Three enterprise-leaning AI-visibility platforms — each with a different ceiling, different friction. None of them cover the SMB-to-mid lane with flat predictable pricing. Here's how they stack up + where Truffle slots in as the fourth option.
| Profound | Peec.ai | AthenaHQ | Truffle | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-brand | Enterprise, on request | 1 → 5 projects | Credits, not brands | 2 → 15 brands |
¹ Competitor prices, plans and trial terms as published on their own pricing pages, checked 17 September 2026. Verify before purchasing.
These are the three names that come up when a mid-market or enterprise buyer evaluates AI-visibility tracking in 2026. Profound is the sales-led enterprise vendor, with a Fortune 500 logo wall on its own site. Peec is the EU self-serve challenger with a transparent dashboard. AthenaHQ is the credit-metered platform co-founded by an ex-Google-Search and DeepMind engineer, with the broadest base tier coverage. Each has gravity in a different direction.
What most pages miss: all three force a budget commitment upfront — Profound wants a sales call before you see real data, Peec gives you 3 of its 7 engines and charges $85 for a 4th, AthenaHQ meters every AI response as a credit with $-1,250 overage blocks. For a buyer who wants to start at a known $69/mo, see real LLM coverage today, and not have to forecast prompt volume two quarters out, the right answer isn't one of these three.
That's where Truffle slots in: flat $69 / $189 / $399 tiers, 6 AI surfaces standard on every plan (Claude + Gemini + ChatGPT + Perplexity + Google AI Mode + AIO/SERPs), hosted in Germany, multi-brand from the entry tier, and a free visibility check on your own domain before you commit anything.
Profound is the category's enterprise name, with a deep install base among Fortune 500 brands and regulated industries, and Prompt Volumes panel data that gives consumer-AI queries with demographic cuts. SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance clear procurement at enterprise scale, and the ChatGPT Shopping module covers conversational commerce.
What hurts most buyers: the self-serve path ends at the free Trial plan, which runs 10 prompts once on ChatGPT with no history, export or API. Everything wider is Enterprise, priced on request, and their pricing page names no figure in between. Most teams wait 1-3 weeks after the sales call before they see usable data.
Peec is the German-engineered counterweight to Profound's enterprise gravity: clean intuitive UI (20-30 minute setup), unlimited user seats on every plan, and agency features such as multi-brand tracking and a Looker Studio connector. For a marketing team that wants something running today, Peec is the most frictionless self-serve option of the four.
The catch: Peec is upfront that base plans include only 3 of their 7 supported LLMs. A 4th engine costs +$85/month, and Claude is reserved for Enterprise, so no self-serve tier buys you Anthropic coverage. No SOC 2 Type II (Peec admits this on their FAQ), API + SSO gated to Enterprise. Strong at monitoring, weak at execution-layer (no source-outreach tooling).
AthenaHQ is the credit-based platform co-founded by an ex-Google-Search and DeepMind engineer. The big structural win: 8 AI platforms on every plan (ChatGPT, AIO, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Meta AI, Grok) with no per-engine paywall. The Action Center surfaces task-driven optimisation workflow on top of visibility data. Enterprise tier ships the ACE Citation Engine for citation-probability modelling.
What hurts: credit-based billing makes the monthly cost move with usage, because every AI response burns a credit. Starter is $295 for 3,600 credits, and API access plus extra credits are add-ons on top. Their Citation Engine and the audit log sit on Enterprise.
What we do differently: Truffle ships 6 AI surfaces (ChatGPT + Claude Haiku + Gemini + Perplexity + Google AI Mode + AIO/SERPs Top-10) standard on every paid tier from $69 — no per-engine paywall like Peec, no credit metering like AthenaHQ, no Enterprise call to unlock Claude/Gemini like Profound. Pricing is flat ($69 / $189 / $399), multi-brand workspaces start at the entry tier (2 brands at $69, 15 at $399 Pro/Agency). The Source Outreach tool surfaces which publishers + domains LLMs cite in your category with HTTP/render/Cloudflare-block health signals — closing the loop from 'what's missing' to 'what to ship next'.
Honest concession: we're smaller than Profound and newer than Peec, no SOC 2 Type II yet, no Prompt Volumes panel data. If procurement at your company requires SOC 2 today, Profound is the right answer. If you need consumer-AI query data with demographics, also Profound. For everyone else, meaning mid-market teams, multi-brand agencies and buyers who want predictable flat tiers, we built Truffle for exactly that buyer.
| Feature | Profound | Peec.ai | AthenaHQ | Truffle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI surfaces (entry tier) | 1 (ChatGPT only) | 3 of 6 models | 5 free / 11 on Starter | 6 (Claude + Gemini + AIO + ChatGPT + Perplexity + AI Mode/SERPs Top-10) |
| Multi-brand workspaces | Enterprise, on request | 1 → 5 projects | Credits, not brands | 2 → 15 brands |
| Source Outreach | Not published | Not published | Not published | ✓ from Standard |
| Strategy Recommendations | Reporting-first | Citation + sentiment | Action Center (task workflows) | Prompt-level recs every plan |
| EU hosting | — (US, SOC 2) | ✓ | — (US) | ✓ (Hetzner, Germany) |
| SOC 2 Type II | ✓ | Not published | Not published | — (not yet) |
Yes, we make Truffle. Treat this comparison as honest market analysis from a player, not a neutral G2 review. Here's what we'd actually pick in four specific scenarios — including the cases where we'd send a buyer to a competitor.
Search volume reflects what marketers currently search — and Profound/Peec/AthenaHQ are the three names with the most marketing spend, longest install base, and oldest comparison content in 2026. We're newer and smaller. We wrote this page specifically because the buyer asking that question deserves a fourth option they haven't found yet — that's the whole reason for a 'we make Truffle' note in the verdict section, not a hidden insertion.
It depends on prompt-volume stability. The Self-Serve plan ships 3,600 credits/month and bills overages in 1,250-credit blocks at roughly $-0.08/credit. If your team's monthly prompt count is steady (e.g. 100 prompts × 6 surfaces × 30 days = 18,000 credits/mo), you'll budget for 5× the base plan. If volume swings month-to-month (e.g. campaign launches, seasonal spikes), the cost moves with it.
Yes. On their pricing page, Starter through Advanced each say "choose 3 models" from a list of six: ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and Gemini. An additional model is charged on top, priced per plan. Claude appears only on Enterprise, which opens all models and lists up to 13.
Checked on their own pages on 17 September 2026: AthenaHQ has a free Essential tier with 300 credits and five models. Profound has a free Trial plan with 10 prompts run once on ChatGPT. Peec advertises a free trial without publishing its terms. Truffle has no trial right now, and the free part is the visibility check, which runs on any domain without an account.
Truffle for cost-efficiency (15 brands at $399/mo, unlimited seats, API). Peec for clean UI and agency features such as multi-brand tracking and the Looker Studio connector. Profound routes agencies through Enterprise, priced on request. AthenaHQ bills agencies in credits rather than brands, so the cost follows how much you track.
Of the four on this page, Truffle is the one that names its hosting: Hetzner in Germany, with daily encrypted backups. Peec is a German company whose privacy policy names Google servers and standard contractual clauses. Profound and AthenaHQ publish no location on their pricing pages, and Profound holds SOC 2 Type II, which procurement often accepts as a compensating control. Ask each vendor for the data-processing terms before you sign.
The fastest way to start is the free visibility check on your own domain: no account, no sales call. If Profound, Peec or AthenaHQ ends up the better fit after that, we'll happily point you there.
