CiteTrace vs Profound
Facts read from Profound's own pages on 10 Nov 2026. Disclosure: we are the CiteTrace in this comparison.
Short version. Profound is software: an enterprise AI-marketing platform that tracks brand visibility in AI answer engines and runs content agents. CiteTrace is a done-for-you service: we track 50 buyer questions daily, fix the pages the AI cites, and report every Friday. They solve different halves of the problem.
Side by side
| Profound | CiteTrace | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Software | Service with its own tracker |
| Engines | Homepage lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and others. The free trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews. | ChatGPT with web search, Perplexity, Gemini with web search, plus a no-web ChatGPT baseline. We do not track Claude, Copilot or Google AI Overviews. |
| Pricing | Trial: free, 50 prompts, daily for 7 days. Enterprise: custom. Agency Growth: self-serve, 400 credits a month per client workspace; no price shown on the page. | Agreed on a call, in writing, with a measurable target. Free 10-question audit first. |
| Who does the fixing | Software. The trial is self-serve; Enterprise is sales-led and includes a dedicated specialist. | We do: comparison pages, outreach to cited publishers, review campaigns, disclosed community answers. You approve. |
| Features | Agent analytics; Citation analytics and sentiment; Prompt volumes; AI content agents with your approval; API and exports on Enterprise | Daily tracking, cited-source analysis, fix plan, Friday report, live dashboard |
Where Profound is strong
- Widest engine coverage of the tools we looked at
- Enterprise controls such as SOC 2 and SSO
Where it may not fit
- The only self-serve brand tier shown is a 7-day trial, so paid use means a sales conversation
- Agents draft content under your approval, so your team still runs the work (our inference)
Note: Older articles quote public $99 and $399 plans. They no longer appear on Profound's pricing page as of our read, so we do not list them.
Where CiteTrace is weaker
- Fewer engines than the biggest platforms, as above.
- We are new. There are no published before-and-after case studies yet, and we will not invent any.
- No self-serve plan: the paid service starts with a call.
Who should pick which
Pick Profound if you have a person who will read the dashboards and ship the fixes, or you need a metric inside a tool you already pay for. Pick CiteTrace if you want that person to be us. Start with the free audit either way: it shows which pages the AI cites for your questions, and you can take that to any tool or agency. More background: what we measure, and all tools compared.
Sources
- Profound homepage (read 10 Nov 2026)
- Profound pricing (read 10 Nov 2026)
Frequently asked questions
What does Profound cost?
Trial: free, 50 prompts, daily for 7 days. Enterprise: custom. Agency Growth: self-serve, 400 credits a month per client workspace; no price shown on the page. Read from Profound's own pricing page on 10 Nov 2026; prices change.
Does Profound do the work of getting me cited?
Software. The trial is self-serve; Enterprise is sales-led and includes a dedicated specialist. The fixes (pages, outreach, reviews) are carried out by your team unless you hire someone. CiteTrace's paid service does that work and reports weekly.
Which AI engines does Profound cover?
Homepage lists ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and others. The free trial covers ChatGPT, Gemini and AI Overviews.
Should I use Profound or CiteTrace?
If someone on your team will do the work, software like Profound is the cheaper way to measure. If you want the work done and a weekly report, that is the service we sell. They are not exclusive: you can use a tool for measurement and an agency for execution.
See who the AI recommends instead of you
A free 10-question audit: 4 engines, the pages they cite, three fixes to start with.