Profound vs SE Ranking
Profound is a enterprise AEO platform; SE Ranking is a all-in-one SEO platform. Below they are compared row by row on the thirteen things buyers in this category actually ask about — with SERP Checker in the third column, because the honest answer to “which of these two” is sometimes “neither”.
Quick answer
Start with Profound if…
You're a large brand needing the deepest engine coverage (8–10+), and crawler analytics collected for you rather than fed from your own access logs.
Start with SE Ranking if…
You track thousands of keywords — SE Ranking's daily keyword capacity (2,000–5,000+) is far larger than ours.
At a glance
| Profound | SE Ranking | SERP Checker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Sales-led, no public pricing or free trial | ~$52–129/mo | From $19/mo — 7-day trial + free one-off audit at /audit |
| Classic Google rank tracking | No (AEO only) | Yes | Yes — every plan |
| AI-visibility (AEO) in the same workspace | Yes (broadest, 8–10+ engines) | Paid add-on / separate product (SE Visible) | Yes — same workspace, every paid plan from $19/mo |
| AI engines tracked | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, AI Overviews | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode + AI Overviews | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews — all 6 in the AEO module, no per-engine add-on |
| Multi-client agency workspace | Enterprise / large brands | Yes | Yes — 1 client on the $19 Monitor or $39 AI Visibility tier, 3 on Starter, 15 on Pro, 50 on Business |
| MCP server (AI-agent native) | Yes (official — visibility, citations and bot logs) | Yes (official, ~160 tools, all paid plans) | Yes — queried with a REST API key, so Business tier |
Where the two actually differ
7 of the 13 compared rows come out differently for these two tools. The rest they answer the same way, so they will not decide anything for you.
| Profound | SE Ranking | |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Google rank tracking | No (AEO only) | Yes |
| AI-visibility (AEO) in the same workspace | Yes (broadest, 8–10+ engines) | Paid add-on / separate product (SE Visible) |
| Technical SEO audit | No classic SEO audit; Agent Analytics reads AI-crawler logs instead | Yes |
| AI-crawler log analytics | Yes — mature, a core part of the product | Not documented |
| GA4 + Search Console analytics | Enterprise | Yes |
| White-label client reports | Enterprise | Yes (deep) |
| Multi-client agency workspace | Enterprise / large brands | Yes |
Full comparison
| Feature | Profound | SE Ranking | SERP Checker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic Google rank tracking | No (AEO only) | Yes | Yes — every plan |
| AI-visibility (AEO) in the same workspace | Yes (broadest, 8–10+ engines) | Paid add-on / separate product (SE Visible) | Yes — same workspace, every paid plan from $19/mo |
| AI engines tracked | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, AI Overviews | ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode + AI Overviews | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews — all 6 in the AEO module, no per-engine add-on |
| Technical SEO audit | No classic SEO audit; Agent Analytics reads AI-crawler logs instead | Yes | Yes — every plan |
| AI-crawler log analytics | Yes — mature, a core part of the product | Not documented | Yes — access-log ingest via the REST API, so Business tier; per-bot hits, crawled paths and refusals |
| Competitor gap analysis | Yes (enterprise benchmarking) | Yes | Yes — every plan |
| GA4 + Search Console analytics | Enterprise | Yes | Yes — verified first-party GA4/GSC data from the Pro tier ($158/mo); CSV/JSON export plus a Looker Studio connector (source in integrations/, one-time deploy to your own Google account) |
| White-label client reports | Enterprise | Yes (deep) | Yes (Business tier) |
| Interface languages | Enterprise (unpublished) | ~10 incl. RU (no Ukrainian UI) | EN / RU / UK / PL / SK / CS / DE (tracks any region) |
| REST API | Enterprise API with TypeScript and Python SDKs | Paid add-on | Yes (Business tier) |
| MCP server (AI-agent native) | Yes (official — visibility, citations and bot logs) | Yes (official, ~160 tools, all paid plans) | Yes — queried with a REST API key, so Business tier |
| Multi-client agency workspace | Enterprise / large brands | Yes | Yes — 1 client on the $19 Monitor or $39 AI Visibility tier, 3 on Starter, 15 on Pro, 50 on Business |
| Entry price | Sales-led, no public pricing or free trial | ~$52–129/mo | From $19/mo — 7-day trial + free one-off audit at /audit |
Pricing
Profound
Profound is sales-led with no public self-serve pricing or free trial; enterprise plans are commonly cited in the thousands per month. SERP Checker publishes its prices, starts at $39/mo and includes a 7-day trial. See /pricing.
SE Ranking
SE Ranking's base plans don't fully include AI-visibility — it's SE Visible (~$189/mo) or an add-on, and the API is a separate add-on too. SERP Checker bundles SERP + AEO from $39/mo. Compare current tiers on /pricing.
What neither of them does
Derived from the same two columns above: rows where SERP Checker ships the capability outright and neither Profound nor SE Ranking does. Both of their recorded values are printed so you can check the claim.
| Profound | SE Ranking | SERP Checker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| REST API | Enterprise API with TypeScript and Python SDKs | Paid add-on | Yes (Business tier) |
FAQ
Is Profound or SE Ranking cheaper?
Profound does not publish self-serve pricing (Sales-led, no public pricing or free trial), so the two cannot be compared on a public number. SE Ranking publishes ~$52–129/mo. SERP Checker publishes its pricing from $39/mo.
Do Profound and SE Ranking both track AI answers?
Profound: Yes (broadest, 8–10+ engines) Engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, AI Overviews. SE Ranking: Paid add-on / separate product (SE Visible) Engines: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode + AI Overviews. SERP Checker tracks ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google AI Overviews in the same workspace as Google rankings.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Profound?
Yes. Profound is enterprise-priced and sales-led. SERP Checker publishes its pricing from $39/mo with a 7-day trial, and adds classic Google rank tracking that Profound doesn't do.
Does SE Ranking include AI-visibility tracking?
Only partially. Beyond a small daily prompt allowance, SE Ranking's AI-visibility is sold as SE Visible (a separate product) or a paid add-on. SERP Checker includes AEO in the base workspace.
Related comparisons
AccuRanker vs Profound · AccuRanker vs SE Ranking · Ahrefs vs Profound · Ahrefs vs SE Ranking · AthenaHQ vs Profound · AthenaHQ vs SE Ranking
Profound review · SE Ranking review
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https://www.tryprofound.com · https://seranking.com
Competitor pricing and features are taken from their public pages as of July 2026 and may change — verify on their site before deciding. Where a vendor's docs were unclear we say so rather than guess. Every value in the tables above is a figure recorded from the vendor's own public pages, not an estimate. Product and company names are the trademarks of their respective owners.