How we make this list: we compare pricing pages, product documentation and public user reviews. Ratings come from G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, with the date we checked them.
Key takeaways
- Entry prices run from $20 a month to quote-only deals, so budget alone cuts the list in half.
- AthenaHQ starts near $295 a month, so Otterly.ai, Rankscale, Citeme, and Peec AI are cheaper ways to get the same core tracking.
- Only Profound, Scrunch, and Goodie pair monitoring with action tools.
- Engine coverage varies widely. Rankscale names 17 or more engines on every plan, but Profound Starter covers ChatGPT only.
- Every tool here offers a trial or a low-cost entry tier except Brandlight, which sells a paid pilot.
What does AthenaHQ do, and why do teams look for an alternative?
AthenaHQ tracks how AI engines mention and cite a brand, and teams look for an alternative when they want lower prices, wider engine coverage, or stronger action tools. AthenaHQ is an AEO and GEO platform that watches ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Copilot for mentions and citations. It offers a free Essential plan and a Starter plan near $295 a month, but teams that need daily tracking soon hit the free plan limits.
Price is the most common reason to switch. A team tracking 100 prompts a day can pay $29 a month with Otterly.ai or $69 a month with Citeme for daily data. Coverage is the second reason, since Rankscale includes 17 or more engines on every paid plan and Citeme tracks 10 from its Starter tier, while AthenaHQ treats Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek as add-ons or higher tiers. The third reason is workflow. AthenaHQ reports what AI says, while Profound, Scrunch, and Goodie also help fix the pages behind weak answers.
How much do Athena alternatives cost in 2026?
Athena alternatives cost from $20 to $295 a month on published entry plans. The cheapest paid tracker here is Rankscale Essentials at $20 a month, or $17 a month yearly. Otterly.ai Lite follows at $29 a month. Citeme Starter costs $69 a month, Peec AI Starter $95, and Profound Starter $99. Scrunch Starter costs $250 a month on annual billing, Goodie Core costs $295 a month on annual billing, and Brandlight publishes no price at all.
Annual billing cuts most prices by about 15 percent. Goodie Core costs $295 a month billed yearly but $354 billed monthly, and Scrunch Starter is $250 a month yearly or $300 monthly. Billing units differ too. Peec AI, Otterly.ai, Citeme, and Scrunch charge by prompts tracked. Rankscale charges by credits, where a cheap engine costs a quarter of a credit per run and Claude costs two. Profound charges by engine access, so Starter covers ChatGPT only and Growth adds Perplexity and Google AI Overviews for $399 a month. Add-ons are common, so a cheap headline price can double once the engines you need are added.
Which AI engines should an Athena alternative track?
A good Athena alternative should track ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overviews, and Claude at minimum. Those five cover most buyer questions today. ChatGPT drives the largest share of AI search traffic, Perplexity shows its sources in the answer, Gemini reaches Google users, AI Overviews sit inside normal search results, and Claude matters for professional and technical buyers.
Beyond the core five, the right list depends on your buyers. Microsoft Copilot matters for business software buyers, Grok, DeepSeek, Mistral, and Meta AI matter for technical audiences and global markets, and Amazon Rufus matters for retail brands. Brandlight is the only tool in this list that names Amazon Rufus, and Goodie tracks it on higher tiers. Check how the vendor counts an engine before you buy. Some tools list an engine but only check it weekly, or only on the top plan. Scrunch runs new prompts daily for two weeks, then moves them to a 72-hour cycle. Ask for a sample report that shows the same prompt across every engine you plan to pay for.
How do you pick the right Athena alternative for your team?
Pick by matching prompt volume, engine list, and budget first, then test the reporting with a trial. A local business with 15 key questions fits Otterly.ai Lite at $29 a month. A mid-size brand with 100 prompts fits Citeme Growth or Peec AI Pro. An enterprise with 500 or more prompts needs a credit-based plan like Rankscale or a quoted deal from Brandlight or Profound.
Next, list the engines your buyers use and strike out any tool that charges extra for them. A team that needs Claude on every prompt should avoid tools that sell Claude as an add-on, since the add-on can cost more than the base plan. Then decide whether you need action tools or only reports. If your team only needs a dashboard, Peec AI, Citeme, Otterly.ai, and Rankscale all do the job well. If you need content fixes, revenue attribution, or agent traffic controls, look at Profound, Goodie, or Scrunch. Finally, trial your two best options with the same prompt list before you sign.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 Profound | Enterprise teams that want AI visibility tracking plus agents that act on the data | $99 per month (Starter plan, ChatGPT only) | No free plan; trial available on some plans |
 Peec AI | Mid-market marketing teams that want clear reports and unlimited seats | $95 per month (Starter plan; 85 euros in Europe) | No free plan |
 Otterly.ai | Small teams that want the cheapest credible AI visibility tracking | $29 per month (Lite plan) | No free plan; 7-day free trial with no credit card required |
 Scrunch | Brands that want AI monitoring plus agent traffic analytics and content delivery | $250 per month (Starter plan, billed annually; $300 month to month) | No free plan; 7-day Starter trial with no credit card required |
 Rankscale | Agencies and teams that want the widest engine coverage at a low entry price | $20 per month (Essentials plan; $17 per month billed yearly) | No free plan; 7-day free trial of the Pro plan |
 Citeme | Marketing teams that want AI visibility tied to revenue and fixes that ship | $69 per month (Starter plan, excluding VAT) | No free plan; 3-day trial for $1 |
 Brandlight | Fortune 500 brands that want a managed AI visibility program with expert staff | quote | No free plan and no free trial; evaluation runs through a paid 3-month pilot |
 Goodie | Enterprise brands that want AI visibility tied to revenue attribution | $295 per month (Core plan, billed annually; $354 billed monthly) | No free plan; 7-day free trial on the Core plan |
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
The 8 best Athena alternatives for AI visibility tracking
#1Profound
Best for: Enterprise teams that want AI visibility tracking plus agents that act on the data4.6/5 on
G2 (640 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit tryprofound.com
Starting price$99 per month (Starter plan, ChatGPT only)
Free planNo free plan; trial available on some plans
Profound is the best-funded independent tool in this category. It tracks brand mentions, citations, sentiment, and share of voice across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, and Microsoft Copilot on its higher tiers. Its AI Marketer agent layer drafts fixes and stages them in your CMS for approval. Pricing needs care. Third-party pages list Starter at $99 a month and Growth at $399 a month, while other sources list a Lite tier at $499 a month as the entry point. Starter covers ChatGPT only with 50 prompts, so budget for Growth or Enterprise.
What we like- Deepest engine coverage on higher tiers, agent tools that draft and stage content fixes, strong enterprise controls with SSO and SOC 2
Watch out for- Starter covers ChatGPT only, so full coverage needs the $399 Growth plan or a custom Enterprise deal
#2Peec AI
Best for: Mid-market marketing teams that want clear reports and unlimited seats4.7/5 on
G2 (21 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit peec.ai
Starting price$95 per month (Starter plan; 85 euros in Europe)
Free planNo free plan
Peec AI is a Berlin-based platform that tracks visibility, position, sentiment, and share of voice. It runs each prompt daily and shows the sources AI cites. Starter covers 50 prompts, one project, and one country, with a choice of three models. Pro costs $245 a month for 150 prompts, and Advanced costs $495 a month for 350 prompts. Every plan includes unlimited users. The main limit is model choice. Perplexity is an add-on, and Claude is Enterprise-only. Peec AI also has no native GA4 integration, so it measures mentions rather than revenue. It suits SEO managers who want readable daily data.
What we like- Unlimited users on every plan, daily tracking, MCP and API access, clean prompt-level reporting
Watch out for- Only three AI models are included on self-serve tiers, and extra models cost extra
#3Otterly.ai
Best for: Small teams that want the cheapest credible AI visibility tracking4.7/5 on
G2 (54 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit otterly.ai
Starting price$29 per month (Lite plan)
Free planNo free plan; 7-day free trial with no credit card required
Otterly.ai is an Austrian platform launched in 2024. It tracks mentions across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, and Copilot. Lite costs $29 a month for 15 prompts and 1,000 GEO audits, Standard costs $189 for 100 prompts, and Premium costs $489 for 400. Its GEO audit checks whether a page is crawlable and citable, then gives a brief to fix what is broken. The catch is coverage. Claude costs $29 a month extra on Lite, and Gemini and Google AI Mode cost $9 each. A buyer who needs all seven engines pays $67 a month on Lite, not $29.
What we like- Lowest entry price in this list, unlimited team members on every plan, GEO audits that check whether pages can be crawled and cited
Watch out for- Only 15 prompts on Lite, and Claude, Gemini, and Google AI Mode cost extra as add-ons
#4Scrunch
Best for: Brands that want AI monitoring plus agent traffic analytics and content delivery3.6/5 on
G2 (14 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit scrunch.com
Starting price$250 per month (Starter plan, billed annually; $300 month to month)
Free planNo free plan; 7-day Starter trial with no credit card required
Sitecore acquired Scrunch in June 2026. It monitors nine engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, and Meta AI. Starter costs $250 a month on annual billing with 350 custom prompts, Growth costs $417 with 700, and Enterprise is custom priced. Its Agent Traffic product separates AI crawler visits from human visits, and its Agent Experience Platform serves a token-light version of a page to AI agents. One caveat: the pricing page and FAQ disagree on prompt counts and trial terms, and a fetch of scrunch.com in November 2026 returned demo content, which suggests the site is mid-transition after the acquisition.
What we like- Monitors nine AI engines, tracks AI bot traffic separately from human visits, and serves machine-readable pages to AI crawlers through its Agent Experience Platform
Watch out for- The pricing page and FAQ show different prompt counts, and full nine-engine coverage needs Enterprise
#5
Rankscale
Best for: Agencies and teams that want the widest engine coverage at a low entry price
Visit rankscale.ai
Starting price$20 per month (Essentials plan; $17 per month billed yearly)
Free planNo free plan; 7-day free trial of the Pro plan
Rankscale is a Vienna-based platform that bills by credits, not prompts. Essentials costs $20 a month, or $17 billed yearly, for 120 credits. Pro costs $99 a month for 1,200 credits, Pro+ costs $229 for 3,000, Growth costs $385 for 5,500, and Enterprise costs $780 for 12,000. Most engines cost a quarter of a credit per run, so Pro covers up to 4,800 answers a month. Claude costs two credits per run, so heavy Claude tracking burns credits fast. Unused credits roll over up to two or three times the monthly amount. It covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot, Google AI Overviews, and Google AI Mode.
What we like- Tracks 17 or more engines on every paid plan, credit pricing with rollover, white-label dashboards on Growth
Watch out for- Credit pricing is hard to budget, since Claude costs eight times more per run than ChatGPT
#6
Citeme
Best for: Marketing teams that want AI visibility tied to revenue and fixes that ship
Visit citeme.io
Starting price$69 per month (Starter plan, excluding VAT)
Free planNo free plan; 3-day trial for $1
Citeme is a Paris-based GEO platform that tracks 10 engines, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Starter costs $69 a month for 50 prompts on three engines, Growth costs $149 for 125 prompts, and Pro costs $349 for 300. Extra engines cost $25 a month each. Its Nova agent drafts fixes for visibility gaps and publishes them to your CMS after your approval. Its AI Impact feature connects AI-sourced visits to HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Attio, or Stripe and reports the revenue. Note the name. The product is Citeme, at citeme.io, not CiteMetrix. A separate audit service called CitedMetrics is a different company.
What we like- Tracks 10 engines, links AI visits to revenue through its AI Impact feature, and publishes fixes to WordPress, Webflow, and Shopify
Watch out for- No white-label option, no reseller rate, and the $1 trial requires a payment method up front
#7
Brandlight
Best for: Fortune 500 brands that want a managed AI visibility program with expert staff
Visit brandlight.ai
Starting pricequote
Free planNo free plan and no free trial; evaluation runs through a paid 3-month pilot
Brandlight is an enterprise AI visibility platform that emerged from stealth in April 2025 and raised a $30 million Series A. It tracks 11 or more AI engines, including Amazon Rufus, Meta AI, and Llama. Clients include Samsung, Kimberly-Clark, LG, and Estee Lauder. Brandlight sells a managed program, not a self-serve tool. A dedicated strategist turns the data into a ranked action list each week, and engineers work inside your stack on technical fixes. Pricing is quote-only. The pricing page returns a 404, and third-party estimates range from about $199 a month to $4,000 to $25,000 a month for enterprise contracts. None of those figures is vendor-confirmed. Brandlight runs its question set weekly, slower than the daily tracking most rivals offer.
What we like- Covers 11 or more engines including Amazon Rufus and Meta AI, dedicated strategists and engineers who run the program, and SOC 2 Type II compliance
Watch out for- No public pricing, no self-serve signup, and weekly runs are slower than daily tracking
#8
Goodie
Best for: Enterprise brands that want AI visibility tied to revenue attribution
Visit higoodie.com
Starting price$295 per month (Core plan, billed annually; $354 billed monthly)
Free planNo free plan; 7-day free trial on the Core plan
Goodie covers the full loop from prompt research and visibility monitoring to optimization actions and revenue attribution. Core costs $295 a month billed annually, or $354 billed monthly, and covers five models with 110 prompts and 50 optimization actions a month. Pro costs $999 a month billed annually and adds Gemini, Alexa for Shopping, and Sparky, with 250 prompts and SKU-level commerce visibility. Enterprise is custom priced. The AEO Writer generates AI-optimized content from the gaps monitoring finds. One conflict: some sources list Core at $399 a month billed annually, not $295, so confirm the current rate before you sign.
What we like- Full closed-loop system from research to revenue attribution, SKU-level commerce visibility on Pro, and up to 14 models on Enterprise
Watch out for- Entry price is high for small teams, and published prices conflict across sources
Comparison table
| Tool |
Best for |
Starting price |
Free plan |
| Profound |
Enterprise teams that want tracking plus agents |
$99 per month |
No; trial available |
| Peec AI |
Mid-market teams that want clear reports |
$95 per month |
No |
| Otterly.ai |
Small teams that want the lowest price |
$29 per month |
No; 7-day free trial |
| Scrunch |
Brands that want agent traffic analytics |
$250 per month |
No; 7-day free trial |
| Rankscale |
Agencies that want wide engine coverage |
$20 per month |
No; 7-day free trial |
| Citeme |
Teams that want revenue proof and fixes |
$69 per month |
No; 3-day trial for $1 |
| Brandlight |
Fortune 500 brands that want a managed program |
Quote |
No; paid pilot only |
| Goodie |
Enterprise brands that want revenue attribution |
$295 per month |
No; 7-day free trial |
How we picked
We checked each vendor pricing page on 12 November 2026, using third-party comparisons only where vendor pages conflicted or hid prices. We kept tools that track brand mentions and citations across at least four AI engines and that have a working official website. We ranked tools by fit for common buyer types, not by a single score. Prices are monthly billing unless noted. Check the vendor page before you buy, since prices in this category change often.
Frequently asked questions
Is AthenaHQ free?
AthenaHQ offers a free Essential plan, but it covers only a small set of prompts and engines, and most teams that track daily outgrow it fast. The paid Starter plan costs about $295 a month. Cheaper alternatives here start at $20 a month for Rankscale and $29 a month for Otterly.ai. Check what the free plan includes before you rely on it.
Which Athena alternative is cheapest?
Rankscale Essentials is the cheapest paid plan here at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly. Otterly.ai Lite follows at $29 a month for 15 prompts. Both cover the main AI engines, but they limit prompt volume and charge extra for some engines. Compare the cost per prompt, not only the headline price, before you choose.
Which Athena alternative tracks the most AI engines?
Rankscale tracks 17 or more engines on every paid plan, the widest coverage in this list. Citeme tracks 10 engines, Brandlight tracks 11 or more including Amazon Rufus, and Goodie tracks up to 14 on Enterprise. Engine count alone does not decide the winner. Check that the engines your buyers use are on the plan you would buy, not only on the top tier.
Do Athena alternatives offer free trials?
Most of them do. Otterly.ai, Scrunch, Rankscale, and Goodie each offer a 7-day free trial. Citeme offers a 3-day trial for $1, and Peec AI offers free pitch projects for agencies. Profound offers a trial on some plans but needs a demo for enterprise access. Brandlight is the exception, with no free trial and no self-serve signup.
Can I switch from AthenaHQ without losing my data?
You cannot move AthenaHQ history into a new tool, since each platform stores its own prompt runs and scores. Start the new tool while AthenaHQ is still active, run the same prompt list in both for two weeks, and export your AthenaHQ reports before you cancel. That overlap gives you a baseline to compare and keeps your history safe.
Sources we checked (9)
- https://www.tryprofound.com/
- https://peec.ai/
- https://otterly.ai/
- https://scrunch.com/
- https://rankscale.ai/
- https://citeme.io/
- https://brandlight.ai/
- https://higoodie.com/
- https://athenahq.ai/
Is your product missing or out of date?
We review this list regularly. Vendors can request a listing, send updated pricing or ask about featured placement.
Shihab Mia · Founder, Rankite
Shihab has 5+ years in B2B and SaaS SEO. He writes Rankite's software buying guides from pricing pages, documentation and public user reviews. More about Shihab.