Profound alternatives in 2026, compared in ₹

The right Profound alternative depends on how you buy. If you want a published price, look at Peec AI, Otterly or Ahrefs Brand Radar. If you want rupee billing, look at Depra AI, AITLAS or Qelvra, an AI SEO and AEO agent built in India that also runs site checks and rank tracking in the same plan. If you are a large brand with a procurement team, Profound itself is built for you.

This guide is for Indian small and mid-size business owners, marketers and small agencies who want to know whether their brand shows up in ChatGPT and Gemini answers. We compare eight tools on price, free plans, engines, how often they check and whether they bill in rupees. For the basics, see AEO vs SEO. If you are weighing Peec AI too, read Peec AI alternatives.

Disclosure: we make Qelvra, so we have put it first and said plainly where it is weaker. Every competitor fact below is from the vendor's own pages, checked on 12 November 2026. We have not used their products. Prices change, so confirm on the linked page before you pay.

Profound pricing in 2026: what does it cost?

Profound does not publish a price for brands. Its pricing page shows two brand plans (checked 12 November 2026):

• No self-serve paid plan for brands. The page shows a free trial and then a sales conversation. We found no Enterprise price.
• Engines on Enterprise. The pricing page names ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, DeepSeek, Anthropic Claude, Google AI Overviews, Exa Search, Muse Spark and Qwen. Profound's own pages give two different engine counts, so we do not quote one.
• Agencies have their own tab. Agency Growth gives 10 pitch workspaces a month and 5 seats; its page shows no plan price, and a full client workspace is an add-on at $399 a month.
• Prices are in dollars, and we found no mention of India or rupees on its pricing, product or newsroom pages. Dollar plans move with the exchange rate, and many Indian banks add a fee on foreign card payments.

We have not converted anything to rupees, because a conversion is only right on the day you look. Qelvra bills in rupees: Starter is ₹4,299, Pro is ₹5,899 and Ultra is ₹8,299 a month (pricing).

Which Profound alternatives are there, side by side?

Prices are from each vendor's own pages, checked 12 November 2026.

What should you look for?

• The engines your buyers use. Qelvra asks ChatGPT and Gemini. Others add Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI features, so check which your buyers use.
• Daily or occasional checks. Daily tracking suits a launch or a large prompt list. Re-checking after a change may be enough if you change pages now and then, but daily tools catch drift you did not cause.
• Country and language. Check which countries and languages a tool covers. Qelvra asks from India.
• Does it help you fix things, and can you pay in rupees? A dashboard shows gaps. You still need someone to close them.

Qelvra: for Indian businesses that want the fix and the rupee price

Qelvra is built in India. Its Brand Explorer asks ChatGPT and Gemini up to 50 buyer-style questions from India, its own and yours, up to 100 answers per full scan, in English and, if you choose, Hindi or Hinglish. The report shows whether you are named or cited, which competitors appear and which sites the answers lean on. Gaps become tasks in your Action plan.

Why it fits this reader:

• Rupees by UPI, card or netbanking. Starter is ₹4,299 (no full AI scans), Pro ₹5,899 (scans start here), Ultra ₹8,299, Agency from ₹19,999. Yearly billing takes 20% off. The price shown is what you pay.
• No demo call. The free check at /tools/brand-explorer asks ChatGPT 5 questions with no sign-in. The AI Visibility Checker tests crawler readiness and asks no AI. There is a 7-day trial with no card and a 7-day refund on a first payment.
• The SEO work sits in the same plan. A weekly site check, Google rank tracking for keywords you choose (25 on Starter, 50 on Pro, 100 on Ultra), Search Console, and GA4 visits from AI assistants on Pro and above.
• It writes and publishes with your OK. The agent drafts articles and sends them to WordPress or Shopify as drafts. Anything live needs your approval.
• Reports you can send and track. A Brand Explorer report or Full Audit can go out as a tracked link, one per person, showing who opened it, time on each section and whether they came back. For a report saved with a site, any email given at the gate goes into Leads. Tracked links are on Pro and above (10 active links on Pro, 20 on Ultra, 100 on Agency) and charge no credits. See the tracked links guide.

Full Brand Explorer scans: none on Free and Starter, Pro 3 a month, Ultra 6; Agency has no monthly limit, and the trial gets 1.

Where Qelvra is weaker:

• Two engines only: ChatGPT and Gemini. No Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Overviews or AI Mode.
• On demand, not daily. Scans run when you start them. There are no scheduled re-runs.
• One market: India.
• No sentiment score and no share-of-voice metric. You get the share of answers that name you, your average place, the brands named most and a trend across scans.
• No AI crawler log analytics or shopping tracking.
• Agency has no self-serve checkout. It is set up with you from the pricing page.

Where Profound is better than Qelvra

If your job is to watch AI answers across many engines for a large brand, Profound does things Qelvra does not. Pick Profound if you need:

• More engines. Its Enterprise list runs well past ChatGPT and Gemini: Perplexity, Claude, Google AI Mode, DeepSeek, Exa Search, Muse Spark and Qwen, among others.
• Daily tracking. Profound says it runs every tracked prompt daily and queries the front-end experience users see, not an API.
• Depth of metrics. Visibility score, share of voice, sentiment, citations and competitor comparison, with history.
• Agent analytics from server logs. It reads AI crawler activity from your logs through Cloudflare, AWS, Vercel and others. Qelvra has a crawler-readiness check and, with GA4 connected, visits from AI assistants.
• ChatGPT Shopping. Product-level visibility, on Enterprise only.

Profound also has Agents that draft content and publish to a CMS after an approval step, so Qelvra's agent is not unique. Where Qelvra differs is rupee pricing, India and the SEO work in the same plan. If you can sit through a demo and the budget is enterprise-sized, Profound is the stronger tool.

Peec AI: published prices and daily tracking

Peec AI lists Starter, Pro and Advanced at $95, $245 and $495 a month; opened from India it shows €85, €205 and €425 (€70, €180 and €360 billed yearly). Each tracks 3 models of your choice daily, with 50, 150 and 350 prompts. Its Agent and Actions are on every plan.

Where it beats us: daily tracking, more engines to choose from, sentiment and share of voice, and self-serve sign-up.

Where it is weaker for you: dollar pricing, 1 country on Starter, and no rupee or India page that we found.

Otterly: the lowest dollar price

Otterly lists Lite at $29 a month, Standard at $189 and Premium at $489. Lite has 20 prompts on 3 engines and checks daily. It lists ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Mode, Gemini and Claude, and each engine uses credits.

Where it beats us: a low price, daily checks, sentiment on every plan and any of its 7 engines for credits.

Where it is weaker for you: 20 prompts on Lite and dollar billing.

AITLAS and Depra AI: rupee pricing

AITLAS is by Shiprocket. It lists a free plan with 3 scans and 15 prompts, then Starter at ₹999, Growth at ₹4,999 and Scale at ₹12,999 a month, plus 18% GST. Scheduled scans begin at Growth. Its home page mentions more engines than its pricing page, and we could not confirm which two a DIY plan includes. Depra AI lists Starter at ₹1,999, Growth at ₹7,499 and Scale at ₹12,499 a month plus 18% GST, with a 7-day trial and no card. ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews are on every plan, and Starter has 16 prompts.

Where they beat us: daily checks, four engines and Hinglish on every Depra plan, and a free AITLAS plan.

Where they are weaker for you: both add GST on top. AITLAS publishes to WordPress and Shopify, but we saw no site audit or Google rank tracking on either. For an ecommerce angle, see the best AEO tool for Indian ecommerce.

Semrush and Ahrefs: add-ons for existing users

Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit is $99 a month with 25 prompts and no trial. The page we read gave no full engine list. Ahrefs Brand Radar starts at $50 a month for prompt tracking, and that tracking is included free with paid Ahrefs plans from Lite at $129 a month.

Where they beat us: if you already use either suite, the AI data sits beside your SEO data, and Ahrefs lists seven platforms for custom prompts (Claude counts as 8 checks).

Where they are weaker for you: dollar billing and suite-sized bills. See Semrush alternatives in India.

How do you choose?

Start with the free check at /tools/brand-explorer. If it shows gaps, the 7-day trial needs no card. Background reading: SEO vs AEO vs GEO.

Competitor information is from each vendor's own pages, checked on 12 November 2026: Profound (pricing, Answer Engine Insights, Agent Analytics and Agents), Peec AI and its Ahrefs comparison, Otterly, AITLAS, Depra AI, Semrush and Ahrefs. Qelvra details are from our pricing page.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Profound cost?

Profound does not publish a brand price. On 12 November 2026 its pricing page showed a free 7-day Trial (50 prompts a day) and a custom Enterprise plan sold through a demo. Its agency tab listed Agency Growth without a plan price, with client workspaces at $399 a month. Prices are in US dollars.

Is there a free alternative to Profound?

Profound has a free 7-day trial itself. Among the others, AITLAS has a free plan (3 scans, 15 prompts), and Depra AI offers 7 days free with no card. Qelvra has free checks without sign-in, a free plan and a 7-day trial with no card.

Does Profound have rupee pricing or cover India?

We found no rupee price and no mention of India on Profound's pricing, product or newsroom pages. Its trial covers one region.

Which Profound alternative is cheapest?

Of the tools we checked, Otterly Lite at $29 a month is the lowest dollar price, and AITLAS Starter at ₹999 a month plus GST is the lowest rupee price. Qelvra Starter is ₹4,299, but it includes the SEO work and the agent, and full Brand Explorer scans start on Pro.

Does Qelvra track my brand daily like Profound?

No. Qelvra's Brand Explorer asks ChatGPT and Gemini when you start a scan, with up to 50 questions, its own and any you add, asked to both engines (up to 100 answers). It does not run daily or cover Perplexity, Claude or Google's AI features. For daily tracking across many engines, pick Profound or Peec AI.