Profound vs PEEC vs AthenaHQ: Which is a Better GEO Tool

Profound shows depth, Peec shows clarity, and AthenaHQ shows speed — but each sees only part of the picture in AI search.

We compared the three tools using only the factors that change outcomes: engine coverage, citation accuracy, prompt detail, competitive patterns, and how quickly each tool helps you act when answers move.

TL;DR: 

Profound AI: best GEO tool for deep enterprise visibility

Key Profound AI standout features

• Tracks brand visibility across many AI engines in one place

• Shows when AI answers cite your pages or mention your brand by name

• Measures tone and intent so you see how AI talks about your brand

• Monitors AI crawlers and technical signals that shape what answers get pulled

• Maps how user prompts fan out into many related queries inside AI systems

• Adds strategic guidance so teams know which fixes to ship first

What sets Profound AI apart

Profound gives teams a very rich picture of how AI systems see their brand, not just a count of answers. You can see which engines mention you most, how that share changes over time, and which answers push buyers toward you or toward competitors. That level of detail helps SEO and content leaders move past guesswork and focus on the prompts, topics, and entities that matter most for revenue.

The platform also goes deeper than simple answer snapshots by tying AI answers back to citations, technical signals, and prompt fanouts. That means you can trace an AI answer back to real pages, see which technical gaps hurt visibility, and understand how one search question turns into many hidden queries inside the model. For SEO teams, this turns AI search from a black box into something you can audit, model, and improve with clear steps.

Where Profound AI falls short

Profound leans hard into analytics, which means teams still need other tools and workflows to change content after they see a problem. It will show you that a key prompt sends buyers to a rival site, and it will hint at the type of fix you need, but it will not write the content, build tests, or manage on-page changes. Smaller teams without strong SEO or content operations can feel stuck with powerful charts and no easy way to turn them into shipped work.

Cost and complexity also place Profound in a clear enterprise lane rather than a broad market choice. Pricing starts higher than most GEO tools and often pushes into custom contracts, which works for global brands but blocks lean teams and early stage companies. The depth of data demands people who enjoy analysis, so groups without analysts or strong marketing ops may face a steep learning curve before they see value.

Profound AI pricing and plan notes

Profound AI prices its platform around the scope of a team’s GEO needs, with most enterprise customers using custom plans that match engine coverage, data depth, and security requirements like SOC 2 or SSO. To widen access, the company now offers starter and growth tiers beginning around $99 and $399 per month, giving smaller teams a way to track citations, sentiment, and key prompts without the cost of full enterprise coverage. Custom plans at the top end still unlock full multi-engine tracking and deeper integrations for organizations that need broader oversight.

There is no free version, and all plans require a paid subscription or demo-led onboarding. Some third-party sources mention older entry tiers near $499 per month with limited seats, though these appear tied to past pricing structures. Overall, Profound uses a “scale with your needs” model that fits enterprise workflows but now gives mid-market teams a realistic starting point.

Peec AI: best GEO tool for simple, prompt-level tracking

Key Peec AI standout features

• Tracks brand visibility for the exact prompts your team cares about

• Shows which URLs AI engines cite when answering those prompts

• Benchmarks your brand against competitors on share and positions

• Measures the tone of AI answers with basic sentiment scoring

• Supports unlimited seats and multi-region tracking in many plans

• Suggests prompts and keeps setup simple for fast onboarding

What sets Peec AI apart

Peec AI focuses on clear, prompt-level tracking, which makes it easy for teams to see how specific questions shape their visibility across AI engines. Instead of scanning large dashboards or wide datasets, users can anchor their workflow to the exact prompts buyers ask. This narrow but sharp view helps marketers spot gaps in content, learn which URLs AI engines trust, and understand why some prompts push traffic toward competitors. The platform also keeps onboarding light and gives teams a clean workflow with suggested prompts, daily trend updates, and source-level insights that guide tactical decisions. These strengths make Peec AI a practical choice for teams that want fast clarity without extra complexity.

Peec AI also stands out because it lowers the barrier to GEO work. Its pricing is more accessible than enterprise tools, and the interface is simple enough for small teams to adopt without training. This helps groups test GEO quickly, track essential prompts, and build early workflows without large budgets or technical support. Many plans include unlimited seats, which lets teams share insights across content, SEO, and product functions without buying more licenses.

Where Peec AI falls short

Peec AI’s focus on clear metrics means it does not guide teams through the deeper strategy needed to improve visibility. It shows which prompts you lose but does not map those losses to next steps or content priorities, which leaves users to interpret the data on their own. Teams that want detailed recommendations, automated insights, or full content workflows will need other tools or manual processes to turn visibility gaps into shipped improvements.

The platform also lacks enterprise-grade features such as SOC-2 compliance, SSO, and deeper API options, which can limit adoption inside larger companies. Its visibility model does not link AI mentions back to traffic or revenue, so attribution requires outside tools. These gaps do not diminish its value for prompt-level monitoring, but they do show that Peec AI is built more for speed and simplicity than full GEO maturity.

Core elements at a glance

Peec AI pricing and plan notes

Peec AI prices its platform in a clear, tier-based structure that scales with the number of prompts you want to track and the amount of AI answer volume your team needs. The Starter plan begins at €89 per month and gives small teams access to core engines, daily tracking for 25 prompts, and thousands of answers each month. It also includes unlimited seats and unlimited countries, which makes it easy for mixed teams across content, SEO, and product to collaborate without extra cost. The Pro plan at €199 per month expands prompt limits to 100 per day, increases answer volume, and adds Slack support for teams that want faster updates in their workflow. Larger organizations can move into the Enterprise tier starting at €499 per month, which unlocks higher prompt limits, deeper data allowances, and optional add-ons for engines like Gemini or Claude.

Every plan keeps pricing predictable by offering unlimited seats and broad regional coverage, with annual subscriptions offering meaningful savings for teams running GEO long term. Reviewers note that the Starter and Pro tiers provide enough visibility for most mid-market use cases, while the Enterprise tier fits teams that monitor many prompts across multiple engines and markets. This setup gives companies a simple way to begin GEO tracking and expand only when their needs become more complex.

AthenaHQ: best GEO tool for fast insights and guided actions

Key AthenaHQ standout features

• Tracks your brand’s visibility across major AI engines

• Gives clear, guided suggestions through its Action Center

• Shows competitor snapshots and basic sentiment views

• Finds content gaps in AI answers for quick fixes

• Supports multi-engine tracking with simple, clean dashboards
  
  

What sets AthenaHQ apart

AthenaHQ centers its entire workflow on helping teams act fast, not just view data. The platform mixes visibility tracking with guided suggestions that show which content improvements matter most for specific prompts or topics. This blend of insight and action gives marketing and growth teams a shorter path from “we see the problem” to “we fixed it,” which is why many users say AthenaHQ feels more like a working tool than a reporting dashboard. The interface supports this focus on speed: clean prompts, simple controls, and frequent data refreshes help teams spot shifts earlier and correct visibility gaps before they grow.

AthenaHQ also brings real-time trend tracking into everyday decision-making. Teams can monitor how AI engines replace or elevate their brand across changing prompts, which helps them spot early drops or new opportunities. This real-time view, paired with content gap detection and suggestion workflows, gives users a practical way to keep up with fast-moving AI search systems. It builds momentum for teams who want ongoing visibility, not just monthly reports.

Where AthenaHQ falls short

AthenaHQ’s focus on execution means its analytic depth can feel lighter than platforms built for complex enterprise reporting. Teams that need deep benchmark data, multi-layer citation modeling, or advanced entity analysis may find its dashboards too simple. This makes AthenaHQ a better fit for speed-driven teams than analytics-heavy organizations.

Some users also report that setup takes effort, especially if the team is new to GEO or does not already have a workflow for content updates. Automated suggestions are helpful, but they can feel limited when compared with more mature optimization platforms. The credit-based pricing model also means costs may increase as prompt tracking grows, which requires monitoring for teams with large prompt sets.

Core elements at a glance

AthenaHQ pricing and plan notes

AthenaHQ prices its platform around a credit system that reflects how much AI analysis a team needs each month. The entry Self-Serve plan starts near $295 per month and includes a fixed pool of credits that fuel visibility checks across engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Grok. This tier gives small teams access to multi-engine tracking, simple optimization guidance, competitor snapshots, and role-based access controls without requiring a custom contract. Credits are spent each time the platform analyzes an AI answer, and teams can buy more whenever they need to scale their tracking.

Larger organizations can move into growth or enterprise tiers, which expand credit limits and unlock deeper workflows, including advanced reporting, custom integrations, and dedicated support. Third-party comparisons often cite mid-tier plans around $545 per month and enterprise plans above $2,000 per month, depending on credit volume and added engines. Because AthenaHQ ties cost to usage, teams need to plan their monthly prompt load carefully to avoid overages. This model works well for teams that want flexibility and room to scale, but it can feel less predictable than flat-rate GEO tools.

Profound AI vs Peec AI vs AthenaHQ: feature-by-feature comparison

Choosing the right GEO tool doesn’t come from scanning long feature lists — it comes from understanding how each platform handles the core jobs that actually move AI visibility. This comparison breaks down the elements that matter most: cross-engine coverage, citation clarity, prompt tracking strength, competitive insight, actionability, and how fast each tool helps teams respond to changes in AI answers. By the end, you’ll see how each tool aligns with different workflows and which trade-offs matter for your team.

Core capabilities at a glance

Analyze: The best and most comprehensive alternative to Profound, PEEC, and AthenaHQ for AI search visibility tracking

Most GEO tools tell you whether your brand appeared in a ChatGPT response. Then they stop. You get a visibility score, maybe a sentiment score, but no connection to what happened next. Did anyone click? Did they convert? Was it worth the effort? 

These tools treat a brand mention in Perplexity the same as a citation in Claude, ignoring that one might drive qualified traffic while the other sends nothing.

Analyze connects AI visibility to actual business outcomes. The platform tracks which answer engines send sessions to your site (Discover), which pages those visitors land on, what actions they take, and how much revenue they influence (Monitor). You see prompt-level performance across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini, but unlike visibility-only tools, you also see conversion rates, assisted revenue, and ROI by referrer. 

Analyze helps you act on these insights to improve your AI traffic (Improve), all while keeping an eye on the entire market, tracking how your brand sentiment and positioning fluctuates over time (Govern).

Your team then stops guessing whether AI visibility matters and starts proving which engines deserve investment and which prompts drive pipeline.

Key Analyze features

• See actual AI referral traffic by engine and track trends that reveal where visibility grows and where it stalls.

• See the pages that receive that traffic with the originating model, the landing path, and the conversions those visits drive.

• Track prompt-level visibility and sentiment across major LLMs to understand how models talk about your brand and competitors.

• Audit model citations and sources to identify which domains shape answers and where your own coverage must improve.

• Surface opportunities and competitive gaps that prioritize actions by potential impact, not vanity metrics.

Here are in more details how Analyze works:

See actual traffic from AI engines, not just mentions

Analyze attributes every session from answer engines to its specific source—Perplexity, Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, or Gemini. You see session volume by engine, trends over six months, and what percentage of your total traffic comes from AI referrers. When ChatGPT sends 248 sessions but Perplexity sends 142, you know exactly where to focus optimization work.

Know which pages convert AI traffic and optimize where revenue moves

Most tools stop at "your brand was mentioned." Analyze shows you the complete journey from AI answer to landing page to conversion, so you optimize pages that drive revenue instead of chasing visibility that goes nowhere.

The platform shows which landing pages receive AI referrals, which engine sent each session, and what conversion events those visits trigger. 

For instance, when your product comparison page gets 50 sessions from Perplexity and converts 12% to trials, while an old blog post gets 40 sessions from ChatGPT with zero conversions, you know exactly what to strengthen and what to deprioritize.

Track the exact prompts buyers use and see where you're winning or losing

Analyze monitors specific prompts across all major LLMs—"best Salesforce alternatives for medium businesses," "top customer service software for mid-sized companies in 2026," "marketing automation tools for e-commerce sites." 

For each prompt, you see your brand's visibility percentage, position relative to competitors, and sentiment score.

You can also see which competitors appear alongside you, how your position changes daily, and whether sentiment is improving or declining.

Don’t know which prompts to track? No worries. Analyze has a prompt suggestion feature that suggests the actual bottom of the funnel prompts you should keep your eyes on.

Audit which sources models trust and build authority where it matters

Analyze reveals exactly which domains and URLs models cite when answering questions in your category. 

You can see, for instance, that Creatio gets mentioned because Salesforce.com's comparison pages rank consistently, or that IssueTrack appears because three specific review sites cite them repeatedly. 

Analyze shows usage count per source, which models reference each domain, and when those citations first appeared.

Citation visibility matters because it shows you where to invest. Instead of generic link building, you target the specific sources that shape AI answers in your category. You strengthen relationships with domains that models already trust, create content that fills gaps in their coverage, and track whether your citation frequency increases after each initiative.

Prioritize opportunities and close competitive gaps

Analyze surfaces opportunities based on omissions, weak coverage, rising prompts, and unfavorable sentiment, then pairs each with recommended actions that reflect likely impact and required effort. 

For instance, you can run a weekly triage that selects a small set of moves—reinforce a page that nearly wins an important prompt, publish a focused explainer to address a negative narrative, or execute a targeted citation plan for a stubborn head term.