Key takeaways
- If you only care about ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, you are paying for engine breadth you will never use on an enterprise-first platform. Several tools cover exactly these three engines at lower public prices.
- Engine coverage is gated by plan on many tools. Profound's Starter reportedly tracks ChatGPT only, and agency client workspaces on some tools skip Gemini. Confirm Gemini is on the plan you actually buy.
- Tracking alone is the cheap part. The expensive part is turning what you learn into published pages, so decide whether you want a monitor or a platform that also helps you fix gaps.
- Pricing figures below come mostly from competitor-written comparison posts. Treat them as starting points and check each vendor's pricing page before buying.
Why mid-size brands look past Profound
Profound is one of the best-known names in AI visibility, and its Enterprise plan is deep: up to nine answer engines, SOC 2, SSO and long history. That is also the catch. According to several third-party comparison posts (Geoptie, OmniSEO, Frase), brands get a short trial and then a custom contract, with a lower self-serve tier that tracks ChatGPT only (reported at $99/mo) and a Growth tier (reported at $399/mo) that adds Perplexity and AI Overviews.
If your goal is simple, "show me how we appear in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and tell me what to fix," that structure feels like buying a truck to carry groceries. Note that those listicles are vendor-authored and biased, so verify numbers on Profound itself.
Profound
Why track these three engines separately
ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity do not behave the same, so one engine's result is a poor predictor of another's. Promptwatch Data (September 2025, ChatGPT web-search responses) found ChatGPT cites about 5 sources per answer, while Perplexity cites almost exactly 10 every day. A brand can win a slot among 10 sources and still miss the 5 that ChatGPT picks.
ChatGPT also expands each prompt into several background searches. Promptwatch's query fanout report says a single prompt can trigger 3 to 8+ searches, and average fanout counts per response moved between roughly 2.15 and 1.0 between December 2025 and April 2026. Practically, that means a tracker that shows which sub-queries produced a citation is more useful than one that only shows whether your name appeared.
Perplexity's steadiness is handy: Promptwatch Data suggests treating it as a stable test bench, because a change in your citations is more likely your content than engine noise.
What to check before you buy
- Gemini on the plan you pay for. Some tools list nine engines but gate Gemini to higher tiers. Some agency workspaces skip it entirely.
- Real interface data versus API calls. User-facing answers and citations can differ from API outputs. Ask how the tool collects responses.
- Prompt counts. A 25-prompt cap sounds fine until you track three engines, two personas and a few competitors.
- What happens after the report. Does the tool tell you which page to write or refresh, or does it stop at a score?
- Crawler and traffic data. Knowing whether AI bots can read your pages and whether AI sends visitors separates a dashboard from a decision tool.
- Export and API access so you can feed numbers to your own reporting.
Comparison table
Prices are as reported in third-party sources or vendor pages at the time of writing. They change often, so confirm on each pricing page.
| Tool | Covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity | Reported entry price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Promptwatch | Yes, all models on every plan | $95/mo (Essential) | Brands that want tracking plus fixing |
| Peec AI | Pick 3 of 7 engines | $95/mo | Multilingual, multi-project tracking |
| Otterly.AI | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews | Under $30/mo reported | Solo SEOs on a tight budget |
| Geoptie | Yes, 4 of 7 engines selectable | $49/mo | Cheap multi-engine start |
| AthenaHQ | Yes, 8 engines | $295/mo | Agentic analysis, higher budget |
| Frase | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini | Check vendor | Teams that want content work attached |
| SE Ranking / Semrush | Varies by add-on | Check vendor | Teams already in those suites |
The best Profound alternatives for a three-engine setup
Promptwatch
If you want more than a score, Promptwatch is the one I would shortlist first. It is an end-to-end AI visibility platform rather than a prompt tracker: it monitors the real interfaces of ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and others, traces which pages get cited, then helps you act through the Action Board, content gap analysis and, on Business, the Content Agent that writes and publishes to WordPress, Webflow or Framer. IP-verified AI crawler logs and visitor analytics then show whether the new page was read, cited and clicked.
For a mid-size brand the plan structure matters. Every plan includes all supported AI models, so you are not paying extra to unlock Gemini. Essential is $95/mo (50 prompts, daily tracking), Professional is $245/mo (150 prompts, crawler logs, 5 AEO articles), and Business is $579/mo (350 prompts, Content Agent, local targeting). Confirm at promptwatch.com/pricing. There is a 7-day free trial on monthly billing, and a free AI visibility report that scans ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity without a login.
For a head-to-head view see Promptwatch vs Profound.
The honest tradeoff: if you only want a weekly screenshot of mentions, Promptwatch is more product than you need, and a cheaper tracker will do.
Peec AI
Peec lets you choose three engines from a longer list, which maps neatly onto ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. It is reported at $95/mo for entry tiers and is popular for multilingual and multi-project tracking. It is a monitor, so content and crawler work happens elsewhere.
Otterly.AI
Otterly is the budget pick, reported at under $30 a month for small teams. Verify that Gemini is included on the tier you choose, because its listings emphasise ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews. Good for a solo marketer testing whether AI visibility deserves a budget line.
Otterly.AI
Geoptie
Geoptie is reported from $49/mo with four of seven engines selectable per brand, including Gemini. It is vendor-written praise we are quoting, so test it on a trial. It also has a free rank tracker for ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini.
AthenaHQ
AthenaHQ includes eight engines on one self-serve plan and adds an action center and content agent. The reported $295/mo floor is steep if three engines are all you need.
Frase
Frase frames itself around monitoring joined to content research, drafting and publishing, and offers a free AI Visibility Checker that returns your ChatGPT result without signup, with an email unlocking Perplexity and Gemini. Reasonable if your team already lives in a content editor.
Semrush and SE Ranking
If you already pay for Semrush or SE Ranking, their AI visibility add-ons avoid a new vendor. The tradeoff is shallower AI-specific data, such as fixed prompt sets and no crawler logs. Ahrefs Brand Radar leans Google-centric, which suits AI Overviews more than ChatGPT or Perplexity citations.
Which one should you pick
- You want to track and fix, and have content capacity: Promptwatch or Frase.
- You want cheap monitoring to build an internal case: Otterly.AI or Geoptie, then upgrade.
- You track several languages or markets: Peec AI.
- You need deep agentic analysis and can pay for it: AthenaHQ.
- You already live in an SEO suite: the Semrush or SE Ranking add-on.
A simple way to run the trial
Pick 25 to 50 prompts that your buyers actually type, split between category questions, brand comparisons and branded queries. Run them across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity for two weeks. Then check three things:
- Does the tool show per-engine results, or one blended score?
- Can you see the cited sources, and which of them are yours?
- Does it tell you what to do next, in specific page-level terms?
If a tool fails the third test, you are buying a scoreboard. That might be fine, but you should know it going in. For more options, browse the GEO software directory at bestgeosoftware.com or the rank tracker list at ai-rank-tools.com.
Bottom line
Profound is strong at the enterprise end. For a mid-size brand that needs ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, the better question is not which tool has the most engines but which one covers those three on a public price and helps you act on the gaps. Run the same prompt set through two or three of these during their trials, and let the results decide.