Short answer: the best Peec AI alternative for most startups is Geoptie Professional if you need Claude tracked (it’s in the base plan at $99/mo, or $83/mo billed annually, MCP included), Otterly Lite if you just want the cheapest way in at $29/mo, and Profound only if you’re an enterprise, because as of mid-September 2026 it no longer sells self-serve brand plans. Stay on Peec if three engines and unlimited seats cover you. It’s a good product at a fair price.
Most people searching this aren’t unhappy with Peec’s data. They’re unhappy with the invoice. Peec’s Starter is $95/mo for 50 prompts on 3 models, and every plan below Enterprise caps you at three models. A fourth engine is an add-on. Claude sits in the Enterprise column only. So the honest comparison isn’t sticker price against sticker price. It’s what each tool costs for the setup you actually want.
What “honest” means here
I checked every price on this page on each vendor’s own pricing page on 26 Sep 2026, so all figures are as of September 2026 and monthly billing unless noted. I didn’t run a paid account on all six tools, so this is a pricing and packaging comparison, not a hands-on data-quality test. Where a number is my arithmetic, the formula is under the table. Where a vendor’s page contradicts itself, I say so.
The true-cost matrix (checked 26 Sep 2026)
The scenario: a devtools startup tracking 50 prompts, daily, across 4 engines (ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Claude), with MCP access so an agent can query the data, and 3 people logging in. That’s a normal first setup, and it’s where the sticker prices fall apart.
| Tool | Entry price | Engines in base plan | Extra engine | Claude? | MCP / API | Seats | Cost for the scenario |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peec AI | $95/mo Starter | 3 | $30/$70/$140 per model (annual, by tier) | Enterprise only | MCP on all paid plans | Unlimited | ~$125 without Claude; Claude needs a sales call |
| Otterly.AI | $29/mo Lite | 4 | $9 to $439 | Add-on, $109 on Standard | MCP + API from Standard | Unlimited | $298 (Standard $189 + Claude $109) |
| Geoptie | $49/mo Starter ($41 annual) | Any 4 of 7 | Not sold | Yes, in the 7 | MCP + API from Professional | Unlimited | $99 (Professional) |
| Profound | Free trial, then Enterprise | 3 on trial, up to 9 on Enterprise | Custom | Enterprise | API on Enterprise | Unlimited | Custom quote |
| Ahrefs + Brand Radar | $129/mo Lite + prompts from $50 | Per check | Per check | In the AI index | API + MCP from Lite | 1, +$40/user | est. ~$450 |
| Semrush Starter | $199/mo | Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini ”& more” | Bundled | Not listed | MCP yes, API only on Advanced | +$45/user | est. $289, no Claude |
| RunAgents | Not covered in this post | Per-engine AI citations | n/a | n/a | MCP, dashboard, alerts | n/a | Covers AI search plus SEO, competitors and email |
The arithmetic, shown. Peec: Starter $95 plus one extra model at $30/mo (the add-on price Peec displays with annual billing) gets you a fourth engine, but not Claude, which the comparison table only lists under Enterprise. Otterly: 50 prompts won’t fit Lite’s 15, so it’s Standard at $189 (ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot included), plus the Claude add-on at $109. Geoptie: 50 prompts needs Professional (100 prompts), and Claude is one of the four engines you pick. Ahrefs: Lite $129, two extra users at $40 each, and then the checks. Ahrefs counts “one prompt on one platform in one location” as a check, but Claude consumes 8 checks per update. So 50 prompts × 30 days × (3 engines + 8 for Claude) = 16,500 checks. The $100 Growth pack covers 7,000, and the other 9,500 bill at its $0.015 overage, about $142. Call it $450 a month, and note that Claude alone eats nearly three-quarters of the checks. Semrush: $199 plus two users at the “from $45” rate, assuming one user is included, which the page doesn’t state. Treat both est. rows as floors.
Cost per 1,000 AI answers
Peec itself defines the unit: one AI answer is one prompt on one model on one day, so 50 prompts × 3 models × 30 days = 4,500 answers a month. Run every plan through that and the ranking changes.
| Plan (monthly billing) | Answers/month | Price | Per 1,000 answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geoptie Professional | 100 × 4 × 30 = 12,000 | $99 | $8.25 |
| Otterly Premium | 400 × 4 × 30 = 48,000 | $489 | $10.19 |
| Ahrefs custom prompts (Growth) | 7,000 checks (a Claude answer costs 8) | $100 + Ahrefs plan | $14.29 per 1,000 checks, before the base plan |
| Peec Advanced | 350 × 3 × 30 = 31,500 | $495 | $15.71 |
| Otterly Standard | 100 × 4 × 30 = 12,000 | $189 | $15.75 |
| Otterly Lite | 15 × 4 × 30 = 1,800 | $29 | $16.11 |
| Peec Pro | 150 × 3 × 30 = 13,500 | $245 | $18.15 |
| Peec Starter | 50 × 3 × 30 = 4,500 | $95 | $21.11 |
| Geoptie Starter | 15 × 4 × 30 = 1,800 | $49 | $27.22 |
Prices and limits from Peec, Otterly, Geoptie and Ahrefs, all tracking daily. Per-answer cost isn’t everything: it doesn’t price data quality, which I didn’t test. But it does show that Peec’s entry plan is the second-priciest way to buy an AI answer in this table, behind only Geoptie Starter.
What Peec does well
Worth saying plainly, because it’s a good product.
Unlimited users at every tier. Every Peec plan lists unlimited users. Ahrefs and Semrush charge per seat.
MCP isn’t gated anymore. An earlier version of this post said Peec held MCP back for higher tiers. That’s out of date: since April 2026 Peec says MCP is “available on all paid plans today”, read-only at launch. The API is murkier. The plan cards list “API access” under Enterprise, while the comparison table ticks it from Pro. Ask before you buy if you need it.
It grew for a reason. Peec reported $10M ARR 16 months after launch, with more than 2,500 customers. It has also widened past pure answer tracking: the pricing page now lists a crawlability audit across 40+ AI bots, AI referral tracking and an ads library.
Where it runs out
The three-model cap. Starter, Pro and Advanced all say “Choose 3 models”. Everything past that is an add-on.
Claude is an Enterprise engine. On Peec’s comparison table, Claude Sonnet 4, GPT 5 Search, Grok and DeepSeek appear only in the Enterprise column, which is “Talk to Sales”. If your buyers are developers, Claude is probably not optional.
It’s still AI-search only. Peec will tell you how ChatGPT describes you. It won’t tell you a competitor rewrote their pricing page, your DMARC record broke, or a money page slid off page one of Google.
The 6 best Peec AI alternatives
1. RunAgents, if AI visibility is one of your problems, not the only one
Every other tool here assumes AI search is the job. For most startups it’s one of six things that can quietly break. RunAgents watches AI search visibility (AI citations and brand mentions per engine, AI share of voice, competitor AI visibility, sentiment, answer position) next to SEO ranking and traffic changes, AI Overview ownership, robots.txt and AI bot access, competitor pricing, messaging and changelog diffs, and email SPF, DKIM, DMARC and blacklist status. Each check is diffed against the last, and what changed goes out as a real-time alert to Slack, Discord, Telegram or email. Your agents query all of it over MCP.
Concession: if AI answers are the entire job and you want the deepest prompt-level view, Peec, Geoptie or Profound will go deeper on that one surface than we do. We’re the better buy when nobody is watching the other five. If you’re weighing us against the enterprise end, RunAgents vs Profound goes line by line.
2. Otterly.AI, the cheapest way in
Lite is $29/mo for 15 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot, tracked daily, with unlimited seats. Standard ($189, 100 prompts) adds 2,000 API and 2,000 MCP requests a month. Engines beyond the base four are add-ons priced by tier: Gemini and AI Mode are $9 on Lite, Claude is $29 on Lite and $109 on Standard.
Concession: Otterly is the right test if you don’t know yet whether AI visibility matters to you. It’s the wrong pick if Claude matters, because the Claude add-on on Standard costs more than half the plan.
3. Geoptie, if you need Claude without an Enterprise contract
Every Geoptie plan tracks any 4 of 7 engines, Claude included, daily, with unlimited team members. Professional is $99/mo (or $83 billed annually) for 100 prompts, REST API and an MCP server. That’s the cheapest self-serve Claude tracking I found, and the best per-answer price in the table above.
Concession: Starter ($49, 15 prompts, no API or MCP) is poor value per answer.
4. Profound, only if you’re an enterprise
In mid-September 2026, around its $180M Series D, Profound removed its $99 Starter and $399 Growth brand plans. Brands now get a free trial or a custom Enterprise plan with up to nine engines, including Claude, Copilot, DeepSeek and AI Mode, plus API access and SSO. Agencies still have a published Agency Growth option.
Concession: it’s the deepest tool here. It’s also no longer something a twelve-person startup can just buy on a card. Our Profound alternatives post covers who’s filling that gap.
5. Ahrefs Brand Radar, if Ahrefs is already in your stack
Brand Radar’s AI Visibility index is $199/mo, with 2,500 checks, $0.02 per check after that, and platforms including Claude. Read the small print on that last one: a Claude update costs 8 checks, not 1. Custom prompt packs start at $50/mo for 2,500 checks, and Lite already includes 5 tracked AI prompts plus API and MCP access. The upside Peec can’t match: your AI visibility sits next to backlinks and rankings.
Concession: seats are $40 each after the first on Lite, and checks meter fast at 4 engines. Standalone, it’s the priciest route. As an add-on to an Ahrefs plan you already pay for, it’s sensible. If the base subscription is the question, our Ahrefs alternatives post prices it against a real small-team workload.
6. Semrush, if you want SEO and AI search in one login
Semrush Starter is $199/mo ($165.17 billed annually) and includes 50 AI prompts tracked daily across Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini ”& more”, with MCP access. The API only shows up on Advanced.
Concession: Claude isn’t among the engines Semrush names, and extra users start at $45/mo. You’re buying an SEO suite that also tracks AI answers, not a Peec replacement.
What no AI visibility tool will warn you about
Every tool above, Peec included, answers one question well: how do AI engines describe me? The failures that cost startups the most usually come from somewhere else:
- a competitor cuts their price or rewrites their homepage, and you hear about it from a prospect
- your DMARC record breaks after a DNS change, and launch emails land in spam
- your top-converting page slides off page one of Google and nobody checks for a month
- a robots.txt edit blocks an AI crawler and nobody notices
Peec now covers the fourth one with its crawlability audit. None of the six cover all four. That’s the gap RunAgents is built for: one set of checks across AI search, SEO, competitors and email, compared against the last run, with the diff sent to you instead of waiting in a dashboard.
How to choose
- Need Claude tracked and under $100? Geoptie Professional.
- Testing whether AI visibility matters at all? Otterly Lite.
- Three engines, unlimited seats, happy with the data? Stay on Peec.
- Enterprise budget, dedicated AI search owner? Profound.
- Already paying Ahrefs or Semrush? Turn on their AI tracking first.
- AI search is one of several things you should be watching? RunAgents.
FAQ
How much does Peec AI cost? As of September 2026: Starter $95/mo (50 prompts), Pro $245/mo (150 prompts), Advanced $495/mo (350 prompts), all with 3 models and unlimited users, and Enterprise on request. Annual billing takes 15% off.
Does Peec AI track Claude? Only on Enterprise, per its comparison table. Otterly sells Claude as an add-on, and Geoptie includes it in every plan.
Does Peec AI have an MCP server? Yes, on all paid plans, read-only at launch.
Which Peec alternatives include MCP? Otterly from Standard, Geoptie from Professional, Ahrefs from Lite and Semrush from Starter, per each vendor’s pricing page as of September 2026. RunAgents is built around it.
Is there a free Peec AI alternative? Not a useful one for ongoing tracking. Profound has a free trial, and Otterly offers a free trial too. You can also run a prompt set by hand in ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity once a week and log it in a sheet. It’s slow, but it tells you whether paying is worth it.
Bottom line
Peec is a good product with a pricing model that punishes one specific buyer: the startup that wants a fourth engine, especially Claude. If that’s you, Geoptie is the cheapest fix and Otterly the cheapest test. If AI answers are only one of the places your marketing can quietly break, set up RunAgents on your domain and competitors, point your agent at the MCP, and let the real-time alerts tell you which of the six broke first.