PProfound

Profound went from a $3.5 million seed round in August 2024 to a $1.8 billion valuation in September 2026, and says more than one third of the Fortune 100 now use it. The product tracks how ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and other answer engines talk about a brand, and since 2026 it sends agents to research, write and publish content that changes those answers.

Profound suits enterprise marketing teams and agencies that treat AI search as a channel worth measuring in detail. Access is the main thing to plan around: after a reported September 2026 change, brands get a free 7-day trial and then a custom enterprise quote, while agencies can still self-serve at a reported $399 per client workspace a month. We rate Profound 8.5/10 on our scale. We have not used Profound ourselves; this review is based on Profound’s pricing and feature pages, its funding announcements, coverage of its pricing change and G2 reviews.

Funding Rounds Carry Most of the Numbers

Few AI marketing startups have grown as fast as Profound, and its funding announcements carry most of the hard numbers.

For a buyer, the funding pace has two effects. Profound has the capital to keep building, an applied AI lab in New York and San Francisco according to its Series D announcement, and enough enterprise customers to have shaped the product around large teams. The same momentum explains the move away from self-serve brand plans: the company is concentrating on accounts that buy custom packages.

The 500 daily agent users cited in February 2026 matter more than the valuation. They show that customers use Profound to act, not only to watch dashboards, which is the difference between an analytics tool and an agent.

Measuring AI Answers and Acting on Them in a Loop

Profound combines measurement of AI answers with agents that act on what the measurement shows. The pieces fit together in a loop.

Measuring AI Visibility

• Answer Engine Insights: tracks visibility score, share of voice, citations and sentiment, benchmarks competitors by region, topic and platform, and shows which websites influence AI answers about your brand.
• Prompt Volumes: a dataset of real prompts submitted to AI platforms, used to find high-volume questions where competitors are cited and you are not, with week-over-week trends.
• Agent Analytics: reads server logs to show which AI crawlers visit which pages and how often, attributes human AI referral traffic to conversions and flags rendering, structured data and response-time issues. It works with Cloudflare, AWS, Vercel and similar providers and needs no JavaScript.
• Shopping: shows how products appear when ChatGPT Shopping is triggered, by keyword and by retailer.

Acting Through Agents

AI Marketer, announced with the Series D, is an orchestrator. It scans brand data, analyzes AI answers, surfaces opportunities and deploys sub-agents to do the work, such as researching a topic, writing AEO-optimized content and publishing it. Teams can start from pre-built templates or design their own in a drag-and-drop builder, and custom agents connect to the existing tech stack. Profound says agents also help with market research, campaign planning and recurring reporting, drawing on positioning, product knowledge and brand guidelines.

Context Manager distills knowledge base files, meeting transcripts and communications so AI Marketer adapts as positioning changes. Ads Studio builds and manages AI search ad campaigns across OpenAI, Google and Meta ad managers, tracked through Profound’s own pixel.

Controls and Credits

Every agent run consumes credits. Profound shows an estimated cost before a run and the actual credits used afterward, and an admin panel tracks total usage with alerts as you near the limit. Accounts choose whether to keep running with overage billing or pause when the allotment runs out.

An Instant Trial and Connected Logs

• Start the trial: Profound says setup is instant, and trial accounts get a recommended prompt set based on their industry.
• Connect logs: point Agent Analytics at your CDN or host, such as Cloudflare, AWS, Fastly or Vercel, to see AI crawler activity without adding scripts.
• Load context: add positioning, product knowledge and brand guidelines so agents write in your voice.
• Choose agents: pick templates or build custom agents, check the estimated credit cost and run them with review checkpoints.

Checkpoints on Content Before It Speaks for the Brand

Content campaigns include human-in-the-loop checkpoints for quality. People choose which opportunities to pursue, approve content before it represents the brand, set credit policies and decide how to treat sentiment problems that content alone cannot fix. Trial users get a recommended prompt set they cannot edit; Enterprise users can add, edit and disable prompts.

A Free Trial, Custom Enterprise and an Agency Plan

Profound’s pricing page lists a free trial and a custom Enterprise package for brands, plus a self-serve Agency Growth plan. Agency pricing and the earlier brand plans below are as reported by eClincher, a competitor, in an analysis of the September 2026 change.

A Boutique Agency With Five Client Workspaces

These scenarios use the reported agency price. Client counts are our own illustrative assumptions.

• A boutique agency with five clients: five workspaces at $399 come to $1,995 a month, or $23,940 a year.
• A larger agency with 12 clients: 12 workspaces cost $4,788 a month, or $57,456 a year, before any extra credits.
• A mid-size brand that was on Growth: the former Growth plan cost $399 a month billed annually, or $4,788 a year. After the change, that brand needs an Enterprise quote, and the old figure is only a floor for comparison.

Variable costs come mainly from agent credits: complex, multi-step agents cost more than simple ones, and overage applies if you choose to keep running past the allotment. Ask the account team to estimate credits for the agents you plan to run every week.

Profound Compared With AirOps, Writesonic and Frase

All four help brands show up in AI answers. Profound leads on measurement depth and enterprise controls; the others lead on price or content production.

If the main need is knowing exactly how AI engines describe you across many markets, Profound is the strongest of the four. If the main need is producing content, AirOps, Writesonic and Frase cost less to start. See our AI agents for SEO, marketing and agencies pages for more options.

Large Brands Watching AI Search Share of Voice

• Large brands with board-level interest in AI search: share of voice, sentiment and citation data across up to nine engines give a defensible baseline.
• Retailers and consumer brands: ChatGPT Shopping tracking shows how products appear by keyword and retailer.
• Security-conscious enterprises: SOC 2 Type II, SAML and OIDC SSO, SCIM and role-based access suit procurement reviews.
• Agencies selling AI search services: per-workspace self-serve pricing and an agency marketplace support client work.
• Teams that want analytics and agents in one place: AI Marketer acts on the same data the dashboards show.

Small Businesses Looking for Self-Serve Brand Plans

• Small businesses: with self-serve brand plans reported removed, the entry point is an enterprise sales process.
• Teams that only need content: a writing agent such as Frase or Writesonic costs less if visibility data is secondary.
• Buyers who need fixed monthly costs: agents run on credits, and complex agents use more of them.
• Companies with little AI search traffic yet: detailed measurement pays off when AI answers already influence your buyers.

Plan Changes, Credits and Trial Scope at Profound

• Pricing access: eClincher reported that Profound removed its $99 and $399 self-serve brand plans in mid-September 2026. Confirm current options with Profound.
• Credit consumption: agents bill by credits per run; set accounts to pause at the limit if budgets are fixed.
• Trial limits: the trial runs for 7 days on three engines with a recommended prompt set you cannot customize, so it gives a good view of the product, and an Enterprise package shows your full picture.
• Learning curve: G2 reviewers mention that AI analytics take time to learn for newcomers.
• Content governance: agents that publish content need clear brand rules; use the human checkpoints Profound provides.

Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins Co-Lead the September Round

• On September 15, 2026, Profound raised $180 million at a $1.8 billion valuation, co-led by Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, and introduced AI Marketer, Context Manager and Ads Studio.
• In mid-September 2026, eClincher reported that Profound removed its self-serve brand plans, leaving a free trial and custom Enterprise pricing for brands.
• On February 24, 2026, Profound raised a $96 million Series C at a $1 billion valuation led by Lightspeed and said more than 700 enterprises used the platform.

Measuring AI Visibility at Scale for Enterprises and Agencies

For enterprises and agencies that need to measure and improve AI search visibility at scale, yes. Profound scores 8.5/10 on our scale. It earns high marks for security, user sentiment and the depth of its data, from Prompt Volumes to log-based crawler analytics, and AI Marketer turns that data into work. Customer adoption, with more than 1,000 enterprise brands and 500 daily agent users as of early 2026, shows it delivers for large teams.

Pricing value is where Profound has the most room to improve. Brands now go through sales, agents run on credits, and the cheapest self-serve route is reported at $399 per agency client. Use the 7-day trial to see whether its view of your category is accurate, then ask for a credit estimate covering the agents you would run every week before signing.

What Happened to the Starter and Growth Plans

How Much Does Profound Cost in 2026?

Brands can start with a free 7-day trial and then buy a custom Enterprise package. Agencies can self-serve on Agency Growth, reported at $399 a month per client workspace with 400 credits each. Agent usage is billed in credits.

What Happened to Profound’s Starter and Growth Plans?

eClincher reported that Profound removed its self-serve Starter ($99 a month) and Growth ($399 a month) brand plans in mid-September 2026, around the time of its Series D. Brands now choose between the trial and Enterprise.

Which AI Engines Does Profound Track?

The trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Enterprise packages track up to nine answer engines and add ChatGPT Shopping.

What Does Profound AI Marketer Do?

AI Marketer is an agent orchestrator that scans brand data, analyzes AI answers, surfaces opportunities and deploys sub-agents to research, write and publish. Context Manager keeps it current with positioning changes, and content campaigns include human review checkpoints.

Is Profound Better Than AirOps?

They lean different ways. Profound is stronger on measurement, crawler analytics and enterprise security controls, while AirOps is stronger on building custom content workflows and offers a free Solo plan. Large brands often care most about the data; content teams often care most about production.