Key takeaways
- Vendors meter different things: prompts, credits, domains, seats or responses. A $95 plan and a $295 plan can cost about the same per response once you normalize.
- Published per-response figures: Rankscale Pro is around $21 per 1,000 responses, Scrunch Core is about $0.05 per response, and AthenaHQ Starter is about $0.08 per response.
- Prompt-based plans have no fixed per-response cost. It depends on how often prompts run and how many models you track, so always state those assumptions.
- Pricing shifts quickly. Several figures below came from third-party roundups that disagree with each other, so confirm on the vendor page before you buy.
- Cheaper per response does not mean cheaper per outcome. Tools that only report leave the fixing to you.
Why headline prices mislead
Every AI visibility vendor publishes a monthly price. Almost none of them publish the same unit. Peec AI and Scrunch charge by prompt. AthenaHQ charges in credits, where one credit equals one AI response. Semrush's AI Visibility toolkit charges per domain. Rankscale also uses credits. Ahrefs Brand Radar sells access per platform.
So a table of "starting prices" tells you very little. A $29 plan that tracks 15 prompts is not comparable to a $295 plan with 3,600 responses. What you actually want to know is what each tracked answer costs you, because that is what the vendor pays to collect (they run a real query against ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google and capture the output).
There is a second wrinkle. A response is not a standard unit across engines. Promptwatch Data's average sources per response report shows ChatGPT cites about 5 sources per web-search answer, while Google AI Overviews and Perplexity sit near 10. One response from each engine carries different amounts of citation data. Cost per response is a useful yardstick, but not a perfect one.
How to calculate cost per response
For response or credit-based plans, the math is simple: monthly price divided by included responses.
For prompt-based plans you need assumptions. The formula is:
cost per response = monthly price / (prompts x models x runs per month)
If a plan covers 50 prompts across 3 models and each prompt runs daily, that is 50 x 3 x 30 = 4,500 responses a month. At $95, you pay roughly $0.021 per response. If the same plan runs prompts weekly, you get about 600 responses and the cost jumps to around $0.16. Same price, an order of magnitude apart.
That is why I treat any single "per response" number for a prompt-based tool with suspicion, including the ones in this article. The derived figures below are marked as estimates, and I say what I assumed.
Published per-response figures
These are the cases where the vendor's own units let you compute a clean number.
| Platform | Plan | Monthly price | Included volume | Approx. cost per response |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rankscale | Pro | $99 | 1,200 credits, up to 4,800 responses | ~$0.021 |
| Rankscale | Growth | $385 | 5,500 credits, 22,000 responses | ~$0.018 |
| Rankscale | Enterprise | $780 | 12,000 credits, 48,000 responses | ~$0.016 |
| Scrunch | Core | Not confirmed | 5,000 responses | ~$0.05 |
| AthenaHQ | Starter | $295 | 3,600 credits (1 credit = 1 response) | ~$0.082 |
| Promptwatch | Essential | $95 | 6,000 responses | ~$0.016 |
| Promptwatch | Professional | $245 | 18,000 responses | ~$0.014 |
| Promptwatch | Business | $579 | 42,000 responses | ~$0.014 |
Some notes on how I got these. Rankscale's own plan structure (credits that map to four responses each) gives about $21 per 1,000 responses on Pro, which a roundup at Rank Prompt called the cheapest sampling in its comparison. The Scrunch and AthenaHQ figures come from a humanswith.ai comparison, and the AthenaHQ number matches the vendor's statement that 1 credit is 1 AI response. Promptwatch's response allotments come from its pricing page, so check promptwatch.com/pricing for current numbers.
One warning on Scrunch. Sources disagree on its entry price: one lists $300 and $500 monthly tiers, another lists $250 and $417 annual-billing equivalents. The $0.05 per response figure is a reviewer calculation, so verify the Core price and volume on Scrunch's page.
Prompt-based pricing, converted
Prompt-metered tools need the assumptions I described above. Here is a rough conversion using one consistent assumption: daily runs, 30 days a month, and the number of models stated by the plan.
| Platform | Plan | Monthly price | Prompts | Models | Est. responses/mo | Est. cost per response |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peec AI | Starter | $95 | 50 | 3 chosen | 4,500 | ~$0.021 |
| Peec AI | Pro | $245 | 150 | 3 chosen | 13,500 | ~$0.018 |
| Peec AI | Advanced | $495 | 350 | 3 chosen | 31,500 | ~$0.016 |
| Otterly.AI | Lite | $29 | 15 | 4 engines | 1,800 | ~$0.016 |
| Otterly.AI | Standard | $189 | 100 | 4 engines | 12,000 | ~$0.016 |
| Scrunch | Starter | $300 | 350 | 4 LLMs | 42,000 | ~$0.007 |
Treat that last column as a ceiling on how cheap things can look, not a promise. Daily refresh on every prompt across every engine is the best case. Some tools run weekly or twice weekly. Promptmonitor's Starter card says twice weekly while its FAQ language conflicts, and LLM Pulse sells weekly tracking at EUR 49 and daily tracking at EUR 79, so the refresh frequency alone can change what you pay by a wide margin.
Also note the Scrunch figure. Prompt count alone makes it look like the cheapest option on this list, but only if every prompt is refreshed daily across all four models. Rank Prompt's roundup says to confirm refresh frequency, and I agree.
Per-domain and per-platform pricing
Two big SEO suites price differently again, and per-response math barely applies.
Semrush's AI Visibility toolkit costs $99 per domain, covering 25 prompts across four engines. Divided by prompt that is about $3.96 per prompt, versus about $1.90 at Peec and roughly $0.86 at Scrunch Starter by the same prompt-based yardstick used in Ryze's comparison. Add-ons run $10 to $90, and extra seats start at $45 on Semrush.
Ahrefs Brand Radar is priced per platform. Its product page lists $398 for select platforms and $699 for all platforms, though the main Ahrefs pricing page lists the product from $199, so the sources conflict. The $699 offer includes 2,500 custom checks, which works out to roughly $0.28 per check, much higher than the dedicated trackers. You are paying for an index of AI answers and search-demand context, not just sampling your own prompts.
One Reddit thread comparing six tools put a realistic all-in price of Scrunch at $417 a month and Ahrefs at $974 once the extras were counted. Seats, add-ons and platform fees tend to sit outside the headline number.
The 12 platforms side by side
Here is the full set in one view. Prices are USD monthly list prices from vendor pages as reported by the sources above, unless noted.
| Platform | Entry price | What it meters | Rough per-response cost | Beyond reporting? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rankscale | $20 (Essentials), $99 Pro | Credits | ~$0.016 to $0.021 | Limited |
| Otterly.AI | $29 | Prompts | ~$0.016 est. | No |
| Promptwatch | Free; $95 Essential | Responses | ~$0.014 to $0.016 | Yes |
| Peec AI | $95 | Prompts | ~$0.016 to $0.021 est. | No |
| Scrunch | $250 to $300 | Custom prompts | ~$0.05 (Core) | Yes |
| AthenaHQ | Free, then $295 | Credits | ~$0.082 | Yes |
| Semrush AI Visibility | $99 per domain | Domains | Not comparable | Partial |
| Ahrefs Brand Radar | $199 to $699 | Platforms | ~$0.28 per custom check | No |
| Profound | $99 and $399, annual | Tiered | Not published | Partial |
| SE Visible | $99 | Prompts | 200 prompts, five engines | No |
| LLM Pulse | EUR 49 weekly, EUR 79 daily | Prompts | Depends on cadence | No |
| Rank Prompt | $49 | Prompts | 150 prompts a month | Yes |
Several of these are in our catalog if you want to look closer:
Otterly.AI
Profound
Where Promptwatch fits
Promptwatch prices in responses, which makes it one of the easier plans to compare. Essential is $95 a month for 50 prompts and 6,000 responses across all models, Professional is $245 for 18,000 responses, and Business is $579 for 42,000. Agencies get Kick-off at $199, Growth at $399 and Scale at $799. It also tracks real user interfaces rather than only API outputs, which matters because user-facing answers can differ from API ones.
Where it differs from pure trackers is what happens after the data comes in. Crawler logs, page-level citation tracking, an Action Board and a Content Agent are part of the plan structure, so the response price covers more than a dashboard. That is a judgment call about value, not a number, and I would still run the free tier or the 7-day trial before committing.
What the cheapest option hides
A few things never show up in a per-response figure.
Seats and users
Semrush charges from $45 per extra user, and Ahrefs bills $40 to $80 per additional seat by tier. Scrunch charges $25 per extra seat. Peec includes unlimited users. If three people need access, this can matter more than the sampling cost.
Annual billing
Annual billing usually cuts 15% to 20%. Peec drops from $95/$245/$495 to $80/$205/$420. AthenaHQ's Starter becomes a $1,188-style annual commitment depending on how you read the discount. Profound's $99 and $399 tiers are annual only. Compare like for like.
Query fan-outs
One prompt can trigger several web searches behind the scenes. Promptwatch Data's ChatGPT query fanouts report shows searches per response moving between roughly 1.0 and 2.15 over recent months. As far as I can tell, no vendor bills per fan-out, so this cost is hidden inside the response price. It just means a response is not a fixed unit of work.
Engine coverage
A plan that tracks one engine is not the same as one that tracks nine. A $400 plan covering 100 prompts across three engines with actionable recommendations is better value than a $200 plan covering one engine with weekly updates, as WP SEO AI's pricing guide argues. Ask which engines are included at your tier. Profound's entry tier is reported as ChatGPT only in one roundup.
How to choose
- Decide how many distinct questions you need to track and how often. Daily tracking for 50 prompts and weekly tracking for 150 are very different workloads.
- Multiply prompts by engines by refresh cadence to get monthly responses. Use the formula above.
- Divide the plan price by that figure. Compare against the table.
- Add seats, add-ons and billing terms.
- Ask whether the tool helps you fix what it finds. If you will end up paying for a separate content or audit tool anyway, that belongs in the total.
If you just need a baseline or a pilot, Rankscale, Otterly.AI and Promptwatch's free Explore tier are the low-risk starting points. If you are an agency with many clients, look at agency tiers rather than per-seat pricing. For a wider scan, the GEO software directory at bestgeosoftware.com lists more options.
Caveats on the numbers
Prices in this category change often. Third-party roundups disagree on Scrunch's entry price, Profound's engine coverage and Ahrefs Brand Radar's tiers, and several per-response figures here are reviewer calculations rather than vendor statements. Treat the table as a map and confirm anything you plan to buy against the vendor's own pricing page.