Free Profound Alternative: 6 Best Tools in 2026
Paul VengeonsCo-Founder & SEO ConsultantIn short
Profound now lists only a 7-day trial and a custom-priced Enterprise plan. The AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools shows real AI citations for free, Google Analytics 4 measures the visits AI assistants send, Cloudflare shows which AI crawlers read your site, and 3 to 5 prompts checked by hand each week replace most of a tracker.
A visibility score counts citations, it does not earn them. ChatSEO works on the pages and rankings that get you cited by AI assistants.
Summarize this blog post with:
Which AI visibility tool is for you?
Answer 5 questions to find your tool
π¬ How I picked these free Profound alternatives
I only kept tools that tell you something real about your visibility in AI answers for $0, with no card and no time limit. ChatSEO is the one exception: it is a paid tool with a free trial, and I flag it because I co-founded it.
Every free limit and price below was checked on the vendors' official pages on October 11, 2026. I scored each tool on four things: how free it really is, whether the data is real or simulated, whether it tracks over time, and whether it helps you get cited more.
My take: most AI visibility scores measure prompts nobody types. A tracker writes 50 prompts, runs them every day and draws a curve. The prompts are guesses. The only real data I know is free: the citations Bing reports, and the visits AI assistants send to your site. And an AI assistant answers by running Google-style searches and citing what ranks, so the work that gets you cited is still SEO.
π Free Profound alternatives compared
| Tool | What is free | Real or simulated data | Tracks over time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bing Webmaster Tools (AI Performance) | Citations, cited pages, grounding queries | Real | Yes | Knowing if AI cites you |
| Manual prompt checks | ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini free plans | Real answers, tiny sample | If you log them | Seeing the answers yourself |
| Google Analytics 4 | Visits from AI assistants | Real | Yes | Measuring AI traffic and leads |
| Cloudflare AI Crawl Control | Which AI crawlers hit your site | Real | Yes | Replacing Profound's crawler analytics |
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | One brand report | Simulated prompts | No, one-time | A first snapshot |
| ChatSEO | Onboarding and first message, then a 7-day trial | Your Search Console data | Weekly reports | Getting cited more |
π The 6 best free Profound alternatives
1. Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance: the only free first-party citation data
The AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools is the best free Profound alternative, because it is the only one built on real data. Since its public preview in February 2026, it shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and in Bing's AI answers, which URLs are cited, and how that changes over time.
Its best part is the grounding queries: the phrases the AI actually searched before citing you. No paid tracker has that. The limits: it covers Microsoft's AI surfaces only, and it shows no clicks. Verifying a site takes minutes if it is already in Google Search Console.
2. Manual prompt checks: free, and closer to the truth than a dashboard
Typing 3 to 5 real prompts a week into ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini is what a paid tracker automates, and you can do it for free. Use the questions your customers really ask ("best accounting software for freelancers 2026"), in a private session, and log who gets cited in a spreadsheet.
The sample is tiny, so do not read a trend into one answer. What you learn is which sources the assistants quote: that list of third-party pages is your to-do list. Our ChatGPT SEO prompts guide has prompts to start from.
3. Google Analytics 4: free proof of what AI visibility is worth
Google Analytics 4 shows the visits AI assistants actually send you, which no visibility score does. In the traffic acquisition report, filter the session source on chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai, gemini.google.com and copilot.microsoft.com.
This is the number to show a client or a boss: visits and conversions, not a share-of-voice percentage. On the Google side, AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted in the Search Console Performance report, inside the Web search type, as Google's own documentation explains.
4. Cloudflare AI Crawl Control: free crawler analytics
Cloudflare AI Crawl Control shows which AI crawlers visit your site and how often, and it is available on every Cloudflare plan, the free one included. It replaces the crawler-analytics side of an enterprise platform like Profound.
It needs your site to run behind Cloudflare. Use it to check that the crawlers of the assistants you want to be cited by are not blocked. Blocking them and hoping for citations do not go together.
5. HubSpot AI Search Grader: a free one-time snapshot
HubSpot's AI Search Grader is free, needs no account, and returns one report on how ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini describe your brand. It covers sentiment, share of voice and the competitors named next to you.
It is a snapshot built on generated prompts, so treat the score as a curiosity, not a KPI. It is useful once, to see how the models describe you today. The Mangools AI Search Grader is a comparable free check, covered in our free Peec AI alternative guide.
6. 
ChatSEO: best for getting cited, not for scoring it
ChatSEO is the tool I co-founded, and it is not free: the onboarding and your first message cost nothing, then it is a 7-day trial with 30 credits (card required, nothing charged before day 7). After the trial, plans start at β¬29/month, or β¬23.20/month billed annually.
It sells no AI visibility score, on purpose. Its GEO playbook works on what makes assistants cite a site: the evaluation queries you should rank for ("best", "price", "review", "alternative to"), pages written so a passage can be quoted, and the third-party lists you should be in. Do not pick it if you need daily tracking of 500 prompts across 9 engines for a board report: that is Profound's job.
Results from a ChatSEO customer
From 30 to 600 Google clicks a day
βI tripled my clicks on this site in 3 months.β
TimothΓ©e Tabary Β· Manager, e-commerce stores
πΈ What Profound costs, and what free tools leave out
Profound's pricing page now lists two options: a free 7-day trial and a custom-priced Enterprise plan sold through a demo. The trial tracks 50 prompts a day on 3 answer engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews). Enterprise covers up to 9 engines, with API access and SSO.
That is a platform for large brands with an analyst to read it. Free tools do not give you a daily curve across 9 engines. They give you what matters more for a small team: real citations, real visits, and the list of sources to get into. None of them does the work of getting cited.
An AI alternative that does more
AI, Search Console and keyword research from the β¬29/month Starter plan. 7-day money-back guarantee.
β Scorecard
| Tool | Genuinely free | Real data | Tracks over time | Helps you get cited |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bing AI Performance | β β β β β | β β β β β | β β β β β | β β β ββ |
| Manual prompt checks | β β β β β | β β β β β | β β βββ | β β β ββ |
| Google Analytics 4 | β β β β β | β β β β β | β β β β β | β β βββ |
| Cloudflare AI Crawl Control | β β β β β | β β β β β | β β β β β | β β βββ |
| HubSpot AI Search Grader | β β β β β | β β βββ | β ββββ | β β βββ |
| ChatSEO | β β βββ | β β β β β | β β β ββ | β β β β β |
βοΈ Which free Profound alternative should you choose?
Pick from the question you need answered.
- β Does AI already cite my pages? β Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance
- β What do the assistants answer on my topic? β manual prompt checks
- β How many visits and leads does AI send me? β Google Analytics 4
- β Which AI crawlers read my site? β Cloudflare AI Crawl Control
- β How do the models describe my brand today? β HubSpot AI Search Grader
- β How do I get cited more? β ChatSEO trial
Do not start with GEO if your pages do not rank. Assistants cite what search engines rank. In a campaign, about one action in ten is specific to AI answers. The other nine are SEO.
β Frequently asked questions
What is the best free alternative to Profound?
The AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools is the best free alternative: real citation counts, the cited URLs and the grounding queries, for free. Add Google Analytics 4 to measure the visits AI assistants send.
Is Profound free?
No. Profound offers a free 7-day trial, then a custom-priced Enterprise plan sold through a sales demo. Its pricing page lists no self-serve paid plan.
How can I track ChatGPT mentions for free?
Type 3 to 5 real customer questions into ChatGPT each week, in a private session, and log who is cited. Then check the visits from chatgpt.com in Google Analytics 4.
Do I need an llms.txt file to be cited by AI?
No. Google states that no special file or markup is needed to appear in its AI features. They run on the classic search index, so being crawlable and ranking is what counts.
Is ChatSEO free?
No. The onboarding and the first message are free, then ChatSEO is a 7-day trial with 30 credits, then from β¬29/month or β¬23.20/month billed annually. It does the work that gets you cited and sells no visibility score.
π Final verdict
For $0 AI visibility, verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, read the AI Performance report once a month, check 3 to 5 real prompts a week by hand, and follow AI visits in Google Analytics 4. That is more real data than most paid dashboards show.
Who should just talk to Profound's sales team: large brands that must report AI visibility across several markets and 9 engines, with an analyst and a budget for it. For everyone else, the money is better spent on the pages that get cited, and the ChatSEO trial is where I would start.
