Known Agents vs Profound (2026): which should you pick?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Known Agents grades higher than Profound: 2.6 against 2.2 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 by ToolGPA
Known Agents grades higher on value for money and the free plan. Profound grades higher on features. They get the same grade on ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Known Agents
Analytics and access control for the AI bots that visit your site
Profound
AI search visibility tracking with an AI marketing agent built in
Which one is for you
Pick Known Agents if
- Fits if you publish online and want to choose which AI crawlers can read your site
- Works for developers who need to verify AI agents in their own code through an API
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want to know what ChatGPT says about your brand, as it doesn't check answers
- Tight if your site is busy: every API call and batch item counts, so budget about twice your human visits
- Not for you if you can't touch your server, CDN or WordPress setup, as there's no pasted script
- Watch out: the free plan stops at 100,000 events a month, with 1 project and only the basic features
- Watch out: custom features, a custom API and live support are on Enterprise, arranged through a demo
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
| 2.6GPAKnown AgentsGood | 2.2GPAProfoundFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BStartup is $25 a month billed yearly, or $29 monthly, for 3 projects and 1 million events. That's inside the cheaper quarter of this category, which starts at $29, and well under Siteline's $49. | 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 | BFree with no card and no time limit: 1 project and 100,000 events a month, which the vendor says covers most websites. It's a hard cap, though, and the premium features are paid. | 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 | CBot and agent analytics, AI chat referrals, a robots.txt that updates itself and an API to verify agents. It does that job fully, but it's a smaller one: it doesn't check what AI engines say about your brand. | 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. Data comes from your server, CDN or WordPress rather than a pasted script, so there's a bit of plumbing before anything shows up. | 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 hooks into WordPress, Cloudflare, Fastly, Akamai, AWS, Google Cloud, Vercel and Node.js, and has an agent identification API. | 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 | seeing which AI bots visit your site | 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: Known Agents and Profound. How we grade
Price against what you get
Known Agents starts at $25 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 $74 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other AI search visibility tools on the chart, 4 score higher than Known Agents 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
- Profound also covers AI agents and content optimization.
At a glance
| Known Agents | Profound | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free trial |
| Starts at | $25 per month for 1M events, billed yearly ($29 billed monthly) | $99 per month (Agency Growth, the self-serve plan for agencies) |
| Free plan | 1 project and 100,000 events a month with the basic features; the event limit is a hard cap. No credit card needed. | 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 | Bit Flip LLC | Profound |
| Price read from | knownagents.com | tryprofound.com |
| Checked | Oct 23, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Known Agents
- It measures bot visits and AI referrals to your site; it does not check what AI engines say about your brand in their answers.
- Events include every API call and each item in a batch; the vendor suggests budgeting about twice your monthly human visits.
- The free plan stops at its monthly event limit; paid plans get an email suggesting an upgrade when they run over.
- It needs a server, CDN or WordPress integration to collect data, rather than a script pasted into the page.
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
Known Agents
- Agent Analytics
- Lists the crawlers, scrapers and AI agents visiting a site in real time, with traffic trends, pages visited, sessions, errors and robots.txt violations per agent.
- AI chat referral tracking
- Counts human visits that come from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, DeepSeek and other AI chats, kept apart from bot traffic.
- Automatic robots.txt
- Serves a robots.txt that blocks or allows agents by category and updates itself as new bots are found; the WordPress plugin can block bots that ignore it.
- Agent Identification API
- Identifies and verifies the agent behind an incoming request from your own code, for setting access rules by verified identity.
- Server-side collection
- Data is sent from the server, CDN or backend rather than a browser script, so it still works when browser analytics are blocked.
- Agent Directory
- A public directory of thousands of agents and bots that says who runs each one, what it does and how to manage its access.
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
Known Agents
Free$0
1 project and 100,000 events a month, with basic features. The vendor says this covers most websites.
Startup$25
per month for 1M events, billed yearly ($29 billed monthly)
3 projects, 1 million events a month, the premium features and priority support.
Growth$250
per month for 10M events, billed yearly ($299 billed monthly)
10 projects, 10 million events a month, the premium features and high-priority support.
EnterpriseCustom
Unlimited projects, usage-based events, custom features and API, and dedicated live support. Arranged through a demo.
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.
Ways to pay less
Known Agents
- Annual discount
Save up to 16% with yearly billing
Known Agents lists Startup at $25 a month billed yearly instead of $29 (14% less) and Growth at $250 instead of $299 (16% less).
Profound
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Known Agents or Profound?
As of Oct 23, 2026, Known Agents is cheaper to start with: $25 a month, against $99 a month for Profound. Known Agents starts at $25 per month for 1M events, billed yearly ($29 billed monthly), and Profound starts at $99 per month (Agency Growth, the self-serve plan for agencies).
Which has a free plan, Known Agents or Profound?
As of Oct 23, 2026, only Known Agents has a free plan. Profound does not, though it 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.