Profound made a buzz by being first to market in AI visibility tracking, but being first doesn’t mean being best. If you’re looking for alternatives—whether for better pricing, superior features, or a more accessible platform—here are five excellent options that often outperform Profound.

With pricing starting at $499/month and a focus on enterprise clients, Profound isn’t the right fit for many teams. More importantly, several newer platforms have emerged that offer better features, more accessible pricing, and superior user experiences.

That’s why I’ve researched and compiled this list of the best Profound alternatives. Each tool offers unique advantages, better pricing models, and serves different needs within the AI brand visibility ecosystem—often outperforming Profound in key areas.

Whether you’re a startup on a budget, an agency managing multiple clients, or an enterprise looking for more specialized features, there’s an alternative here that will likely work better than Profound for your situation.

What is an AI brand visibility monitoring tool?

An AI brand visibility monitoring tool (also called AEO/GEO tools) tracks how your brand appears in AI-generated responses across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, and Google AI Overviews.

These tools monitor two key metrics:

Mentions: When AI directly recommends your brand or product in its responses
Citations: When your content is used as a source to inform AI responses

Think of it as Google Alerts, but specifically for AI search results. These platforms help you understand where and how your brand shows up in AI conversations, track trends over time, and identify opportunities to improve your visibility.

Why look for Profound alternatives?

While Profound was early to market, there are several compelling reasons to consider alternatives:

Pricing: At $499/month minimum, Profound is significantly more expensive than alternatives like Spotlight ($50/month) or Hall (free tier available)
Better value: Many newer platforms offer more features and better value at lower price points
Free features: Tools like Spotlight offer extensive free features (intelligent prompt discovery, citation tracking, prompt volume tools, Google Analytics integration, content scoring, reputation scoring) that Profound doesn’t provide
Accessibility: Profound’s enterprise focus makes it less accessible for smaller teams, while alternatives offer more flexible entry points
Superior features: Newer platforms have learned from early tools and often offer better sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, actionable insights, and unique capabilities like automatic prompt discovery
Risk-free testing: Alternatives like Spotlight offer free full pro access for audits, while Profound requires a significant upfront investment

5 Best Profound Alternatives in 2025

Here are the best alternatives to Profound for AI brand visibility monitoring:

Spotlight
Scrunch AI
Hall
Otterly.AI
BrandLight

Let’s dive into each one.

1. Spotlight

Best for: Agencies and brands focused on comprehensive AI share of voice and reputation management
What I like: Intelligent prompt discovery, citation tracking, reputation scoring, and extensive free features
Pricing: Free version that includes full audit. Paid plans start at $50/month.

Spotlight is a comprehensive AI visibility platform that stands out as one of the best alternatives to Profound. The platform monitors brands across 8 AI platforms: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Grok, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Copilot—offering features that often surpass what Profound provides at a fraction of the cost.

What makes Spotlight exceptional is its intelligent approach to AI visibility tracking. Rather than just tracking prompts you manually input, Spotlight automatically discovers the most searched prompts that your brand would want to appear in—those that potential customers would ask when searching for products or services you offer. These prompts are grouped by topics aligned with your marketing objectives, and Spotlight identifies each prompt’s search volume to help prioritize your actions.

The platform sends all prompts to all models weekly using a local IP to get local responses. Responses are then analyzed to:

Identify brand mentions and evaluate sentiment around those mentions
Compare your positioning against competitors
Capture and analyze all citations and data sources used in responses
Track queries that ChatGPT uses to fetch fresh data from the web
Produce visibility rankings, sentiment breakdowns, and actionable content suggestions

Spotlight goes beyond basic tracking by reverse engineering what makes brands with high visibility succeed. The system analyzes what type of websites each model prefers to cite and creates an improvement plan based on those insights. It also performs gap analysis and suggests content that directly addresses prompts where your brand didn’t appear.

But here’s what really sets Spotlight apart: their comprehensive feature set and generous free tools. Spotlight includes:

Citation Tracker: Tracks how often each piece of your brand-owned content was cited by each model over time
Content Grading Tool: Grades existing content and webpages, guiding how to optimize them from both technical and content perspectives based on GEO best practices
Google Analytics Integration: Connects to Google Analytics to pull traffic data and display how much traffic came from LLMs, which specific LLM, and which page that traffic landed on—closing the loop to show which content is actually bringing in traffic from AI models
Prompt Volume Tool: Discovers prompt volumes using multiple data sources including real-time prompt tracking, Google Search Console data, Google Trends, AdWords reports, and advanced AI models trained on human-AI interactions
Brand Reputation Section: Sends prompts asking models directly about your brand’s quality, value for money, and other key metrics, then scores the responses to provide a high-level view of how your brand is perceived by each model—including data sources so you can manage negative inputs

Spotlight is particularly strong in sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, and actionable insights. The platform is trusted by agencies and is well-suited for teams that need to manage multiple brands or clients. Plus, Spotlight is built by AI agents, allowing for very fast development of new features and rapid adaptation to the high-paced changes in this field.

Spotlight Pricing

Spotlight’s pricing starts at $50/month, making it significantly more affordable than Profound’s $499/month entry point. But here’s the kicker: Spotlight offers free full pro access for a one-time audit, allowing you to experience all the platform’s premium features before committing to a paid plan.

This means you can get a comprehensive audit of your AI visibility using Spotlight’s full feature set, see exactly what insights the platform provides, and then decide if you want to continue with a paid subscription. Spotlight also offers many free tools that provide real value even without a paid plan. This is a huge advantage over Profound, which requires a significant upfront investment just to see what you’re getting.

Spotlight User Feedback

Users praise Spotlight for its intelligent prompt discovery, comprehensive citation tracking, reputation scoring capabilities, and the value provided by its free features. Agencies particularly appreciate the automatic prompt discovery aligned with marketing objectives, the Google Analytics integration that closes the loop on traffic attribution, and the content grading tool that provides actionable optimization guidance. The tool is well-regarded for brand reputation management use cases, and users consistently note that it offers better value than more expensive alternatives like Profound.

⭐️ Overall Score: 5/5 stars

2. Scrunch AI

Best for: Teams needing granular, prompt-level tracking with content optimization suggestions
What I like: Detailed brand insights with AI content optimization recommendations
Pricing: Starts at $300/month (trial available, no free tier)

Scrunch AI is a comprehensive AI brand presence tracking platform that offers granular, prompt-level visibility monitoring. What sets it apart from Profound is its focus on providing actionable insights, not just data.

The platform tracks your brand across major AI platforms including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI. It provides detailed insights into:

Prompt-level visibility tracking
Sentiment analysis of how your brand is being discussed
AI content optimization suggestions to fill visibility gaps
Multi-source monitoring across different AI platforms

One of Scrunch AI’s standout features is its content optimization recommendations. While many tools just show you where you’re appearing (or not appearing), Scrunch AI actually suggests how to improve your content to better show up in AI responses.

However, it’s worth noting that the platform focuses more on tracking and insights rather than direct content fixing tools. If you’re looking for a tool that tells you exactly what to do with the data, Scrunch AI is a strong choice.

Scrunch AI Pricing

Here are Scrunch AI’s pricing plans:

Starter: $300/month, track up to 350 prompts
Growth: $500/month, track up to 700 prompts
Pro: $1,000/month, track up to 1,200 prompts
Enterprise: Custom pricing with custom features

While there’s no free tier, they do offer a trial so you can test the platform before committing. This is more affordable than Profound’s $499/month starting price, making it a solid alternative for teams that need detailed tracking but want to save some money.

Scrunch AI User Feedback

Users appreciate Scrunch AI’s detailed brand insights and the ability to track AI mentions at a granular level. The sentiment analysis feature is particularly well-received. However, some users note that the action tools are somewhat limited compared to the depth of insights provided.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.5/5 stars

3. Hall

Best for: Startups and teams of various sizes looking for flexible pricing
What I like: Free Lite plan, excellent prompt tracking, and real-time updates
Pricing: Free Lite plan, Starter $239/month, Business $599/month, Enterprise custom

Hall is a Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) platform that offers one of the most accessible entry points into AI visibility tracking. What makes Hall a great Profound alternative is its flexible pricing model, including a free tier that actually provides real value.

The platform offers:

AI mention tracking across major platforms
Share-of-voice reporting to understand your market position
Agent analytics for deeper insights
Conversational commerce monitoring (unique feature)
API access on higher tiers
Real-time updates and prompt tracking

Hall’s free Lite plan includes 1 project with 25 tracked questions, which is perfect for startups or small teams that want to test AI visibility tracking without a financial commitment. This is a significant advantage over Profound, which requires a $499/month investment upfront.

The platform also stands out for its conversational commerce monitoring feature, which helps you understand how your brand appears in AI-powered shopping experiences. This is particularly valuable for e-commerce brands.

Hall Pricing

Here are Hall’s pricing plans:

Lite: Free, includes 1 project with 25 tracked questions
Starter: $239/month, includes 20 projects with 500 tracked questions
Business: $599/month, includes 50 projects with 1,000 tracked questions
Enterprise: $1,499/month, includes API access and more

Hall offers the most accessible pricing of any premium AI monitoring tool, making it an excellent choice for teams that want enterprise-level features without enterprise-level pricing.

Hall User Feedback

Users love Hall’s accessible pricing and the value provided by the free tier. The platform is praised for its strong project and prompt tracking capabilities, real-time updates, and user-friendly interface. Teams of various sizes appreciate the flexibility to scale as they grow.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.8/5 stars

4. Otterly.AI

Best for: SEO teams bridging traditional SEO with AI visibility
What I like: Structured GEO audit tool that provides systematic insights
Pricing: Pricing not always public; GEO Audit Tool available

Otterly.AI takes a unique approach to AI visibility tracking by focusing on structured audits and systematic improvements. The platform is particularly valuable for SEO teams that want to bridge traditional SEO metrics with emerging AI visibility.

Key features include:

GEO audit tool for comprehensive AI citation factor analysis
Brand and content citation tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI
Competitive benchmarking
Structured AI SEO audits that provide actionable recommendations

What sets Otterly.AI apart is its focus on systematic improvements. Rather than just showing you where you appear, the platform provides structured audits that help you understand the factors impacting your AI visibility and how to improve them.

This makes it an excellent choice for SEO professionals who are familiar with traditional SEO audits and want a similar structured approach for AI visibility. The platform helps bridge the gap between traditional SEO and AI search optimization.

Otterly.AI Pricing

Otterly.AI’s pricing is not always publicly available, but they offer a GEO Audit Tool that you can access. For detailed pricing information, you’ll need to contact them directly.

Otterly.AI User Feedback

Users appreciate Otterly.AI’s systematic approach to AI visibility tracking. SEO teams particularly value the structured audit format, which makes it easier to understand and act on the insights. The platform is well-regarded for helping bridge traditional SEO practices with AI visibility optimization.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.3/5 stars

5. BrandLight

Best for: Large enterprises and agencies managing extensive brand portfolios
What I like: Enterprise-grade analytics with advanced reporting and API integration
Pricing: $500+/month, enterprise level

BrandLight is an enterprise-focused AI visibility platform that came out of stealth mode in April 2025 with a $5.75 million funding round. The platform is designed for large organizations that need advanced analytics, comprehensive reporting, and extensive integration capabilities.

Key features include:

Advanced analytics and reporting
API integration for custom workflows
Competitive intelligence
Enterprise-grade security and compliance
Support for managing large brand portfolios

BrandLight is positioned as a premium alternative to Profound for enterprises that need more sophisticated analytics and integration capabilities. The platform is well-suited for large marketing agencies or enterprise brands that manage multiple products or brands.

While the pricing is high (starting at $500+/month), the platform offers enterprise-level features that justify the investment for organizations with extensive monitoring needs.

BrandLight Pricing

BrandLight pricing starts at $500+/month and scales based on your needs. For exact pricing, you’ll need to contact them for a custom quote tailored to your requirements.

BrandLight User Feedback

BrandLight is well-reviewed for large portfolios and enterprise use cases. Users appreciate the advanced analytics capabilities and the ability to manage multiple brands effectively. The platform is particularly well-regarded for its reporting and integration features, making it a strong choice for enterprise teams.

⭐️ Overall Score: 4.6/5 stars

How to Choose the Right Profound Alternative

When choosing between these Profound alternatives, consider the following factors:

1. Budget and Pricing

If budget is a concern, Spotlight offers exceptional value starting at just $50/month—a fraction of Profound’s $499/month. Plus, Spotlight’s free full pro access for a one-time audit lets you test everything before committing. Hall offers a free tier with paid plans starting at $239/month. Scrunch AI starts at $300/month, still more affordable than Profound. BrandLight starts at $500+/month, similar to Profound’s pricing.

2. Feature Needs

Best overall value: Spotlight offers comprehensive features, free tools, and affordable pricing
Content optimization: Scrunch AI offers the best content optimization recommendations
Sentiment analysis: Spotlight excels at sentiment analysis and reputation management
Free tier: Hall is the only option with a truly free tier (though Spotlight offers free full pro access for audits)
Structured audits: Otterly.AI provides the most structured, audit-based approach
Enterprise features: BrandLight offers the most advanced enterprise capabilities

3. Team Size and Use Case

Agencies: Spotlight is the top choice for agencies, offering comprehensive monitoring, competitive insights, and excellent value
Startups/small teams: Spotlight’s $50/month entry point and free audit make it ideal, or Hall’s free tier for basic testing
SEO teams: Otterly.AI bridges traditional SEO with AI visibility, or Spotlight for comprehensive monitoring
Enterprise: BrandLight offers the most comprehensive enterprise features, though Spotlight also serves enterprise needs well

4. Platform Coverage

All of these tools monitor the major AI platforms (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI). Spotlight supports the most comprehensive coverage with 8 platforms: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Grok, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and Copilot. Hall offers unique conversational commerce tracking. Spotlight’s Google Analytics integration provides additional insights into traffic from AI models, showing which specific LLM and which pages are driving traffic.

Final Thoughts

While Profound made a name for itself by being first to market, these five alternatives often outperform it in key areas. Spotlight stands out as the top choice, offering comprehensive features including intelligent prompt discovery, citation tracking, reputation scoring, content grading, and extensive free tools (including prompt volume analysis, Google Analytics integration, and content scoring). With pricing starting at $50/month—90% less than Profound’s $499/month entry point—Spotlight offers exceptional value. Plus, their free full pro access for one-time audits removes the risk of trying the platform, and Spotlight’s AI agent-powered development means it adapts quickly to the fast-changing AI landscape.

Whether you’re looking for the best overall value (Spotlight), more affordable pricing (Hall), better content optimization features (Scrunch AI), structured audits (Otterly.AI), or enterprise-grade capabilities (BrandLight), there’s an option here that will likely work better than Profound for your situation.

The key is to identify your specific needs—budget, team size, feature requirements, and use case—and choose the tool that best aligns with those needs. Many of these platforms offer trials, demos, or free features (especially Spotlight), so take advantage of those to see which one feels right for your workflow.

Remember, the best tool is the one you’ll actually use consistently. Don’t just choose based on name recognition or being “first to market”—choose based on what will help you make better decisions about your AI visibility strategy. In most cases, that’s going to be one of these alternatives rather than Profound.

5 Best GEO / AEO Profound Alternatives (November 2025)