CompareProfound alternatives
Profound alternatives and pricing, for teams that aren’t enterprises
Profound doesn’t publish a price for brands anymore. A brand gets a free 7-day trial, then a demo and a custom Enterprise price. The $99 a month you’ll see quoted is its agency plan. Here’s what the alternatives track and cost, FirstIndex included: we do the work, for $2,000 a month.
How much does Profound cost per month?
| Plan | Who it’s for | Price | What’s in it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trial | Who it’s for: Brands | Price: Free for 7 days | What’s in it: 50 questions run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews |
| Enterprise | Who it’s for: Brands | Price: Custom, after a demo | What’s in it: Up to 10 AI engines, SSO and SOC 2, dedicated support |
| Agency Growth | Who it’s for: Agencies | Price: $99 a month, plus $399 a month for each client workspace | What’s in it: 10 pitch workspaces a month to audit prospects |
| Agency Enterprise | Who it’s for: Large agencies | Price: Custom | What’s in it: For networks managing dozens of clients |
As listed on Profound’s pricing page on Nov 11, 2026.
Profound’s prices have moved a lot, and the lists haven’t caught up: of the 7 pages Google shows for “profound alternatives,” 4 still give $99 or $399 as plans for brands.
Profound says it serves more than 700 enterprises, and it’s priced for them now. If that’s not you, pick by who’ll do the work: a cheaper tracker if someone on your team will act on what it shows, or a team that does the work for you.
Profound alternatives and competitors, with pricing
One Profound Enterprise user asked on Reddit for “similar results at a lower price point.” Every other tracker here starts under $300 a month.
| Option | Entry price | Questions tracked | AI engines |
|---|---|---|---|
| FirstIndex | Entry price: $2,000 a month | Questions tracked: Tracked for you, and we do the work | AI engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google’s AI answers |
| Profound Enterprise | Entry price: Custom | Questions tracked: Custom | AI engines: Up to 10 |
| AthenaHQ | Entry price: Free with $25 of credit; Starter $295 a month | Questions tracked: Unlimited on Starter, metered by credits | AI engines: 11 on Starter |
| Scrunch | Entry price: Core, $250 a month | Questions tracked: 125 | AI engines: 4 |
| Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | Entry price: $99 a month | Questions tracked: 25 | AI engines: Not listed in full |
| Peec AI | Entry price: Starter, $95 a month | Questions tracked: 50 | AI engines: 3 you pick |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Entry price: Your own questions from $50 a month | Questions tracked: 5 to 20, by Ahrefs plan | AI engines: Not listed in full |
| Otterly AI | Entry price: Lite, €29 a month | Questions tracked: Metered by credits | AI engines: 3 of 7 |
Entry plans as listed on Nov 11, 2026. Otterly AI lists euros, before tax.
The cheaper plans mostly cut AI engines, and that hurts more than it sounds: each engine names brands the others miss. Here’s what we found when we asked 5 engines the same questions.
Profound vs an agency: who makes the changes?
Profound isn’t only a tracker now. Its AI Marketer “identifies the work worth doing, drafts it, and pings you for approval,” with the drafts staged in your CMS. So the real question is who reads each draft, fixes what’s off and puts it live.
We do all four. Real changes ship to your site every day, each checked before it goes live, and a weekly report shows what moved in search and in AI answers. For Callingly, ChatGPT went from naming them in 4% of the buyer questions we track on Sep 28, 2026, to 49% on Nov 9, with a comparison page among the changes. See every run. Hiring out the full plan costs about $25,000 a month at an SEO agency. We do it for $2,000 a month.
FirstIndex is the right fit if
- You saw $99, found a demo form and don’t need an enterprise platform.
- You want someone to make the changes on your site, every day.
- You sell software.
FirstIndex isn’t the right fit if
- Your marketing team wants a platform to run AI visibility itself.
- You sell to local customers or run an online store.
Questions
Is there a free Profound alternative?
AthenaHQ’s Essential plan is free, with $25 of credit: 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Profound’s own trial ends after 7 days and has no data exports. The cheapest paid plan here is Otterly AI’s Lite, at €29 a month.
How we compared
Profound’s prices come from its pricing page on Nov 11, 2026, in both the brand and the agency view, and from the Internet Archive’s copies of that page from Feb 16, Aug 6 and Nov 3, 2025. The 7 pages are the ones Google showed for “profound alternatives” on Nov 10, 2026. The trackers are the ones ChatGPT searched for next to Profound when we asked it buyer questions on Nov 10, 2026. Every other price comes from each company’s own pricing page on Nov 11, 2026.
Josh Pigford is the founder of FirstIndex. We do AI visibility and SEO for 30+ software companies.
Want the changes made for you?
Here’s what they’ve moved for 6 of our clients.