9 Best AthenaHQ Alternatives in 2026

The best AthenaHQ alternative for a small team is a tool that sits between AthenaHQ's free credit and its $295-a-month Starter plan. Scored on five published criteria, Cituna comes first (Cituna is built by the developer who runs Automate Basics; seven engines and Search Console data from $39 a month), then Rankscale (more than 17 engines by its own count, on credits from $20) and Ahrefs Brand Radar (custom prompts from $50). SE Visible gives the most prompts for $99, and Scrunch and Profound fit larger brands. Every figure below was read on the vendor's own page on 25 September 2026.

AthenaHQ is a capable product. Its Starter plan covers eleven models, including Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral, and gives 3,600 credits a month, where one credit is one AI response. The catch is the step: the free Essential tier gives $25 of credit on five engines, and the next published plan is $295 a month, or less with the 17% annual discount. API access and extra credits are paid add-ons on top (AthenaHQ plans, checked 25 September 2026).

To see every AI visibility tool we list side by side, open the AI visibility category.

How we ranked these 9

The pool is the AI visibility category of the Automate Basics directory: ten tools, each built from the vendor's own pages. AthenaHQ is the subject, which leaves nine. All nine sell brand tracking in AI answers to new customers and publish either a price or a trial, so all nine are listed.

Each tool gets points on five criteria, applied the same way to every entry, using its cheapest published paid plan on monthly billing (a free tier counts only under criterion 5):

1. Published entry price. 2 points for $50 a month or less, 1 for $51 to $150, 0 above $150 or when no price is published.
2. Engines on the entry plan, without add-ons. 2 points for seven or more, 1 for five or six, 0 for four or fewer.
3. AI answers per month on the entry plan. The vendor's own figure where it gives one, otherwise prompts x engines x 30 days. 2 points for 10,000 or more, 1 for 1,000 to 9,999, 0 below 1,000 or when no paid plan is published.
4. Google Search Console integration. 2 points when it is listed inside the AI visibility product on the entry plan, 1 when it is listed as a beta or only on higher plans, 0 when it is not listed.
5. A free way in. 1 point for a free trial or free plan, 0 for none.

The maximum is 9. Ties go to the lower entry price. The criteria favour small teams that want broad engine coverage on a modest budget; a large brand that needs thousands of prompts, SSO and a named account team would weigh them differently, and Scrunch or Profound would rise. On the same scale AthenaHQ scores 6 of 9: 0 for price, 2 for engines, 1 for its 3,600 monthly credits, 2 for its Search Console integration and 1 for the free tier.

AthenaHQ alternatives compared

Answers a month are our arithmetic from each vendor's stated prompts and engines, except where the vendor gives the figure (Ahrefs, SE Visible, Peec AI, Rankscale's credit rate).

1. Cituna

Cituna is built by the developer who runs Automate Basics.

Best for: small businesses that want to know whether the main AI engines name them, next to their own Google search data, without paying AthenaHQ's Starter price.

Cituna checks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode every day, on every plan, and records which brands each answer names and which pages it cites. The piece AthenaHQ users will notice is how prompts are chosen: Cituna connects Google Search Console and builds the buyer questions it tracks from the queries your site already shows up for. It then writes fixes such as schema, FAQ markup, llms.txt files and articles, and can publish them to WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Webflow, Ghost and other CMSs.

Starter is $39 a month for one brand and 10 buyer prompts, Pro is $119 for three brands and 30 prompts with competitor tracking, and Max is $399 for ten brands and 90 prompts (Cituna pricing, checked 25 September 2026). It scores 8 of 9: full marks for price, engines and Search Console, 1 for about 2,100 answers a month, and 1 for the trial.

Where it falls short: ten prompts is a small sample next to AthenaHQ's 3,600 credits, it does not track Microsoft Copilot, competitor tracking starts on Pro, and the 3-day trial needs a card and turns into a paid plan unless you cancel. It launched in 2026, so it has a shorter record than most tools here.

Read Cituna's plans in our directory or the Cituna vs AthenaHQ comparison.

2. Rankscale

Best for: people who want to watch many engines, including Grok, DeepSeek and Mistral, and control spend engine by engine.

Rankscale is the closest match to AthenaHQ's breadth: its home page says it covers more than 17 engines, from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude to Grok, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode. Like AthenaHQ it meters usage, but the unit is a credit, and one query to an engine typically uses a quarter of one. You pick how often each search term runs. Essentials is $20 a month, Pro is $99 with 1,200 credits and a 7-day free trial, and Growth is $385 for agencies (Rankscale pricing, checked 25 September 2026). Its homepage lists a GA4 and Search Console connection as a beta.

Where it falls short: its pricing page does not state how many credits Essentials includes, and checks on Claude or DeepSeek cost several times more than ChatGPT, so real costs take some working out.

See Rankscale in our directory or Cituna vs Rankscale.

3. Ahrefs Brand Radar

Best for: teams already paying for Ahrefs, or anyone who wants to buy AI checks by the thousand.

Brand Radar gives you two ways in. Custom Prompts tracks the questions you choose on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode or Claude, from $50 a month for 2,500 checks, with overage at two cents a check. The AI Visibility Index, from $199 a month, looks up any brand across Ahrefs' database of hundreds of millions of prompts with no setup. Paid Ahrefs plans already include a small allowance of tracked prompts, 5 on Lite (Ahrefs Brand Radar, checked 25 September 2026).

Where it falls short: there is no free trial, each Claude update uses 8 checks, and Search Console reporting sits in a separate part of Ahrefs rather than inside Brand Radar.

See Ahrefs Brand Radar in our directory or Cituna vs Ahrefs Brand Radar.

4. SE Visible

Best for: agencies and marketing teams that want volume: many prompts and several brands for under $100.

SE Visible is SE Ranking's AI visibility product. Basic costs $99 a month, or 20% less billed annually, for 200 prompts, about 30,000 analysed answers a month and three projects, tracked on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode and AI Overviews. There is a 10-day free trial (SE Visible, checked 25 September 2026). If AthenaHQ's credits felt tight, this is the most answers per dollar on the list.

Where it falls short: five engines, with no Claude, Grok or Copilot, and its own site lists query fan-out analysis and local AI visibility as coming soon.

See SE Visible in our directory or Cituna vs SE Visible.

5. Otterly.AI

Best for: a solo marketer who wants a cheap, simple start and does not need every engine on day one.

Otterly.AI's Lite plan is $29 a month for 15 search prompts, run daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, with unlimited team members. Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are extra add-ons. Standard, at $189, raises the allowance to 100 prompts and adds API and MCP access (Otterly.AI pricing, checked 25 September 2026).

Where it falls short: fifteen prompts on four engines is a narrow view, and filling in the missing engines costs extra on every plan.

See Otterly.AI in our directory or Cituna vs Otterly.AI.

6. Peec AI

Best for: content and SEO teams where several people need to look at the same data.

Peec AI prices by prompts tracked daily. Starter covers 50 prompts on three models you pick, for example ChatGPT, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Copilot or Gemini, in one project, with unlimited users, and the pricing page offers a free trial. We list Starter at $95 a month billed monthly, as shown on its pricing page, which renders prices in the browser (Peec AI pricing, checked 25 September 2026). It also shows which sources AI answers cite.

Where it falls short: three models on the entry plan, and each extra model is a paid add-on, so matching AthenaHQ's eleven gets expensive quickly.

See Peec AI in our directory or Cituna vs Peec AI.

7. Scrunch

Best for: mid-size brands that care about how AI agents read their site, not only what chatbots say.

Scrunch's Core plan is $250 a month with a 7-day free trial: 125 prompts, five site audits a month, one brand workspace and five users, across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot. Enterprise raises that to nine models and adds its Agent Experience Platform, which serves AI agents an optimised version of your site (Scrunch pricing, checked 25 September 2026).

Where it falls short: the entry plan covers four engines, one country and five competitors, and API and MCP access and SAML SSO are Enterprise features, so it is not much cheaper than AthenaHQ for what you get.

See Scrunch in our directory or Cituna vs Scrunch.

8. Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit

Best for: teams whose SEO already runs on Semrush.

The toolkit costs $99 a month and includes 25 prompts for Prompt Tracking, one domain for Brand Performance reports and AI search checks in Site Audit for up to 100 pages. Another 50 prompts cost $60 a month, and every extra user needs their own $99 licence. Semrush names ChatGPT and Google AI Mode as examples of the platforms it tracks (Semrush knowledge base, checked 25 September 2026).

Where it falls short: no free trial for the toolkit, per-user licences, and a short prompt allowance for the price.

See the Semrush toolkit in our directory or Cituna vs Semrush.

9. Profound

Best for: large marketing teams that want AI visibility data and AI content agents under one contract.

Profound's free trial runs 50 recommended prompts daily for seven days on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with limited credits for its AI Marketer agent. After that, Enterprise is priced by quote and tracks up to nine engines, with full history, exports, an API and SSO (Profound pricing, checked 25 September 2026).

Where it falls short: no published price for brands, and trial prompts cannot be edited, so you cannot test your own questions before talking to sales.

See Profound in our directory or Cituna vs Profound. We also have Profound vs AthenaHQ if you are weighing the two enterprise options.

Which one should replace AthenaHQ?

Start from the reason you are leaving:

• The $295 jump: Cituna at $39 or Rankscale at $20 keep most of the engine list for a fraction of the cost.
• Credits ran out too fast: SE Visible's 200 prompts or Scrunch's 125 prompts give a fixed allowance.
• Your SEO data lives in Ahrefs or Semrush: stay in that suite with Brand Radar or the AI Visibility Toolkit.
• You need enterprise controls: Profound or Scrunch Enterprise.

If the price itself is the question, our guide to what an AI visibility platform costs breaks down the add-ons that raise a bill, and whether to pay for a tracking tool at all covers the manual route. To keep reporting in one place, see automating SEO reporting with Search Console and AI visibility data.

When you have a shortlist, compare every AI visibility tool in our directory on price, engines and trials, or read the Cituna vs AthenaHQ comparison for a side-by-side of the top pick and the tool you are leaving.

Drafted with AI assistance from our own research and Search Console data, and reviewed by the Automate Basics team before publishing. Tools and prices change; check the linked official source before you act.

Try this now

Write down the ten buyer questions you most need AI engines to answer with your brand, then run them through the trial of your top two picks for the same week and compare which engines name you.