Key takeaways
- As of October 2026, brands see only a free 7-day Trial (50 prompts) or custom Enterprise pricing. The $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans were removed in mid-September 2026.
- Answer Engine Insights covers prompt tracking, citations, sentiment and accuracy checks, captured daily from consumer front ends.
- Accuracy is a vendor claim: Profound publishes no independent validation and no confidence method.
- G2 reviewers (4.5/5 from 1,124 reviews, shown on AWS Marketplace) praise visibility depth and criticize cost and a learning curve.
- Small teams should price Peec, Otterly or an agency route first.
How we checked this: We read Profound’s pricing page, documentation, changelog and newsroom on October 11, 2026. Ratings are attributed to where we saw them: G2, Capterra and Reddit could not be opened directly, so the G2 figures come from Profound’s AWS Marketplace listing. We did not test Profound hands-on, and vendor claims are labelled as claims.
AnswerMentions sells its own AI visibility audit, which appears in some comparisons on this page. No vendor paid for placement or reviewed this article before publication.
Is Profound worth it? The verdict
Profound is worth it only for enterprise brands that will use Answer Engine Insights every week and need demand data and all-time history. For a small team it is poor value: you cannot see a brand price without a sales call, and the one public 100-prompt route is priced for agencies.
Profound is the best-funded name in this category. It raised a $180M Series D at a $1.8B valuation on September 15, 2026 and claims over 1,000 enterprise brands. Funding tells you the company will exist next year. It says nothing about whether the numbers are right.
Our stance: the product is deep, the price is opaque and the accuracy is unproven. Buy it for depth, not certainty, and compare Profound alternatives before you book a demo.
How much does Profound cost?
Profound has no public brand price as of October 2026. Brands choose between a free 7-day Trial (50 prompts on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews) and a custom Enterprise plan sold through a demo. The $99 Starter and $399 Growth plans were removed in mid-September 2026, though many sites still quote them.
Per the pricing page, the Trial gives you an industry prompt set you cannot customize, with no history, exports or support. Enterprise adds a tailored prompt plan, up to 9 engines, all-time history, CSV and JSON exports, API access and SSO/SAML.
Agencies can buy Agency Growth at $99 a month plus $399 a month per client workspace of 100 prompts on 3 engines. For brands, an estimate of $2,000 to $5,000+ a month, attributed to competitor Maintouch, circulates on geotoolbox.ai. Treat it as unverified, not a quote.
Agents run on credits, and the credits docs publish no price per credit. See our Profound pricing page for the full breakdown.
What Answer Engine Insights includes
Answer Engine Insights (AEI) covers prompt tracking, query fan-out, benchmarking, sentiment, citation tracking, FactCheck accuracy scoring and dashboards, with breakdowns by persona, region, topic and time. It is Profound’s core tracker, included on all plans, and raw data exports to CSV.
Profound’s glossary defines Visibility Score as the share of responses that mention your brand, out of responses that mention any brand. Share of Voice is your mentions divided by all brand mentions. An Accuracy Score divides accurate claims by verifiable claims.
The September 21, 2026 refresh added raw run views, a Compare dropdown and heat maps. Raw runs matter most: seeing the executions behind a data point is how you check a score.
Treat the rest as extras: AI crawler analytics, agents that run on credits and an ads tool announced with the Series D. Judge Profound on AEI.
How accurate is Profound's data — and how much history do you get?
Profound’s accuracy is a company claim: it says it captures what customers see, but publishes no independent validation. It runs each tracked prompt once a day per engine from consumer front ends. History is listed as all time on Enterprise and none on the Trial, with no retention limit published.
Profound says it captures answers directly from the browser, not through APIs. That is the right design for matching what buyers see. It also means one sample per prompt per engine per day, and AI answers vary from run to run.
Profound publishes no variance or confidence method. Read our guide to confidence intervals for AI visibility before you act on a one-point move in any dashboard. Ask sales for the retention limit and export format before you sign.
Prompt volumes and Conversation Explorer: what they tell you
Prompt Volumes, also called Conversation Explorer, shows how often real users ask prompts about a topic, with intent and demographic breakdowns by region, age and income. It uses licensed consumer-panel data, modeled to correct bias. Use it to rank topics, not to quote exact counts.
The Prompt Volumes FAQ says the data is licensed from double opt-in consumer panels, modeled to correct demographic bias, and updated weekly with under two weeks of latency. US data starts in January 2025; other regions start in July 2025.
Profound’s own materials disagree. One comparison article calls the figures actual volume, while the docs describe modeled estimates. Dataset-size claims run from 1.3B+ to 2B+ prompts. Trust the docs.
Is Profound easy to use? What reviewers say
Profound is powerful but not simple, according to reviewers. G2 reviews shown on Profound’s AWS Marketplace listing average 4.5/5 from 1,124 reviews and praise visibility into AI answers, but cost and a learning curve are the recurring complaints. Treat this as reviewer sentiment, not a usability test.
On AWS Marketplace, Profound’s G2-sourced rating splits 73% five-star and 24% four-star. We could not open G2 itself, so the list below summarizes what that listing shows.
A third-party review, which warns that some links on its page may be paid, lists the same price premium. Scrunch, a competitor, says some users find Profound complex; discount that.
- Praise: visibility into how brands appear in AI answers, citation and accuracy tracking, integrations, Profound University and fast feature releases.
- Complaints: cost is the most common, with reviewers calling it very expensive. Then a learning curve, a lot of data to sort and requests for clearer priorities.
Who should buy Profound — and who should pick something cheaper
Buy Profound if you are an enterprise brand with a team that acts on daily data and a budget for a custom quote. Pick something cheaper if you have one marketer, want a price you can see before a sales call, or run a small prompt set. Peec AI starts at $95 a month.
Profound vs Peec AI covers the closest cheaper rival. AthenaHQ Starter lists 11 models for $295 a month (AthenaHQ pricing; see AthenaHQ vs Profound). Scrunch Core is $250 a month for 125 prompts (Scrunch pricing; see Profound vs Scrunch AI).
Evertune lists Pro at $800 a month for mid-market brands, with article and ad tools included (Evertune pricing). If you only want a first look, a free AI visibility audit shows which brands AI names instead of you before you pay for tracking.
| Your situation | Buy Profound? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise brand with an analyst team | Yes | Prompt Volumes, all-time history, SSO/SAML, up to 9 engines |
| Retailer tracking many SKUs | Test first | A SKU layer exists, but shopping coverage centers on ChatGPT |
| Agency with one to three large clients | Maybe | $99 plus $399 per client workspace; compare agency plans first |
| Marketer at a mid-size company | Skip | No public brand price; price Peec or Otterly first |
| Startup or small business | Skip | Trial is 50 fixed prompts for 7 days; Otterly Lite is $29 a month |
Reader questions
Frequently asked questions
What is Profound AI?
Profound is a New York company, founded in August 2024 by its own account, that sells an AI marketing platform. Its core product, Answer Engine Insights, tracks how brands appear in answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and other engines. It also sells agents, AI-crawler analytics and an ads tool.
Does Profound offer a free trial?
Yes. As of October 2026, the brand Trial is free for 7 days: 50 prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, from an industry prompt set you cannot customize. It has no history, exports or support. Every paid brand plan goes through a demo, per the pricing page.
How does Profound compare with Peec AI?
Profound is deeper and sold by quote; Peec is cheaper and public. Peec Pro is $245 a month for 150 prompts. Profound adds Prompt Volumes, all-time history and up to 9 engines, while Peec lists SKU-level tracking on every plan. Our Profound vs Peec AI comparison has the full table.
Is Profound good for agencies?
It can be, for a few large clients. Agency Growth is $99 a month plus $399 per client workspace, so one client costs $498. Peec’s agency Growth plan, built for 3 to 10 clients, is $495 a month for 25,000 credits, about 277 prompts on 3 models daily. Choose Profound for depth, Peec for volume.