Gauge vs Profound (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Profound grades higher than Gauge: 2.2 against 1.6 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
Profound grades higher on the free plan and features. They get the same grade on value for money, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Gauge
AI search visibility tracking with a built-in content engine
Profound
AI search visibility tracking with an AI marketing agent built in
Which one is for you
Pick Gauge if
- Fits if you track hundreds of prompts daily and want articles written from the gaps
- Works for agencies running several clients, with an agency mode and 3 seats on Growth
Look elsewhere if
- Pricey if you're a small team, at $599 a month with nothing cheaper
- Skip it if Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews or sentiment matter, as they need Enterprise
- Not for you if you want to try before paying, since there's no free plan or trial
- Watch out: Claude and Grok tracking runs on your own Anthropic or xAI API key, billed by them
- Watch out: Gauge Agents is a separate product, sold in credit plans from $100 to $20,000 a month
Pick Profound if
- Fits if you're a large brand that wants answers tracked on up to 9 engines and can sign a custom contract
- Works for agencies running pitch audits for prospects, at $99 a month for 10 short workspaces
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want to sign up and pay without a sales call, as brands can't
- Pricey if you're an agency with several clients, at $399 a month per client workspace on top of $99
- Tight if you want to test your own questions, since the trial's prompts are fixed
- Watch out: custom prompts, the API, exports and SSO all come only with Enterprise
- Watch out: agents spend credits, and extra credits need an Enterprise package with overage billing or a pause
How we grade them
| 1.6GPAGaugeWeak | 2.2GPAProfoundFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | DGrowth is $599 a month, the only priced plan, for 600 daily prompts on 3 platforms and 18 articles. That's about $1 per prompt a month, but the floor is about twelve times this category's middle of $49 and deep in its dearest tenth. | DBrands get no published price: past the trial it's a custom Enterprise quote, given only on a sales call. Agency Growth is $99 a month, but that buys 10 short pitch audits, and each real client workspace is $399 a month on top. |
| Free plan and trial | FNothing free: no free plan and no advertised trial. The 1,000 free credits are for Gauge Agents, a separate product. | CNo free plan, but a 7-day trial runs 50 preset prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews. You can't edit those prompts, so you see the questions Profound picks, not your own. |
| Features | CDaily tracking with competitor and citation analysis, an Action Center, a content engine, the Ask Gauge agent and agency mode. The gap the listing names: Growth covers only ChatGPT, AI Mode and Copilot, and AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity and sentiment need Enterprise. | BDaily answers with citations, sentiment and competitor ranking on up to 9 engines, Claude, Copilot and DeepSeek among them, plus an AI Marketer, reusable agents, Prompt Volumes and crawler analytics across unlimited domains. It covers the whole job; the agents run on credits. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. There's a CMS to connect for publishing, and tracking Claude or Grok means bringing your own Anthropic or xAI API key. | CNo rating on record. Brands are onboarded through sales, and custom prompts, exports and the API only arrive with Enterprise, so there's set-up before it's really yours. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb only, with no desktop or phone app. It connects to GA4, Search Console, DataForSEO, Webflow, Framer, Sanity, GitHub and Slack, with MCP for AI assistants. | BWeb only, with no desktop or phone app. It connects to Google Analytics, Search Console, Cloudflare, Vercel, WordPress, Webflow, Slack and G2, and the API comes with Enterprise. |
| Best for | high-volume prompt tracking with articles included | big brands tracking AI answers on many engines |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Gauge and Profound. How we grade
Price against what you get
Gauge starts at $599 a month and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Profound starts at $99 a month and scores 2.7.
Profound scores higher and starts $500 a month lower. Of the other AI search visibility tools on the chart, 27 score higher than Gauge for less, and 1 scores higher than Profound for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Gauge also covers long-form writing.
- Profound also covers AI agents and web analytics.
At a glance
| Gauge | Profound | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Paid | Free trial |
| Starts at | $599 per month for 600 prompts across 3 AI platforms | $99 per month (Agency Growth, the self-serve plan for agencies) |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | None listed | 7-day free trial: 50 preset prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with limited AI Marketer credits |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Gauge Technologies, Inc. | Profound |
| Price read from | withgauge.com | tryprofound.com |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Gauge
- There is no free plan or advertised trial; the cheapest plan is $599 a month.
- Growth covers only ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot; AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity and sentiment analysis need Enterprise.
- Claude and Grok tracking is optional on any plan and uses your own Anthropic or xAI API key, billed by that provider.
- Gauge Agents is priced separately in monthly credit plans from $100 to $20,000, with 1,000 free credits to start.
Profound
- Brands have no self-serve paid plan: after the 7-day trial, ongoing tracking needs a custom-priced Enterprise contract.
- Trial users get a recommended prompt set and cannot edit it; custom prompts, API access, exports and SSO come with Enterprise.
- On Agency Growth, each full client workspace is a $399-a-month add-on and 5 more trial workspaces cost $199 a month.
- Agent runs use credits; extra credits beyond the plan need an Enterprise package, with overage billing or a pause set by the account team.
Key features
Gauge
- Daily prompt tracking
- Each tracked prompt is asked of every covered AI platform once a day; Growth's 600 prompts on 3 platforms come to 54,000 answers a month.
- Competitor and citation analysis
- Compares brand and competitor mentions in AI answers and shows which websites, Reddit threads and YouTube videos the models cite.
- Action Center
- A list of recommended actions drawn from the tracking data that a team can review, assign and follow through.
- Content engine
- Writes briefs, outlines and articles from visibility gaps and publishes them to Webflow, Framer, Sanity or a GitHub-based blog. Growth includes 18 articles a month.
- Ask Gauge agent
- A built-in chat agent that analyzes the visibility data alongside GA4, Search Console and DataForSEO data. Chats are unlimited on both plans.
- Slack, MCP and agency mode
- Gauge data can be queried from Slack or an AI assistant through MCP, and agency mode manages tracking for several clients.
Profound
- Answer Engine Insights
- Runs set prompts daily and reports where a brand appears in the answers, which sources are cited, sentiment and how it ranks against competitors.
- Wide engine coverage
- Enterprise can track ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, DeepSeek, Claude, Google AI Overviews and Exa Search.
- AI Marketer and agents
- An assistant that finds gaps in AI answers and drafts or rewrites pages, plus reusable agents for recurring work. Agents run on credits.
- Agent Analytics
- Tracks AI crawler visits and AI-referred traffic across unlimited domains by connecting to CDNs and hosts such as Cloudflare, Fastly, AWS and Vercel.
- Prompt Volumes
- Estimates what people ask AI answer engines about a topic; the trial allows 5 searches.
- Agency workspaces
- Agency plans manage short pitch workspaces for prospects and full client workspaces from one dashboard with consolidated billing.
Plans
Gauge
Growth$599
per month for 600 prompts across 3 AI platforms
Prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot, 18 articles a month, 3 seats, one location, email and Slack support.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom prompts, seats and locations, six core platforms adding AI Overviews, Gemini and Perplexity, sentiment analysis, exports and strategy sessions.
Profound
Agency Growth$99
per month for up to 10 pitch workspaces a month
For agencies: 10 seven-day pitch audits a month on ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews, 5 agency seats. Each full client workspace is $399 a month extra.
EnterpriseCustom
For brands: tailored prompt tracking on up to 9 answer engines, AI Marketer credits, all-time history, CSV and JSON exports, API, SSO and dedicated support.
Agency EnterpriseCustom
For large agencies and networks: tailored client and trial workspaces, a dedicated agency partner, go-to-market help and Slack support.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Gauge or Profound?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Profound is cheaper to start with: $99 a month, against $599 a month for Gauge. Gauge starts at $599 per month for 600 prompts across 3 AI platforms, and Profound starts at $99 per month (Agency Growth, the self-serve plan for agencies).
Which has a free plan, Gauge or Profound?
As of Oct 23, 2026, neither Gauge nor Profound has a free plan. Profound has a free trial.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.