Gumshoe vs Scrunch (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Gumshoe grades higher than Scrunch: 2.0 against 1.8 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
Gumshoe grades higher on value for money. They get the same grade on the free plan, features, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Gumshoe
AI visibility audits that ask questions as your buyer personas
Scrunch
AI search monitoring plus pages served to AI agents
Which one is for you
Pick Gumshoe if
- Fits if you sell to several kinds of buyer and want AI results split by each one
- Works for teams that want to see a sample audit of their brand before paying
Look elsewhere if
- Pricey if you have several product lines, as each one is its own $99 project
- Skip it if you want to see which sites AI cites or how it describes you, as those audits are on Pro at $299
- Not for you if you want an API, integrations or exports into your own reports, as none are listed
- Watch out: both plans bill monthly with no yearly option listed, and many brands or clients need a sales quote
- Tight if you want daily numbers on Starter, which gets weekly snapshots and one Visibility Audit a month
Pick Scrunch if
- Fits if you're a large brand weighing Agent Pages, which serve AI agents a cleaned-up copy of your site
- Works for agencies running several client brands and pitch workspaces from one account
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if Gemini, Claude or AI Mode matter, as they're tracked on Enterprise only
- Pricey if you're a small team: Core is $250 a month for one brand and 125 prompts
- Tight if you sell in several countries or watch many rivals: Core allows one country and 5 competitors
- Watch out: the API, SSO and Agent Pages are Enterprise only, and Enterprise prices aren't published
- Watch out: the only trial is 7 days of Core, and Scrunch became a Sitecore company in 2026
How we grade them
| 2.0GPAGumshoeFair | 1.8GPAScrunchWeak | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | CStarter is $99 a month per project, billed monthly, with unlimited seats. That's at the dearer quarter of this category, and a project is one product line, so three lines means three plans. Citations and sentiment need Pro at $299. | DCore is $250 a month for 125 prompts and 5,000 responses, one brand and 5 users. That's well into this category's dearest tenth, which starts at $129. Agency Core is $500. |
| Free plan and trial | COne free sample audit with no card: 4 personas, 5 prompts each, on 4 models, and it doesn't expire. It's a one-time look, though. Tracking over time is paid. | CNo free plan, just a 7-day free trial of Core. A week is enough to see the first answers come in, not to watch a trend. |
| Features | CPersona-based prompts, a leaderboard against up to 30 rivals, 12 models tracked with 6 per audit, and AI readability checks per page. The listing's own gap: Starter has only the Visibility and Technical Audits, so sentiment, citations and content need Pro. | CPosition, sentiment and cited sources per prompt, with personas, funnel stages, site audits, AI bot traffic and product-level shopping data. The gap is engines: Core watches four, and Gemini, Claude, AI Mode, Grok and Meta AI need Enterprise. |
| Ease of use | CNo rating on record. It builds the personas and their questions for you, and there are still audits to run and read. | CNo rating on record. You set prompts, competitors, personas and funnel stages before the data says much, and Core caps you at 5 competitors and one country. |
| Platforms and integrations | CWeb only, with no integrations or API listed. | CWeb only, with no desktop or phone app. Looker Studio is the one integration on record, and the API and SSO come only with Enterprise. |
| Best for | AI visibility broken down by buyer persona | brands that want monitoring plus pages for AI agents |
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: Gumshoe and Scrunch. How we grade
Price against what you get
Gumshoe starts at $99 a month and scores 2.0 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Scrunch starts at $250 a month and scores 2.0.
They score the same, and Gumshoe starts $151 a month lower. Of the other AI search visibility tools on the chart, 80 score higher than Gumshoe for less, and 98 score higher than Scrunch 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
- Gumshoe also covers reports.
- Scrunch also covers site audit and web analytics.
At a glance
| Gumshoe | Scrunch | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free trial |
| Starts at | $99 per project / month, billed monthly | $250 per month for 125 prompts |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | One free sample audit: 4 personas, 5 prompts each, 4 models; no card, does not expire | 7-day free trial of the Core plan |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Gumshoe AI | Scrunch |
| Price read from | gumshoe.ai | scrunch.com |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Gumshoe
- Prices are per project, so a brand tracking three product lines pays for three plans.
- Starter has only the Visibility and Technical Audits; sentiment, citation and content audits need Pro.
- Both plans bill monthly with no annual option listed; many brands or clients need a sales quote.
- There is no free plan, only a one-time sample audit; a paid plan is needed for tracking over time.
Scrunch
- Core covers four AI platforms; Claude, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Grok and Meta AI are tracked only on Enterprise.
- Core is limited to 1 brand workspace, 5 user licenses, 5 competitors and one country.
- API access, SSO and the Agent Experience Platform are listed for Enterprise only.
- Scrunch became a Sitecore company in 2026; it says it continues to run as a standalone platform.
Key features
Gumshoe
- Persona-based prompts
- Builds buyer personas for your market and the prompts each would ask, so results show how answers change with who is asking.
- Visibility Audit
- Brand leaderboard, visibility by persona, topic and model, and up to 30 competitors side by side, with change since the last audit.
- Model coverage
- Each audit uses 6 models drawn from 12 tracked, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Grok and Google AI Overviews.
- Sentiment and Citation Audits
- On Pro: how models describe your brand, and which domains they cite when answering questions in your category.
- Technical and Content Audits
- Scores each page on how readable it is to AI, flagging schema, JSON-LD, structure and metadata, and finds content gaps (Content Audit on Pro).
Scrunch
- Monitoring and citations
- Tracks brand presence, position, sentiment and the sources cited for each prompt, with competitors, personas and funnel stages.
- Insights and recommendations
- Turns monitoring data into suggested changes; Core includes one page optimization a month and basic content generation.
- Agent Experience Platform
- Enterprise plans include Agent Pages, which deliver an optimized version of a site to AI agents that visit it.
- Site audits and bot traffic
- Audits pages for how well AI can read them and reports AI agent and bot visits; Core includes 5 audits a month.
- Shopping and query fan-out
- Product-level AI search performance and the follow-up searches AI tools run behind a prompt; fan-out is limited on Core.
- Agency workspaces
- Agency plans manage several client brands and pitch workspaces from one place, with access controls and white-label output.
Plans
Gumshoe
Starter$99
per project / month, billed monthly
A monthly Visibility Audit, weekly snapshot audits, 10 Technical Audit runs and 3 content generation runs. Unlimited seats.
Pro$299
per project / month, billed monthly
Adds the Sentiment, Citation and Content Audits, daily snapshots, 50 Technical Audit runs and 10 content generation runs.
Scrunch
Core$250
per month for 125 prompts
For brands: 5,000 responses a month on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, 5 site audits a month, 1 brand workspace and 5 users.
Agency Core$500
per month for 250 prompts
For agencies: 10,000 responses a month, 3 brand workspaces, 3 pitch workspaces, 5 site audits per brand a month and unlimited users.
EnterpriseCustom
Custom prompts and workspaces, 9 AI platforms, the Agent Experience Platform, full site audits, API access, SSO and a dedicated account team.
Agency EnterpriseCustom
For large agencies: custom brand and pitch workspaces, full site audits, the Agent Experience Platform, SSO and a dedicated account team.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Gumshoe or Scrunch?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Gumshoe is cheaper to start with: $99 a month, against $250 a month for Scrunch. Gumshoe starts at $99 per project / month, billed monthly, and Scrunch starts at $250 per month for 125 prompts.
Which has a free plan, Gumshoe or Scrunch?
As of Oct 23, 2026, neither Gumshoe nor Scrunch has a free plan. Both have 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.