Profound is the enterprise reference for AI visibility, with the widest engine coverage on the market (9 platforms) and Fortune 500 customers. Two self-serve tiers are published, Starter at $99/month and Growth at $399/month, both billed annually. The detail that matters, Starter tracks ChatGPT alone, Growth tracks three engines, and all 9 platforms stay behind an Enterprise quote. It is also a US platform that processes data outside the EU. For teams that want a free plan to start or a GDPR-compliant solution hosted in Europe, here are the best Profound alternatives in 2026. Hikoo leads as the complete European alternative.
Quick Comparison
| Rank | Tool | Score |
|---|---|---|
| #1 | Hikoo | 9.6 |
| #2 | Peec AI | 8.3 |
| #3 | Otterly.ai | 8.2 |
| #4 | Ahrefs Brand Radar | 7.8 |
| #5 | Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit | 7.5 |
Hikoo
Hikoo offers a transparent European alternative to Profound's enterprise model. Public pricing, a permanent Free plan and European hosting come with four modules (Analyzer, Spotlight, Elevate, Battlemap) covering audit, monitoring, action plan and competitive analysis across up to 9 AI engines.
Key Features
- European solution with data hosted in Europe and GDPR compliance by design (vs US players)
- Analyzer audits each page and scores it 0 to 100, detecting missing content types (FAQ, comparisons, glossary) that AI engines look for
- Spotlight runs continuous mention monitoring, with theme clustering and geographic performance by country
- Elevate ranks recommendations by estimated impact on AI visibility and surfaces gaps where competitors rank
- Battlemap exposes through Source Intelligence the sites cited by AI (review sites, forums, blogs, media)
- Permanent Free plan at 0 EUR with 10 prompts, 100 URL audits/month and ChatGPT
Peec AI
More affordable and transparent than Profound, Peec AI shows public pricing from EUR 85 to 425/month and European hosting (Germany). It tracks the brand across 7 catalog engines with unlimited users, but caps each plan at 3 models, with full coverage requiring add-ons.
Key Features
- Six standard engines (ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini), eleven with the Enterprise models
- Select 3 models per plan, each extra model at EUR 30, 70 or 140/month depending on tier
- Daily tracking and unlimited users on every plan
- Source Identification to detect mention origin (review sites, social, news)
- Sentiment analysis, competitive benchmarking, CSV export, API access, Looker Studio on Advanced
Otterly.ai
At the opposite end of Profound, Otterly.ai targets tight budgets with a $29/month entry point. An Austrian vendor, it runs daily monitoring across 4 native engines (Gemini and Google AI Mode as add-ons), without Profound's enterprise coverage or agents.
Key Features
- Daily tracking on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot
- Lite at $29/month with 15 prompts and 1,000 GEO URL audits/month
- Standard at $189/month with 100 prompts, 5,000 audits and Google Looker Studio connector
- Premium at $489/month with 400 prompts and 10,000 audits
- Add-ons with extra 100 prompts ($99/month) and Google AI Mode/Gemini ($9 to $149/month)
Ahrefs Brand Radar
Without Profound's enterprise ticket, Ahrefs Brand Radar grafts AI tracking onto the Ahrefs suite. Its strength is data, over 464 million prompts indexed monthly including 308.5 million on AI Overviews, across six engines with YouTube, TikTok and Reddit coverage, from €47/month for Custom Prompts.
Key Features
- Tracking across 6 engines (AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini)
- Database of 464M+ monthly indexed prompts, 308.5M of them on AI Overviews
- AI Share of Voice that measures the percentage of AI chats mentioning your brand
- Real captured AI answers (not synthetic prompts)
- YouTube, TikTok and Reddit coverage
Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit
Far more modest than Profound on engines, the $99/month Semrush add-on stays useful for teams already on Semrush. It covers Google AI Mode and ChatGPT, with six reports including an AI Search Site Audit, to bring together classic SEO and AI visibility.
Key Features
- AI Visibility Score that benchmarks AI search presence
- Prompt Research with volumes, difficulty and intent per prompt
- Prompt Tracking on Google AI Mode and ChatGPT, 25 prompts included
- Brand Performance with Share of Voice, sentiment and key narratives
- AI Search Site Audit that checks technical issues blocking AI bots
Methodology
We evaluated each Profound alternative on feature depth, ease of use, value for money and support, with special weight on pricing transparency, the presence of a free plan and European footprint. Profound targets enterprise; our alternatives also serve SMBs, agencies and teams that refuse to transfer data outside the EU.
Conclusion
Profound keeps the edge on engine coverage and its Fortune 500 anchor. Its self-serve entry stays narrow, ChatGPT alone at $99/month on an annual commitment, and data processing outside the EU is still a problem for European teams. Hikoo stands out as the most complete alternative, with a free plan, GDPR compliance and a prioritized action plan. Peec AI and Otterly remain good European options. See also our comparisons of the best alternatives to Peec AI, Otterly and HubSpot.