Profound is a purpose-built Answer Engine Optimization platform: it tracks how brands appear across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and other AI engines, and by its own admission does not do keyword research, rank tracking or backlink analysis. Spyro AI tracks the same kind of AI visibility for startups and lean marketing teams, then adds SEO research, a combined SEO and GEO audit, and the content and publishing to act on what it finds. Here is where they differ.
Eight capabilities that decide most evaluations. The detail sits in the full comparison further down.
| Capability |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| AI visibility tracking (citations, mentions) | AvailableIn the plan, all 5 engines | AvailableStarter: ChatGPT only; Growth: 3 engines; Enterprise: up to 9 |
| Sentiment on AI answers | AvailableCited answers, all 5 engines | AvailablePositive, negative, trending |
| Keyword research and rank tracking | Available | Not offeredBy Profound's own scope: AEO, not SEO |
| Technical SEO site audit | Available150–1,500 pages by plan, weekly and manual | LimitedPer-page diagnostics via Agent Analytics/Pages, not a site crawl |
| GEO / AI-crawlability audit | Available16 checks | LimitedCrawler, rendering and structured-data diagnostics; per-page AEO score |
| Full article generation | AvailableIn the plan | AvailableVia Agents, credit-metered |
| Publishing to a CMS | AvailableWordPress, Shopify, Notion | AvailableWordPress, Contentful, Sanity, Notion, via Agents |
| API access | AvailablePer-website keys, both plans | LimitedEnterprise plan only, not a separate add-on |
Four questions, answered before you read another row.
Both track what AI engines say about a brand. They part company on whether the same subscription also does the SEO research and ships the fix.
5 stepsPrompts re-check weekly or daily, ranks and audits run weekly, and one keyword from every published article is tracked automatically, so this week's measurement decides next week's content.
4 stepsProfound's own comparison copy positions it as the AEO half of a two-tool stack, with Semrush (or an equivalent) doing keyword research, rank tracking and backlink analysis. Content generation and CMS publishing exist inside Agents, gated by a monthly credit allowance (100 to 400 credits on the two self-serve plans) rather than included flat.
26 capabilities, grouped so you can open only the ones you care about. Where support comes with a caveat, the caveat is stated rather than rounded up to a tick.
| Capability | | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom prompt tracking | Available50 per site on Pro, 250 on Agency, metered | Available50 to 100 unique prompts, self-serve plans |
| Engines checkedStarter tracks ChatGPT only. Growth adds Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Gemini, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek and Claude are Enterprise-only. | Available5, including Claude, both plans | Limited1 (Starter) to 3 (Growth); up to 9 on Enterprise |
| Check frequency | AvailableWeekly or daily, set per prompt | AvailableDaily by default |
| Prompt citations and sources | AvailableExact URLs and titles, and your place in the list | AvailableCitation sources captured daily per prompt |
| Sentiment on AI answers | AvailableOn cited answers, all 5 engines | AvailablePositive, negative, trending; prompt-level |
| Share of voice and competitive benchmarking | AvailableRanked, with a You row | AvailableVisibility Score, Visibility Rank, Share of Voice |
| Capability | | |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword research | Available21 credits a search | Not offeredOutside Profound's stated scope |
| Rank tracking | Available500 keywords per website, weekly | Not offeredOutside Profound's stated scope |
| Technical site auditAgent Analytics and Pages surface rendering issues, structured-data gaps and Page Speed Insights metrics (FCP, LCP, TTI, CLS) per page, via a Content Optimizer tab. There is no whole-site crawl report of technical issues; Profound's own comparison copy places "site audits" with Semrush, not itself. | Available150–1,500 pages by plan, no credit cost | LimitedPer-page, not a site crawl |
| Backlink profile | Not offeredSpyro does not fetch backlink data | Not offeredOutside Profound's stated scope |
| Search Console data | AvailableFree | LimitedVia Agents nodes; Enterprise ongoing, self-serve during trial credits only |
| Capability | | |
|---|---|---|
| AI readiness scoreProfound's Content Optimization agent runs a Benchmark, Score, Diagnose, Prioritize, Fix workflow per page ("Score: measure your page across AEO performance criteria"). It is a per-page score consumed through an Agent run, not a single site-wide readiness score. | AvailableBeside the SEO score | LimitedPer-page AEO score, via the Content Optimization agent |
| Itemized GEO checksProfound's Content Optimizer grades each page on readability, content freshness, content structure, information density, machine readability and answerability signals, six named dimensions versus Spyro's 16. | Available16 named checks | Limited6 named dimensions, via the Content Optimizer tab |
| AI crawler access diagnostics | AvailableAudit plus free checker | LimitedCrawler traffic monitoring via Agent Analytics; robots.txt handling not documented |
| Structured data checks | AvailableAudit plus free validator | Limited"Structured data gaps" flagged via Agent Analytics; no schema validator |
| Rendering / JS-readability check | AvailableScored as a GEO signal | AvailableRendering issue detection, via Agent Analytics |
| Capability | | |
|---|---|---|
| Full article generation | AvailableIn the plan, 261 credits an article | AvailableVia Agents, credit-metered |
| Content plan and calendar | AvailableRolling 30-article plan, free | Not offeredTemplate-driven workflows, not a calendar |
| Publishing to WordPress | AvailableSelf-hosted and .com | AvailableVia Agents connector |
| Publishing to Shopify | Available | Not offeredNot in Profound's published connector list |
| Publishing to Notion | Available | AvailableVia Agents connector |
| Capability | | |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled digest email | AvailableRanks plus citations, weekly, built in | Not offeredNot documented as a scheduled email digest |
| Data exports | AvailableBoth plans | LimitedCSV and JSON from Growth up; none on Starter |
| Seats | AvailableUnlimited, both plans | Limited1 (Starter) to 3 (Growth); custom on Enterprise |
| Public API | AvailablePer-website keys, both plans | LimitedEnterprise plan only, not a separate add-on |
| Free tools without an account | Available5 tools | AvailableAEO Report, free brand snapshot |
Four capability differences, stated as fit rather than as a verdict on Profound.
The audit produces an SEO health score and a 16-point GEO readiness score from the same crawl, so technical debt and AI readiness arrive as one list of fixes. Profound's own comparison copy places keyword research, rank tracking, backlink analysis and site audits outside its scope entirely.
Spyro tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews on both plans, from one credit pool. Profound's Starter plan is the same $99/mo entry price and tracks ChatGPT alone; the wider engine set only completes on Enterprise, priced custom for larger budgets.
Spyro plans a rolling 30-article calendar, writes with internal links and images included, and schedules publishing automatically. Profound's Agents run against named templates (Content Refresh, AEO FAQ Generation, and so on) rather than a standing editorial calendar, and each run draws from a monthly credit allowance.
A gap in the audit becomes a planned article, the article is written, published to WordPress, Shopify or Notion, and its target keyword is tracked from then on, all inside one flat-priced plan with no separate API tier.
As listed by each vendor in August 2026. Prices change, so check the live pages before you commit.
Profound's plans meter by prompts, responses, engines and Agents credits, four separate dials; Spyro meters everything from one credit pool. The two $99 entry prices do not buy comparable coverage: Spyro's includes SEO research and a 10-website limit, Profound's Starter is one AI engine on one website's worth of prompts.
Neither product is the right answer for everyone, and the split falls along fairly clean lines.
Plenty of teams run an SEO tool alongside a dedicated AEO platform, and Profound's own comparison content endorses exactly that split. If AI visibility, SEO and content execution are one budget line for you, that is the case Spyro is built for; if AEO is its own line item with its own owner, Profound is built for that.
The questions that come up most often when teams weigh these two, including the ones where the answer is not in our favour.
For teams that want AI visibility bundled with SEO, GEO auditing and content execution, yes. For a team running a dedicated AEO function that wants deeper, enterprise-tier AI-answer diagnostics and broader engine coverage as separate line items, Profound covers ground Spyro does not. In short, Spyro replaces the need to run a separate SEO tool and a separate AI-visibility platform for teams whose needs fit inside its scope; it is not a drop-in replacement for a dedicated, enterprise-tier AEO function.
Profound's Starter plan is $99/mo for 1 engine, 50 prompts and 1 seat, and moving to a second or third seat means Growth at $399/mo. Spyro's $99/mo Pro plan includes unlimited seats and all 5 AI engines from day one. For a small agency running several client sites, or any team of more than one person, Spyro's flat per-plan seat count avoids the jump to Profound's higher tier. Profound's dedicated AEO focus and Enterprise-tier engine coverage remain the stronger fit for a team that already runs SEO tooling separately and wants AI-answer tracking as its own specialized function.
At the same $99/mo entry price, Spyro includes SEO research, a technical and GEO audit, all 5 AI engines and unlimited seats. Profound's $99/mo Starter plan includes 1 AI engine, 50 prompts and 1 seat, with SEO research outside Profound's stated scope entirely. For a founder who needs both AI visibility and SEO covered on one subscription, Spyro's entry plan buys more of that ground at the same price. For a team that already runs a separate SEO suite and only wants a dedicated AEO layer added on top, Profound remains purpose-built for that.
No, and Profound says so itself: its own comparison content describes the natural split as "Semrush for traditional SEO (keyword research, backlink analysis, site audits, rank tracking) and Profound for AEO." Spyro does both from one plan.
Spyro tracks five on every plan: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Profound's Starter plan tracks ChatGPT alone; Growth adds Perplexity and Google AI Overviews for three total; the wider set (Gemini, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Claude, up to 9 engines) is Enterprise only, priced custom.
Three tiers, both self-serve plans billed yearly: Starter at $99/mo (1 engine, 50 prompts, 1 seat, 100 Agents credits/mo), Growth at $399/mo (3 engines, 100 prompts, 3 seats, 400 Agents credits/mo, CSV/JSON exports), and Enterprise at custom pricing (up to 9 engines, API access, dedicated support).
Yes, through Agents: full article generation from a topic prompt, plus publishing connectors for WordPress, Contentful, Sanity and Notion, run against named templates and metered by a monthly credit allowance. Spyro's article generation and publishing (WordPress, Shopify, Notion, signed webhooks) sit inside the same credit pool as everything else, with no separate credit type.
Only on the Enterprise plan, per Profound's own pricing page. Starter and Growth both list API access as unavailable. Spyro includes per-website API keys on both the Pro and Agency plans.
They were checked in August 2026 against the Profound website, its help center and developer documentation, and against the Spyro codebase for our own numbers. Both products change often, so check the live pricing pages before you commit.
Spyro writes GEO optimized articles, links them, and auto publishes to your CMS so AI engines and Google put your brand in front of buyers first.
