Profound vs Otterly.ai
This is an independent comparison based on publicly available pricing and product documentation as of August 2026, not a paid placement, and was written before hands-on testing of either tool.
Profound and Otterly.ai both track brand visibility across AI answer engines, but they're built for very different budgets and buyers. Pick Profound if you have a dedicated AEO budget in the roughly $2,000+/mo range and want deep, root-cause citation and sentiment analysis with enterprise integrations; pick Otterly.ai if you want a genuinely self-serve, low-cost starting point ($29-$489/mo) with a real free trial and actionable content-fix recommendations. Neither is a strict upgrade over the other — they sit at opposite ends of the pricing and positioning spectrum.
At a glance
| Profound | Otterly.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Enterprise brands/agencies with a dedicated AEO budget (~$2,000+/mo) | Solo marketers, small/mid-size teams, and agencies wanting an affordable, self-serve starting point |
| Starting price | $99/month (ChatGPT only, 50 prompts) | $29/month ($25/mo annual) — 4 engines, 15 prompts |
| Free trial | Contested/unconfirmed — official page shows a "Try for free" CTA on Growth, but one review says a demo is required | Yes — 7 days, no credit card required |
| Key strength | Deep, root-cause citation and sentiment narrative analysis with source attribution | Low-cost entry with a real no-card trial and actionable "Recommendations" for content fixes |
| Standout limitation | Real multi-engine value starts at $399/mo; full 9-engine coverage plus API/SSO locked behind custom Enterprise contracts | Only 4 of 6 marketed engines included by default; full engine coverage can reach $300-$600+/mo |
Feature by feature
AI Engines Tracked
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Engines included at entry tier | ChatGPT only (Starter, $99/mo) | 4 engines: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot (Lite, $29/mo) |
| Maximum engine roster | Up to 9 engines at Enterprise: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek | Same 4 base engines plus paid add-ons for Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Claude |
| Mid-tier coverage | Growth ($399/mo) adds Perplexity and Google AI Overviews to ChatGPT (3 engines total) | Standard and Premium keep the same 4 base engines; add-on engines cost roughly $9-$439/mo depending on tier |
Prompt & Query Tracking
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Tracked prompts at entry tier | 50 prompts (Starter, $99/mo) | 15 prompts (Lite, $29/mo) |
| Tracked prompts at mid/top tier | 100 prompts (Growth, $399/mo) | 100 prompts (Standard, $189/mo) / 400 prompts (Premium, $489/mo) |
| Prompt discovery tools | Aggregate "Prompt Volumes" data (what millions of users ask AI), separate from the tracked-prompt quota | "AI Prompt Research" discovery tool surfacing real user queries by keyword/brand/URL across 50+ countries |
| Extra prompt capacity | Custom volume at the Enterprise tier | $99/mo per extra 100 prompts, available on any tier |
Competitor Benchmarking & Share of Voice
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Core benchmarking feature | Citation share vs competitors plus a "visibility rank" (actual position among cited competitors) | "Brand Report" tracking mentions, coverage, domain citations, share-of-voice, and position-average benchmarking vs competitors |
| Gap analysis | AI-generated gap analysis flagging prompts where competitors outperform you, plus head-to-head content comparison with structure/answerability recommendations | Not separately detailed beyond the Brand Report's share-of-voice and citation comparison |
Sentiment & Citation Analysis
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Sentiment tracking | Daily tracking, positive/negative dashboard by prompt/topic/platform, ranked recurring narratives with trend direction, source attribution | Classifies AI recommendations as enthusiastic, caveat, or dismissed |
| Citation tracking | Tracks every cited URL per prompt (including competitor domains), auto-classifies sources (Owned/Competitor/Earned Media/PR Wire/Social/Institution, customizable), citation volume trends over time | Monitors all cited domains/URLs weekly, including link-position changes over time |
| Export | CSV/JSON export | CSV export |
Content Recommendations & Fix Guidance
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Recommendation engine | Citation/competitor-gap data feeds concrete recommendations (underperforming pages, formatting suggestions, content briefs); "Profound Agents" include AEO-optimized FAQ generators and an "Aim" feature prioritizing weekly content projects | "Recommendations" feature generates roughly 15 types of prioritized actionable suggestions (e.g., create video, write press release, improve on-page content, engage on Reddit) with a trackable "To-Do" workflow |
| Independent assessment | One independent review calls it fundamentally a monitoring/insight tool that "tells you what's happening... doesn't help you produce the content" | Not separately reviewed in the fact-sheet, but complemented by pre-publish GEO URL audits |
| Pre-publish content grading | Not described as part of the product | GEO URL audits grade AI-crawler accessibility/extractability and predict AI-readiness pre-publish; 1,000-10,000 audits/mo depending on tier |
Reporting, Dashboards & Alerts
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Dashboards | Sentiment Dashboard & Charts | Per-brand-report notification settings; native Google Looker Studio connector |
| Alerting | Slack integration for automated weekly brand-health digests and real-time alerts on visibility/citation-share/sentiment shifts and competitor moves — Enterprise-only at launch | Alerting/automation via Zapier, Make, or Slack webhooks on events like coverage drops or competitor surges (third-party-confirmed) |
| Export access | CSV/JSON export from the Growth tier ($399/mo) up | CSV export available on all tiers, including Lite ($29/mo) |
Integrations & API
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Integration catalog | Broad: CDN (Akamai, Cloudflare, Vercel, WordPress...), CMS (Adobe Experience Manager, Contentful, Drupal, Webflow...), analytics (GA, GSC, Adobe Analytics), productivity (Slack, Notion, Linear, Teams...), marketing intel, ads, and search/data tools | Looker Studio, Zapier, Make, and Slack webhooks |
| Public API | TypeScript/Python SDKs exist but are gated to the Enterprise tier only | REST API (Bearer-token auth, ~2,000 req/5-min window) from the Standard tier ($189/mo) up: 2,000 req/mo Standard, 5,000/mo Premium, custom Enterprise; available during the free trial too |
| MCP access | Not mentioned in available documentation | Included |
Pricing & Access
| Capability | Profound | Otterly.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $99/month | $29/month ($25/mo billed annually) |
| Mid-tier price | $399/month (Growth) | $189/month ($160/mo annual, Standard) |
| Top self-serve tier | None — jumps from $399/mo Growth straight to custom-quote Enterprise | $489/month ($422/mo annual, Premium) |
| Enterprise entry point | Custom pricing; third-party analysis frames full value at ~$2,000+/mo budgets | Custom, roughly $1,000/mo and up |
Pricing
Profound ↗
Official pricing page
- Starter$99/month
ChatGPT tracking only, 50 prompts tracked, 100 Agents credits/mo, 1 seat, 1 language/1 region, email support.
- Growth$399/month
3 answer engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews), 100 prompts tracked, 400 Agents credits/mo, 3 seats, CSV/JSON exports.
- EnterpriseCustom pricing
Up to 9 answer engines, multiple companies tracked, custom prompt-tracking plan, dedicated Slack support, SSO/SAML + SOC2, API access, dedicated specialist with 24-hour SLA.
Otterly.ai ↗
Official pricing page
- Lite$29/mo ($25/mo billed annually)
15 search prompts, 4 base AI engines, 1,000 GEO URL audits/mo, unlimited team members, 1 workspace, no API access.
- Standard$189/mo ($160/mo billed annually)
100 search prompts, 5,000 GEO audits/mo, 2,000 API requests/mo, 200k Agent Analytics events, unlimited workspaces and team members.
- Premium$489/mo ($422/mo billed annually)
400 search prompts, 10,000 GEO audits/mo, 5,000 API requests/mo, 1M Agent Analytics events, personal onboarding.
- EnterpriseCustom (~$1,000/mo+)
Custom prompt/audit/API/event volumes, personal onboarding.
Which one fits you
Choose Profound if you...
- You have a dedicated AEO/comms budget in the roughly $2,000+/mo range (per third-party analysis) and need multi-stakeholder dashboards
- You want deep, root-cause citation and sentiment analysis — source attribution, auto-classified citation sources, ranked recurring narratives with trend direction — not just visibility scores
- You need coverage across up to 9 AI engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek), available at the Enterprise tier
- You want a broad workflow-integration catalog (CDN, CMS, analytics, Slack, ads, search/data tools) already wired in
- You need enterprise compliance (SSO/SAML, SOC2) and a dedicated specialist with a 24-hour SLA
- You can accept that entry-level plans cover only one engine and that full functionality is tier-gated behind higher spend
Choose Otterly.ai if you...
- You're a solo marketer, small/mid-size team, or agency wanting an affordable, self-serve entry point starting at $29/mo
- You want to test the product risk-free with a genuine 7-day free trial that requires no credit card
- You want concrete content-fix suggestions out of the box — about 15 types of prioritized "Recommendations" with a trackable To-Do workflow — not just raw dashboards
- You need pre-publish AI-crawler accessibility and extractability grading via GEO URL audits
- You want API and MCP access available on a mid-tier plan ($189/mo Standard) rather than only behind a custom Enterprise contract
- You can live with only 4 AI engines included by default and are willing to pay metered add-ons for Gemini, Google AI Mode, or Claude
Where they differ most
- 1
Budget gap: Profound's real multi-engine value starts at $399/mo and third-party analysis frames it as built for AEO budgets north of ~$2,000/mo, while Otterly.ai's self-serve ceiling tops out at $489/mo (Premium) before Enterprise custom pricing (~$1,000/mo+) kicks in.
- 2
Engine coverage math: neither tool's entry tier gives full coverage cheaply — Profound's $99 Starter tracks ChatGPT only, while Otterly's $29 Lite includes 4 engines by default but treats Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Claude as paid add-ons that can push real-world cost to $300-$600+/mo.
- 3
Analytics depth vs. actionability emphasis: Profound's stated differentiator is root-cause citation/sentiment narrative analysis with auto-classified citation sources and source attribution; Otterly.ai puts more visible emphasis on turning data into a trackable To-Do list of roughly 15 recommendation types plus pre-publish GEO URL audits.
- 4
API and integration gating differ sharply: Profound's broad integration catalog and API/SDK access are Enterprise-only (custom quote), while Otterly.ai includes REST API and MCP access starting at its $189/mo Standard tier.
- 5
Trial certainty: Otterly.ai's 7-day no-card free trial is clearly documented with specific limits; Profound's free-trial availability is contested between its own marketing page's "Try for free" CTA and an independent review claiming a demo is required instead.
Profound, honestly
Pricing is steep and aggressively tier-gated: the $99/mo entry tier covers ChatGPT only with a 50-prompt cap, real multi-engine value doesn't start until the $399/mo Growth tier, and enterprise-grade features (full 9-engine coverage, API access, Slack alerting, SSO/SOC2) are locked behind custom-quote Enterprise contracts. One independent review characterizes Profound as fundamentally a monitoring and insight tool that tells you what's happening but doesn't directly help produce content, calling its content-authoring layer thinner than its analytics layer. Free trial availability is also contested — the official page shows a "Try for free" CTA on the Growth tier, but an independent review claims no public free trial exists and a demo is required.
Otterly.ai, honestly
Otterly.ai's advertised "6 platforms" is misleading in practice: only 4 engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot) are included by default, while Gemini, Google AI Mode, and Claude are separately metered add-ons ranging roughly $9-$439/mo depending on tier and engine. Because of this, reaching full-engine coverage plus meaningful prompt volume can push real-world cost to $300-$600+/mo, well above the advertised $29/mo entry price. Entry-tier prompt volume is also comparatively low — 15 tracked prompts on Lite versus 50 on Profound's Starter plan.