Profound vs Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit (2026): Which to Buy

This is not really a comparison of two products. It is a comparison of two ways of buying: a specialist that does one thing to enterprise depth, and a $99 add-on that appears inside a suite you may already be paying for. Which is why the answer turns less on features than on a question you can answer in five seconds — are you already a Semrush customer?

This page puts Profound and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit side by side on price, engine coverage, prompt limits and what each does after it finds a gap. Disclosure: we make Sightivo, a competing product, and the section comparing us is labelled as such. Everything else comes from both vendors' published plans and documentation and from public user reviews — we have not run either on a paid plan.

TL;DR: If you already pay for Semrush, the toolkit at $99/mo per domain is the cheapest sensible way to start measuring AI visibility, and you should start there. If you are not a Semrush customer, the realistic entry is $199/mo in Semrush One for 50 prompts, at which point you are choosing on merit — and Profound is the deeper instrument, at $399/mo for three engines. Both are measurement products. Neither will get you into the third-party pages the assistants are citing instead of you.

The Short Answer

• Already on Semrush? Add the toolkit. $99/mo per domain buys 25 prompts across ChatGPT, Gemini and Google's AI results next to the keyword and backlink data you already use. Nothing else in the category is that cheap to add.
• Not on Semrush, and you want depth? Profound. Its citation analysis and real prompt volumes are the best in the category, and the $399/mo Growth plan is the one most buyers actually need.
• Not on Semrush, and you want a baseline? Neither. You are paying suite prices or enterprise prices for a starting number that cheaper specialists will give you.

Side by Side

Prices are annual-billing rates where the vendor publishes them, checked against both pricing pages in August 2026 for our Profound review and Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit review, and re-checked against independent pricing trackers in September 2026.

The $99 That Is Not the Same $99

Both products have a $99 line on the pricing page and they mean opposite things.

Profound's $99 is a whole product: one engine, 50 prompts, one seat, nothing else required. Semrush's $99 is an add-on to a plan you must already hold, covering one domain and 25 prompts. If you are not a Semrush customer, the number that matters to you is $199/mo — Semrush One Starter, which bundles 50 tracked prompts with the core SEO tooling.

That single fact decides most of these comparisons:

1. Existing Semrush customer: the toolkit is $99 of marginal spend against Profound's $399 for the plan with comparable engine coverage. Start with the toolkit.
2. Not a Semrush customer, and you don't want the suite: you are being asked to buy a keyword tool to get an AI tracker. Profound's $99 Starter or a specialist like Peec or Otterly is the cleaner purchase.
3. Tracking several brands: Semrush charges $99 per domain and $99 per extra user, which climbs fast for an agency. Profound puts multi-company workspaces behind Enterprise. Neither is agency-friendly on a self-serve plan.

Engines: Semrush Covers Google Better, for Less

This is where the toolkit genuinely beats Profound on value. Semrush's $99 add-on covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Profound's $99 tier covers ChatGPT alone, and adding Google AI Overviews means the $399 Growth plan — and even then you get AI Overviews without AI Mode.

If your buyers research in Google — which for most consumer and mid-market B2B categories they do — Semrush hands you the more complete picture of Google's AI surfaces for a quarter of the price.

The reverse holds at the top. Profound's Enterprise tier reaches up to nine engines; the toolkit's Claude, Copilot and DeepSeek coverage lives in the custom-priced Enterprise AIO product. Both, again, put Claude behind a sales call.

Depth: Profound Is the Better Instrument

What Profound sells above $99 is resolution, and it is real.

• Citation analysis is the deepest in the category: not just which domains got cited, but how.
• Conversation Explorer reports real prompt volumes from a dataset Profound puts at 1.9 billion prompts, so you can tell whether anyone is actually asking the question you are optimising for. Semrush's Prompt Research is the nearest equivalent and is metered by daily query allowance.
• Agent Analytics shows which AI crawlers hit which pages, across unlimited domains on every tier. The toolkit has no equivalent.
• Enterprise plumbing — SSO, SOC 2, multi-company workspaces — clears procurement.

Semrush's advantage is not depth in AI, it is context: AI visibility sitting next to rankings, backlinks, a site audit and white-label client reporting in one login. For a lot of teams that context is worth more than resolution, because it is the difference between a number someone looks at and a number someone acts on in the same session.

What Users Complain About

Profound: cost escalation, too much data with too little prioritisation, dashboards that slow on large prompt sets, export limits. Independent reviewers consistently call it overkill for solo operators, early-stage startups and most agencies.

The Semrush toolkit: 25 prompts is a thin allowance; every additional domain and sub-user is another $99; there is no trial on the add-on itself; and the AI features feel bolted to a suite rather than designed around the problem.

What Neither One Does

Both stop at the report and the on-page recommendation. Profound will draft a limited number of articles for your own site; Semrush will tell you which of your pages to fix. Neither identifies the third-party roundup that got cited instead of you, finds the person who wrote it, or helps you get into it.

That is where most of the missing citations live. Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands found branded web mentions correlate roughly three times more strongly with AI visibility than backlinks do, and a large share of ChatGPT's citations land on "best of" list pages — pages on other people's sites that no on-page audit can rewrite.

Profound vs Semrush vs Sightivo

We make Sightivo, so weigh this accordingly.

The honest summary: Semrush wins on breadth and on already being in your toolbar; Profound wins on depth. We do not compete with either on measurement — our engine list is three, not nine, and our prompt volumes are sized for one brand, not a portfolio, and we have no white-label reporting. What we do instead is the half after the measurement: the page you are missing, the sources cited for that prompt, the people behind them, and the email.

Which Should You Choose?

Choose the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit if:

• You already pay for Semrush. This is the whole argument, and it is a good one.
• Google's AI surfaces are where your buyers are — AI Overviews and AI Mode for $99 is the best coverage-per-dollar here.
• You need white-label client reporting alongside the AI data.
• You track one domain. Two domains is $198/mo and the calculus changes.

Choose Profound if:

• You want the deepest citation analysis and real prompt volumes, and you have people who will use them.
• You need engine coverage beyond Google and ChatGPT and can have the Enterprise conversation.
• SSO and SOC 2 are procurement requirements.
• You are not a Semrush customer and have no intention of becoming one.

Choose neither if: you want a baseline and nothing more — cheaper specialists start at $29/mo — or your real problem is that the roundup ChatGPT quotes lists nine competitors and not you.

Common Questions

How much does the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit cost compared with Profound?

The toolkit is $99/mo per domain as an add-on to an existing Semrush plan, covering 25 tracked prompts, with extra prompts around $60/mo per 50 and each extra domain or user another $99/mo. Without a Semrush plan the realistic entry is Semrush One Starter at $199/mo for 50 prompts. Profound is $99/mo billed annually for ChatGPT and 50 prompts, or $399/mo for ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews with 100 prompts. Prices checked August 2026.

Is the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit good enough to replace Profound?

For most teams below enterprise, yes — with one caveat. It covers ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Overviews and AI Mode, which is broader Google coverage than Profound's $399 plan, and it sits beside your keyword and backlink data. What it does not replace is Profound's citation depth, real prompt-volume research and AI crawler analytics. If those would change your decisions rather than just inform them, Profound is the better instrument.

Which one tracks more AI engines?

Profound at the top, Semrush in the middle. Profound reaches up to nine engines on Enterprise; the toolkit covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, with Claude, Copilot and DeepSeek reserved for the custom-priced Enterprise AIO product. But at the $99 price point the toolkit tracks four surfaces to Profound's one.

Do I need a Semrush subscription to use the AI Visibility Toolkit?

Yes. The $99/mo toolkit is an add-on to a Semrush plan, priced per domain. If you do not already have one, the way in is Semrush One Starter at $199/mo, which bundles 50 tracked prompts with the core SEO tooling. That is why a non-Semrush customer comparing "the $99 options" is not comparing like with like.

Is there a free way to check my AI visibility first?

Yes. Our free AI visibility checker runs five ChatGPT prompts with no signup for the first run, and both Semrush and Ahrefs publish free one-off AI visibility checkers. A free snapshot will not trend over time, but it will tell you whether you have a problem worth paying to measure.

What are the alternatives to both?

Peec AI from about $80/mo for three chosen models with unlimited seats — see Profound vs Peec; Otterly AI at $29/mo for the cheapest credible dashboard; Scrunch AI for six engines on every plan; Athena HQ for a free multi-engine tier; Ahrefs Brand Radar if your suite is Ahrefs rather than Semrush, in our Ahrefs Brand Radar review. The field is compared on price, coverage and action layer in best AI visibility tools, and tool-by-tool in Profound alternatives.

Key Takeaways

• The two $99 prices are not comparable: Profound's is a complete product, Semrush's is an add-on to a subscription you must already hold.
• For an existing Semrush customer the toolkit is the obvious first purchase — $99 marginal, and better Google AI coverage than Profound's $399 plan.
• For a non-customer the real comparison is $199/mo Semrush One against $99–$399 Profound, and there Profound is the deeper instrument.
• Semrush charges per domain and per user; Profound puts multi-company behind Enterprise. Neither suits an agency on self-serve.
• Both report and recommend. Neither goes and earns you a place on the pages the assistants actually cite.

If you would rather your AI visibility tool handed you the next page to write and the next person to email, see how Sightivo works — or check what ChatGPT says about your brand for free first.