Profound Removes Tier — November 2026
Profound removed its USD 99/month Starter tier in October, signaling consolidation pressures across the AI search visibility market as 18 vendors compete on pricing power and reporting depth. Otterly.ai, Brandlight, and Scrunch led product activity with three releases each, while Knowatoa and Rankscale made high-urgency updates to analytics and feature sets. This report covers what changed in the market, the product and agent launches reshaping the category, who is competing and how, and what mid-market marketing and sales leaders should watch going forward.
Profound removes its USD 99 Starter tier as 18 AI search visibility vendors consolidate on pricing power.
Key Findings
- Profound removed its USD 99/month Starter tier, leaving only a free trial and custom-priced Enterprise plan, eliminating the self-serve mid-market entry point.
SourceProfound / linkedin.com / · Profound / tryprofound.com /
Profound— Profound to Host Zero Click London on October 21“Announcing Zero Click London Cohort Zero. Cohort Zero is a hands-on working session for Profound users, the day before Zero Click by Profound London.”
“Zero Click London: Profound Platform Deep Dive. A 45 minute session to get to know the Profound AI marketing platform the day before Zero Click by Profound London.”
“Zero Click World TourJoin us in London, Sydney, and Singapore.”
Profound— Profound Ranked No. 17 on LinkedIn's Top Startups 2026 U.S. List“Profound ranks No. 17 on LinkedIn's Top Startups 2026 U.S. list, recognizing our growth and the team building the AI platform for marketing.”
- No. 17
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- Otterly.ai rebuilt brand reports to emphasize sentiment and position over mention volume, then launched a Brand Profiling tab breaking down how AI describes brands versus competitors.
SourceOtterly.ai / otterly.ai / · Otterly.ai / linkedin.com /
Otterly.ai— OtterlyAI Rebuilds Brand Reports Around Sentiment and Position“OtterlyAI has released one of the biggest updates to Brand Reports, and it is live now.”
“So we rebuilt Brand Reports in OtterlyAI around three metrics you read together, all in one chart:”
Otterly.ai— OtterlyAI Launches Brand Profiling Tab Across Brand Reports“Until now, OtterlyAI answered one question really well: does your brand show up in AI answers, and how often? Today we’re adding the second question.”
“Introducing Brand Profiling: see what AI actually says about your brand”
“How AI Search Engines Describe Your Brand (and How to Fix the Gaps) | OtterlyAI Brand Profiling”
- Knowatoa shipped period-over-period comparison analytics and agent-driven client site creation from a connected AI assistant, deepening its MCP analytics layer.
SourceKnowatoa / knowatoa.com /
Knowatoa— Knowatoa Adds Period-Over-Period Comparison to Its MCP Analytics Tools“Show clients month-over-month improvements with period-over-period comparisons now available across all MCP analytics tools.”
“Create a client site, its competitors, and its full question set from an AI assistant connected to Knowatoa.”
- Knowatoa added period-over-period analytics and Rankscale expanded ChatGPT follow-up forms, local results and AI visitor tracking, marking high-urgency product and pricing shifts.
SourceKnowatoa / knowatoa.com / · Rankscale / rankscale.ai /
Knowatoa— Knowatoa Adds Period-Over-Period Comparison to Its MCP Analytics Tools“Show clients month-over-month improvements with period-over-period comparisons now available across all MCP analytics tools.”
“Create a client site, its competitors, and its full question set from an AI assistant connected to Knowatoa.”
Rankscale— Rankscale Pricing Comparison Adds ChatGPT Follow-up Forms, Local Results, AI Visits“[ChatGPT follow-up forms](/features/chatgpt-follow-up-forms)See the clarifying questions ChatGPT asks before it recommends brands: form rate, ranked questions, pre-selected answers, and follow-up prompts to track. Included on every plan.”
“[Local results](/features/local-results)Track your brand in the local and map packs of ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews: Share, position, Detection %, main rivals, and listing gaps.”
“[AI visits](/features/ai-visits)Connect Cloudflare read-only to see AI crawler and assistant visits to your site: live fetches, search crawl, training crawl, top pages, and the 404s AI bots hit.”
- Profound ranked 17th on LinkedIn's Top Startups 2026 U.S. list while opening a partner kickoff with Accenture, Publicis, Omnicom and VaynerMedia, broadening enterprise access.
SourceProfound / tryprofound.com /
Profound— Profound Ranked No. 17 on LinkedIn's Top Startups 2026 U.S. List“Profound ranks No. 17 on LinkedIn's Top Startups 2026 U.S. list, recognizing our growth and the team building the AI platform for marketing.”
- No. 17
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- Otterly.ai, Brandlight and Scrunch AI each published three insights this period, establishing momentum in product updates, awards and thought leadership as category leaders.
SourceOtterly.ai / otterly.ai / · Otterly.ai / linkedin.com / · Otterly.ai / linkedin.com / · Brandlight / linkedin.com / · Brandlight / brandlight.ai / · Brandlight / linkedin.com / · Scrunch AI / mycarrollcountynews.com / · Scrunch AI / jobs.ashbyhq.com / · Scrunch AI / linkedin.com /
Otterly.ai— OtterlyAI Rebuilds Brand Reports Around Sentiment and Position“OtterlyAI has released one of the biggest updates to Brand Reports, and it is live now.”
“So we rebuilt Brand Reports in OtterlyAI around three metrics you read together, all in one chart:”
Otterly.ai— OtterlyAI Launches Brand Profiling Tab Across Brand Reports“Until now, OtterlyAI answered one question really well: does your brand show up in AI answers, and how often? Today we’re adding the second question.”
“Introducing Brand Profiling: see what AI actually says about your brand”
“How AI Search Engines Describe Your Brand (and How to Fix the Gaps) | OtterlyAI Brand Profiling”
Otterly.ai— OtterlyAI CEO to Speak on AI Agents in Insurance at Oct 27 Panel“Next Tuesday, Thomas Peham joins a panel on how AI agents find, recommend and buy insurance.”
“Tuesday, October 27, 10:00 to 11:00 UK | 11:00 CET”
Brandlight— Brandlight's Samsung/Starcom AI Visibility Work Wins 2026 World Media Award“Our work with Samsung and Starcom Worldwide on “Samsung’s Journey to AI Brand Visibility” won Technology & Telecoms at the 2026 World Media Awards!”
“Proud to have our partnership with Samsung Electronics and Starcom win the Tech & Telecoms at the World Media Awards 2026 - Samsung's Journey to AI Visibility.”
- Galaxy S25 AI visibility up 17%
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- Samsung citation rate 16.07% vs 1.61% baseline
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Brandlight— Brandlight Publishes Profound Comparison and Best-Tools Listicles“What are the 12 best AI visibility tools for agencies?”
“Brandlight vs Profound: Which AI Visibility Platform Fits Your Team?”
Brandlight— Brandlight CEO Imri Marcus to Speak at Association of National Advertisers“Our CEO and co-founder, Imri Marcus takes the main stage this week at Association of National Advertisers to share how iconic brands become the first choice in the age of AI. Oct 23, 2026 - See you there!”
“Our CEO and co-founder, Imri Marcus takes the main stage this week at Association of National Advertisers to share how iconic brands become the first choice in the age of AI. Oct 23, 2026 - See you there!”
- Oct 23, 2026
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Scrunch AI— MarketRank Rankings Place Scrunch AI Second Behind Ryze AI in Singapore and Germany“2. Scrunch AI. Scrunch AI tracks how a brand surfaces across AI assistants and answer engines and is a strong measurement choice for teams that want depth of tracking, though acting on its insights is left to the user.”
- Ranked #2
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Scrunch AI— Scrunch Posts Four Open Roles, Three Dublin Engineering Including AI Agent Experience“# Open Positions (4)”
“DepartmentAll DepartmentsEngineering & Technology (3)Operations (1)”
“LocationAll LocationsDublin (3)Remote (NYC) (1)”
- 4 open positions
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 3 Engineering & Technology roles
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 1 Operations role
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Scrunch AI— Scrunch Publishes Survey Reports on Winning AI Search and Action Over Dashboards“We surveyed 600+ marketing and PR pros about their approach to AI search.”
“✦ 87% feel more pressure to build skills.”
“### What your competitors are doing to win AI search (and how you can, too)”
- 600+ marketing and PR pros surveyed
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
- 87% feel more pressure to build AI-search skills
directly extracted from source - no arithmetic
Baseline: directly stated in source
Confidence: inferred
Profound Removes Starter Tier; Pricing Consolidation Signals Market Shift
Profound pulled its USD 99/month Starter tier from its public pricing page in October, leaving buyers with only a free trial and a custom-priced Enterprise plan, forcing self-serve teams above the trial into a sales conversation. This move eliminates the price-transparent entry tier where buyers could self-qualify before a demo, a pattern now spreading. Rankscale expanded its ChatGPT follow-up forms, local results and AI visitor tracking across tiers, while Knowatoa added period-over-period comparisons to its MCP analytics, signaling that feature depth and not just breadth is now the competitive lever. Across the 18 competitors monitored this period, six pricing changes occurred in four weeks, and social volume reached 48 posts and 33 videos, reflecting sustained market intensity.
The pricing shift invites a buyer-side question: without a published mid-tier option, teams evaluating Profound must either commit to a trial or request a demo from sales, which slows evaluation and favors vendors like IndustryLens with published tiers and a free entry point. Profound's removal of the Starter tier follows its ranking 17th on LinkedIn's Top Startups 2026 U.S. list, suggesting the company is optimizing for enterprise contracts rather than land-and-expand velocity. The competitive response has been rapid: AthenaHQ refreshed its Ahrefs and Semrush comparison pages on October 19, Brandlight published a Profound comparison, and Goodie AI framed AthenaHQ as enterprise-gated GEO on October 23. This is a market consolidating around value capture rather than volume.
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- Profound
- AthenaHQ
- Otterly.AI
- Brandi AI
- Semrush
- Goodie
Otterly Adds Sentiment Layer, Knowatoa Launches MCP Integrations, Rankscale Expands Forms
Otterly.ai moved first on reporting depth, rebuilding its core Brand Report around sentiment and position instead of mention volume on October 4, then shipping a Brand Profiling tab on October 21 that breaks down the attributes and sentiment AI attaches to brands and competitors. This two-move sequence redefines the headline KPI from 'were you mentioned' to 'how were you ranked and described,' deepening competitive-benchmarking value. Knowatoa shipped period-over-period comparison analytics and agent-driven client site creation, allowing agencies to spin up new client sites from a connected AI assistant within the same MCP tools layer. Rankscale expanded its pricing comparison to include ChatGPT follow-up forms, local and map-pack results, and AI crawler visit analytics, positioning itself across awareness and action tiers. Scrunch published survey research on 600+ marketing and PR professionals showing 87% feel more pressure to build AI-search skills, paired with two new blog articles arguing dashboards are not strategies and competitors are winning AI search through action.
The pattern across these releases is motion away from dashboards toward either narrative intelligence (Otterly's sentiment profiling) or execution agents (Knowatoa's assistant-driven site creation, Scrunch's action framing). Peec AI launched Views for custom shareable dashboards and a Peec Agent that automates content, ads and affiliate workflows, signaling that end-to-end execution capability is now table-stakes. Brandlight hosted a Platform Deep Dive session and Cohort Zero working session in London on October 21 and announced a CEO speaking slot at the Association of National Advertisers on October 23, pairing product depth with executive visibility. The 18 competitors show 33 videos and 21 news articles this period, up from baseline, indicating category-wide investment in proof and education.
18 Vendors Compete on AI Search Visibility; Profound, AthenaHQ, Knowatoa Lead Positioning
The monitored field spans Profound (Tier: emerging, most recent action: removed Starter tier, ranked 17th on LinkedIn's Top Startups), AthenaHQ (freemium model, $295/month Starter covering 11 models, expanded comparison pages), Knowatoa (US-based, $59-$199 subscription, high-urgency MCP and analytics moves), Goodie AI (US-based, Core $399/month, added Muse and Instinct models), Otterly.ai (Austrian, $29-$489/month, three product releases this period), Peec AI (Berlin, €89-€499/month, 100+ employees, high momentum), Brandlight (enterprise-focused, demo-gated pricing, World Media Award winner), Semrush AI Toolkit (bundled into Semrush One at $99-$549/month plus custom enterprise), Ahrefs Brand Radar ($199/month standalone or bundled, 470M+ prompt index), Scrunch AI (Sitecore acquisition, $250/month Core with four-tier ladder), Evertune (New York, $60-$800/month, Forrester Notable Vendor), Rankscale (Vienna, $99-$780/month, 17+ engines with no per-engine upsell), LLMrefs (London, $79/month flat), Mentionable (France, €249-€799/month), OpenForge ($149-$4,999/month across four tiers), and a quiet set of Ahrefs Brand Radar, Conductor, Daydream, GetIntel, LLMrefs, Mentionable, OpenForge, and Semrush AI Toolkit showing limited public activity this period.
The field splits into three layers by go-to-market: sales-led enterprises (Profound custom, Brandlight demo-gated), freemium self-serve (AthenaHQ $295, Knowatoa $59, Peec AI €89), and mid-market published pricing (Otterly $29-$489, Evertune $60-$800, Rankscale $99-$780). Profound competes against Semrush by claiming daily browser capture of real AI responses versus Semrush's API approach, while Peec AI positions against AthenaHQ on MCP and API access included at all tiers versus AthenaHQ's custom-priced enterprise. The vendors are clustering around ai search visibility and answer engine optimization as core messaging, with citation tracking and agent analytics emerging as secondary differentiators. No vendor has yet claimed a durable price advantage: Profound removed its low-price tier, while AthenaHQ's $295 Starter and Knowatoa's $59 entry sit well below Profound's enterprise-only stance.
Pricing Consolidation, Comparison Content Wars, Execution Agent Race
Watch three concurrent dynamics shape the next quarter. First, pricing consolidation: Profound's removal of its Starter tier forces the market to choose between free trials and custom enterprise pricing, with AthenaHQ's $295 Starter and Knowatoa's $59 entry as the public benchmarks for self-serve. Any vendor introducing a mid-market published tier in the next 30 days will anchor a new price ceiling. Second, comparison content wars: Brandlight, AthenaHQ, Goodie AI, and Peec AI all published named-rival comparisons this period, signaling that category definition is now a go-to-market lever. Scrunch and Mentionable run dedicated /aeo-tools comparison hubs. IndustryLens should monitor whether the comparison strategy shifts from features (number of models, seats, export formats) to proof points (confidence scores, sourced receipts, verified outcomes). Third, execution agents: Knowatoa's assistant-driven client site creation, Peec's agent, Scrunch's AXP, and Evertune's Insights Agent all move beyond monitoring toward autonomous action, a capability gap that buyers will expect IndustryLens's own products to answer.
Secondary signals to monitor: Profound's partnership with Bazaarvoice and integration of Moz SEO data into its Pages view extend its story beyond AI visibility into content and SEO execution, which is an upsell vector for IndustryLens. Semrush's repositioned homepage and navigation around AI visibility, paired with Ahrefs' shift from 'Make AI recommend' to 'Study how your brand shows up in AI,' indicate the category is moving from output confidence to measurement rigor. The six pricing changes in four weeks and the sustained social volume (48 posts, 33 videos) suggest market saturation: vendors are fighting for messaging differentiation and deal velocity rather than category growth. Profound's 50 open roles across sales, engineering and recruiting in the US, UK, Singapore and Argentina signal aggressive hiring, likely to build out go-to-market and handle higher deal volume from the enterprise tier shift. Track whether any vendor publishes a quarterly State of AI Visibility report or benchmark study, as thought leadership is now a category-wide tactic.
Key Facts
- Profound to Host Zero Click London on October 21 (2026-10-21)
- Source — Profound
- Profound Ranked No. 17 on LinkedIn's Top Startups 2026 U.S. List (2026-10-16)
- Source — Profound
- OtterlyAI Rebuilds Brand Reports Around Sentiment and Position (2026-10-04)
- Source — Otterly.ai
- OtterlyAI Launches Brand Profiling Tab Across Brand Reports (2026-10-21)
- Source — Otterly.ai
- Peec AI Speaks at brightonSEO UK as Landwehr Opens With ChatGPT Shopping Talk
- Source — Peec AI
- Brandlight's Samsung/Starcom AI Visibility Work Wins 2026 World Media Award (2026-10-08)
- Source — Brandlight
- Brandlight CEO Imri Marcus to Speak at Association of National Advertisers (2026-10-23)
- Source — Brandlight
- Scrunch Posts Four Open Roles, Three Dublin Engineering Including AI Agent Experience
- Source — Scrunch AI
- Scrunch Publishes Survey Reports on Winning AI Search and Action Over Dashboards (2026-10-20)
- Source — Scrunch AI
- AthenaHQ Refreshes Ahrefs and Semrush Comparison Pages (2026-10-19)
- Source — AthenaHQ
- Knowatoa Adds Period-Over-Period Comparison to Its MCP Analytics Tools (2026-10-19)
- Source — Knowatoa
- Rankscale Pricing Comparison Adds ChatGPT Follow-up Forms, Local Results, AI Visits
- Source — Rankscale
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Profound do in October 2026?
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How does Knowatoa compare to Rankscale for AI visibility analytics?
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Methodology & Sources
IndustryLens reports are generated from live, multi-source competitive monitoring. Every figure below references the data and coverage that produced this analysis — disclosed for full reader and AI auditability.
Competitors monitored
This report tracked 19 competitors: Ahrefs Brand Radar, AthenaHQ, Brandlight, Conductor, Daydream, Evertune, GetIntel, Goodie AI, Knowatoa, LLMrefs, Mentionable, OpenForge, Otterly.ai, Peec AI, Profound, Rankscale, Scrunch AI, Semrush AI Toolkit, and Surfaced.
Insights analysed
15 approved insights were analysed for this report, drawn from the period 2026-10-03T00:00:00.000Z to 2026-11-02T00:00:00.000Z.
Coverage period
The report covers 3 October 2026 to 2 November 2026 inclusive. All events, pricing changes, and product updates cited fall within this window.
Data sources
Active sources for this report were Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn Posts, Instagram, YouTube, G2/Capterra reviews, Google News, and website monitoring.
Coverage gaps
Data was limited for most of the 19 competitors. Only Otterly.ai, Brandlight, and Scrunch AI reached 3 insights; Profound had 2; Peec AI had 1. The remaining competitors, including Ahrefs Brand Radar, AthenaHQ, Conductor, Daydream, Evertune, GetIntel, Goodie AI, LLMrefs, Mentionable, OpenForge, Rankscale, Semrush AI Toolkit, and Surfaced, had limited or single-insight coverage, so their absence from activity rankings should not be read as inactivity.
Activity ranking
Competitors are ranked by count of approved insights in the period. Otterly.ai, Brandlight, and Scrunch AI lead with 3 each, followed by Profound with 2 and Peec AI with 1.
Cross-competitor patterns
Patterns are recorded when two or more competitors act in the same category in the period. This report logged four: events (Profound, Peec AI, Otterly.ai, Brandlight), product updates (Otterly.ai, Knowatoa), awards (Brandlight, Profound), and content assets (Brandlight, AthenaHQ, Scrunch AI).
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