Scalenut vs AthenaHQ: Which Tool Wins in AI Visibility?

Key Highlights

• Scalenut excels at AI visibility monitoring and content execution, while AthenaHQ focuses on AI search monitoring.    
• In G2, AthenaHQ is rated at 4.9/5, and Scalenut is rated 4.7/5  
• Scalenut is an all-in-one AI tool designed for teams that need to create and optimise content efficiently.
• AthenaHQ is an enterprise-grade platform for tracking brand mentions and competitor performance in AI responses.
• The right choice depends on whether you need a tool for basic monitoring or one that advances your content strategy.

Choosing the right AI content and GEO/SEO platform is getting harder, not easier. Marketers are under constant pressure to produce high-quality, search-focused content faster, while also proving measurable search performance. With so many tools promising smarter research, optimization, and AI-powered workflows, it is difficult to know which platform truly supports your strategy rather than adding more complexity to your stack.

The goal is simple. You need a system that helps you plan better content, target the right opportunities, and streamline production. That is where tools like Scalenut and Athena HQ come in: they combine research, strategy, and optimisation into a single, connected workflow that reduces guesswork and improves visibility.

In this blog, we compare these platforms across strategy capabilities, research depth, optimisation features, and practical use cases, so you can confidently choose the solution that aligns with your growth goals.

What Is Scalenut?

Scalenut is an all-in-one AI-powered platform designed to help brands increase visibility across AI-driven search environments such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. Rather than focusing solely on traditional search rankings, it helps you understand how your brand appears, is referenced, and performs in AI-generated responses.

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At its core, Scalenut enables teams to track, analyse, and improve AI visibility for content marketing. It converts insights into practical steps by providing clear recommendations on content creation, backlink opportunities, and platform-level engagement, helping marketers move from strategy to execution faster.

On the execution side, Scalenut brings together AI-assisted article writing, GEO/SEO content optimisation, on-page improvements, internal linking, and content audits in one place, enabling teams to implement changes efficiently without switching between multiple tools.

Start your 7-day free trial today!  

What Are the Core GEO Features of Scalenut?

Here is a snapshot of the capabilities that position Scalenut as a complete GEO and AI visibility platform.

1. AI Brand Visibility and Monitoring

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Scalenut’s Brand Monitor shows how your brand appears across AI search platforms.  Key metrics include:

• Visibility Score measures how frequently your brand is mentioned relative to competitors.
• Average Position indicates how prominently your brand appears within AI-generated answers.
• Share of Voice reflects the proportion of AI response space captured by your brand.
• Visibility Heatmap highlights how brand mentions vary across platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
• Brand Visibility Rank evaluates your brand’s overall performance across key SEO themes and AI prompts.

2. Prompt Level Insights and AI Search Intelligence

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Prompt Insights reveals how your brand performs inside AI-generated prompts, including answer engine insights.

• Prompt Tracking reveals where your brand is mentioned, its ranking, supporting citations, and competing brands.
• Query Fanouts illustrate how a single question expands into multiple related AI-generated queries.
• Sentiment Analysis identifies whether your brand mentions carry positive, neutral, or negative sentiment.

3. Actionable AI GEO/SEO Recommendations

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The Action Center turns insights into execution. The core aspects of action center are:

• New Article Ideas surface content opportunities based on high-intent keywords and real AI-driven questions users are asking.
• Backlink Suggestions identify link opportunities that can strengthen domain authority and overall visibility.
• Platform Engagement Opportunities highlight places like Reddit discussions where you can boost brand mentions and earn citations.

4. AI Traffic Monitoring and LLM Interaction Tracking

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AI Traffic Monitor tracks visits from AI bots such as ChatGPT and Gemini, helping to analyse organic traffic patterns.

• Cloudflare Integration simplifies and enhances AI traffic tracking.
• Top Sources reveal which AI agents visit your site and how frequently.
• Top Pages identify the content most actively accessed by AI models.
• AI Visit Trends track how AI-driven traffic and brand mentions evolve over time.

5. Core GEO and Content Workflow Features

a) Content Creation and Optimisation

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• Cruise Mode automatically generates outlines and drafts using SERP and GEO insights.
• Content Optimiser pinpoints improvements needed to boost content performance.
• AI Humaniser refines AI-written content to sound more natural and human.
• Content Scoring evaluates intent alignment, topic depth, structure, keyword usage, and internal linking quality.

b) SEO Research and Planning

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• Keyword Planner clusters keywords by search intent and reveals how competitors are covering them.
• Traffic Analyser identifies top-performing pages, content gaps, and quick-win opportunities.
• Content Audit evaluates existing pages and provides clear recommendations for improvement.

c) Technical SEO and Linking

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• Link Manager helps you organize, optimize, and strengthen internal linking.
• On-Page Pro evaluates meta titles and descriptions against top-ranking results.
• Backlinks Marketplace enables you to discover and purchase high-quality backlinks directly.

Scalenut Review: What Do Real Users Say About Scalenut?

"I use Scalenut to create and optimize blog posts for our website. I love the SEO scoring features and all the recommendations it gives. I've noticed overall that when I follow them, my articles actually do improve in their rankings", says Jake H., Marketing Strategist

Scalenut generally earns strong feedback across review platforms, with users highlighting how it streamlines and improves content workflows. Many GEO and SEO teams, bloggers, and marketing teams describe it as a tool that significantly upgrades how they plan, create, and optimise content. Below is a quick summary of common themes shared by everyday users about their experience with Scalenut.

Book a free demo and see how its AI-driven GEO-SEO tools can elevate your content strategy!

What Is AthenaHQ?

AthenaHQ operates as a Generative Answer Engine Optimisation platform rather than a traditional SEO tool. Its core focus is to increase how often your brand is surfaced and referenced in AI-generated responses from systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

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Using advanced machine learning, the platform tracks when and where your brand appears in AI-generated responses. It analyses elements such as sentiment, mention context, and competitive positioning, linking these metrics directly to business outcomes. These insights are presented through an intuitive dashboard, while AthenaHQ’s recommendation engine provides personalised, data-backed guidance to strengthen your brand’s visibility across AI-driven search experiences.

What are the Key Features of AthenaHQ?

1. Prompts

AthenaHQ suggests seed prompts and volumes that actually matter to your brand and aids in emerging prompt discovery.

2. Brand Intelligence and AI Search Optimisation

The platform tracks brand mentions across AI systems and calculates a unified GEO score to enhance AI search visibility. It converts complex AI visibility data into clear insights, so teams know where to focus optimisation efforts.

3. Competitor Benchmarking and Analytics

AthenaHQ monitors how often competitors are cited in AI responses. This helps uncover gaps, compare performance, and refine strategy using data-driven recommendations.

4. Source Intelligence and Sentiment Tracking

It identifies which sources mention your brand and measures sentiment, showing whether coverage is positive, negative, or neutral and which sources may drive clicks.

5. Agency Pitch Workspace and Reporting

Teams can build client-ready AI search reports, compare brands, and reuse structured reporting frameworks.

6. Generative AI Content

The Action Centre creates briefs and drafts, using custom prompts.

7. Content Sniping and Optimisation

AthenaHQ suggests ideas based on competitor content and recommends updates to your content.

Athena HQ Review: What Do Users Say About Its Performance?

Reviews on G2 often describe AthenaHQ as easy to adopt, practical, and useful for daily AI SEO tasks, especially with its advanced features. Users appreciate ready-made reports, prompt tracking, visibility dashboards, solid analytics, integrations, and responsive support.

"Platform consistency: sometimes there are minor glitches," says Tom S., Analytics Consultant

However, the feedback also highlights limitations. Some features require additional setup, the volume of prompts lacks transparency, and minor bugs or inconsistencies are present. While fixes come quickly, these issues suggest the platform is still maturing. AthenaHQ works well for flexible teams, but may not fully meet expectations for those seeking a highly polished, enterprise-level solution.

Also read about Athena HQ's replacement tools here

Scalenut vs AthenaHQ: Which platform, Scalenut or AthenaHQ, Offers Better Features for AI-powered GEO/SEO?

Now that we’ve covered the core features of both Scalenut and AthenaHQ,  let’s look at where they overlap and how those shared capabilities benefit teams navigating AI-driven search.

Does Scalenut or AthenaHQ Deliver Better Results for AI visibility and Brand Discovery?

Scalenut Prompt Insights

Pros of Scalenut Prompt Insights

• Monitors brand visibility at the prompt level, covering position, competitors, and performance across AI platforms.
• Shows how prompts branch into related questions (query fanouts), revealing connections to wider AI topics and themes.
• Includes sentiment analysis to gauge whether brand mentions are positive, neutral, or negative.
• Tracks citation frequency and sources, highlighting signals that build AI trust and authority.
• Highlights optimisation opportunities by combining execution, sentiment, and citation signals.
• Measures how often themes and prompts appear, helping assess demand and relevance.
• Records prompt execution frequency, showing exposure trends across platforms.
• Groups prompts into GEO-focused themes automatically, reducing manual work.
• Offers filtering by theme, platform, and time period for detailed performance tracking.

Cons of Scalenut Prompt Insights

• Focuses mainly on AI-generated prompts, with less visibility into traditional search data.
• The depth of data may feel complex for users new to AI content analysis.

AthenaHQ's Prompt Volume

Pros of AthenaHQ's Prompt Volume

• Uses a proprietary model to estimate how often prompts are asked across AI platforms, helping prioritise high-impact topics.
• Surfaces emerging and trending AI queries early, supporting forward-looking GEO strategies.
• Offers region-based insights to understand prompt demand across different markets.
• Fits into AthenaHQ’s broader AI visibility suite, keeping volume insights connected to monitoring and optimisation.

Cons of AthenaHQ's Prompt Volume

• Available only on enterprise plans, limiting access for smaller teams.
• Prompt volumes are modelled estimates, not real usage data, which can reduce confidence in accuracy.
• Historical comparison and long-term tracking of prompt volume can be difficult.
• Accuracy may vary in niche or low-volume markets where data signals are sparse.

Read our blog on AI Monitoring Tools that Can Improve Your Workflow here

My Verdict

While both tools bring value to AI search optimisation, Scalenut stands out for its depth, actionability, and workflow integration. It goes beyond estimated demand and provides real-time, prompt-level visibility into sentiment, citations, and optimisation paths. This makes Scalenut more execution-focused, practical, and reliable for teams serious about improving AI visibility, not just tracking trends.

Which Tool has the Best Brand Monitoring?

Scalenut's Brand Monitor

Pros of Scalenut's Brand Monitor

• Tracks brand presence across several AI platforms, giving a clear picture of overall visibility.
• Benchmark your visibility against competitors to uncover improvement areas.
• Shares key metrics like visibility score, average position, and share of voice.
• Maps where your brand appears on AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity.
• Highlights visibility gaps and guides content refinement for stronger recognition.
• Delivers detailed rankings tied to specific GEO/SEO themes and prompts.

Cons of Scalenut's Brand Monitor

• Data updates occur at set intervals, so shifts may not appear in real time.
• Insights may require some analysis experience to fully interpret.

AthenaHQ's Monitoring

Pros of AthenaHQ Monitoring

• Converts complex AI visibility signals into a unified GEO score for easier interpretation, helping to identify content gaps.
• Monitors how often your brand and competitors are cited in AI-generated responses
• Converts complex AI visibility signals into a unified GEO score for easier interpretation
• Provides source-level intelligence to understand which domains influence AI answers
• Includes sentiment tracking to show whether AI mentions are positive, neutral, or negative
• Supports competitor benchmarking to identify visibility gaps and relative performance
• Offers shareable dashboards and reporting features useful for agencies and client pitches

Cons of AthenaHQ Monitoring

• Prompt volume and demand data are limited and hard to review historically
• Monitoring is largely insight-focused, with limited execution or optimisation guidance
• Does not provide deep AI traffic or LLM crawl-level interaction data
• Sentiment and competitive insights can feel high-level rather than deeply granular
• Optimisation recommendations often require manual interpretation and follow-through
• Credit-based or enterprise-leaning pricing can become expensive as monitoring scales
• Does not include built-in SEO workflows like content audits, internal linking, or backlink acquisition
• Visibility data shows presence and perception, but not direct business or traffic impact

Also read: What Are the 10 Best Tools for Tracking Brand Visibility in AI Search Platforms?

My Verdict

For brand monitoring, Scalenut offers a more practical, execution-driven advantage. It not only shows where your brand appears, but also connects visibility metrics to themes, prompts, and optimisation paths. Compared to AthenaHQ’s insight-heavy approach, Scalenut delivers clearer competitive benchmarking and more actionable direction, making it better for teams focused on improving visibility, not just observing it.

Which tool has the best Action Recommendations?

Scalenut’s Cruise Mode To Generate & Optimise GEO/SEO

Pros of Scalenut’s Cruise Mode

• Automates the entire content creation process, from keyword research to publish-ready drafts, ensuring GEO-optimised content creation.
• Automatically analyses the top-ranking pages for your target keyword, providing insights on word count, SEO scores, headings, and images, so you can write content that outperforms competitors.
• Tracks and provides a content score based on SEO best practices, offering actionable recommendations to improve keyword density, internal linking, and overall content structure.
• Generates GEO/SEO-optimised outlines based on top-ranking articles, helping you structure your content for better rankings and relevance.  
• Generates GEO/SEO-friendly content drafts with automatic inclusion of images, bullet points, and tables for better engagement and readability.
• Helps identify underperforming content with clear data-backed insights, allowing you to prioritise pages that need optimisation and track progress over time.
• Suggests immediate improvements and optimisations, such as H-tag adjustments, keyword placement, and internal linking, to ensure your content performs at its best.

Cons of Scalenut’s Cruise Mode

• Overemphasis on Keywords: The tool sometimes prioritises keyword density, which can lead to unnatural writing if not carefully balanced.
• High-Quality Content Input: Delivers the best results when applied to well-structured, high-quality content, helping teams further refine and amplify pages that already have solid fundamentals.      

AthenaHQ AI Action Centre

Pros of the Action Centre

• The Action Centre translates AI visibility signals into clear actions, helping teams understand what to fix to improve presence in AI-generated answers.
• Identifies missing topics, weak coverage, and authority gaps that limit how generative engines reference your brand.
• Suggestions are tailored for how LLMs interpret, reuse, and cite content, not just traditional SEO rankings.
• Helps teams focus on high-impact actions instead of manually analysing dashboards and reports.
• Connects AI visibility data directly with optimisation tasks, closing the gap between insight and execution.

Cons of the Action Centre

• The way GEO actions are prioritised is not fully explained, which may reduce trust for advanced users.
• While actions are suggested, content creation and implementation rely on external tools or workflows.
• The Action Centre is powerful, but can be excessive if you only need lightweight GEO guidance or simple AI monitoring.

My Verdict

Scalenut delivers the strongest action recommendations for teams focused on execution. Its Cruise Mode turns insights directly into GEO/SEO-optimised content with clear, in-editor fixes and automated workflows. AthenaHQ offers smart prioritisation, but relies on external tools to act, slowing execution.

Also, read about the 10 Must-Have AEO Tools to Boost Your Strategy here

How does AthenaHQ Compare to Scalenut in Terms Of Pricing and Value for Money?

How much does Scalenut cost?

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Scalenut offers flexible pricing starting at $59, including core features and a 7-day trial to explore advanced tools like AI Prompt Tracking and Cruise Mode. The Plus plan is ideal for content creators who need stronger GEO/SEO capabilities, higher usage limits, and priority support.

Not sure which plan fits your needs? Talk to our experts.

How much does AthenaHQ cost?

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With a starting price of $95/ month, which can be a significant investment, it's not designed for small businesses or startups. The subscription model uses credits, which can make predicting your final monthly cost a bit tricky. There is no free trial available for monthly plans, though annual subscriptions include a one-month free credit.

My Verdict

Scalenut is the smarter spend, offering a lower entry price, a free tier, and trial access, while delivering full content creation and optimisation workflows. AthenaHQ is more expensive and offers higher tiers, credit-based, and insight-heavy, making Scalenut a more practical and cost-effective choice for most growing teams.

What is Missing in AthenaHQ?

1. No Automated Content Generation or Publishing: AthenaHQ does not auto-generate and publish fully optimised content based on the insights it collects. Users must manually create and publish content to act on recommendations, which slows execution.

2. Limited Prompt Discovery / Real-Time Exploration: The platform often requires prompts to be preconfigured, with no real-time search/discovery across all AI engines. This means you can’t instantly explore new queries unless they’re already set up.

3. Credit-Based Usage Adds Cost & Limits Scale:  AthenaHQ uses a credit system where analyzing prompts across multiple models consumes credits quickly. Active teams can hit limits fast and face additional costs.

4. No Free Trial or Lower-Entry Tier: Unlike many SEO or AI tools that let you test before committing, AthenaHQ generally requires a paid plan upfront, which can be a barrier due to the steeper learning curve for small businesses.

5. Enterprise-Grade Features Restricted to Higher Plans: Advanced capabilities like expanded multi-region tracking, deep optimisation agents (e.g., Athena Citation Engine), and broader integrations are often locked behind enterprise pricing.  

6. Basic Competitive Metrics Compared to Some Alternatives: Independent comparisons suggest that AthenaHQ’s competitive analysis and insight depth may be more limited than some enterprise Answer Engine Optimization tools, especially for blind-spot detection or deep competitor gap analysis.

7. Less Sophisticated Action/Optimisation Tools: Some reviews indicate the Action Center and optimisation recommendations feel underdeveloped compared to platforms that combine visibility insights with execution tools.

8. Limited Prompt Volume Transparency: While AthenaHQ shows prompt volume at setup, reviewers note difficulty reviewing prompt volume data later, which hinders long-term prioritisation.

Read our Blog on AthenaHQ vs Profound here.

Why Scalenut Is a Stronger Choice, or Are There Any Specific Advantages of Choosing Scalenut over AthenaHQ for GEO?

1. End-to-End Content Creation Workflow

Unlike tools that only monitor AI visibility, Scalenut covers the entire content lifecycle from research to publishing:

• Keyword and topic planning with intent-based clusters.
• AI-assisted writing (Cruise Mode) that produces structured drafts quickly.
• Content optimisation tools that give real-time recommendations and one-click improvements.
• Publishing support, including integrations to platforms like WordPress and Shopify.

This removes the need to use multiple separate tools for research, writing, and optimisation, unlike AthenaHQ, which focuses on insights and requires manual execution.

2. AI Visibility & GEO/SEO in One Platform

Scalenut combines AI visibility and AI overview tracking with GEO/SEO fundamentals:

• Tracks AI mentions and prompt presence across engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude.
• Provides a visibility score and competitive benchmarks from both AI and search perspectives.
• Includes traditional SEO tools (keyword planner, traffic analytics, content audits) that AthenaHQ doesn’t inherently bundle.

This means you can improve discoverability in AI and standard search engines simultaneously, giving a broader reach and better ROI.

3. Actionable Optimisation, Not Just Monitoring

Scalenut goes beyond insight and measurement:

• Content Optimizer & Auto-Optimizer suggest and apply specific fixes (e.g., NLP terms, meta tags, and structural tweaks).
• Recommendations aren’t just observations;  they help you fix issues in one place.
• Internal linking and on-page SEO tools help strengthen your site’s authority systematically.

AthenaHQ provides visibility and sentiment metrics, but less in-platform execution support, meaning teams have to take insights out and act manually in separate tools.

4. Content Optimisation Built for AI & SERP Together

Scalenut’s optimisation features are designed for both human and machine discovery:

• Real-time GEO content scoring evaluates how well content is set up for AI discovery and search ranking.
• Schema markup guidance helps content be more machine-readable, improving rich results and AI citations.

These dual-purpose insights help content perform better in chat assistant answers and in traditional organic rankings.

5. Performance Analytics and Traffic Insights

Scalenut includes Traffic Analyzer and Content Audit tools:

• Track performance metrics (CTR, bounce rate, conversions).
• Identify underperforming content and recommend updates.

AthenaHQ may report visibility metrics and sentiment, but doesn’t focus on end-to-end performance measurement tied to real engagement and traffic results.

6. Backlink Management & Discovery

Scalenut’s Backlink Marketplace simplifies off-page GEO/SEO:

• Curated backlink opportunities filtered by authority and relevance.
• Easier backlink acquisition without manual outreach.

AthenaHQ typically lacks an integrated link-building tool, requiring separate solutions for this critical SEO driver.

7. Integrated Social Listening for Trend-Based Content

Scalenut includes tools like Social UpReach for Reddit and social trend insights useful for spotting emerging topics and prompt opportunities.

This helps content teams find real conversations and user language that can shape better AI-optimized content.

Scalenut is built for teams that want to improve and scale AI visibility, not just track it.

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Give Scalenut a try!  

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Scalenut or AthenaHQ deliver better results for AI visibility and brand discovery?

Scalenut typically drives stronger AI visibility results because it connects monitoring directly to content optimisation and execution across AI search engines. AthenaHQ is effective for tracking and reporting brand presence, but Scalenut’s end-to-end workflow makes it easier to turn insights into actions that improve brand discovery.

Which platform is recommended for SaaS companies, Scalenut or AthenaHQ?

Scalenut is generally recommended for SaaS companies because it combines AI visibility tracking with content creation, optimisation, and workflow tools that support scalable growth. AthenaHQ is stronger in monitoring and reporting, but Scalenut better supports ongoing content-driven acquisition and authority building.

What are the main differences in pricing and scalability between Scalenut and AthenaHQ?

When comparing Scalenut and AthenaHQ, Scalenut offers tiered pricing plans starting at $59/month, catering to businesses of all sizes, while AthenaHQ focuses on scalable solutions for larger enterprises at $95/month. Each platform's pricing reflects its unique value propositions and scalability options tailored to user needs.

What are the main differences between Scalenut and AthenaHQ for generative engine optimisation?

Scalenut combines AI visibility tracking with content creation, optimisation, and GEO workflows, making it execution focused. AthenaHQ focuses primarily on brand presence monitoring and analytics. Scalenut helps teams act on insights with GEO tools, while AthenaHQ mainly supports visibility analysis and reporting.

Is AthenaHQ more suitable for enterprises compared to Scalenut?

AthenaHQ’s pricing and reporting features may appeal to enterprises, but Scalenut still fits both growing and established teams. Its scalable plans, end-to-end optimisation tools, and workflow automation make it practical beyond just enterprise-level monitoring.

Which tool, Scalenut or AthenaHQ, performs better for monitoring AI-generated search results?

Both tools monitor AI visibility in AI search Engines, but Scalenut provides deeper prompt-level tracking tied to themes, citations, and optimisation actions. It connects monitoring with improvement steps, making results more actionable compared to AthenaHQ’s insight-heavy approach.

What do user reviews say about AthenaHQ versus Scalenut?

AthenaHQ users appreciate analytics and reporting, but note the setup effort and minor platform issues. Scalenut users often highlight that it is the best AEO analysis tool with workflow simplicity, optimisation guidance, and content production support, making it feel more practical for daily execution.

How does AthenaHQ's approach to answer engine optimisation differ from Scalenut's?

AthenaHQ focuses on measuring mentions, sentiment, and visibility across AI systems. Scalenut goes further by turning visibility data into content strategies, optimisation steps, and workflow actions that directly influence how brands appear in AI-generated answers.

Which platforms are considered the best GEO tools for product marketing teams?

Scalenut ranks among the best GEO tools for product marketing teams by combining AI visibility tracking, content optimisation, and competitive insights. It also stands out for Google AI Overviews monitoring, helping teams influence how products appear and get cited in AI-driven search results.

How does AthenaHQ compare to other AI visibility tools?

AthenaHQ focuses on AI visibility tracking and benchmarking, offering clear reporting and prioritised insights. Compared to other AI visibility tools, it is strong on analysis and clarity, but relies more on external tools for content creation and execution.

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