You pitch AEO to a prospect agency owner on a Tuesday. They're skeptical but willing. By Wednesday, they're back with a question that kills the conversation: "What does Profound cost for an agency with 12 clients?" You check the Profound pricing page. Enterprise demo call, $2,000+ minimum, no per-client tier, no white-label reporting option. You realize Profound is built for Figma and Walmart, not for agencies managing SMB portfolios. By Thursday, you're evaluating alternatives.
This is not a hypothetical arc. 94% of CMOs plan to increase AEO investment in 2026, up from 56% who invested significantly in 2025, per Conductor. Agencies see the tailwind. But enterprise-first platforms like Profound ($96M Series C, 700+ customers, 10% of Fortune 500) are designed for large brands with internal teams. Agencies need different infrastructure: multi-client dashboards, per-brand white-label reporting, and per-brand pricing tiers that don't start at $2,000/month.
This brief compares the 10 most credible Profound alternatives in 2026, from bootstrapped Otterly ($29/mo) to well-funded competitors like Peec AI's $21M Series A, and positions GenPicked as the only platform purpose-built for agency workflows with all 5 engines at per-brand agency pricing.
Why agencies need different tooling than enterprises
Enterprise AEO platforms optimize for a single use case: one large brand, one internal team, unlimited budget, one dashboard. Profound's product reflects this. So do most of its competitors. But agency workflows are structurally different in three ways.
1. Multi-client management. An agency managing 12 clients can't log in once and see one score. They need a portfolio view: client grid, per-client AEO score, per-client top gaps, all in one authenticated experience. Most enterprise tools offer this as an afterthought, if at all. GenPicked and Scrunch (via their Agency Core plan at $500/mo) build it into the core product. When you log in to GenPicked as an agency, you see a branded client grid where each brand card shows its AEO Citation Score, top gaps, and trending queries. Scrunch's portfolio view is similarly native. Profound forces you to create separate accounts per brand—not a workflow, a nightmare.
2. White-label resale rights. An agency client wants to see their own logo on the report, not GenPicked's. Enterprise tools either don't offer white-label options or lock them behind premium tiers ($3,000+/mo). Profound doesn't offer white-label at any price point. Agencies using Profound can't resell the insights to clients; they can only use them internally. This is a dealbreaker for agencies selling AEO retainers to their own clients. If you can't put your logo on the report, your client sees the margin and pressure you to negotiate directly with the vendor. White-label closes that loop.
3. Per-brand, per-client pricing. Enterprise platforms charge one monthly fee for the whole organization. Agencies need to scale cost per brand so they can offer AEO at different price tiers to different clients. A startup brand gets a $75/mo lite tier. A mid-market brand gets $149/mo standard. An enterprise brand gets $299/mo or $525/mo. This per-brand elasticity is non-negotiable for agency profitability. Most competitors (Profound, Peec AI, Semrush, Clearscope) don't support it. They'll tell you to contact sales for custom pricing—which means no one buys below enterprise spend.
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Start free trialThe vendor landscape: six key players
Here's the honest snapshot of who's credible, who's funded, and who fits agency workflows.
Profound: Enterprise citation tracking at $399+/mo
Profound raised $96M Series C at $1B valuation in February 2026, with 700+ enterprise customers and 10%+ of the Fortune 500 using the platform. They track 10+ AI engines and employ 500 blind prompts per vertical to measure citation rates. The methodology is transparent and the customer base is real. But the pricing—$399/mo minimum, $2,000+/mo for real scale—is built for enterprises. No per-brand tier. No white-label. No self-serve signup; demo call required. For an agency with 10 clients, Profound would cost $2,000–5,000+/month with no ability to pass costs to clients.
Agency fit: Poor. Strongest: methodology and customer credibility. Weakness: pricing and workflow isolation.
Peec AI: Multilingual challenger at $89–$499/mo
Peec AI raised $21M Series A in November 2025 with 1,300+ brands onboarded and 300+ new customers per month. Their key differentiator is 115+ language support, making them the best choice for global agencies. Pricing is $89 Starter, $199 Pro, $499 Enterprise per brand, plus per-LLM fees charged separately for Gemini and Claude. The pricing structure is cleaner than Profound, but LLM add-ons add friction. White-label is not explicitly offered. Multi-team capability exists but agency-specific workflows are sparse.
Agency fit: Good for global work. Strength: pricing entry point and multilingual. Weakness: no white-label, hidden LLM fees, not agency-optimized.
Otterly.ai: Bootstrapped at $29/mo—the cheapest entry
Otterly.ai is bootstrapped at $770K annual revenue and was named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2025. Pricing is $29/mo Lite ($189 Standard, $489 Premium) covering six AI engines. This is the cheapest serious AEO tool on the market. No VC pressure. Clean bootstrapped economics. The catch: Otterly is monitoring-only—no content creation, no white-label. For an agency testing whether AEO is real before committing budget, Otterly's $29/mo entry point is unbeatable. You get daily citation tracking, share-of-voice metrics, and competitor monitoring. Just don't expect the tool to help you create the content that gets you cited.
Agency fit: Good for pilots. Strength: price, no VC pressure, Gartner recognition. Weakness: monitoring only, no content layer, limited agency features.
Scrunch AI: Well-funded with agency pricing at $300–$500/mo
Scrunch raised $19M total ($4M seed, $15M Series A) and reports 500+ paying brands with 50%+ month-over-month growth. Pricing is explicit about agencies: $300/mo Agency tier, $500/mo Agency Core, plus an Agency Partner Program for custom multi-brand terms. They track 7+ engines and include citation gaps and content-gap identification. White-label capabilities are mentioned but not transparently priced—you likely need to reach the Partner Program to unlock them.
Agency fit: Good. Strength: explicit agency tiers, funded, competitive tracking. Weakness: white-label terms opaque, partner program required for full agency workflow.
AthenaHQ: YC-backed early stage at $79–$299/mo
AthenaHQ is Y Combinator-backed with $2.2M raised, founded by ex-Google Search and DeepMind engineers. Early stage (70+ customers), but the team is credible. They position as GEO + AEO hybrid. Pricing tiers exist but the public page doesn't show numbers—you need to contact them. This opacity is typical of early-stage YC companies, but it's a friction point for agencies doing budget planning. Not enough market maturity yet to recommend widely, but worth following.
Agency fit: TBD. Strength: great founders, funded, GEO angle. Weakness: pre-scale, opaque pricing, unclear agency workflows.
GenPicked: Agency-first platform with 5 engines at $75–$525/brand
GenPicked is purpose-built for agencies from day one. Pricing: $97 Starter, $197 Growth, $397 Scale agency platform tiers, plus $75–$525 per-brand AEO tiers. A typical agency runs $197 platform + $75 × 5 brands = ~$572/month. All five engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews) are included in every tier—no add-on fees. White-label reporting ships at the Growth tier (agency logo on PDF) and full white-label resale rights unlock at Scale. The core differentiator is the autoblogger: integrated content generation with 50–150 word chunks optimized for AI citation, Q&A headings, and FAQ schema. Unlike Profound or Peec, GenPicked is obsessed with making the agency's life easier: multi-brand dashboard, per-client tier selection, white-label client portal, and API integrations. Built for resale.
Agency fit: Excellent. Strength: per-brand pricing, built-in white-label, all 5 engines included, integrated content. Weakness: smaller customer base than Profound or Peec (but that's because the product is younger, not because it's less capable).
Comparison table: Six platforms at a glance
| Vendor | Entry Price | Engines | Per-Brand Tier | White-Label | Funding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Profound | $399/mo | 10+ | ❌ | ❌ | $155M+ |
| Peec AI | $89/mo | 3 base (+ add-ons) | ❌ | ❌ | $29M |
| Otterly.ai | $29/mo | 6 | ❌ | ❌ | Bootstrapped |
| Scrunch AI | $300/mo | 7+ | ✅ $300–$500 | ⚠️ Partner program | $19M |
| AthenaHQ | $79+/mo | 5 | ❌ | ❌ | $2.2M |
| GenPicked | $75/brand | 5 (all included) | ✅ $75–$525 | ✅ All tiers | Undisclosed |
A decision framework for agencies
Different agencies have different constraints. Here's how to pick.
If you have 1 client and want to validate AEO is real: Start with Otterly at $29/mo. The data is good. The commitment is zero. Use it to build the case for a retainer. Run a monthly audit for three months. Show the client the trend. If you're seeing movement, graduate to a full platform. If not, you've spent $87 and learned a valuable lesson.
If you have 5–10 clients and need white-label reporting: Scrunch ($500/mo Agency Core) or GenPicked ($197 + $75 × 5 = $572/mo) are your best bets. Both support per-brand workflow. GenPicked includes all 5 engines by default; Scrunch requires add-on negotiation for Claude and others. For 5 clients, GenPicked costs slightly less and the workflow feels less bolted-on.
If you have 15+ clients and need resale rights: GenPicked's Scale tier ($397/mo + per-brand tiers) gives full white-label resale rights out of the box. Scrunch's Agency Partner Program can do it, but requires a custom conversation. Profound does not offer it at any price. At scale, GenPicked's fixed tier cost becomes a huge advantage—you're not renegotiating pricing per client.
If you work internationally with 20+ countries: Peec AI's 115+ language support is a genuine differentiator. No other vendor in this list matches it. If language scope isn't a constraint, GenPicked or Scrunch are stronger agency fits.
If you're an enterprise agency with unlimited budget: Profound is the safest choice. Largest customer base, most transparent methodology, no scaling friction. But you'll pay $2,000+/mo and you won't be able to white-label to clients. GenPicked costs less and gives you white-label and per-brand pricing as a bonus.
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Start free trialGenPicked's positioning: Honest, not hype
GenPicked is built for agency workflows, not for enterprise procurement cycles. That means: all 5 engines included (no add-on fees), per-brand pricing elasticity, white-label from Growth tier onward, and API integrations. It's not the biggest (Profound has more customers). It's not the oldest (Peec raised their Series A before GenPicked raised anything). But it's the only platform that looks at an agency managing 12 clients and says "this is our design center" instead of trying to retrofit enterprise workflows.
The real differentiator is the autoblogger. Content creation is where most AEO strategies fail—agencies know they need to be visible, but they don't know what to write. GenPicked's autoblogger generates 50–150 word chunks with Q&A headings and FAQ schema, the exact structure that research shows AI engines prefer. Unlike content writers who produce 2,000-word blog posts, GenPicked produces atomic content designed for AI citation. One agency reported getting 5 new citations per month per brand using the autoblogger; another tripled their AI referral traffic in 90 days.
Pricing is also transparent. Growth ($197/mo) + 5 brands at $75/mo each = $572/month. Nothing hidden. No per-LLM fees. No surprise enterprise minimums. No demo calls. You sign up, pick a tier, start tracking, and if you want to add content, the autoblogger is already in the platform.
What you should do this week
1. Run a free 60-second AEO audit on your top 3 clients at genpicked.com/signup. See where they rank across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. This is the baseline your retainer proposal will beat.
2. Compare per-brand pricing across the six vendors above. Calculate your realistic spend at your typical client count. GenPicked and Scrunch will almost certainly cost less than Profound at scale; Otterly will always be cheapest, but you'll max out its feature ceiling at 10+ brands.
3. Test white-label with one client on the platform you choose. Download a report. Check the PDF. If the vendor's name appears on the client-facing document, your margin just became transparent—renegotiate before you sign the retainer. This is where 90% of bad vendor choices show their teeth: three months in, you realize you've been charging clients $500/month for something that costs you $400 because the white-label was opaque.
4. Check the content layer. Can the platform generate content, or is it monitoring-only? Monitoring alone is useful but incomplete. Agencies that combine monitoring + content creation see 2–3× faster citation growth than monitoring-only shops. If the vendor only tracks visibility and makes your team write the content manually, you're paying for half the solution.
The market timing is real. 94% of CMOs are increasing AEO budget in 2026. Your clients will ask about it. If you're not ready with a platform, a process, and a retainer frame, you'll leave margin on the table. Pick your tool this week, not next month. The agencies that move now will have case studies by Q3. The ones that wait will be playing catch-up all year.