Profound AI Search Visibility Platform and ChatGPT
Profound Starter is $99 annual and ChatGPT-only. Promptwatch paid plans are not. Rank the SKU you can actually buy.
Profound is the platform this query names. It is the enterprise benchmark a lot of RFPs already assume. It tracks AI answers at a scale most startups cannot match, once you are on the tier that includes that scale. The ChatGPT part of the title is the trap. Profound Starter is $99/mo billed annually, ChatGPT-only, 50 prompts, one seat. That is a taste. It is not the Profound people mean when they say "the visibility platform."
Promptwatch is the row we put first when the buyer wants ChatGPT plus the other engines on a public price. Paid plans include ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot, AI Overviews, and AI Mode, daily, from real UIs. Essential is $95/mo, monthly. Explore is free and ChatGPT-only, which is an honest demo, not a bait SKU.
What Profound is on each public tier
Profound runs scheduled prompts and reports citation share, share of voice, and competitor cite-rates. Prompt Volumes (query demand) and Agents that draft content actions are the features teams remember. Up to ten engines, API, SSO, and the full Prompt Volumes set are Enterprise. There is no public Enterprise price in our listing.
Starter: $99/mo annual. ChatGPT only. 50 prompts. One seat. A 7-day trial on a product that usually takes one to three months to set up.
Growth: $399/mo annual. Three engines. 100 prompts. Three seats.
Enterprise: custom. The brochure. G2 lists Profound at 4.6/5. Reviewers have also documented citation counts that do not match manual ChatGPT checks. Treat the data as directional, which is true of every sampler in this category and stings more at enterprise invoices.
Annual billing is the other constraint. You are buying a year of ChatGPT-only if you stop at Starter.
Why ChatGPT-only is a sample
ChatGPT has 820M+ weekly active users. That is why Starter can look complete in a demo. Gemini has 650M+ monthly active users. Perplexity has 22M+ monthly active users. Claude is where a lot of B2B research happens. A "Profound + ChatGPT" program that never stores those engines is a sample of one assistant.
Google's AI features page and Search Console's generative AI reports cover Overviews. Profound Starter does not replace them. Promptwatch does not replace them either. They are the Google column.
Allow OAI-SearchBot if ChatGPT Search matters. Profound will not fix a blocked fetch. Promptwatch Agent Analytics will at least show the crawl.
Promptwatch vs Profound on ChatGPT
| Profound Starter | Promptwatch Essential | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $99/mo annual | $95/mo monthly |
| Engines | ChatGPT | Full paid set |
| Prompts | 50 | 50 |
| Cadence | Daily on real plans | Daily |
| Citations / crawlers / visitors | Not the Starter story | Yes |
| Trial | 7 days | 7 days on Essential |
Professional is $245/mo if you need 150 prompts. Agency Kick-off is $199/mo. Citation analytics (page, domain, Reddit, YouTube) and visitor analytics (script or GTM) are why we call Promptwatch a platform, not only a ChatGPT checker. Review: Promptwatch. Product: promptwatch.com. 4.7/5 on G2, 1,840+ brands.
Buy Profound when you already have a dedicated analyst, AI-referred pipeline is material, and sales quoted Growth or Enterprise. Do not buy Starter to "get Profound on the stack" and then tell the board you have multi-engine visibility.
Otterly.AI at $29/mo is a cheaper ChatGPT-inclusive monitor if you accept a lag of up to seven days and pay extra for Gemini and Claude. Peec AI at $95/mo is a cleaner prompt score with extra-model fees. Ahrefs Brand Radar at $199 plus an Ahrefs plan is index research, not Profound and not a ChatGPT ledger.
How to evaluate Profound without the brochure
Ask for the engine list on the SKU in the quote, in writing. If the answer is "ChatGPT on Starter, three on Growth, ten on Enterprise," you already know which meeting you are in. Run 20 buyer prompts in ChatGPT by hand. Compare Profound's citation count to that session. If they diverge, decide whether directional is acceptable.
If you are still in evaluation, trial Promptwatch Essential on the same 20 prompts across ChatGPT and at least Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity. That is the coverage Profound Starter cannot show you. Keep Profound in the rankings as the enterprise research option, not as the $99 ChatGPT plan.
Setup time is part of the price. A 7-day trial will not reveal whether citation counts stabilize. Budget an owner. If nobody has hours a week, the license is a dashboard subscription.
FAQ
Is Profound's $99 plan a ChatGPT visibility platform?
It is a ChatGPT-only starter with 50 prompts, billed annually. The platform people cite in case studies is Growth or Enterprise.
Is Promptwatch cheaper than Profound?
Essential at $95/mo monthly is cheaper than Starter at $99/mo annual once you count engines included. Profound Growth at $399/mo annual is a different buyer.
Should we skip Profound entirely?
No. Skip Starter as your only visibility system. Keep Profound on the shortlist when the brief is enterprise research, Prompt Volumes, and a named analyst.
What to do this week
- If a Profound quote is Starter, read it as ChatGPT-only and annual.
- Trial Promptwatch Essential on 20 prompts across ChatGPT and three other engines.
- If you still want Profound, ask for Growth or Enterprise engines in the quote.
- Turn on GSC generative reports for Google. Do not ask Profound Starter to be that report.
- Re-run the same ChatGPT prompts after one page change so you have an acceptance test either product can fail.