AthenaHQ vs Profound: Which Improves AI Visibility?

Key Highlights

• AthenaHQ and Profound both track AI search visibility, but AthenaHQ focuses on actionable GEO insights while Profound prioritises deep, enterprise-grade analytics.
• AthenaHQ stands out for clear dashboards, optimisation signals, and easier day-to-day usability across AI engines.
• Profound delivers deeper analytics, citation intelligence, and governance, but comes with greater complexity and setup effort.
• For AI optimisation and execution, AthenaHQ is more practical, while Profound is better suited to data-heavy enterprise teams.
• In e-commerce and agency use cases, AthenaHQ offers clearer guidance, while Profound favours large-scale analysis.
• Both tools lack native content execution, relying on external workflows to act on insights.
• AthenaHQ is rated higher on G2, 4.8/5  for usability, while Profound scores 4.6/5 for analytics depth.
• Scalenut emerges as a stronger alternative by combining AI-driven visibility tracking with content creation, optimisation, and SEO execution in a single platform.

Choosing the right AI visibility platform is getting harder. As generative search reshapes how brands are discovered, teams struggle with fragmented data, unclear benchmarks, and tools that either overwhelm with analytics or fall short on actionable insight. Knowing where your brand appears in AI answers is one thing. Understanding why it appears, or why it does not, is the real challenge.

This is where platforms like AthenaHQ and Profound come into the picture. Both promise deeper visibility into AI-driven search results, but they are built with very different priorities. One leans toward practical GEO execution, while the other emphasises enterprise-grade analytics and data depth.

In this blog, we break down AthenaHQ vs Profound across features, data clarity, usability, and ideal use cases. You will get a clear view of where each tool shines, where they fall short, and which one makes more sense for your AI search strategy.

AthenaHQ and Profound Comparison: Which Tool Is Better?

AthenaHQ and Profound both support AI-driven search visibility, but with very different priorities.

AthenaHQ focuses on GEO analytics, helping teams monitor, benchmark, and understand how their brand appears across AI search engines and LLM responses.

Profound emphasises depth and scale, offering enterprise-grade data, prompt intelligence, and advanced analytics for organisations that need rigorous AI visibility measurement. Let’s see which one is the better fit for you.

What is AthenaHQ?

AthenaHQ is a purpose-built Generative Engine Optimisation platform designed to increase how frequently and accurately your brand appears in AI-generated answers across tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

It monitors brand mentions, sentiment, and competitor visibility within AI outputs and surfaces these insights through a clean, easy-to-read dashboard. AthenaHQ also delivers data-backed recommendations that guide what content to create, refresh, or optimise, so your brand better aligns with how AI engines understand user intent.

What Are the Key Features of AthenaHQ?

• Prompt Discovery: Identifies high-impact prompts and prompt volumes that matter to your brand, including early signals from emerging AI queries.
• Brand Intelligence & GEO Score: Tracks brand mentions across AI search engines and assigns a single GEO score to measure overall AI visibility.
• Competitor Benchmarking: Shows how often your brand is cited compared to competitors, revealing visibility gaps and growth opportunities.
• Source & Sentiment Tracking: Highlights cited sources, sentiment behind mentions, and references most likely to drive engagement.
• Agency Reporting Workspace: Enables client-ready AI search reports with prompt-level insights and reusable reporting templates.
• Generative AI Content: Creates content briefs and drafts using custom, prompt-driven workflows.
• E-commerce AI Visibility Tracking: Shows how products and brands appear in AI search results, helping e-commerce teams optimise product content and improve discovery across AI-driven shopping journeys.

What are the User Ratings of AthenaHQ?

• G2: 4.8/5

Also, read our blog on AthenaHQ's replacement tools here

What is Profound?

Profound positions itself as an enterprise-grade AI search intelligence platform built for large organisations. It focuses on how brands appear, are cited, and earn trust across LLMs and AI agents, with a strong emphasis on deep analytics, governance, and scalability rather than hands-on content execution.

It provides insights on visibility, citations, sentiment, and keywords, helping teams monitor performance, identify gaps, benchmark competitors, and optimise content strategies.

What Are the Key Features of Profound?

• AI Answer Tracking: Monitors where and how your brand appears across AI search engines such as ChatGPT and Google AI.
• Prompt Intelligence: Analyses the prompts that trigger your brand in AI-generated answers.
• Source & Citation Insights: Reveals which websites, datasets, and references AI models rely on when citing your brand.
• Share of Voice Analysis: Measures AI visibility against competitors and tracks changes over time.
• Agent Analytics: Shows how AI agents crawl your site, interpret content, and drive real traffic through AI responses.
• Enterprise Governance & Integrations: Designed for large teams with advanced access controls, security features, and API support.
• Shopping & Product Visibility Analytics: Tracks how products and attributes surface in AI-driven shopping, comparison, and recommendation answers.

What are the User Ratings of Profound?

• G2: 4.6/5

Find out the best alternative tool to Profound in our blog here

AthenaHQ vs Profound: What are the Similarities?

Before exploring how AthenaHQ and AirOps differ, it helps to first understand where they overlap. Looking at their shared capabilities around AI search and content workflows makes it easier to evaluate which platform aligns better with your goals, team structure, and specific use case.

Is Profound a Good Alternative to AthenaHQ for AI search Visibility?

AthenaHQ Monitoring

Pros of AthenaHQ Monitoring

• AthenaHQ shows how AI search engines mention your brand in their answers, so you know where you appear and where you do not.
• It offers a live, shareable dashboard with AI traffic data, helping teams stay on the same page about visibility trends.
• You can see which of the pages are cited in AI responses and how often competitors are mentioned.
• The tool includes regional data, letting you understand visibility differences across countries or markets.
• Monitoring insights are connected to clear optimisation suggestions you can actually use.
• It tracks multiple AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity, for a broader view of AI search presence.

Cons of AthenaHQ Monitoring

• It is not clear how detailed the location data is, such as whether it provides city-level or language-specific insights.
• The focus is mainly on tracking and reporting, so optimisation actions often require manual follow-up.
• Competitor and sentiment data may feel too high-level for teams that need very deep analysis.
• For small teams, the monitoring features may be more than necessary if highly local insights are the main need.

Also, read our blog on Profound vs Peec AI here

Profound AI Answer Engine Insights

Pros of Profound AI Answer Engine Insights

• Shows where your brand appears or is missing in real AI prompts, helping teams focus on the most important queries.
• Share of voice, rankings, and trends make it easy to compare your visibility with competitors over time.
• Sentiment analysis shows how AI talks about your brand, so you can spot and fix reputation issues early.
• Citation authority highlights which websites influence AI answers about your brand and how strong those sources are.
• Tracks visibility trends across regions, topics, and languages to show how performance changes over time.

Cons of Profound AI Answer Engine Insights

• The insights reveal gaps, but improving results often requires additional tools or manual workflows.
• Dashboards and metrics can feel overwhelming without a dedicated analytics or content team.
• AI visibility scores are not always clearly explained, making them hard to understand.
• Citation and sentiment data may be less accurate in small or niche markets.
• Pricing and features may be too heavy for early-stage teams looking for quick results.
• Guidance on improving citations is limited, making it harder to turn insights into action.

My verdict

AthenaHQ offers more practical AI search visibility tracking for most teams. Its clear dashboards, multi-engine coverage, and actionable optimisation signals make it easier to understand and act on visibility data. Profound delivers deeper analytics, but its complexity and execution gaps make AthenaHQ the better day-to-day choice for improving AI presence.

Which Tool Has Better AI Search Optimisation Signals?

AthenaHQ Action Centre

Pros of the Action Centre

• Turns AI visibility data into clear, simple actions so teams know what to fix to improve AI search presence.
• Shows missing topics, weak content, and authority gaps that stop AI tools from mentioning your brand.
• Recommendations are made for refreshing existing content.
• Saves time by highlighting the most important actions, rather than forcing teams to analyse reports.
• Links AI visibility insights, such as custom prompt data, directly to optimisation tasks, making it easier to take action.

Cons of the Action Centre

• It is not always clear how actions are ranked or prioritised, which may concern advanced users.
• Suggestions still require content to be created or updated using other tools or manual work.
• May feel too advanced if you only need basic AI monitoring or light GEO guidance.

Also, read our Profound vs Scrunch blog here

Profound Workflows

Pros of Profound Workflows

• Helps teams organise AI visibility insights into structured workflows instead of scattered reports.
• Makes the workflows based on prompts, sources, and visibility changes over time in one place.
• Useful for large teams that need consistency, approvals, and repeatable processes.
• Fits well into enterprise environments with complex reporting and governance needs.
• Supports collaboration across analytics, SEO, and strategy teams.

Cons of Profound Workflows

• Workflows focus more on analysis and tracking than hands-on content execution.
• Actions are not always clearly prioritised, which can slow decision-making.
• Requires external tools or manual steps to actually implement content changes.
• Can feel complex or heavy for small teams or users looking for quick wins.
• Best suited for teams with dedicated resources to manage and interpret workflow outputs.

My verdict

AthenaHQ provides stronger AI search optimisation signals by clearly connecting visibility data to actionable fixes teams can apply. Profound’s workflows are better for organising insights at scale, but they lean more toward analysis than execution. For improving AI search presence, AthenaHQ is more practical and action-focused.

Which Tool Has the Best AI-Driven E-commerce Visibility Tracking?

AthenaHQ E-commerce AI Visibility

Pros of AthenaHQ E-commerce AI Visibility

• Shows how your products and brand appear in AI-generated shopping and comparison answers.
• Helps e-commerce teams spot visibility gaps in product listings, attributes, and categories.
• Makes it easier to understand why certain products are mentioned or ignored by AI tools.
• Supports better optimisation of product content for AI-driven discovery, not just SERPs.
• Useful for tracking brand and product presence across multiple AI search engines.

Cons of AthenaHQ E-commerce AI Visibility

• Focuses on visibility insights rather than direct product content updates or automation.
• Optimisation actions still require manual changes in your CMS or e-commerce platform.
• May feel high-level for teams needing SKU-level or marketplace-specific execution tools.
• Best value is realised when combined with broader GEO and content optimisation workflows.

Curious about AthenaHQ vs Airops? Read here  

Profound Shopping & Product Visibility

Pros of Profound Shopping & Product Visibility

• Shows how individual products and attributes appear in AI-generated shopping and comparison answers.
• Helps brands understand which products AI engines prefer to surface and why.
• Tracks product-level visibility trends across prompts, categories, and competitors.
• Useful for large catalogue brands that need insight into AI-driven buying and discovery journeys.
• Connects product visibility with citation sources to show what data influences AI answers.

Cons of Profound Shopping & Product Visibility

• Focuses on insight and reporting rather than direct product optimisation or execution.
• Acting on findings requires manual updates or separate e-commerce and content tools.
• Can feel complex for smaller stores without dedicated analytics or SEO resources.
• Less guidance on how to improve product visibility step by step.
• Pricing and depth may be excessive for teams looking for quick, lightweight improvements.

My verdict

AthenaHQ is the better choice for most e-commerce teams because it clearly explains why products appear or disappear in AI shopping answers and ties insights to content optimisation. Profound offers deeper product analytics, but its complexity and limited execution guidance make it better suited for large, data-heavy enterprises.

Which is Better for Enterprise Brands: AthenaHQ or Profound?

AthenaHQ Enterprise & Agency Plans

Pros of AthenaHQ Enterprise & Agency Plans

• Enterprise-grade AI visibility tracking with advanced prompt monitoring, reporting, and security suited for large organisations.
• Supports global and multi-region AI search monitoring, useful for brands operating across multiple markets.
• Allows agencies to manage multiple client accounts from a single dashboard with clear permissions.
• Includes pitch-ready workspaces and reporting templates to help agencies win and retain clients.
• Provides dedicated onboarding, support, and strategic guidance for enterprise and agency teams.
• Enables agencies to create new revenue streams by bundling AthenaHQ with managed services.

Cons of AthenaHQ Enterprise & Agency Plans

• Higher pricing and feature depth may be unnecessary for small teams or single-brand users.
• Requires sales-led onboarding, which can slow setup and evaluation.
• Content execution and CMS updates still rely on external tools or manual workflows.
• May feel excessive if your needs are limited to basic AI visibility tracking.

Profound Enterprise

Pros of Profound Enterprise

• Built specifically for large enterprises that need deep AI search visibility and governance.
• Tracks brand presence, citations, prompts, and share of voice across multiple LLMs at scale.
• Strong focus on data depth, analytics, and long-term AI visibility trends.
• Supports complex team structures with permissions, approvals, and collaboration workflows.
• Well-suited for organisations with dedicated SEO, analytics, or GEO teams.

Cons of Profound Enterprise

• Heavily analytics-focused, with limited support for direct content creation or optimisation.
• Acting on insights often requires external tools, manual workflows, or internal resources.
• Dashboards and metrics can feel complex without specialised expertise.
• Pricing and feature depth may be excessive for smaller teams or fast-moving growth teams.

My verdict

AthenaHQ stands out among Athena HQ alternatives for agencies, offering clear AI visibility insights, client-ready reporting, and actionable guidance. Profound suits large enterprises focused on deep analytics and governance, but it typically requires more time, budget, and resources to translate insights into measurable optimisation wins.

Are there Major Price Differences Between AthenaHQ and Profound?

What Is Profound AI Pricing?

Profound uses a tiered annual pricing model. Plans start at $99 per month for basic ChatGPT visibility, increase to $399 per month for advanced AEO features, and extend to custom enterprise plans. Features are unlocked by tier, with no hidden costs.

What is AthenaHQ's Pricing?

AthenaHQ follows an enterprise-focused pricing model starting at $95 per month. Pricing scales based on usage, number of clients, and feature access. Higher tiers unlock advanced AI visibility tracking, optimisation insights, and agency-ready reporting, positioning it as a premium GEO solution rather than a budget tool.

My verdict

AthenaHQ offers better value for money for teams that want actionable AI visibility insights, reporting, and optimisation signals in one platform. Profound’s pricing makes sense for enterprises that need deep analytics, but for most teams, AthenaHQ delivers more practical impact per dollar spent.

Read about the top 10 AEO tools you need to boost your AI visibility here

What are the Missing Features in AthenaHQ and Profound?

Now that we’ve covered the features both tools have in common, let’s look at where each of them falls short.

Missing Features in AthenaHQ

• Does not include native tools for content creation, editing, or publishing, so execution must happen outside the platform.
• Workflow options for enterprises and agencies are structured but offer limited deep customisation for complex processes.
• Lacks advanced prompt testing or experimentation features to actively simulate and iterate prompts across AI engines.
• Does not fully replace traditional SEO tools, as it does not cover technical audits, backlink analysis, or in-depth keyword research.

Features Missing in Profound

• Lacks built-in tools for content creation and on-page optimisation.
• Does not offer a native CMS or publishing layer to act on insights directly.
• Has a steeper learning curve, especially for non-technical users and small teams.
• Places less focus on real-time brand messaging and narrative control in AI responses.

Bottom line: Both AthenaHQ and Profound leave execution outside the platform, but in different ways. AthenaHQ focuses on visibility and optimisation signals without deep SEO or prompt experimentation, while Profound prioritises analytics over usability and content control. The right choice depends on whether you value clearer guidance or deeper data.

Where do Both AthenaHQ & Profound Fall Short?

1. Lack of Native Content Execution
   • Neither platform offers built-in tools for content creation, editing, or publishing.
2. Limited End-to-End Optimisation
   • Both rely on external tools or manual workflows to act on insights.
3. Incomplete Traditional SEO Coverage
   • Technical SEO audits, backlink analysis, and full keyword research are missing.
4. Execution Gaps After Insights
   • Insights are strong, but turning them into live content changes is not fully supported.

What Do User Reviews Say About AthenaHQ Compared to Profound?

AthenaHQ Reviews

"I find that there are some features in AthenaHQ that require more work to set up, which I haven't completed yet. Additionally, I would like more visibility on prompt volume data", says Tarek E.

AthenaHQ is often appreciated for its quick setup, ready-made reports, and clear GEO and prompt insights that guide teams on what to optimise next. Users highlight its competitor visibility, solid analytics, and helpful support, while noting occasional bugs, some setup-heavy features, and a need for deeper data, such as prompt volume.

Profound AI Reviews

..." The content optimisation and workflows are still fairly generic and could benefit from more customisation and depth...," says Isa N., SEO/AEO/GEO Manager

Profound reviews highlight its strong analytics, citation tracking, and enterprise-grade AI visibility data. However, many teams exploring Profound AEO alternatives note key drawbacks: a steep learning curve, complex dashboards, limited execution guidance, and reliance on external tools, with pricing and setup effort posing challenges for smaller teams.

Is there a Better Alternative to AthenaHQ and Profound?

Yes. Scalenut is a stronger alternative if you want execution, not just insight. Unlike AthenaHQ and Profound, Scalenut combines AI visibility tracking with content planning, creation, optimisation, and internal linking in one platform, making it easier for teams to act quickly and improve AI and search performance end to end.

Scalenut Overview: What Is Scalenut?

Scalenut is an all-in-one GEO and SEO platform that helps teams track AI visibility, plan topics, create content, and optimise pages from a single dashboard. It combines AI visibility monitoring with keyword and prompt insights, plus live content scoring, so your content performs well in both search engines and AI-driven discovery.

What Are the Core Features of Scalenut?

• GEO Watchtower: Tracks how often your brand is mentioned by AI engines compared to competitors.
• Cruise Mode: Creates a fully optimised, GEO and SEO ready blog in minutes.
• Prompt Context Tracking: Monitors up to 200 prompts to show where and why your brand appears across tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.
• AI Visibility Tracking: Follows brand mentions, cited sources, and prompt trends over time.
• Keyword Planner and Clusters: Find high-intent topics and content gaps quickly.
• Content Optimiser: Gives live GEO and SEO suggestions while you write.
• Content Audit: Identifies pages that need updates, merging, or removal.
• Traffic Analyser: Reviews traffic trends, top pages, and keyword performance.
• Link Manager: Highlights internal linking opportunities instantly.
• Social UpReach: Tracks Reddit discussions to spot early demand and emerging topics.

What are Scalenut's User Reviews?

• Product Hunt: 5/5
• G2: 4.7/5
• Capterra: 4.8/5

What do the Real Users Say About Scalenut? 

"This tool has been really fun to use. The UI and UX are well designed, and it's fast at everything. Nothing inside Scalenut feels cheap. The output quality of the AI is also great, whether you are using the long-form or the short-form generator, "says Carlos U.Digital Marketer, Marketing and Advertising

Users frequently describe Scalenut as a mature, all-in-one GEO and SEO content marketing platform that has improved steadily over time.

Reviews highlight its efficient workflows, strong impact on Google search performance, and Cruise Mode for generating quick, high-quality content drafts.

Why Choose Scalenut over Athena HQ & Profound?

1. True End-to-End Execution

• AthenaHQ and Profound focus on AI visibility insights, but stop at reporting.
• Scalenut connects insights directly to keyword planning, content creation, optimisation, audits, and updates in one continuous workflow.

2. Built for GEO and SEO Together

• AthenaHQ and Profound are strong on AI visibility diagnostics.
• Scalenut unifies AI visibility tracking with traditional SEO, so content performs across Google and AI search without switching tools.

3. Clear, Actionable Optimisation Guidance

• Closes content gaps with clear recommendations.
• Shows exactly what to write, update, or prune based on real data, not guesswork.

4. All Core SEO Capabilities Included

• Keyword research and clustering
• Live content optimisation
• Content audits and internal linking
• Traffic and performance analysis
• No need for multiple external SEO tools.

5. Faster Time to Results

• Cruise Mode creates GEO and SEO-ready drafts in minutes
• Teams move from insight to execution quickly, not just observation.

Bottom line:
If you want one platform that explains AI visibility and lets you act on it immediately, Scalenut is a more complete and practical alternative to AthenaHQ and Profound.

Ready to move beyond AI visibility tracking and focus on execution? Try Scalenut today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are there major price differences between AthenaHQ and Profound?

Yes, there are significant differences. AthenaHQ offers a transparent pricing model with a self-serve plan at $95/month, plus scaling credits. Profound pricing starts at $99/ month and uses custom enterprise pricing tailored to large organisations, which means costs are less predictable upfront but are designed for extensive platform coverage and enterprise-scale needs.

Does AthenaHQ offer better GEO tracking compared to Profound?

It depends on what you define as "better." AthenaHQ excels at turning GEO metrics into actionable insights with automated outreach and content creation. Profound offers deeper, more granular GEO tracking with advanced capabilities like Agent Analytics and Conversation Explorer for detailed competitive benchmarking. Your choice depends on your need for action versus analysis.  

Which tool is better for e-commerce brands, AthenaHQ or Profound?

For many e-commerce brands, AthenaHQ is a strong choice due to its agentic commerce features and integrations with platforms like Shopify. Its optimisation tools help improve search performance. However, large e-commerce enterprises may prefer Profound’s Shopping Analysis feature for deep insights into product visibility in AI commerce recommendations.

How does Profound handle entity optimisation compared to AthenaHQ?

Profound places a strong emphasis on entity optimisation, offering advanced capabilities to fine-tune how AI engines interpret your brand, products, and services. AthenaHQ addresses entity optimisation as part of its broader generative engine optimisation strategy, focusing more on overall brand perception and content creation to improve answer engine insights.

What are the best Profound alternatives?

Top Profound alternatives include AthenaHQ for GEO insights and Scalenut for end-to-end execution. Scalenut stands out by combining AI visibility tracking with content creation, optimisation, and auditing in a single platform.

Why might someone choose Profound instead of AthenaHQ?

Teams may choose Profound for its deeper analytics, governance, and enterprise-scale reporting. That said, organisations focused on acting quickly on insights often lean toward Scalenut for its simpler workflows and built-in execution capabilities.

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