Affordable alternatives to Profound and Peec AI for small businesses
· 3 min read
For a small business, the lower-cost alternatives to Profound and Peec AI include Otterly, LLM Pulse, HubSpot AEO and Cited Lens, all at about $50 a month or less. Semrush and Ahrefs suit you better if you already use them for SEO. Lower prices usually mean fewer prompts, fewer engines and less frequent checks.
Disclosure: Cited Lens is listed here and we sell it. Every row comes from the vendor's own page, checked on 5 November 2026. Confirm current pricing before buying.
What the tools cost
| Tool and plan | Entry price | Prompts | Engines included | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | Free 7-day trial, then custom Enterprise pricing | 50 on the trial, daily | Trial: ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews. Enterprise: up to 9 engines. | A self-serve Agency Growth plan is mentioned, with no public price. |
| Peec AI Starter | $95/mo | 50 | 3 active models, from a list including ChatGPT, AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Copilot and Gemini | 1 project, 1 country, unlimited team seats. |
| Semrush AI Visibility Base | $99/mo per domain, billed annually | 25, daily | ChatGPT, Google AI, Gemini, Perplexity | Includes competitor analysis, prompt research and an AI-readiness site audit. |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | From $199/mo | Large prompt database. Your own prompts are a package from $50/mo. | Not named on the pricing page | Best suited to teams that want market-wide data, not one small prompt list. |
| HubSpot AEO | $50/mo, or $45/mo billed annually | 25, daily | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity | Labeled beta. 28-day free trial, no other HubSpot plan needed. |
| LLM Pulse Starter | €49/mo before VAT | 50 | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Gemini | Up to 10 competitors. Other models from €8/mo each. |
| Otterly.AI Lite | $29/mo, or $25/mo billed annually | 15 | ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot | Gemini and AI Mode are +$9/mo each, Claude +$29/mo. Extra prompts are not available on Lite. |
| Cited Lens Pro (us) | $29/mo | 3 default or up to 5 custom, weekly | ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews | Up to 3 sites and 3 competitors. Includes the 10-check audit and fix files. |
What you give up by paying less
- Breadth of engines. Profound's Enterprise plan lists up to nine engines. Most entry plans here cover three to five.
- Prompt volume. A national brand tracking hundreds of questions will outgrow a plan with 5 to 50 prompts quickly.
- Check frequency. Daily data shows short-term swings. Weekly data is enough to see a trend, and small sites rarely act on anything faster.
- Team and market features. Multiple countries, projects, APIs and single sign-on tend to sit on higher plans.
How to choose on a small budget
- Fix access first. A tracker cannot help if crawlers cannot read your site, and our free audit or this five-minute test will tell you.
- List the 10 to 25 questions real buyers ask. If that list fits in an entry plan, you do not need an enterprise plan yet.
- Find out which engines your customers use. Your analytics can show this: see how to track AI traffic in GA4.
- Start monthly, not annually, until the data has changed a decision. Then decide whether to stay.
Before paying anyone, you can also use free first-party data. Google offers a Generative AI performance report in Search Console, and Microsoft offers an AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools. Neither covers ChatGPT, which is the main gap a paid tracker fills.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Profound cost?
Profound's pricing page showed a free 7-day trial and custom Enterprise pricing when we checked on 5 November 2026, with no public price for the paid plan. It also mentions a self-serve Agency Growth plan, without a price.
How much does Peec AI cost?
Peec AI's pricing page listed Starter at $95 a month for 50 prompts, Pro at $245 for 150 and Advanced at $495 for 350 when we checked on 5 November 2026. Enterprise is custom.
When is an enterprise tool worth it?
When you track many markets, languages or product lines, and a team acts on the data every week. If one person checks a dashboard once a month, an entry plan will usually show the same decisions for less.
Sources
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