Profound is an answer engine optimisation platform: it tracks how brands appear in AI assistants, reports what people are prompting, analyses AI crawler and agent traffic on your own site, and runs agents that draft optimisation work. Its self-serve plans are narrow by design; the coverage most buyers describe as Profound sits on Enterprise.
Profound: the short answer
Every line below is drawn from facts verified on 18 August 2026.
- What it is
- Answer engine optimisation for brands that treat AI visibility as a programme
- Best for
- Enterprise brands running answer engine optimisation as a funded programme
- Starts at
- Starter $99/month billed yearly; Growth $399/month billed yearly
- Free option
- No free plan, Offered on Growth through the vendor's "Try for free" flow; length not stated on the pricing page trial
- Biggest strength
- Its own prompt-volume dataset, rather than only the prompts you supply
- Biggest drawback
- Starter tracks ChatGPT only, with no exports and no API
- Based on
- Primary-source research, not hands-on use
- Closest alternative
- Peec AI - Mid-market alternative with unlimited users, from $80 a month billed yearly
- True annual cost
- from $1,188 a year on Starter, the cheapest paid tier ($99 a month)
Profound at a glance
| Best for | Enterprise brands running answer engine optimisation as a funded programme, Teams that need AI crawler and agent traffic analytics on their own domains, Anyone who needs prompt-volume research rather than only their own prompts |
|---|---|
| Category | SEO, Marketing, Analytics |
| Starting price | Starter $99/month billed yearly; Growth $399/month billed yearly |
| Free plan | No |
| Free trial | Offered on Growth through the vendor's "Try for free" flow; length not stated on the pricing page |
| Pricing model | subscription |
| Company | Profound |
| Founded | Not disclosed |
| Headquarters | Not disclosed |
| Founders | Not disclosed |
| Platforms | Web |
| Public API | Yes |
| Browser extension | No |
| Mobile apps | None |
| Self-hosting | No |
| Affiliate programme | No |
| Data source | Vendor pricing page and public records |
| Last checked | August 2026 |
Profound pricing
Prices below were read from the vendor's own pricing page on 18 August 2026. Pricing model: subscription. Free trial: Offered on Growth through the vendor's "Try for free" flow; length not stated on the pricing page.
| Plan | Price | Billing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $99 | per month | 1 seat - Billed yearly, advertised as two months free. ChatGPT tracking only, 50 prompts, 100 agent credits a month, no exports and no API |
| Growth | $399 | per month | 2 seats - Billed yearly, advertised as two months free. Three engines - ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews - 100 prompts, 9,000 responses a month, 400 agent credits, CSV and JSON export |
| Enterprise | Custom | Negotiated | Up to nine engines, multiple companies, custom prompt plan, API, SSO and SAML, SOC 2, dedicated Slack support |
What Profound actually costs over a year
A monthly price is not the same thing as a monthly contract. These are the plans above resolved both ways, per seat or unit where the plan is charged that way. Where a vendor quotes only a yearly figure it is divided by twelve rather than left out, and the Quoted column says which figure the vendor actually publishes.
| Plan | Quoted | Monthly | Over 12 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter1 seat | per month | $99 | $1,188 |
| Growth2 seats | per month | $399 | $4,788 |
Which Profound plan should you buy?
| Your situation | Recommended | Why |
|---|---|---|
| You want to see whether ChatGPT mentions you, and nothing more | Starter | $99 a month billed yearly for 50 prompts on one engine, one seat, and no way to export what you find. |
| You need several engines and want to share the data | Growth | $399 a month billed yearly for three engines, 100 prompts, two seats and CSV or JSON export. This is the smallest tier that supports real work. |
| You need nine engines, SSO or the API | Enterprise | All three are Enterprise-only. Budget accordingly and expect a scoping call. |
| You want the whole team looking at the data | Consider Peec AI or Otterly.ai instead | Both include unlimited users at a fraction of Growth's price, though neither has Profound's own datasets. |
Verdict by who you are
Enterprise brand with a funded AI visibility programmeYes
Prompt Volumes and Agent Analytics answer questions a prompt tracker cannot, and the enterprise controls exist.
Mid-market marketing teamCompare first
Growth at $399 a month is defensible for three engines and export, but the seat count is two and cheaper tools cover more people.
Small business or solo operatorNo
$99 a month for one engine, one seat and no exports is worse value here than several alternatives at the same price.
Agency serving several clientsCompare first
Multiple companies tracked is an Enterprise feature, so the self-serve plans will not cover a client roster.
Should you buy Profound?
Buy Profound if…
- Enterprise brands running answer engine optimisation as a funded programme
- Teams that need AI crawler and agent traffic analytics on their own domains
- Anyone who needs prompt-volume research rather than only their own prompts
Do not buy Profound if…
- Small teams, on the self-serve tiers as priced
- Buyers who need exports or an API without an Enterprise contract
- Traditional keyword, backlink and technical SEO work
Best Profound alternative for each job
Chosen by what you are trying to do rather than by which product is closest overall, because the right replacement depends on the job.
| If you mainly need to… | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Track AI answers with the whole team watching | Peec AI | Unlimited users from $80 a month billed yearly, with three of six engines. |
| Start measuring on the smallest budget | Otterly.ai | $29 a month for 15 prompts across four engines. |
| Fix what the site does for AI crawlers | Scrunch | Site diagnostics and agent traffic analysis, with 125 prompts published at $250 a month. |
| Add AI tracking to a research platform | Ahrefs | Brand Radar covers seven platforms from $199 a month, on top of a plan you may already hold. |
Key features
- Answer Engine Insights across up to nine named AI platforms
- Prompt Volumes, its own dataset of what people ask AI assistants
- Agent Analytics for AI crawler and referral traffic, with unlimited domains tracked
- Profound Agents for content generation and optimisation, metered in credits
- Profound Sheets for running agents at scale
- ChatGPT Shopping visibility at product level, on Enterprise
- Integrations with Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly, AWS, Vercel, Netlify and WordPress
- All-time history on every plan
Integrations
- Cloudflare
- Akamai
- Fastly
- AWS
- Google Cloud Platform
- Vercel
- Netlify
- WordPress
- Google Analytics
Profound screenshots
Captured by us in August 2026 at 1440px, unedited. Interfaces change, so these show the product as it looked on the date we verified this profile. Pricing pages are captured from a US vantage point, so the currency shown matches the USD figures recorded above.
Our assessment
Profound is the platform most enterprise answer-engine programmes are actually built on, and the reason is not the tracking - everyone tracks - but the two datasets around it: Prompt Volumes, which reports what people ask assistants rather than only what you asked it to check, and Agent Analytics, which reads AI crawler and referral traffic on your own domains through integrations with Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly and the rest. That is a genuinely different product from a prompt tracker. The self-serve pricing, though, is the narrowest in this comparison relative to price: $99 a month billed yearly buys one seat, ChatGPT only, 50 prompts, no exports and no API, and Growth at $399 adds a second seat and two more engines. Nine engines, SSO, SOC 2 and API access are all Enterprise. Read the self-serve tiers as a way in rather than as the product, and expect a sales conversation if the answer matters to your board.
What works in Profound
- Its own prompt-volume dataset, rather than only the prompts you supply
- Agent Analytics reads AI crawler and referral traffic through CDN-level integrations
- Unlimited domains tracked for agent analytics, and all-time history on every plan
- Enterprise coverage extends to nine named engines including Claude, Grok and DeepSeek
What doesn't
- Starter tracks ChatGPT only, with no exports and no API
- One seat on Starter and two on Growth, in a category where rivals sell unlimited users
- Prompt-level coverage above 100 requires an Enterprise contract
- The company publishes neither a headquarters address nor a founding date
EveryAny Decision Score
3 of these 8 dimensions are calculated from verified facts; the rest are our judgement, shown as a band rather than a figure unless something specific sits behind them. How each score works.
- Cost position2.5/10
derivedentry tier at $99 a month against a category median of $49 a month across 12 comparable tools
- Portability5/10
derivedpublic API
- Subscription flexibility6/10
derivedfree trial, subscription, monthly billing
- Feature depth8/10
editorialTracking, prompt-volume research, agent and crawler analytics through CDN integrations, agents and Sheets, and shopping visibility.
- Ease of learningModerate
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
- Collaboration4/10
editorialOne seat on Starter, two on Growth, custom on Enterprise, with Slack support only on Enterprise.
- AI capability9/10
editorialNine named engines on Enterprise, its own prompt-volume dataset, credit-metered agents for content work, and ChatGPT Shopping coverage.
- Professional adoptionModerate
editorialour judgement, with no measurement behind it
What leaving Profound would cost
moderate lock-in
Profound scores on public API. Portability 5/10 ; lock-in is the inverse. How this is calculated.
Profound competitors and alternatives
| Alternative | Why you might pick it instead |
|---|---|
| Peec AI | Mid-market alternative with unlimited users, from $80 a month billed yearly. |
| Scrunch | Similar enterprise positioning, with 125 prompts and five seats published at $250 a month. |
| Otterly.ai | Four engines at $29 a month if you only need the measurement. |
Ahrefs
SEO
SEO toolset built on one of the largest independent backlink and keyword indexes.
Checked Aug 2026
Semrush
SEO
All-in-one SEO, PPC and competitive research platform for marketing teams.
Checked Aug 2026
The prices are animated, so we read them from a screenshot
Profound renders each plan price as a digit roller, which arrives in a page fetch as
$01234567890123456789/month rather than a number. We captured the rendered page instead and read
Starter at $99 a month and Growth at $399 a month, both billed yearly with two months free.
That is the same class of problem as Intercom’s rolling counter and Smartsheet’s fused currency node. Our practice where a figure cannot be read as text is to read it from the rendered page and say so on the record, which is what the evidence note above does.
What $99 a month does and does not buy
| Starter, $99/month billed yearly | Published limit |
|---|---|
| Engines tracked | ChatGPT only |
| Prompts | 50 |
| Seats | 1 |
| Agent credits | 100 a month |
| Exports | None |
| API | No |
Compare that with Otterly.ai at $29 a month for 15 prompts across four engines with exports and unlimited members, or Frase at $49 a month for 50 prompts plus a content toolset. On prompt count alone Starter is competitive; on everything around the prompts it is the narrowest tier in this category.
Growth is the smallest tier that supports real work
$399 a month billed yearly brings three engines - ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews - 100 prompts, 9,000 analysed responses a month, 400 agent credits, a second seat, and CSV and JSON export.
Everything commonly described as Profound’s strength - nine engines including Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok and DeepSeek, multiple brands, the API, SSO and SAML, SOC 2 - is Enterprise, priced by conversation.
The datasets are the actual differentiator
Two things here are not prompt tracking:
- Prompt Volumes reports what people are asking assistants, rather than only what you asked it to check. That is the difference between rank tracking and keyword research, and almost nobody else in this category publishes it.
- Agent Analytics reads AI crawler and referral traffic on your own domains, through integrations with Cloudflare, Akamai, Fastly, AWS, Vercel, Netlify and WordPress, with unlimited domains tracked on every plan.
If you are buying a measurement, cheaper tools measure. If you are building a programme and need to know what is being asked and which agents are reading you, this is a different product and it is priced like one. Our AI SEO tools guide puts both cases side by side.
Profound questions, answered
- Is Profound worth it?
- Profound is the platform most enterprise answer-engine programmes are actually built on, and the reason is not the tracking - everyone tracks - but the two datasets around it: Prompt Volumes, which reports what people as
- How much does Profound cost?
- Starter $99/month billed yearly; Growth $399/month billed yearly. The cheapest paid tier we recorded is Starter, published at $99 a month, which works out at $99 a month or $1,188 over a year. Verified against the vendor's pricing page.
- Does Profound have a free plan or free trial?
- Profound has no free plan. A free trial is available: Offered on Growth through the vendor's "Try for free" flow; length not stated on the pricing page.
- What is the best Profound alternative?
- It depends on the job. Peec AI: Mid-market alternative with unlimited users, from $80 a month billed yearly. Scrunch: Similar enterprise positioning, with 125 prompts and five seats published at $250 a month. Otterly.ai: Four engines at $29 a month if you only need the measurement.
- Can I self-host Profound?
- No. Profound is a hosted service only, so your data lives on the vendor's infrastructure.
What this profile is based on
Every claim below is about our work, not about Profound. A "no" is recorded rather than omitted, because the difference between a tested review and careful desk research is the reader's to weigh. How we research a profile.
-
Prices read from the vendor : yes
Read from Profound's own pricing page on 18 August 2026
-
Plans and terms recorded : yes
3 rows, each with its billing period
-
Original screenshots : yes
1 captured by us: pricing page
-
Sources cited and dated : yes
2 primary sources, each with the date it was read
-
Product used first-hand : no
Not tested. This profile is desk research from primary sources
-
Alternatives used first-hand : no
None, so comparisons here rest on published facts rather than use
-
Vendor contacted : no
Not contacted for this profile
Desk research from Profound's own pricing and careers pages, read on 18 August 2026 through a United States egress. The prices render as animated digit rollers, so the plan figures were read from a screenshot rather than from the page text. Nobody here has used Profound.
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Provenance and freshness
When each fact was last checked
- Pricing ·
- Plans ·
- Free trial
- Features
- Platforms
- Integrations
- Affiliate programme
- Company details ·
Individually sourced claims
-
Starter at $99 a month billed yearly tracks ChatGPT only, with no exports and no API
Profound pricing ↗ · checked
-
Growth at $399 a month billed yearly covers three engines, 100 prompts and two seats
Profound pricing ↗ · checked
-
Nine engines, SSO, SAML and SOC 2 compliance are Enterprise features
Profound pricing ↗ · checked
-
Profound has raised $155 million and went from seed to Series C in 16 months
Profound careers ↗ · checked
What has changed
-
August 2026
- First published, with plans read from a screenshot because the prices are animated digit rollers
- Recorded that exports and API access are absent from the entry tier
Sources & verification
Facts on this page were read from the sources below on the dates shown. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, we record it as not disclosed rather than estimating it.
- Profound pricing - checked 18 August 2026
- Profound careers - checked 18 August 2026
Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we will re-check it. Corrections are logged on the page.