Pendium vs Profound (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 13, 2026, Profound grades higher than Pendium: 2.2 against 2.0 out of 4.0.
Checked Oct 23, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 · graded Oct 23, 2026 and Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA
Pendium grades higher on value for money. Profound grades higher on the free plan and 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.
Pendium
AI visibility scans plus auto-written content on a hosted site
Profound
AI search visibility tracking with an AI marketing agent built in
Which one is for you
Pick Pendium if
- Fits if you want AI visibility scans and the content written for you in one place
- Works for a single brand that would rather publish on a hosted site than edit its own
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you want to try it without a card, as both trials ask for one
- Tight if you are on Starter: 1 brand, 2 on-demand scans a month and no Perplexity
- Pricey if you manage several brands, as Pro is $350 a month for up to 10
- Watch out: the 90-day guarantee covers Pro only
- Watch out: Agency and Managed plans have no published price
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
| 2.0GPAPendiumFair | 2.2GPAProfoundFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | C$99 a month for Starter, just above the category's $95 dearer quarter, for 1 brand and 100 tracked prompts. | 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 | DA 7-day trial on Starter and Pro that needs a card. A free visibility scan needs none, but it is one scan. | 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 | CWeekly scans, a hosted site, auto-written posts and an MCP server. Starter covers four engines and leaves out Perplexity, which starts at Pro. | 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 store rating on record, and it asks for your domain, Search Console and prompts before it works. | 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 app with Google Search Console, Slack, Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor connections, plus an MCP server and API. No desktop or phone apps. | 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 | AI scans plus auto-written content on a hosted 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: Pendium and Profound. How we grade
Price against what you get
Pendium starts at $99 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 for the same starting price. Of the other AI search visibility tools on the chart, 20 score higher than Pendium 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
- Pendium also covers reports.
- Profound also covers AI agents and web analytics.
At a glance
| Pendium | Profound | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free trial |
| Starts at | $99 per month for 1 brand and 100 tracked prompts, billed monthly | $99 per month (Agency Growth, the self-serve plan for agencies) |
| Free plan | None | None |
| Free trial | 7-day free trial on Starter and Pro, card required, nothing charged if cancelled before day 8; a free visibility scan needs no card | 7-day free trial: 50 preset prompts run daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, with limited AI Marketer credits |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Pendium | Profound |
| Price read from | pendium.ai | tryprofound.com |
| Checked | Nov 13, 2026 | Oct 23, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Pendium
- Starter scans four AI engines; Perplexity is listed only from Pro.
- The 90-day guarantee applies to Pro only and gives 3 free months if AI does not name the brand more often.
- Both trials need a card up front.
- Agency and Managed plans have no published price.
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
Pendium
- Weekly AI scans
- Asks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Google AI Overviews (and Perplexity on Pro) customer-style questions, each asked by several personas, and tracks which brands are named.
- Hosted site for AI agents
- Builds and hosts a branded site on your domain so AI agents have a source to cite, with calculators and finders and agent analytics showing what agents read.
- Autopilot content engine
- Writes and publishes posts from the gaps found in scans, in your brand voice, up to a monthly post limit.
- Citations and outreach
- Shows competitors, cited sources and sentiment, plus outreach recommendations for pages AI already trusts, with the pitch drafted.
- MCP server and API
- Pendium can be driven from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor over MCP, and scans and scores are available through a REST API.
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
Pendium
Starter$99
per month for 1 brand and 100 tracked prompts, billed monthly
Weekly scans plus 2 on demand a month on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, 15 posts a month, and a hosted site on your own domain.
Pro$350
per month for up to 10 brands, billed monthly
160 prompts per brand, 10 on-demand scans a month with Perplexity, 100 posts and pages shared across brands, an account manager in Slack, unbranded sites.
AgencyCustom
For agencies managing 10+ brands: up to 50 brands, 200 prompts per brand and 500 posts and pages a month. Sold through sales.
ManagedCustom
An embedded team does outreach, content and product work, with unlimited brands, prompts and scans. Quoted after a call.
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
Pendium
- Annual discount
2 months free on yearly billing
The pricing page says paying yearly on Starter and Pro gets 2 months free.
Profound
No public discounts listed.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Pendium or Profound?
As of Nov 13, 2026, they start at the same price. Pendium starts at $99 per month for 1 brand and 100 tracked prompts, billed monthly, and Profound starts at $99 per month (Agency Growth, the self-serve plan for agencies).
Which has a free plan, Pendium or Profound?
As of Nov 13, 2026, neither Pendium nor Profound 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.