of credit.

What is the cheapest Profound alternative?

MarketHQ Lite is $29, with weekly AI visibility, gap analysis, an action plan, a Slack digest and API plus MCP. Otterly Lite is also $29. Rankscale Essentials starts at $20 for engine scores only.

Do these tools monitor Reddit, Hacker News or GitHub?

MarketHQ does: Reddit on paid plans, plus Hacker News and GitHub among its public communities, alongside a weekly AI-answer check. Profound and the other answer-engine tools name engines, not developer communities. Brand24 lists Reddit among consumer sources.

Which AI engines does Profound track?

The free trial tracks ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. The custom Enterprise plan extends that to up to nine answer engines, tailored to the account, as listed in September 2026.

Can I get API access on a cheap plan?

Not from Profound: its pricing page lists API access on Enterprise only. AthenaHQ sells API access as a paid add-on, and Goodie AI lists it on Enterprise. MarketHQ includes an API and an MCP endpoint on every paid plan from Lite up.

Related

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Sources

  • Profound pricing: https://www.tryprofound.com/pricing (verified 2026-09-30)
  • Profound home page: https://www.tryprofound.com/ (verified 2026-09-14)
  • AthenaHQ pricing: https://www.athenahq.ai/pricing (verified 2026-09-30)
  • AthenaHQ home page: https://www.athenahq.ai/ (verified 2026-09-14)
  • Otterly.ai pricing: https://otterly.ai/pricing/ (verified 2026-09-30)
  • Rankscale.ai pricing: https://rankscale.ai/pricing (verified 2026-09-30)
  • Scrunch AI pricing: https://www.scrunch.com/pricing (verified 2026-09-30)
  • Goodie AI pricing: https://higoodie.com/pricing (verified 2026-09-30)
  • Evertune pricing: https://www.evertune.ai/pricing (verified 2026-09-30)
  • Brand24 pricing: https://brand24.com/pricing/ (verified 2026-09-30)