Key takeaways
- Peec AI is the cleanest pure monitoring tool: unlimited users on every plan, a tidy dashboard, $95/mo to start, but only 3 active models on self-serve plans.
- Promptwatch costs the same at entry ($95/mo) and tracks all supported models on every plan. It also covers crawler logs, visitor analytics and content fixes, so it fits teams that want to improve visibility, not just report on it.
- Profound has moved to a 7-day trial plus custom Enterprise pricing for brands, so budget for a sales conversation and a bigger contract.
- If you really only need visibility numbers, the real questions are model caps, seat limits and where the useful features are gated.
- Several comparison articles online are stale. Check each vendor's pricing page before you buy.
The short answer
If your only goal is to see where your brand shows up in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers, you have two sensible self-serve choices and one enterprise choice.
- Pick Peec AI if you want a polished reporting dashboard, many stakeholders with logins, and you are happy with three engines.
- Pick Promptwatch if you want all engines tracked from day one and the option to act on the data later without switching tools.
- Pick Profound if you have enterprise budget, need demand data on what people ask AI, and are comfortable with a sales-led purchase.
That is the 30-second version. The rest of this guide shows where each answer breaks down.
What "only AI search visibility" actually means
It sounds simple. Track prompts, see mentions, compare to competitors, export a report. But three things quietly decide whether a tool fits that narrow job.
First, engine coverage. Citation behavior differs a lot by engine. Promptwatch Data's average sources per response report shows ChatGPT citing about 5 sources per web-search answer, Google AI Overviews about 10, and Perplexity almost exactly 10 every day. Microsoft Copilot swung from under 2 to nearly 17 within a few weeks. A tool that covers few engines will miss part of the picture.
Second, how data is collected. All three scrape or automate real interfaces rather than relying purely on APIs, which matters because user-facing answers can differ from API output.
Third, feature gating. A Reddit thread comparing these tools offered a useful tip: dig into each vendor's limit policy, because some cap usage cheaply and upsell for more visibility. That advice holds up. Model caps, prompt caps and per-engine add-ons are where the real price lives.
Side-by-side comparison
| Promptwatch | Peec AI | Profound | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $95/mo (Essential) | $95/mo (Starter) | 7-day trial, then custom Enterprise |
| Mid tier | $245/mo, 150 prompts | $245/mo, 150 prompts | Custom |
| Top self-serve tier | $579/mo, 350 prompts | $495/mo, 350 prompts | Not applicable |
| Models on entry plan | All supported models tracked | 3 active from 6 | Trial: ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews |
| Seats | Unlimited per Promptwatch's pricing page | Unlimited on every plan | Unlimited |
| Crawler data | Professional and up | Crawl insights on all plans | Agent Analytics bundled |
| Content tools | Content writing from Professional, automated Content Agent on Business | Briefs and suggestions, no drafting | Agents and AI Marketer on credits |
| Free way in | 7-day trial, free AI visibility report | Check current trial terms | 7-day trial with 50 preset prompts |
| Best for | Visibility plus action | Clean reporting | Enterprise demand intelligence |
Prices come from the vendors' public pages as researched in late 2026. Confirm on promptwatch.com/pricing and the other vendors' pricing pages before you commit.
A caveat on that comparison: it is published by Promptwatch, and parts of it are out of date against current pricing pages (more on that below).
Peec AI: the tidy monitor
Peec AI is what most people mean when they say "clean dashboard." Reviewers praise how readable it is, and every plan includes unlimited users, which matters if a CMO, a client and three analysts all want a login.
The plans, per Peec's pricing page:
- Starter, $95/mo: 50 prompts, 3 models, 1 project, 1 country, daily tracking.
- Pro, $245/mo: 150 prompts, 3 models, 2 projects, 3 countries.
- Advanced, $495/mo: 350 prompts, 3 models, 5 projects, 3 countries, Looker Studio.
- Enterprise: custom, up to 13 models, API access, SSO.
On self-serve plans you choose three active models from ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral and Perplexity sit on Enterprise. An extra model on self-serve costs extra. One third-party source puts it at $30/mo on an annual Starter plan.
That three-model cap is the main thing to think about. If your buyers use ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity, you will already have hit the ceiling, and Perplexity appears to be gated differently from the others. Check this directly with Peec before you assume.
What Peec does well: prompt tables with visibility, sentiment, position and a relative 1-5 volume score, competitor trend lines, and source analysis. It also has crawl insights on every plan, which contradicts older claims that it has no crawler data. Profound's own comparison notes the volume score is relative, not an absolute count of how often a prompt is asked.
Where it stops: Peec ranks recommended actions and offers briefs, but it does not draft or publish content. For a monitoring job, that is fine.
Promptwatch: visibility with a way to act on it
Promptwatch sits at the same $95 entry price, but the plan structure is different. Every plan lists all supported models, including ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Meta AI and DeepSeek. The older Promptwatch blog post that says four platforms are tracked per project appears stale against the current pricing page, so treat that claim with suspicion.
The plans:
- Essential, $95/mo: 1 project, 50 prompts, 6,000 responses, daily tracking, country-level tracking, Agent Chat, MCP and API access.
- Professional, $245/mo: 2 projects, 150 prompts, 18,000 responses, content writing and refresh, Knowledge Base, crawler logs (Agent Analytics), custom reports and Looker Studio.
- Business, $579/mo: 5 projects, 350 prompts, 42,000 responses, tracking as often as hourly, state and city tracking, Fact Check, Shopping insights and Ads Radar, plus the automated Content Agent.
There is no free plan to plan around. The free starting points are the 7-day trial on monthly billing and the free AI visibility report.
Where it is different from a pure tracker: IP-verified AI crawler logs show whether bots can actually read your pages, visitor analytics show what AI sends you in traffic and conversions, and the Action Board turns gaps into a to-do list. Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn citation reports are separate views, which several independent reviewers singled out as better than what other tools show.
The honest downsides:
- Crawler logs start at $245, not $95. Peec includes crawl insights from its entry plan.
- At the 350-prompt level Promptwatch costs $579 against Peec's $495.
- The jump from $245 to $579 is steep.
- Self-reported numbers on Promptwatch's own site and in third-party write-ups have been inconsistent, so ask for current customer figures if that matters to procurement.
If you only want monitoring, you may not use half of this. If you suspect you will want to fix problems rather than just report them, it saves a migration later. There is a full Promptwatch vs Peec page and a Promptwatch vs Profound page if you want the head-to-heads.
Profound: enterprise-first, and no longer a cheap entry
Profound is the most heavily funded vendor in this group. Its older public tiers (Starter at $99/mo, Growth at $399/mo, both billed yearly) circulated widely in comparison articles. Per the current pricing page and a third-party check in October 2026, brands now see a 7-day trial and a custom Enterprise plan. I could not verify the price of its self-serve agency plan, so I will not quote one.
What the trial gives you: 50 preset prompts running daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, one language, one region, limited credits, no history, exports, API or SSO. The prompts cannot be customized.
What Enterprise adds: a tailored prompt plan, up to nine engines, ChatGPT Shopping, exports, API, SSO, SOC 2 Type II and support tiers. Third-party buyer data puts the median contract at about $35,250 a year, which is a useful reality check before you take a demo.
The standout piece is Prompt Volumes, built on licensed consumer panel data that Profound says covers 2B+ real user prompts, broken down by intent and demographics. Peec offers a relative 1-5 score instead, and Promptwatch builds volume bands from search volumes of related keywords. If you need to know what people actually ask AI and who is asking, Profound has the strongest claim.
But here is the problem for the narrow use case. Profound's own FAQ answers "Is Profound only for AI search?" with "No." It now positions itself as an agentic marketing platform with credits. If you only need visibility, you may be paying for agents and a credit system you never open.
Where the real differences show up
Model coverage
Peec caps self-serve at 3 active models. Promptwatch lists all supported models on every plan. Profound's trial covers 3 engines, and Enterprise reaches up to 9. If breadth matters, Promptwatch and Profound Enterprise are the only two that don't make you pick. Given how differently engines cite sources, that is not a small point.
Seats
Peec wins here with unlimited users on every plan. If many people need dashboards, that is a real saving at agency or enterprise scale. Check the seat terms on each vendor's pricing page for your plan before assuming.
Crawler and traffic data
This used to be a clear Promptwatch advantage. It is narrower now. Peec includes crawl insights on all plans with CDN connectors, Profound bundles Agent Analytics, and Promptwatch gates crawler logs behind its $245 tier. Promptwatch's differentiator is that the logs are IP-verified and sit next to citations, visitor analytics and Search Insights, so you can tell an access problem from a content problem.
Acting on the data
Peec: ranked actions, briefs, no drafting. Profound: agents and an orchestrator, on credits. Promptwatch: content gap analysis, a content writer and refresh tools from $245, and the automated Content Agent with CMS publishing on Business. If your remit really is only reporting, this row should not influence you. If your boss will ask "so what do we do about it," it should.
Price at scale
| Prompts | Promptwatch | Peec AI |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | $95 | $95 |
| 150 | $245 | $245 |
| 350 | $579 | $495 |
Profound does not publish a comparable table for brands any more.
If cost per prompt is the only axis, Peec is cheaper at the top and equal below. If you need more than three engines, add the per-model add-on cost to Peec's number before you compare.
Check the claims in the comparison articles
A lot of the content comparing these tools is written by a competitor. Some points to be careful about:
- The Promptwatch vs Peec post says Peec has no crawler logs and does not offer Grok. Peec's pricing page now lists crawl insights on all plans and Grok (API) on Enterprise.
- BrandAxis's Peec alternatives article quotes older Profound plans and an older customer count for Peec. It also recommends itself first, so read the ranking with that in mind.
- Profound's comparison with Peec is written by Profound and frames monitoring as not enough.
Every source here has an angle, including this one, so verify numbers on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Which one should you choose
Choose Peec AI if
- You mainly need to report visibility, sentiment and share of voice to stakeholders.
- Many people need logins and you don't want seat math.
- Three engines cover where your buyers search.
- You want the cheapest route to a 350-prompt set among the self-serve options.
Choose Promptwatch if
- You want every engine tracked without picking three.
- You already suspect visibility is a content or crawlability problem you will have to fix.
- You care about Reddit, YouTube and LinkedIn citations, or AI-referred traffic and conversions.
- You may later want content generation and CMS publishing in the same product.
Choose Profound if
- You are an enterprise team with budget and a procurement process.
- Absolute prompt demand and demographic breakdowns drive your content planning.
- SOC 2 Type II, SSO and a data API are non-negotiable.
Skip all three if
You have a handful of prompts and a tiny budget. Lighter tools exist, and our network's AI rank tracking directory lists dozens. For a broader category view, the GEO software directory is the next stop. Otterly.AI is one low-cost option worth a look.
A practical way to decide
- Write down the 20 to 50 prompts your buyers actually type, including some comparison prompts.
- List the engines that matter, and count them. If it is more than three, price Peec with add-ons.
- Start trials with Promptwatch and Peec on the same prompts. Profound's trial uses 50 preset prompts, so you can't test your own list there. Compare the raw answers, not the scores. Scores don't transfer between tools because each vendor defines visibility differently.
- Ask each vendor what happens at your limit: overage billing, a pause, or a forced upgrade.
- Check whether crawler data, sentiment and exports are on your tier, not just the one above it.
If you would rather have someone run this selection and the follow-up work for you, 1001 SEO Media is the agency behind this site and uses Promptwatch for client AI visibility work.
Bottom line
For pure monitoring on a sensible budget, Peec AI and Promptwatch are close. Peec wins on seats and a clean interface. Promptwatch wins on engine coverage and what you can do after you see the numbers. Profound makes sense mostly when you are buying at enterprise scale and want its demand data, and is the hardest of the three to justify for a visibility-only brief. Run the same 50 prompts through two trials and see which answers you trust.