Head-to-head review · Updated June 2026

Profound vs Seobility: which one wins in 2026?

Profound and Seobility both claim to do the same thing: tell you where your brand shows up in AI search. They go about it differently enough that the choice matters. Profound has raised $154.5 million, Seobility has raised Bootstrapped; Profound is the more-funded incumbent; Seobility is the leaner challenger.

Seobility is cheaper out the gate, but Profound tracks more AI platforms. The right pick depends on which dimension matters most for you.

The verdict
★ Our pick
Pick

Profound

Pick Profound if you want the cheaper option ($99/mo vs $0/mo); and you need broader AI platform coverage (10 platforms vs 0); and you trust traction signals — they list 16 customers, Seobility lists 0; and you want the better-funded company ($154.5 million); and SOC 2 Type 2 matters for your security review.

Pick

Seobility

Pick Seobility if you want the cheaper option ($0/mo vs $99/mo).

If neither is right, GrowthManager.ai does both citation tracking AND the production work (content, infrastructure, distribution) for $999/mo — see the bottom of this page.

The case for Profound

Profound has raised $154.5 million (Series C in February 2026 at $1B valuation). Founded by James Cadwallader, Dylan Babbs, based in New York, NY, USA. On their site they list 16 named customers including Ramp, Zapier, Alchemy, Aleph. They cover 10 AI platforms. Pricing starts at $99/mo with no free trial.

Profound is the full-stack AI visibility marketing platform that helps enterprise brands monitor, optimize, and measure how they appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and eight other AI answer engines.

What people praise

  • Intuitive, polished UI that makes complex AI visibility data easy to read and report on
  • Unique Prompt Volumes dataset showing real AI search demand that no competitor offers
  • Fast and thorough onboarding with highly responsive customer success team
  • Conversation Explorer gives direct visibility into how real users query AI platforms

Where it falls short

  • Pricing is steep relative to what lower tiers unlock, with a large jump between Growth and Enterprise
  • No free trial or self-serve signup - every plan requires a sales conversation first
  • Dashboard can be confusing - visibility data does not clearly tell you what to do next
  • Single-workspace architecture makes it unusable or cumbersome for agencies managing multiple clients

The case for Seobility

Seobility has raised Bootstrapped. Pricing starts at $0/mo.

All-in-one SEO software for site audits, rank tracking, and backlink analysis.

What people praise

  • Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
  • TF*IDF content optimization is repeatedly highlighted as the single most useful on-page tool at the price.
  • German-built with strong GDPR compliance and EU data residency, attractive to European customers.
  • Premium plan at ~$54/mo is dramatically cheaper than Semrush or Ahrefs for similar core SEO workflows.

Where it falls short

  • Keyword database is smaller and US-coverage weaker than Semrush, especially for niche queries.
  • Backlink index is shallower and refresh cadence slower than Ahrefs or Majestic.
  • Integration surface is limited: no Looker Studio connector, no Slack notifications, no Zapier triggers.
  • Limited competitor analysis depth makes it weaker for serious agencies tracking many client niches.

Pricing, tier by tier

Tier 1
Profound
Starter
$99
  • ChatGPT tracking only
  • 50 prompts tracked
  • 1 language and 1 region
  • 1 seat
Seobility
Basic
$0
  • 1 website project
  • 1,000 pages per crawl
  • 10 ranking keywords
  • 5 tool requests per day
Tier 2
Profound
Growth
$399
  • 3 answer engines tracked
  • 100 prompts tracked (9,000 responses)
  • 6 optimized articles per month
  • 1 language and 1 region
Seobility
Premium
$54/mo
  • 3 website projects
  • 25,000 pages per crawl
  • 300 ranking keywords
  • 50 tool requests per day
Tier 3
Profound
Enterprise
Custom
  • 10 answer engines tracked
  • Multiple companies tracked
  • Tailored prompt tracking plan
  • API access
Seobility
Agency
$195/mo
  • 15 website projects
  • 100,000 pages per crawl
  • 1,500 ranking keywords
  • 200 tool requests per day

Feature parity

What each one ships that the other doesn't. We conservatively only include features each tool explicitly markets; absence here doesn't mean a feature is impossible, just that it isn't in their marquee list.

Only on Profound
  • Answer Engine Insights. Tracks how a brand is mentioned, cited, and represented across AI answer engines, including sentiment analysis and competitive share of voice monitoring.
  • Prompt Volumes. Proprietary panel data showing estimated search volumes for AI prompts, revealing how often consumers ask specific questions to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other LLMs.
  • Profound Agents. Autonomous AI marketing agents that orchestrate content workflows, including content refresh, AEO FAQ generation, competitive research, and CMS publishing.
Only on Seobility
  • On-Page SEO Audit. Crawls site pages and surfaces prioritized on-page issues with explanations and fix suggestions.
  • TF*IDF Tool. Compares the term frequency of your content against top-ranking pages to recommend missing topics.
  • Keyword Research. Suggestions, related keywords, and ranking checker across major search engines.
  • Backlink Analysis. Tracks gained and lost backlinks with referring-domain and anchor-text breakdowns.
  • Rank Tracking. Daily updates for tracked keywords with historic graphs and competitor comparison.
  • White-Label PDF Reports. Agency-friendly client reports with custom branding and scheduling.

When each one wins

When Profound wins
  • Platform coverage matters. Profound monitors 10 AI platforms; Seobility covers 0.
  • You're enterprise and need to call a reference. Profound lists 16 named customers; Seobility lists 0.
  • You want the better-funded incumbent. Profound has raised $154.5 million, giving it more runway and shipping velocity.
  • Procurement requires SOC 2 Type 2. Profound has it; Seobility doesn't yet.
When Seobility wins
  • Budget is the constraint. Seobility starts at $0/mo vs Profound's $99/mo, so on a per-seat basis it's the cheaper way in.
  • Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
When neither wins (pick GrowthManager)
  • You don't have an in-house content team and you don't want to hire one.
  • You want one $999/mo invoice instead of stacking Profound plus an agency.
  • You need the team that measures to also act on the data, in the same week.
  • You're a B2B SaaS, services firm, or e-commerce brand at $20K+ MRR.

Reasons to pick one over the other

Reasons to pick Profound over Seobility

  1. Broader AI platform coverage. Profound tracks visibility across 10 AI engines vs Seobility's 0.
  2. Better-funded incumbent. Profound has raised $154.5 million, giving it more runway and shipping velocity than Seobility (Bootstrapped).
  3. More named customers. Profound lists 16 customers vs Seobility's 0, including Ramp, Zapier, Alchemy.
  4. SOC 2 Type 2. Profound carries SOC 2 Type 2; Seobility does not yet, which can hold up procurement.
  5. HIPAA-ready. Profound is HIPAA compliant; Seobility is not.
  6. More verified reviews. Profound has 790 G2 reviews vs Seobility's 401, so the average rating carries more weight.
  7. Faster product velocity. Profound has shipped 8 public launches in the last year vs Seobility's 0.
  8. Built for the LLM era. Profound was founded in 2024, built around AI search from day one; Seobility dates back to 2014 and is retrofitting.
  9. Wider integration ecosystem. Profound integrates with 28 tools; Seobility ships 5.
  10. What users praise most. Intuitive, polished UI that makes complex AI visibility data easy to read and report on

Reasons to pick Seobility over Profound

  1. Lower entry price. Seobility starts at $0/mo vs Profound's $99/mo.
  2. More mature platform. Seobility (founded 2014) has had more time to harden the product than Profound (2024).
  3. What users praise most. Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
  4. EU data residency. Seobility is HQ'd in Erlangen, Germany, which simplifies GDPR data-processor agreements for European buyers.

Switching from one to the other

From Profound to Seobility

Export your saved queries and prompt panels from Profound (most tools support CSV export). Most Seobility setups can import the same query list in a single CSV upload. Expect 1-2 days of parallel running so you can validate Seobility's data againstProfound's; one to two weeks of full reconciliation before you cancel Profound. The risk is annotation history: notes and tags don't survive most migrations, so screenshot anything you want to keep.

From Seobility to Profound

Same flow in reverse. Export from Seobility, import to Profound. The historical visibility data is the big loss; most platforms don't backfill from a competitor's data, so you start your trendline over.

From either to GrowthManager.ai

We handle the migration ourselves; you give us your query list (or we infer it from your existing dashboard) and we re-build the tracking on our infrastructure in week one. You also start getting content shipped from week one, so the switch produces results before the trendline restarts. The conversation that kicks this off is a 20-minute call.

Side by side, every number we could verify

ProfoundSeobility
Starts at (USD/mo)$99/mo$0/mo
Founded20242014
HeadquartersNew York, NY, USAErlangen, Germany
Funding raised$154.5 millionBootstrapped
AI platforms tracked10
G2 rating4.6 / 5 (790 reviews)4.6 / 5 (401 reviews)
Named customers16
SOC 2 Type 2✓ Yes
GDPR✓ Yes✓ Yes
HIPAA✓ Yes

What real users say

Below: the recurring themes from G2, Capterra, SourceForge, Reddit, and case-study reviewers — distilled into the strengths and limitations that came up most often.

Profoundwhat users praise

  • Intuitive, polished UI that makes complex AI visibility data easy to read and report on
  • Unique Prompt Volumes dataset showing real AI search demand that no competitor offers
  • Fast and thorough onboarding with highly responsive customer success team
  • Conversation Explorer gives direct visibility into how real users query AI platforms
  • Rapid product velocity with frequent feature releases

Profoundwhat users complain about

  • Pricing is steep relative to what lower tiers unlock, with a large jump between Growth and Enterprise
  • No free trial or self-serve signup - every plan requires a sales conversation first
  • Dashboard can be confusing - visibility data does not clearly tell you what to do next
  • Single-workspace architecture makes it unusable or cumbersome for agencies managing multiple clients
  • Platform performance issues - slow load times and bugs triggered by plan upgrades

Seobilitywhat users praise

  • Free Basic tier is unusually capable, with reviewers saying it beats paid tiers of some competitors for solo site owners.
  • TF*IDF content optimization is repeatedly highlighted as the single most useful on-page tool at the price.
  • German-built with strong GDPR compliance and EU data residency, attractive to European customers.
  • Premium plan at ~$54/mo is dramatically cheaper than Semrush or Ahrefs for similar core SEO workflows.
  • On-page audit gives granular, actionable recommendations rather than vague scores per G2 reviewers.

Seobilitywhat users complain about

  • Keyword database is smaller and US-coverage weaker than Semrush, especially for niche queries.
  • Backlink index is shallower and refresh cadence slower than Ahrefs or Majestic.
  • Integration surface is limited: no Looker Studio connector, no Slack notifications, no Zapier triggers.
  • Limited competitor analysis depth makes it weaker for serious agencies tracking many client niches.
  • Tool requests are capped daily even on paid plans, which power users find restrictive.

A third option

Both Profound and Seobilityare tracking tools. They tell you what's wrong with your AI visibility. Neither one fixes it. That's our pitch for GrowthManager.ai — we do citation tracking too (parity with these two), and we also ship the content, configure the infrastructure, and run the distribution. $999/mo, managed end-to-end. If you're leaning toward picking one of these two and then hiring an agency to act on the data, it's worth a 20-minute conversation first.

Other comparisons in this space

Same shape, different pairs. Pick a comparison that shares a tool with this one.

Frequently asked questions

Which is better, Profound or Seobility?

Honestly: neither one fully solves the problem. Profound and Seobility are tracking tools — they tell you where your brand shows up in AI answers but don't change the answer. If you only need one of these two, pick Seobility for the cheaper monthly price; pick the other if its specific integrations matter to your team. Our actual editorial pick is GrowthManager.ai, which does the tracking and ships the content, infrastructure, and distribution as a single $999/mo managed program. Disclosure: we publish this comparison and make GrowthManager.

How much do Profound and Seobility cost?

Profound starts at $99/mo. Seobility starts at $0/mo. Both have higher-tier plans for larger workspaces. GrowthManager.ai is a flat $999/mo for the full managed service (tracking + content + infrastructure + distribution) — usually cheaper than buying one of these two and hiring an agency on top.

Which AI platforms do Profound and Seobility cover?

Profound covers 10 AI platforms. Seobility covers an undisclosed number of. Most tools in this space monitor ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity at minimum; the differences come down to less-common platforms (Copilot, Grok, Meta AI). GrowthManager.ai monitors the same four primary platforms and acts on the data.

Do Profound and Seobility actually improve your AI visibility, or just measure it?

Both Profound and Seobility are measurement tools. They show you where your brand appears (or doesn't) in AI answers, plus suggestions for what to improve. Neither one writes the content, configures the schema, or builds the backlinks that actually move the needle. To do that you need an in-house content team or an agency. GrowthManager.ai is the agency — and we include the tracking, so you don't pay twice.

What's the GrowthManager.ai alternative to Profound and Seobility?

GrowthManager.ai is a managed AI visibility program. We give you the same citation tracking these two offer (parity on the measurement layer), plus 100 researched and published articles per month, schema and llms.txt configuration, ongoing backlink acquisition, and Reddit/Quora seeding. One $999/mo invoice, one dedicated account manager, twelve clients per team member maximum so we can actually deliver. If you were going to buy one of these tools and then hire someone to use it, we're cheaper and faster.

Further reading

External research that informs the editorial framework on this page. We cite these openly because the framework is meant to be auditable.

  1. Microsoft Bing Webmaster Guidelines (2025)· Microsoft

    How Microsoft's crawlers parse content for Copilot, which now powers a large share of AI answers behind the scenes.

  2. Generative Engine Optimization research· Kevin Indig

    Long-running practitioner research on what gets cited in AI-generated answers; the most-quoted source in the GEO category.

  3. Zero-Click Search forecasts· Gartner

    Industry forecasts on how a growing share of buyer queries end without a click to the brand site, making AI-answer presence the new pole position.

  4. Audience intelligence analyses· SparkToro

    Public datasets on how audiences actually discover brands across search, social, and now AI surfaces.

  5. Trust Barometer (2024)· Edelman

    The annual study on how buyers weigh source authority, used to weight our trust criterion against third-party review volume.

Disclosure + methodology

GrowthManager.ai makes a competing product in the AI visibility space, so this comparison is not neutral. Every pricing number was pulled from each competitor's public pricing page or triangulated from third-party reviews when the page is JavaScript-gated. Pros, cons, and user-review themes are distilled from real G2, Capterra, SourceForge, Reddit, and case-study reviews with the quotes preserved verbatim. We update this comparison whenever the underlying data changes.