5 Best Profound Alternatives in 2026

Profound raised $58.5M, landed G2 Leader status, and counts MongoDB, Ramp, and Figma as customers. Its Starter plan is $99/mo and limited to ChatGPT with just 50 prompts, and the Growth plan jumps to $399/mo.

For many teams, that’s the problem. Startups, lean marketing teams, and agencies managing multiple clients often find Profound either too expensive or missing specific capabilities they need—like agency-friendly pricing, Reddit monitoring, or a lower-cost way to test AI visibility before committing.

This guide covers the 5 best Profound alternatives for 2026. Each platform is evaluated on its own merits with an honest look at where it outperforms Profound and where it falls short.

What are the best Profound alternatives?

The top 5 Profound alternatives are Airefs, Peec AI, Promptwatch, Cognizo, and Ahrefs Brand Radar.

Airefs is the most affordable option at $24/mo—a full-stack AEO platform with Reddit monitoring and an optional done-for-you agency service. Peec AI matches Profound’s enterprise credibility with $30M+ in funding, UI scraping accuracy, and 115+ language support at $89/mo. Promptwatch tracks 10 AI platforms with 1.11 billion data points and undercuts Profound’s Growth plan by $150/mo.

Cognizo is an all-in-one platform that combines monitoring, content briefs, and automated content workflows—similar in scope to Profound’s Agents feature but starting at $89/mo. Ahrefs Brand Radar is the only option here that integrates with a full SEO platform, backed by 253M+ monthly prompts, but it comes with a steep minimum cost.

Top Profound alternatives — Comparison table

1. Airefs: Best Profound alternative for startups and SMBs

Profound’s Starter plan gives you 50 prompts on ChatGPT only. Airefs’ Lite plan—which costs $24/mo—gives you 25 prompts tracked on ChatGPT by default, plus Reddit keyword monitoring that Profound doesn’t offer at any price point.

Airefs is built for teams that want to be proactive, not just informed. Beyond tracking where you’re mentioned, it surfaces the specific Reddit threads to join, the content gaps your competitors are filling, and the sources AI models repeatedly cite in your category.

For teams that want even more support, Airefs has a done-for-you tier where the team creates content and participates in relevant discussions on your behalf. Profound doesn’t offer this outside of a custom enterprise arrangement.

Key features

• ChatGPT-first prompt tracking: Tracked on ChatGPT by default—where most AI search demand is—with other LLMs (Perplexity, Claude, Gemini) available upon request; daily refresh on paid plans
• AI Search Analytics: Identify real traffic coming from AI platforms and track crawler activity on your site
• Reddit keyword monitoring: Track up to 30 keywords (plan-dependent) to catch conversations before they become established sources
• Competitor source analysis: See which sources your competitors are cited in that you’re not
• Content opportunity identification: Pinpoint specific articles, discussions, and pages AI models rely on in your market
• AEO strategist access: Expert review and strategy support on Expert plan and above
• Done-for-you agency service: Full content creation and community participation on behalf of your brand

Pricing

All plans reflect yearly pricing with a 20% discount.

• Lite: $24/mo — 1 domain, 3 competitors, 25 prompts, 2-day refresh, 7-day analytics history, 3 Reddit keywords
• Pro: $49/mo — 3 domains, 5 competitors, 60 prompts, daily refresh, 90-day history, 10 Reddit keywords, 2 seats, 7-day free trial
• Expert: $83/mo — Unlimited domains, 10 competitors, 150 prompts, 30 Reddit keywords, 10 seats, AEO strategist
• Done-for-you: $249/mo+ — Monthly strategy calls, content creation, discussion participation

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Starts at $24/mo vs Profound’s $99/mo—and covers more AI platforms on the entry plan
• Reddit monitoring is a genuinely unique feature with no equivalent in Profound
• Done-for-you tier converts monitoring insights directly into content and community work
• Simple, transparent pricing with a free trial—no sales call required

Cons:

• Doesn’t have Profound’s prompt volume data or ChatGPT Shopping tracking
• No AI-generated content creation feature (Profound Agents equivalent)
• Smaller customer base and brand recognition than Profound

Customers

Airefs serves 100+ teams including startups, content teams, SEO agencies, and B2B SaaS companies across North America and Europe. It holds a 5.0/5 customer rating.

The AI Search audit gave us visibility into how we perform against competitors, LLM sentiment analysis and insights into our ChatGPT traffic.

— Alex C, Brand Director, Hassell

2. Peec AI: Best Profound alternative for enterprise accuracy and global brands

Profound uses a proprietary AI crawler for tracking. Peec AI takes a different approach: UI scraping that simulates real user interactions, producing results that reflect what users actually see rather than what an API returns.

Peec launched in early 2025, hit EUR 650K ARR within four months, and closed a $21M Series A by November. Its customer case studies are strong: Wix achieved a 5x year-over-year increase in LLM traffic, Merge saw a 5x increase in LLM-driven demo requests, and Glide got blog posts ranking in ChatGPT and Perplexity within 24 hours of publishing.

Where Peec diverges from Profound is scope—Peec monitors, diagnoses, and recommends, but doesn’t write content. Teams that need the full monitoring-to-content loop may find Profound more complete; teams that prioritize tracking accuracy and language breadth will lean toward Peec.

Key features

• UI scraping technology: Tracks what real users see in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews—not synthetic API responses
• 115+ language support: The broadest language coverage in the AEO category; most tools are English-first
• Visibility percentage metrics: Track exactly what portion of relevant AI responses mention your brand
• Source and citation tracking: Identify which sources AI models cite when discussing your category
• Competitor benchmarking with regional breakdowns: Compare visibility by country and platform
• Sentiment analysis: Monitor positive, neutral, and negative brand characterizations across AI platforms
• Daily tracking: All plans include daily refresh of core platforms

Pricing

• Starting at $89/mo with a 14-day free trial
• All plans include ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews
• Additional platforms (Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok): EUR 20-30/mo each
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Pros & cons

Pros:

• UI scraping delivers real-world accuracy that API-based tracking (Profound’s method) can miss
• 115+ languages—critical for global brands or non-English markets
• $30M+ in funding with $100M+ valuation and strong enterprise case studies
• 14-day free trial, longer than most competitors
• Comparable starting price ($89/mo vs Profound’s $99/mo) with more platform depth per dollar

Cons:

• No content generation—Profound’s Agents feature has no equivalent in Peec
• Add-on pricing for additional AI platforms can get expensive; full coverage costs significantly more than the base price
• No GA4, GSC, or BI tool integrations listed
• Newer product with a shorter track record than Profound despite similar funding

Customers

Peec AI counts Wix, Glide, Graphite, and Merge among its customers. Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Comms at Wix, called Peec “essential for pinpointing the exact types of content that are surfaced in specific LLMs.”

Peec allows us to pinpoint the exact types of content that are surfaced in specific LLMs.

— Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Comms, Wix

3. Promptwatch: Best Profound alternative for comprehensive coverage at lower cost

Profound’s Growth plan ($399/mo) is where 10-platform coverage begins. Promptwatch’s Growth plan ($249/mo) covers 10 platforms from the start—including Mistral and Meta AI that even Profound doesn’t track.

The dataset behind Promptwatch is substantial: 1.11 billion citations, clicks, and prompts collected across 6,900+ brands and agencies. That scale matters for trend analysis and benchmark comparisons—you’re not just seeing your own data in isolation.

Promptwatch also goes in directions Profound doesn’t, including YouTube analysis, entity tracking, and Reddit monitoring alongside core brand visibility features. Its free tools—an AI Brand Visibility Report, LLMs.txt Generator, and GEO Glossary—make it particularly useful for agencies that need to demonstrate AEO value to prospective clients before they commit.

Key features

• 10-platform tracking: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Copilot, DeepSeek, AI Overviews, Mistral, and Meta AI
• Crawler logs: Real-time monitoring of AI bots visiting your site with detailed access logs
• ChatGPT Shopping data: Track product recommendations and shopping trigger analysis in ChatGPT
• Reddit and YouTube tracking: Monitor brand conversations beyond AI platforms
• Entity tracker: How AI models define and describe your brand as an entity
• Prompt volume tracking: Understand the volume of queries triggering your brand’s mentions
• Content generation: Create and optimize AEO content within the platform
• Free client prospecting tools: AI Brand Visibility Report, LLMs.txt Generator, GEO Glossary

Pricing

• Starter: $99/mo
• Growth: $249/mo
• Business: $579/mo
• Enterprise: Custom
• Free trial: 7 days

Pros & cons

Pros:

• 10-platform coverage at $249/mo Growth vs Profound’s $399/mo Growth—$150/mo cheaper for equivalent breadth
• Includes Mistral and Meta AI that Profound doesn’t track
• 1.11 billion data points provides more reliable benchmarking than smaller-dataset competitors
• Reddit and YouTube tracking extends visibility monitoring beyond AI answer engines
• Free tools are genuinely useful for agency client prospecting

Cons:

• No G2 category leadership (Profound is G2 Winter 2026 Leader)
• Starter plan feature details aren’t fully disclosed
• No disclosed integrations with GA4, GSC, or BI tools
• Amsterdam-based support may create timezone friction for US teams

Customers

Promptwatch serves 6,900+ brands and agencies including Booking.com, Center Parcs, and Elaboratum. The platform has a G2 4.7/5 rating and has been covered by Yahoo Finance, WSJ, and Axios.

Promptwatch is a game changer. It provides actionable insights on AI Visibility that we can actually use.

— Alessandro Di Vito, Managing Consultant, Elaboratum

4. Cognizo: Best Profound alternative for teams wanting monitoring and content in one platform

Profound has two distinct capabilities: monitoring (tracking what AI says about you) and Agents (generating AEO-optimized content). Cognizo combines a similar scope—monitoring, content briefs, technical audits, and automated content creation—in a single platform starting at $89/mo rather than the $399/mo required to access Profound’s content features.

The feature that has no equivalent in Profound is bot-to-human attribution. Cognizo tracks how AI crawler visits translate into actual human traffic—connecting the AI visibility layer to the business impact layer, which is meaningful for teams building an internal ROI case for AEO investment.

Cognizo is also one of the few platforms in this category that offers phone support alongside online support. That hands-on service model appeals to teams that want implementation guidance, not just a dashboard to interpret on their own.

Key features

• AI visibility monitoring: Real-time brand mention, citation, and sentiment tracking across 10 AI platforms
• Bot-to-human attribution: Tracks how AI crawler activity converts to actual human visits—unique in the category
• AI-powered content briefs: Generate optimized content recommendations based on citation gap analysis
• Technical audits for LLM crawlability: Identify technical barriers preventing AI bots from properly indexing your content
• Automated content creation and revision: Create and update AEO content directly within the platform
• Prompt Volumes from billions of signals: Large-scale data for understanding AI search demand in your category
• Competitive benchmarking: Visibility, sentiment, and citation frequency comparisons across platforms
• Phone and online support: More hands-on than most software-only AEO tools

Pricing

• Starting at $89/mo (full plan details require contact with sales@cognizo.ai)
• Results reported within 2 weeks; substantial improvement typically within 6 weeks

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Monitoring + content briefs + technical audits + content creation in one platform—Profound’s equivalent scope costs $399/mo minimum
• Bot-to-human attribution is a genuinely unique capability for building ROI business cases
• 10-platform coverage including Meta AI and DeepSeek from the base plan
• Phone support offers more accessible guidance than Profound’s standard support model
• Broad applicability—serves startups, enterprises, nonprofits, and government organizations

Cons:

• No named customer case studies or public testimonials for independent validation
• Pricing opacity: $89/mo starting price but full details require a sales conversation
• No G2 reviews or third-party category recognition
• No disclosed integrations (GA4, GSC, Slack, or BI tools)

Customers

Cognizo serves mid-size businesses, enterprises, startups, agencies, and nonprofit organizations. Anonymous customers describe seeing meaningful visibility improvements within six weeks and value the “hands-on guidance” model.

Cognizo has been a true partner—their hands-on guidance and technical depth made the difference in our AI visibility program.

— Cognizo customer

5. Ahrefs Brand Radar: Best Profound alternative for teams already on Ahrefs

Every other platform on this list is a standalone AEO tool. Ahrefs Brand Radar is different: it’s an add-on to an established SEO platform that 10 million users already rely on for keyword research, backlink analysis, and site audits.

The scale behind Brand Radar is the largest in the category: 253M+ monthly prompts tracked, search-backed rather than synthetic. Unlike tools that simulate queries in isolation, Ahrefs derives its prompt database from actual search behavior—which theoretically makes the query set more representative of real user intent.

But the trade-offs are real. Independent testing in early 2026 found significant undercounting: one reviewer reported 3 ChatGPT mentions from Ahrefs vs 123 when checked manually—a 97% gap. The pricing is also the highest in this comparison by a wide margin, and Brand Radar uses keyword-based tracking rather than prompt-based tracking, which critics argue is a mismatch with how people actually interact with conversational AI.

Key features

• AI Share of Voice: Impression percentage across AI responses with competitor benchmarking
• 253M+ monthly prompts: Largest prompt database in the AEO category, derived from real search behavior
• Cited Domains and Pages: Identify the sources AI models cite when mentioning your brand
• Web Visibility: Brand mentions across web, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok alongside AI platforms
• Industry Segmentation: Separate visibility data by product line or vertical (e.g., Apple’s fitness products vs consumer electronics)
• Historical Data: Access to historical AI visibility trends unavailable from newer entrants
• Custom Prompt Scheduling: Daily, weekly, or monthly tracking for specific queries
• Full Ahrefs integration: Connected directly to Site Explorer, Keywords Explorer, and Site Audit

Pricing

• Ahrefs base plan required: From EUR 119/mo (Lite)
• Single AI index per platform: EUR 179/mo
• All 6 indexes bundle: EUR 654/mo
• Custom queries: EUR 1.87/unit
• Minimum cost for full coverage: ~EUR 773/mo
• No free trial for Brand Radar

Pros & cons

Pros:

• Only option that integrates AI visibility with a full SEO platform for teams who want one unified view
• Largest prompt database (253M+ monthly prompts) with historical data going back further than newer tools
• Industry segmentation feature is genuinely useful for multi-product companies
• Web visibility layer (YouTube, Reddit, TikTok) extends beyond AI-only monitoring

Cons:

• Most expensive option by a significant margin—EUR 773/mo minimum vs Profound’s $99/mo Starter
• Independent testing found serious accuracy issues (97% undercounting in one ChatGPT measurement)
• Keyword-based tracking is a legacy SEO methodology poorly matched to conversational AI queries
• No sentiment analysis despite the premium price point
• Missing Claude and Grok; tracks only 6 platforms vs Profound’s 10+
• Pricing model is agency-unfriendly for multi-client reporting

Customers

Ahrefs serves 10M+ users across its core SEO platform. Industry reviewers have been candid about Brand Radar’s current limitations. EWR Digital (February 2026): “Incredibly ambitious and powerful research tool, boasting the largest prompt database available. However, its eye-watering price, questionable accuracy in key areas, and agency-unfriendly model make it a niche solution.” Rankability (January 2026): “Its foundation is solid, and the company’s track record suggests meaningful improvements are likely.”

Incredibly ambitious and powerful research tool, boasting the largest prompt database available. However, its eye-watering price, questionable accuracy in key areas, and agency-unfriendly model make it a niche solution.

— EWR Digital, February 2026

Frequently asked questions

Why would I choose a Profound alternative instead of Profound itself?

Profound is an excellent platform, but it’s built primarily for enterprise teams with enterprise budgets. Its $99/mo Starter plan is restricted to ChatGPT with 50 prompts—less functionality than most competitors at that price—and the Growth plan ($399/mo) is a significant commitment before you’ve proven AI visibility ROI.

If you’re an SMB, startup, or agency, you may find better value at lower price points. If you need features Profound doesn’t offer—Reddit monitoring, bot-to-human attribution, UI scraping accuracy, or SEO platform integration—one of these alternatives may be a better fit regardless of budget.

How much does it cost to replace Profound’s features?

Profound’s Growth plan ($399/mo) is the tier most teams need for full functionality. Promptwatch’s Growth ($249/mo) covers equivalent platform breadth for $150/mo less, Airefs Expert ($83/mo) covers tracking and Reddit monitoring with strategic support, and Cognizo ($89/mo) combines monitoring and content workflows.

The right swap depends on which Profound features you actually use.

Does any alternative match Profound’s content generation (Agents)?

Promptwatch and Cognizo both include content generation alongside monitoring. If Profound Agents is the specific feature you’re evaluating, Cognizo’s automated content workflow is the closest comparison.

Which platform is best for agencies managing multiple clients?

Airefs Expert (unlimited domains) and Promptwatch Business are the strongest choices for agencies. Airefs Expert at $83/mo with unlimited domains and 10 seats offers more client coverage at a lower price point than Profound’s Agency plans ($99/mo for pitch workspaces, $399/mo+ for full client workspaces). Ahrefs Brand Radar is explicitly agency-unfriendly according to reviewers due to its per-platform pricing model.

How does Profound’s G2 Leader status compare to these alternatives?

Profound’s G2 Winter 2026 Leader designation is a meaningful signal of market validation. Among alternatives, Promptwatch holds a G2 4.7/5 and Peec AI has a G2 5.0/5 (smaller review base); Airefs, Cognizo, and Ahrefs Brand Radar don’t have established G2 presence in the AEO category. G2 status reflects current adoption and review volume—not necessarily the best fit for your use case.

Do Profound alternatives integrate with Google Analytics or Search Console?

This is an area where most Profound alternatives currently fall short. Profound’s Enterprise tier includes API access for custom integrations, and among these alternatives, Ahrefs Brand Radar integrates with the full Ahrefs platform (though not directly with GA4). If analytics platform integration is a hard requirement, AthenaHQ—which includes native GA4 and Google Search Console connections on its Self-Serve plan—may be worth evaluating alongside this list.

Is Profound’s dataset actually better than competitors?

Profound processes data across 10+ AI platforms daily with proprietary crawler technology and has the backing of Sequoia to invest in infrastructure. That said, Ahrefs Brand Radar has a larger raw prompt database (253M+ monthly), and Peec AI’s UI scraping may produce more accurate per-query results—so “better data” depends on what you’re measuring.

Conclusion: Choosing your Profound alternative

Profound is well-funded, well-reviewed, and built for enterprise scale. Its pricing structure creates a real gap though: $99/mo gets you very little (ChatGPT only, 50 prompts), and meaningful functionality requires $399/mo.

For startups, SMBs, and teams new to AEO, Airefs offers the lowest cost of entry at $24/mo, tracks prompts on ChatGPT by default (with other LLMs available on request), and adds Reddit monitoring that Profound doesn’t provide at any price. The done-for-you tier turns visibility data into actual content and community work.

For global brands and teams where data accuracy is the priority, Peec AI’s UI scraping methodology and 115+ language support address weaknesses in API-based tracking. Its enterprise case studies—5x traffic increases at Wix and Merge—validate the approach at meaningful scale.

For teams that specifically need Profound-level platform breadth but can’t justify the $399/mo Growth plan, Promptwatch covers 10 platforms at $249/mo, includes Mistral and Meta AI that Profound doesn’t track, and adds Reddit and YouTube monitoring as additional data layers.

For teams that want monitoring and content creation without paying separately for each, Cognizo combines both into a single workflow starting at $89/mo. The bot-to-human attribution feature makes it easier to build internal ROI cases for continued AEO investment.

For teams already on Ahrefs that want AI visibility without adding another tool, Ahrefs Brand Radar keeps everything in one platform. The accuracy limitations and premium pricing are real trade-offs—but if your team’s context requires Ahrefs integration, the trade-off may be worth it.

Want to start tracking AI visibility without the enterprise price tag? Try Airefs free for 7 days and see exactly where your brand stands in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews.