ai visibility tools
Profound alternatives: what Peec AI, Otterly and Semrush really cost
Profound's entry plan costs $99 a month and covers one answer engine. We ran 104 answers across four engines to see which AI visibility tools get named.
Key takeaways
- Semrush and Profound were each named in 83% of the 104 answers; Peec AI in 71%, Otterly in 62%.
- Profound's $99/month entry plan tracks ChatGPT and nothing else; three engines costs $399/month.
- Peec AI starts at €85/month and caps every tier below Enterprise at three models.
- Engine coverage, not prompt count, is the real pricing axis — every specialist gates it.
Profound's Starter plan costs $99 a month, billed yearly, and tracks one answer engine: ChatGPT. Peec AI's Starter costs €85 a month and caps tracking at three models. Otterly advertises $29 a month, but Google Gemini is billed separately. In this category the headline price rarely buys full engine coverage, and engine coverage is the thing the pricing pages talk about least.
To find out which tools the engines themselves recommend, we ran five buying-intent prompts against ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini and Google AI Overviews: 26 runs per engine, 104 answers in total, between 5 and 11 August 2026. Semrush and Profound were each named in 83% of answers. Peec AI appeared in 71%, Otterly in 62%.
Which AI visibility tools do AI engines recommend?
| Tool | Answers naming it (of 104) | Share | Engines | Avg. position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Semrush | 86 | 83% | 4 of 4 | 3.9 |
| Profound | 86 | 83% | 4 of 4 | 2.7 |
| Peec AI | 74 | 71% | 4 of 4 | 4.2 |
| Otterly | 64 | 62% | 4 of 4 | 4.9 |
| Ahrefs | 60 | 58% | 4 of 4 | 5.6 |
| Frase | 22 | 21% | 4 of 4 | 6.2 |
| SE Ranking | 21 | 20% | 4 of 4 | 5.6 |
| Dageno AI | 20 | 19% | 2 of 4 | 2.4 |
A lower average position means the tool was named earlier in the answer.
Profound is named earliest, at an average position of 2.7. Semrush ties it on share at 83% despite not being an AI-native tool. When a category is young, the engines lean on established entities, and Semrush is the most established name in the table.
Dageno AI is the outlier worth studying. It appears in only 19% of answers and in only 2 of 4 engines, yet it holds the best average position in the table at 2.4. Its blog consists of six posts in the "best alternative to a competitor" format. A low-authority site is buying its way into answers with targeted comparison content, and when it appears, it appears near the top.
Profound pricing vs Peec AI pricing, Otterly and Semrush
Engine coverage, not prompt count, is the real pricing axis in this category. Every specialist tool gates it, and it is easy to miss because the marketing talks about prompts. Prices below were verified on 12 August 2026 against each vendor's own page: Profound, Peec AI, Otterly and Semrush. Check them before you buy — this category reprices often.
| Tool | Entry plan | Entry price | Prompts at entry | Engine coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Starter | $99/month, billed yearly | 50 | ChatGPT only; Growth ($399/month) covers 3 engines, Enterprise up to 9 |
| Peec AI | Starter | €85/month | 50 | 3 models; Starter, Pro and Advanced all cap at 3, Enterprise covers up to 11 |
| Otterly | Lite | $29/month ($25 billed yearly) | 15 | 4 base engines; Gemini, Claude and Google AI Mode cost extra |
| Semrush | SEO | $117.33/month, billed annually | 50 daily from Starter ($165.17/month) | Bundled into the plans, not sold as an add-on |
| Vidima | Starter | €49/month | 20 | All four engines on every tier, no add-ons |
Profound gates engines hardest. The $99 Starter covers ChatGPT only, with 50 prompts, one seat and 100 agent credits. Growth at $399/month billed yearly covers three engines, 100 prompts and three seats. Enterprise is custom and goes up to nine answer engines. The tool the engines name first asks $399 a month before it watches more than one of them.
Peec AI's ladder has the same shape. Starter is €85/month for 50 prompts, three models, unlimited users, daily tracking and one project. Pro is €205/month for 150 prompts and two projects. Advanced is €425/month for 350 prompts, five projects, multi-country tracking and Looker Studio. All three cap at three models. Only Enterprise, custom-priced and billed annually, exceeds that: up to 11 LLM models, API access, SSO and unlimited projects.
Otterly's $29 headline needs the add-ons priced in. Every tier includes ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Claude costs an extra $29–439/month, Google AI Mode $9–149/month and Google Gemini $9–149/month. Standard is $189/month for 100 prompts, Premium is $489/month for 400, and Enterprise starts at $1,000/month.
Semrush is the outlier. AI visibility is bundled into the plans rather than sold as an add-on, starting at $117.33/month billed annually. The Starter plan ($165.17/month) tracks 50 prompts daily, Pro+ ($248.17/month) tracks 200, and Advanced is $455.67/month. A company that already pays for Semrush may already have AI visibility tracking.
Choosing a Profound or Peec AI alternative
The right choice depends on which engines you need to watch and what you already pay for.
- Choose Profound if you want the tool the engines name earliest, and budget for $399 a month if you need more than ChatGPT.
- Choose Peec AI if unlimited users on the entry plan matters and three models cover the engines you care about.
- Choose Otterly if price is the constraint and the four base engines are enough. Price the Gemini, Claude and Google AI Mode add-ons before comparing.
- Choose Semrush if you already pay for it. AI visibility is bundled, so the marginal cost may be zero.
- Choose Vidima if you want all four engines on every tier with no add-ons. Starter is €49/month for 20 prompts; Growth is €79/month for 50 — the full price list and what each plan tracks are on the homepage.
The Dageno AI result carries a lesson for every vendor on this list. A small site with six targeted comparison posts reached an average position of 2.4. Publishing honest comparison content is itself a visibility play.
How we measured this
We ran five buying-intent prompts against ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini and Google AI Overviews: 26 runs per engine, 104 answers in total, from 5 to 11 August 2026. Every brand named in an answer was extracted, along with its position.
The five prompts:
- Which AI visibility tools are best for monitoring my search performance internationally?
- Can you name leading providers of AI tools that offer an AI visibility score for websites?
- What are some highly-rated AI solutions for improving content strategy and visibility?
- Which companies offer the best AI visibility tools for businesses seeking to improve their generative engine optimization?
- What AI answer tools provide robust AI search monitoring and competitor analysis features?
Vidima built the test and is excluded from the ranking; it appears only in the pricing table, where every figure is checkable against the vendors' own pages.
The data has limits. Five prompts is a small sample. The prompts were in English only. One week is a snapshot, and a different week or a different prompt set would produce different numbers. Treat the shares as directional, not exact.
One last thing worth taking away, whichever tool you buy: the brands in that first table are not winning because their products are better. They are winning because the pages AI engines read — roundups, comparisons, documentation — already name them. That is a content position, and content positions can be taken.
Common questions
- What is the best Profound alternative?
- Semrush, Peec AI and Otterly are the strongest alternatives by mention share. In a test of 104 answers from four AI engines, Semrush was named in 83% of answers, Peec AI in 71% and Otterly in 62%. Semrush bundles AI visibility into plans from $117.33/month billed annually, Peec AI starts at €85/month and Otterly at $29/month.
- How much does Profound cost?
- Profound Starter is $99/month billed yearly and covers ChatGPT only, with 50 prompts, one seat and 100 agent credits. Growth is $399/month billed yearly for three engines, 100 prompts and three seats. Enterprise is custom-priced and covers up to nine answer engines.
- How much does Peec AI cost?
- Peec AI Starter is €85/month for 50 prompts, Pro is €205/month for 150 prompts and Advanced is €425/month for 350 prompts. All three plans cap tracking at three models. Only the custom Enterprise plan goes further, with up to 11 LLM models, API access and SSO.
- Is Otterly cheaper than Profound?
- Otterly starts lower: $29/month versus Profound's $99/month. Otterly's Lite plan covers four base engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot) for 15 prompts, but Gemini, Claude and Google AI Mode are paid add-ons, so full coverage costs more than the headline price.
- Does Semrush charge extra for AI visibility tracking?
- No. Semrush bundles AI visibility into its plans rather than selling it as an add-on. Plans start at $117.33/month billed annually. The Starter plan ($165.17/month) tracks 50 prompts daily and Pro+ ($248.17/month) tracks 200.