Profound vs Semrush
Profound is a enterprise AEO platform; Semrush is a all-in-one marketing suite. 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 Semrush if…
You want one vendor for SEO, PPC, content, social and market research, and the budget matches.
At a glance
| Profound | Semrush | SERP Checker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Sales-led, no public pricing or free trial | $139/mo billed monthly ($117.33/mo billed annually); free plan with one demo project | From $19/mo — 7-day trial + free one-off audit at /audit |
| Classic Google rank tracking | No (AEO only) | Yes — 500 keywords daily on SEO/Starter, 1,500 on Pro+, 5,000 on Advanced | Yes — every plan |
| AI-visibility (AEO) in the same workspace | Yes (broadest, 8–10+ engines) | Yes — AI visibility included on every paid plan | Yes — same workspace, every paid plan from $19/mo |
| AI engines tracked | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, AI Overviews | Google Search, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini “and more”; 50 prompts/day on SEO and Starter, 100 on Pro+, 200 on Advanced | 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 — 5 sites on SEO/Starter, 15 on Pro+, 40 on Advanced | 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 remote server, OAuth or API key, listed in ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity | Yes — queried with a REST API key, so Business tier |
Where the two actually differ
6 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 | Semrush | |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Google rank tracking | No (AEO only) | Yes — 500 keywords daily on SEO/Starter, 1,500 on Pro+, 5,000 on Advanced |
| 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 on the pricing page |
| GA4 + Search Console analytics | Enterprise | Yes (GA4 and Search Console integrations) |
| REST API | Enterprise API with TypeScript and Python SDKs | Yes (Standard and Trends APIs) |
| Multi-client agency workspace | Enterprise / large brands | Yes — 5 sites on SEO/Starter, 15 on Pro+, 40 on Advanced |
Full comparison
| Feature | Profound | Semrush | SERP Checker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classic Google rank tracking | No (AEO only) | Yes — 500 keywords daily on SEO/Starter, 1,500 on Pro+, 5,000 on Advanced | Yes — every plan |
| AI-visibility (AEO) in the same workspace | Yes (broadest, 8–10+ engines) | Yes — AI visibility included on every paid plan | Yes — same workspace, every paid plan from $19/mo |
| AI engines tracked | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, AI Overviews | Google Search, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini “and more”; 50 prompts/day on SEO and Starter, 100 on Pro+, 200 on Advanced | 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 on the pricing page | 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 (GA4 and Search Console integrations) | 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 | Higher tiers / add-on | Yes (Business tier) |
| Interface languages | Enterprise (unpublished) | Multi-language interface (no Ukrainian UI) | EN / RU / UK / PL / SK / CS / DE (tracks any region) |
| REST API | Enterprise API with TypeScript and Python SDKs | Yes (Standard and Trends APIs) | Yes (Business tier) |
| MCP server (AI-agent native) | Yes (official — visibility, citations and bot logs) | Yes — official remote server, OAuth or API key, listed in ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity | Yes — queried with a REST API key, so Business tier |
| Multi-client agency workspace | Enterprise / large brands | Yes — 5 sites on SEO/Starter, 15 on Pro+, 40 on Advanced | 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 | $139/mo billed monthly ($117.33/mo billed annually); free plan with one demo project | 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.
Semrush
Semrush publishes five tiers: Free, SEO at $139/mo ($117.33 annually), Starter at $199 ($165.17), Pro+ at $299 ($248.17) and Advanced at $549 ($455.67), with a seven-day trial and additional users from $45/mo. AI visibility is included on every paid plan at 50–200 prompts a day. SERP Checker starts at $39/mo. See /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 Semrush does. Both of their recorded values are printed so you can check the claim.
| Profound | Semrush | SERP Checker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| White-label client reports | Enterprise | Higher tiers / add-on | Yes (Business tier) |
FAQ
Is Profound or Semrush 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. Semrush publishes $139/mo billed monthly ($117.33/mo billed annually); free plan with one demo project. SERP Checker publishes its pricing from $39/mo.
Do Profound and Semrush both track AI answers?
Profound: Yes (broadest, 8–10+ engines) Engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, Meta AI, DeepSeek, AI Overviews. Semrush: Yes — AI visibility included on every paid plan Engines: Google Search, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini “and more”; 50 prompts/day on SEO and Starter, 100 on Pro+, 200 on Advanced. 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.
Is there a cheaper alternative to Semrush?
Yes. Semrush starts at $139/mo billed monthly. SERP Checker starts at $39/mo and covers the two jobs most teams actually buy a suite for: daily Google rank tracking and AI-answer visibility.
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Profound review · Semrush review
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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.