What’s a Profound alternative for a small site?
Profound is built for enterprise teams: its pricing page shows a 7-day trial and a custom Enterprise plan, with no public monthly price. For one small site, cheaper trackers start at $17 to $50 a month (Rankscale, Otterly.AI, HubSpot AEO, Rank Prompt, Ahrefs Brand Radar), mid-range ones at $95 to $300 (Peec AI, Semrush, Scrunch), and Bing Webmaster Tools reports Copilot citations at $0. Prices below were read on each vendor’s page on 15 October 2026.
What Profound is, and why small sites look elsewhere
Profound tracks how answer engines describe your brand and category, which sources they cite, and how bots read your pages, and its “AI Marketer” agents draft content for approval (Profound, read 15 Oct 2026). The pricing page lists two plans: a 7-day trial with 50 prompts a day on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and a custom Enterprise plan covering up to 9 engines. An agency plan is mentioned without a price (Profound pricing, read 15 Oct 2026).
That fits a brand team with a budget line. For one small site you usually need three things: a fixed set of 10 to 25 questions, two or three engines, and a run every week or two. Our full tracker comparison is at AI visibility tools; this page answers a narrower question: what replaces Profound when you have one site and a small budget.
The alternatives, by budget
Monthly US dollar prices as shown on each vendor’s own page, read 15 Oct 2026. Annual billing is often cheaper; some vendors show other currencies by location.
| Tool | What it does | Who it fits | Price | Honest limit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bing Webmaster Tools | AI Performance report: citations in Copilot, Bing AI summaries and partners | Anyone with a verified site | $0 | Microsoft surfaces only; sampled data, no clicks |
| Rankscale | Credit-based tracking on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google, Claude, Copilot and more, page audits | Tight budgets | Essentials $17 billed yearly; Pro $99 | Essentials limits aren’t spelled out on the page |
| Otterly.AI | Prompt monitoring, content audit and briefs | Solo marketers | Lite $29, 15 prompts | Gemini, AI Mode and Claude are paid add-ons |
| Rank Prompt | Reports on 6 engines, articles, audits, MCP | Founders who want reports plus content | Starter $39 a month billed yearly ($470) | The page’s FAQ shows different agency prices than its table |
| HubSpot AEO | 25 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, with recommendations | Small teams, HubSpot or not | $50, or $45 billed yearly | Three engines |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | Custom prompts, plus an AI Visibility Index | Ahrefs users | Custom prompts from $50; index $199 | $50 covers 5 prompts on 1 platform |
| LLM Pulse | 50 prompts on 5 engines, recommendations | European teams | Starter €49 weekly, €79 daily | Weekly cadence at the entry price |
| Peec AI | Daily tracking, gap analysis, crawlability audit, MCP | Marketing teams | Starter $95, 50 prompts | Choose 3 models per plan |
| Semrush AI Visibility | 25 tracked prompts, brand performance, AI site audit | Semrush users | $99 per domain | 25 prompts, no trial per its help center |
| Scrunch | 350 prompts on 7 platforms, a version of your site for AI agents | Brand teams | Starter $300, or $250 billed yearly | Priced for teams, not one small site |
| AthenaHQ | Tracking, content agent, robots.txt and llms.txt management | Teams that want many engines | Essential $0 (300 credits); Starter $295 | Steep step from $0 to $295 |
| GEOHATS | Tracks 5 assistants on your keys, writes pages, MCP | WordPress builders | $47 one-time, 3 sites | Lifetime means “as long as GEOHATS runs”; no company named |
| Katman (pricing) | MCP inside your AI coding tool: audits code and live site, fix prompts, measures 5 assistants | People who build with Cursor, Claude Code and similar | Katman Pro is $99 a month for up to 3 sites, with fix prompts and page briefs uncapped. | No hosted dashboard or team seats; doesn’t edit the site itself |
How to pick in four steps
- Write your questions before you look at tools. Ten to 25 unbranded questions a customer would ask. If a plan’s prompt count is below that, it doesn’t fit.
- Check the engines in the plan you’d buy, not the ones on the home page. Otterly.AI, Ahrefs and Semrush all put some engines behind add-ons or higher plans.
- Pick a cadence. Every 14 days with the same questions is enough for most small sites.
- Ask what happens after the chart. If you’re absent from answers, the reason is usually on your site (blocked bots, an empty JavaScript shell, no page that answers the question). See why ChatGPT doesn’t recommend your brand.
Example: the $0 version
Before paying anyone, log each answer by hand for two weeks. An example log, one line per question and assistant:
date,assistant,question,named,position,cited_url,others_named
2026-10-15,ChatGPT,"habit tracker that works offline",no,,,"Streaks; Loop"
2026-10-15,Perplexity,"habit tracker that works offline",yes,3,/offline,"Streaks"
2026-10-29,ChatGPT,"habit tracker that works offline",yes,4,/offline,"Streaks; Loop"
The full manual method is in check if ChatGPT recommends your site. If the log stays at “no” after a month, a tracker will show you the same thing for money; the next step is fixing the site.
Where Katman fits, and where it doesn’t
Katman is a local MCP server for Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code, Windsurf and other AI coding tools. It reads your code and live pages the way AI crawlers do, gives your coding tool fix prompts with acceptance checks and page briefs, and measures whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok name you, on your own OpenRouter key (about $2.40 a run on the default panel). See what Katman does.
What it can’t do: it isn’t a hosted dashboard, has no team seats or white-label reports, doesn’t run on a schedule unless you set that up, and doesn’t edit your site by itself; your coding tool makes the changes. API answers are a proxy for what the apps show, and nobody can promise an assistant will recommend you.
Who this is not for
- Enterprise brand teams that want Profound’s agents, SSO and nine engines: ask Profound for a demo.
- Agencies reporting on many client brands: compare agency plans directly.
- Anyone who wants a promise of being recommended: no tool can make one.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Profound cost?
Its pricing page shows a 7-day trial (50 prompts a day on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews) and a custom-priced Enterprise plan. No monthly price is public (read 15 Oct 2026); you get one through a demo.
What’s the cheapest paid alternative to Profound?
On the pages we read, Rankscale Essentials at $17 a month billed yearly, then Otterly.AI Lite at $29 a month for 15 prompts (vendor pages, read 15 Oct 2026). Both track fewer prompts and engines than Profound’s Enterprise plan.
Can I track AI visibility without paying anything?
Partly. Bing Webmaster Tools reports how often Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries cite your pages, and a 12-question check by hand every 14 days covers ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity.
Do I need daily tracking for a small site?
Rarely. Answers change from run to run, so a fixed question set every 14 days shows the trend; daily data mostly shows noise.
Which alternative also helps me fix my site?
Several add recommendations or content tools (HubSpot AEO, Peec AI, Rank Prompt, Otterly.AI). If you build with an AI coding tool and want the fix made in your code, see GEO tools that fix vs tools that track.