AEO / GEO buying guide · Updated September 25, 2026
Profound alternatives (2026): 7 tools with published prices
Profound now lists a free 7-day trial and custom Enterprise pricing; its earlier $99 Starter plan is no longer on the pricing page. Self-serve alternatives start at $9/month (BotView Pro), $20 (Beamtrace), $29 (OtterlyAI Lite, Promptmonitor Starter offer), $39 (Ayzeo) and $50 (HubSpot AEO). They differ in engines covered and in what one prompt buys.
Written by BotView, a product in this comparison. This is a comparison of published capabilities and prices, not an independent hands-on ranking. Sources were reviewed on .
| Tool / source | Price | Engines | Allowance |
|---|---|---|---|
| BotView | $0 Free · $9/month Pro · $39/month Agency | OpenAI API with web search | Pro: 20 individual AI answer runs/month plus 50 crawler scans. Agency: 100 answer runs. Free: 20 scans/month, up to 3 pages each. |
| Beamtrace | $20/month Starter · $40 Growth · $100 Premium | ChatGPT; other engines listed as coming soon | Prompt allowances are not published in the page markup we reviewed. |
| OtterlyAI | $29/month Lite · $189 Standard (monthly billing) | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot | Lite: 15 tracked prompts, checked daily, 1,000 GEO URL audits/month. |
| Promptmonitor | $29/month Starter displayed offer ($49 list) | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, Perplexity | Starter: 25 prompts, 2,250 responses/month, one project, twice-weekly refresh. |
| Ayzeo | $39/month Starter · $149 Pro | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews; others $29/month each | Starter: 20 monitored prompts, expandable in packs of 10. |
| HubSpot AEO | Free one-time AI Search Grader · $50/month AEO | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini | Grader: one-time brand check, no account. AEO: ongoing prompt tracking. |
| Peec AI | Not published in the page markup we reviewed | Selectable models; Starter includes a set of models, more as add-ons | Starter, Pro and Advanced tiers with daily tracking; Enterprise up to 13 models. |
| Profound | Free 7-day trial · Enterprise custom pricing | Trial: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews. Enterprise: 9 engines | Trial: 50 prompts run daily for 7 days. Enterprise: custom prompts, daily. |
USD where a dollar price is shown. Vendor billing terms, taxes, offers and add-ons can change. We do not divide subscription price by prompts: a saved prompt repeated daily and a single answer request buy different amounts of work.
Cheapest paid option
BotView Pro at $9/month: 20 OpenAI API answer runs with web search, citations and manual reruns, plus crawler and rendering checks. It covers one engine and does not run prompts automatically.
Cheapest daily multi-engine tracking
OtterlyAI Lite at $29/month checks 15 prompts daily across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. Promptmonitor’s $29 Starter offer covers six models but refreshes twice a week.
Free one-time check
HubSpot’s AI Search Grader is a free, one-time brand snapshot for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini with no account. BotView’s free scan checks crawler access and rendering, not AI answers.
When to stay with Profound
Choose Profound Enterprise if you need nine engines, custom prompt volume, SSO and a dedicated contract. None of the budget tools here match that coverage.
Questions buyers ask
Is there a cheaper alternative to Profound for AI search tracking?
Yes. As of September 25, 2026, published self-serve prices start at $9/month for BotView Pro (answer reviews, OpenAI only), $20 for Beamtrace (ChatGPT), $29 for OtterlyAI Lite (four engines, daily) and $29 for Promptmonitor’s Starter offer (six models, twice weekly). Profound does not publish a self-serve price for brands.
Does Profound still have a $99 Starter plan?
Not on its pricing page as reviewed on September 25, 2026. The page lists a free trial (50 prompts, daily for 7 days, ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews) and custom Enterprise pricing.
Which Profound alternative tracks Google AI Overviews?
OtterlyAI Lite, Ayzeo Starter and Profound’s trial include Google AI Overviews. BotView and Beamtrace do not track AI Overviews.
How do I switch from Profound to a cheaper tool?
Export your tracked prompts and competitor list first. Then match the engines and refresh cadence you actually use: a tool with fewer engines or weekly refresh can cost less but will show different numbers. Run both for one cycle before cancelling.
Choose by the job you need done
BotView: A small AEO/GEO review with crawler diagnostics and selected AI answers.
OpenAI API answers with web search, mentions, citations, manual reruns; separate page scores and human/Googlebot screenshots.
No automatic answer monitoring, multi-engine share of voice, consumer ChatGPT rankings or traffic analytics. A five-question assessment uses five checks.
Check BotView pricing and inclusions →Beamtrace: Small-business AI recommendation tracking with a written action plan.
Made by Elfsight. Lists recommendation checks, competitor comparison, visibility trends, citation analysis and a weekly digest.
The vendor FAQ lists Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek and Grok as coming soon. Confirm prompt limits before buying.
Check Beamtrace pricing and inclusions →OtterlyAI: Daily monitoring of a small prompt set across engines.
Lite includes four engines, citation reporting and GEO URL audits.
Claude ($29/month), Gemini ($9) and Google AI Mode ($9) are paid add-ons. Daily tracked prompts are not equivalent to BotView’s individual runs.
Check OtterlyAI pricing and inclusions →Promptmonitor: Broader answer monitoring with website and crawler analytics.
The pricing page lists six models, website analytics, AI crawler analytics and CSV export.
Daily refresh starts on Growth ($39 offer, $66 list). Confirm the displayed discount at checkout.
Check Promptmonitor pricing and inclusions →Ayzeo: AI visibility monitoring with SEO-style reporting; white-label on Pro.
The pricing page lists prompt monitoring by plan and per-model add-ons for Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Grok.
Refresh cadence is not stated on the pricing page. Extra engines raise the monthly cost.
Check Ayzeo pricing and inclusions →HubSpot AEO: A free one-time brand snapshot, or tracking inside HubSpot.
The grader scores sentiment, presence, recognition, share of voice and competition. The paid AEO product adds prompt tracking and citation analysis.
The free grader is a single snapshot, not monitoring. Check prompt limits on the AEO plan.
Check HubSpot AEO pricing and inclusions →Peec AI: Recurring multi-model brand, competitor and source analytics.
The vendor lists visibility and source analytics, agent analytics, Looker Studio and API access by plan.
We could verify tiers but not a numeric price, so it is excluded from budget ranking.
Check Peec AI pricing and inclusions →Profound: Enterprise brand and source analysis with a sales-led contract.
Enterprise adds Perplexity, AI Mode, Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude and Exa, plus agent analytics, exports and SSO.
No self-serve monthly price is published for brands. The earlier $99 Starter plan is no longer listed.
Check Profound pricing and inclusions →BotView Pro includes 20 individual runs per UTC month: five questions use five checks; a rerun uses one. Failed answers are refunded. Checks do not roll over. Discovery and branded questions stay separate. See the recorded example.
Your next step · Pro
Does ChatGPT recommend your business?
We put the questions your customers ask to OpenAI with web search, then show whether you're named, who is recommended instead, and the sources the answers used.
- Your business: named or missing, and what the answer gets right or wrong.
- Your competitors: who appears instead, and the reasons the answer gives.
- Your next steps: the cited sources, so you can see which pages and listings to improve.
$9/month · 20 AI checks + 50 crawler scans · Cancel anytime
Start with a five-question analysis (5 checks). Rerun a question for 1 check. Answers come from the OpenAI API with web search, not consumer ChatGPT sessions; they are sampled answers, not measured rankings.