Buyer's guide
Prefer is the best Qwairy alternative if you want the work done: $24/mo, five engines, 15 AI articles, no credit meter. Plus seven more, prices verified.
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The short answer
Prefer is the best Qwairy alternative for teams that want the citations won, not only watched. It starts at $24 a month, the lowest published paid entry on this list, tracks five engines on a flat prompt count rather than a credit pool, includes 15 AI articles, and is the only tool here that re-runs the targeted prompt to confirm a change moved the answer. Qwairy covers ten engines on every plan from $89 and is a fair product; look elsewhere when its credits run out before your prompts do, or when you need crawler analytics, white label or SSO without a Business or Enterprise plan. Profound is the deepest tracker if you are moving up-market, and AthenaHQ the best free way to switch.
Prefer Content included, no credit meter, changes verified 
AthenaHQ Five models free, and it acts 
Profound Real-user prompt volumes, up to nine engines DisclosurePrefer publishes this list, and Prefer is on it. Every competitor entry, Qwairy included, is written from that vendor's public pages with a checked-on date. Qwairy is a well-built, broad platform; where it is genuinely strong, ten engines on every plan, MCP access from Starter, unlimited team members, this list says so.
In short
How we evaluated
Prefer is the best Qwairy alternative for teams that want citations won and verified: $24 a month for five engines, 15 AI articles included, no credit meter. Qwairy is broad and fairly priced, ten engines on every plan from $89; teams switch because its credits (one per prompt per model) pause analyses at zero, and crawler analytics and white label sit on higher tiers.
Qwairy's cap is 100 prompts on Starter, but the binding limit is 1,300 credits at one credit per prompt per model. Check what an alternative meters, credits, responses or flat prompts, and what happens when the meter hits zero. Qwairy's FAQ says new analyses pause.
Qwairy sets a high bar: ten engines on every plan. Most alternatives include four or five at entry and sell the rest as add-ons or tiers. Decide which engines your buyers use before you trade Qwairy's breadth for something else.
Qwairy's Content Studio is on every plan, but a brief costs 50 credits from the same pool as monitoring. Confirm whether the alternative includes articles in the plan price, meters them, or does not write at all.
On Qwairy, Crawler Analytics and Looker Studio start at Business ($519), and white label, custom domain and SSO are Enterprise. If one of those is why you are shopping, check the alternative includes it at a price you will pay.
The scores
Each dimension is scored 0 to 5 on the scale below and the overall is the plain average, so you can check every number against the facts on this page. Prefer is our product and is scored on the same scale.
| Tool | Engines at entry | Prompt-level data | Citation sources | Action layer | Price per prompt | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prefer (our product) | 4.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.8/5 |
| Qwairy | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 4.8/5 |
| AthenaHQ | 4.0 | 5.0 | 3.0 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 4.2/5 |
| Profound | 5.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 4.0 | 1.0 | 4.0/5 |
| Otterly | 3.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 3.6/5 |
| Peec AI | 2.0 | 5.0 | 5.0 | 1.0 | 4.0 | 3.4/5 |
| Scrunch | 3.0 | 5.0 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.2/5 |
| Semrush | 4.0 | 5.0 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 3.2/5 |
How each number is set
Scored 26 September 2026 from the facts on this page (the side-by-side table and each entry's documented record) and the verified pricing index. Qwairy's pricing page was read in a rendered browser on 26 September 2026: ten engines on every plan (5), you choose up to 100 prompts on Starter and get per-prompt history (5), Source Explorer is on the plan table (5), Action Center and Content Studio draft but no prompt re-run is documented (4), and $89 for 100 prompts is $0.89 a prompt (5). Otterly's citation-sources value carries over from our best AI visibility tools page, whose table documents it. PromptWatch is not scored because this page does not document its source depth; it stays in the ranked list on its documented strengths. Prefer is scored on the same rules as every other row, and ties Qwairy on the average: Qwairy wins engines, Prefer wins the action layer.
Three kinds of tool
Track citations and then do the content work. Prefer includes the articles and re-runs the prompt to verify; PromptWatch meters its agents and starts articles at $245. Prefer Managed adds off-page work.
Buy one if your reason for leaving Qwairy is that briefs and monitoring compete for the same credits.Do the measurement half of Qwairy's job with either more depth (Profound's prompt volumes, Peec's fanout) or a lower sticker (Otterly's $29), and leave the doing to you.
Buy one if you want cleaner or deeper data and already own execution.AthenaHQ opens a recurring free door with actions; Semrush folds AI visibility into an SEO suite; Scrunch scales to many brands and regions at enterprise prices.
Buy one if a free tier, one SEO vendor, or multi-brand scale matters more than Qwairy's engine count.The ranked list
Ordered by fit for the team most likely to leave Qwairy: execution included and verified first, then depth, then a free start, then adjacent suites.
PreferPrefer tracks the citations Qwairy tracks across five engines with no credit meter, writes 15 AI articles a month on the entry plan, and re-runs the prompt after every change to confirm it moved; Prefer Managed also does the off-page work.
QwairyQwairy is the incumbent here: a broad six-module GEO platform (Cockpit, Monitor, Act, Analyze, Optimize, Measure) with ten engines on every plan, from $89 a month on a shared credit pool.
OtterlyOtterly is the budget monitor: $29 a month for 15 prompts across ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot, with Gemini, Claude and AI Mode as paid add-ons.
Peec AIPeec AI is the deep-monitoring alternative: $95 a month for 50 prompts on 3 models of your choice, with query-fanout decomposition, crawler insights across 40+ AI bots, MCP and API, and unlimited seats.
AthenaHQAthenaHQ is the best free alternative: 300 credits across five models on a free plan you can keep, with a content agent and on-page and off-page actions from the $295 Starter.
PromptWatchPromptWatch is the closest like-for-like: tracking plus metered content agents from $95 a month, with crawler logs, Shopping Insights and published agency plans.
SemrushSemrush is the alternative for teams that would rather add an AI-visibility layer to a full SEO suite than run a standalone GEO platform.
ScrunchScrunch, now part of Sitecore, is the enterprise multi-brand alternative, with page audits and agent-traffic analytics across four engines on Core and nine on Enterprise.
ProfoundProfound is the deepest enterprise tracker, with real-user prompt volumes, content Agents and up to nine engines on a custom Enterprise plan.
Side by side
Capability at the checked-on date. Engines at entry: yes means five or more AI engines on the lowest paid plan a brand can buy, part means four, no means three or fewer or no published brand plan. Off-page: yes means the tool does the work, part means it finds or recommends the opportunities (Qwairy's Backlink Opportunities, Prefer's self-serve plans; Prefer Managed and Prefer's Enterprise plan do it). Crawler logs: part means it is on a higher tier or partial. Verifies: yes means a documented re-run of the targeted prompt after a change.
| Tool | Engines at entry | Content | Crawler logs | Off-page | Verifies | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prefer | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | ✓ | $24 |
| Qwairy | ✓ | ✓ | ~ | ~ | - | $89 |
| Otterly | ~ | - | ~ | - | - | $29 |
| Peec AI | - | - | ✓ | - | - | $95 |
| AthenaHQ | ✓ | ✓ | - | ~ | ~ | Free |
| PromptWatch | ~ | ~ | ~ | - | - | $95 |
| Semrush | ~ | ~ | - | - | ~ | $99 |
| Scrunch | ~ | - | ✓ | - | ~ | $250 |
| Profound | - | ✓ | ~ | - | ~ | Custom |
What changed in 2026
This list looked different a year ago. These are the changes that moved it.
Qwairy's ten engines on every plan, PromptWatch's eleven on its list and Profound's nine on Enterprise mean breadth alone no longer separates the platforms. The questions moved to how many prompts you can afford to run across them, and what the tool does with the result.
Qwairy, AthenaHQ and PromptWatch all meter usage in credits or responses rather than a flat prompt count. The sticker price now tells you less than the meter does, which is why per-prompt and per-engine arithmetic is on this page.
Qwairy's Content Studio, Profound's Agents, AthenaHQ's content agent and PromptWatch's agents all draft. A documented re-run of the targeted prompt to confirm the answer moved is still rare, and it is where Prefer separates from the rest.
Qwairy prices in euros (€79, €199, €449 monthly) and shows USD ($89, $229, $519) on a toggle, read the same day. The two lists are not a live conversion of each other, so compare in the currency you will actually be billed in.
Red flags
Every tool here demos well. These are the questions that separate them once the trial ends.
Qwairy's Starter says up to 100 prompts, but at one credit per prompt per model, 100 prompts on ten engines is 1,000 credits, most of the month's 1,300. Any alternative that meters usage deserves the same arithmetic before you sign.
Leaving Qwairy for a tool that tracks four engines at entry and sells the rest as add-ons can cost more for less. Count the engines your buyers actually use, then price the alternative at that count.
On Qwairy a brief costs 50 credits from the same pool as monitoring. If an alternative also draws content and tracking from one meter, the two jobs compete; look for articles included in the plan price.
Most tools on this list draft something. Ask whether the tool publishes the change and re-checks the prompt afterwards, or hands you a document.
White label, custom domain and SSO are Enterprise on Qwairy; Crawler Analytics is Business. If you need one of those, make sure the alternative does not hold it at the same or a higher tier.
Qwairy offers CSV exports and PDF reports. Before you move, export your prompt set and history, and check the alternative lets you do the same later.
Prefer is the best Qwairy alternative for teams that want the citations won, not only watched. It starts at $24 a month, tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on a flat prompt count, includes 15 AI articles a month, and re-runs the targeted prompt after each change to confirm the answer moved.
Qwairy is a broad GEO platform and a fair one. Its pricing page, read in a rendered browser on 26 September 2026, lists ten engines on every plan, six modules, MCP access from the $89 Starter, and unlimited team members. The reasons a team looks for a Qwairy alternative are documented, not invented: usage is metered in credits shared between monitoring and content, new analyses pause when the balance hits zero, and Crawler Analytics, Looker Studio, white label and SSO sit on the Business and Enterprise tiers. This roundup compares the eight tools worth evaluating, with every price checked in September 2026.
You outgrow Qwairy when the credits run out before the prompts do. Qwairy’s own definition is simple: one monitoring query costs one credit per model, and one content brief costs 50. Starter includes 1,300 credits a month with a cap of 100 prompts. Run all 100 prompts across all ten engines once and you have spent 1,000 credits, which leaves 300 for the rest of the month, or six briefs. Daily monitoring at that breadth is not possible on Starter; you choose fewer prompts, fewer engines or a lower frequency. None of this is hidden (the pricing page offers a calculator), but it is the limit that matters.
You also outgrow it when the feature you need sits a tier up. Crawler Analytics and the Looker Studio connector start at Business ($519 a month); white label, custom domain and SSO are Enterprise. Or you may want a different shape of tool: articles included in the plan price, or proof that each change worked.
Prefer is our product, so read this with that in mind. It tracks the same citations Qwairy does across five engines, scores your share of voice against named competitors, and then writes the content and re-runs the prompt to check the answer moved. The plan states a flat number of prompts, 30 on Starter, tracked across all five engines, so nothing pauses at zero. 15 AI articles a month are included at $24, and Prefer Managed does the off-page work. The honest limit: five engines to Qwairy’s ten. Start with a free audit and a 7-day trial.
PromptWatch is the nearest thing to Qwairy in shape: European, tracking plus metered content agents, from $95 a month. Its Essential plan includes 50 prompts on 4 of its 11 models and no AEO articles; articles and Agent Analytics start at $245. Its published agency plans ($199, $399, $799, unlimited prompts and pitch projects) are a genuine draw for agencies. Like Qwairy, its meters (agent credits and responses) decide the real price. See Prefer vs PromptWatch.
If you are leaving Qwairy because you need richer data, Profound is the deepest tracker in the category, with real-user prompt volumes no other tool here offers and up to nine engines on Enterprise. The catch is price: no published brand plan, only a free 7-day trial (50 prompts daily on ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews) and then a custom quote. Its Agents draft content; it deploys no technical fixes to your site.
AthenaHQ is the best free way to switch. Its Essential plan is free with 300 credits across five models, a recurring allowance where Qwairy’s free start is a one-time 120-credit balance. Its $295 Starter adds 11-model coverage, a content agent and on-page and off-page actions. It is metered in credits, so the same arithmetic applies.
Peec AI ($95 a month, 50 prompts, 3 models of your choice, unlimited seats) is the cleanest pure monitor, with query-fanout decomposition and crawler insights across 40+ AI bots; it does not write content. Otterly ($29 a month, 15 prompts, four engines, daily) has the lowest sticker price, with Gemini, Claude and AI Mode as add-ons. Semrush suits teams that want one vendor, from $99 a month per domain for the AI toolkit. Scrunch ($250 a month, four engines on Core, nine on Enterprise), now part of Sitecore, is the enterprise multi-brand pick. Head-to-head: Prefer vs Peec AI.
The most common reason to stay on Qwairy is engine coverage. Every Qwairy plan includes ten engines. Prefer includes five, AthenaHQ’s free tier five, Otterly, PromptWatch and Scrunch four, Peec AI three of your choice, and Profound’s trial three. If your buyers ask Copilot, Grok, Claude, Mistral or DeepSeek, Qwairy’s breadth is a real advantage, and the only self-serve way to match it on this list is AthenaHQ’s $295 Starter with eleven.
Sticker prices run from Otterly’s $29 to Scrunch’s $250, but the fairer unit is the entry price divided by the prompts it includes. Qwairy’s Starter is $0.89 a prompt ($89 for 100); Prefer’s is $0.80 ($24 for 30); Otterly’s is $1.93 ($29 for 15); Peec AI’s and PromptWatch’s are $1.90 ($95 for 50). Qwairy’s figure assumes each prompt runs on one engine, because every extra engine costs another credit. AthenaHQ, Scrunch, Semrush and Profound are not plotted: they publish credits, no prompt count, or no brand price.
Stay if you need ten engines on a self-serve plan. Nothing else on this list matches that at $89. Stay if you want daily readings and can budget the credits for them on a smaller prompt set. Stay if MCP access on the entry plan and unlimited team members matter. The case for leaving rests on the meter and the tier gates, not on quality.
Pick by why you are leaving. You need deeper enterprise data: Profound. You want a free tier that acts: AthenaHQ. You want the same shape with agency plans: PromptWatch. You manage many brands: Scrunch. You want one SEO vendor: Semrush. You want content included, no credit meter, and proof each change worked: run the Prefer audit and see your baseline in ten minutes. For the wider category, see the best AI visibility tools roundup, the verified pricing index, and the other alternatives pages.
The questions buyers ask next.
Yes for some teams, and Prefer is the pick when you want five engines with content included from $24 a month. For a team that wants the widest self-serve engine list, ten on every plan, in a broad product with MCP access and unlimited team members, Qwairy is one of the most complete platforms in the category at $89 a month. Teams look past it when the credit pool pauses their analyses, when briefs compete with monitoring for credits, or when they need Business or Enterprise features.
Prefer does not use credits: its plans state a flat number of prompts tracked across all five engines. Qwairy's homepage defines its credits plainly: one monitoring query costs one credit per model, and one content brief costs 50 credits. Starter includes 1,300 credits a month, Growth 3,900 and Business 10,400, unused credits roll over at renewal, and new analyses pause when the balance reaches zero.
See the verified pricing index →Prefer writes the articles on every plan and does authentic off-page work on Prefer Managed. Qwairy's Act module lists an Action Center, Content Opportunities, Backlink Opportunities and a Content Studio that generates citation-ready content briefs, at 50 credits each. It finds backlink opportunities rather than earning them; we did not see Reddit or community participation features.
In dedicated AI visibility, Prefer, Peec AI, PromptWatch, Profound, AthenaHQ and Otterly come up most, with Semrush and Scrunch as the suite and enterprise multi-brand plays. PromptWatch is the closest in shape (tracking plus metered agents, European, $95 entry); Prefer is the closest on the act side with articles included and verification.
See the full roundup →Yes, and Prefer has one too: its agency track is a base fee plus a per-active-client fee, on the pricing page. Qwairy's agency page lists a Pitch Starter at €99 a month (1 workspace, 1,500 credits, unlimited pitch audits) and an agency Growth at €249 (5 workspaces, 5,000 credits, REST API), with Business and custom tiers above; white label and custom domain are on the Enterprise brand plan.
Export your prompts and reports from Qwairy first (it offers CSV exports and shareable PDF reports), then run the same prompts in the new tool alongside it for a cycle or two so the numbers are comparable. Prefer's free audit shows where AI engines name and cite you today without cancelling anything, so you can compare before deciding.
Questions
Prefer is the best Qwairy alternative for most teams that want the work done: $24 a month, the lowest published paid entry on this list, for five engines tracked, 15 AI articles included, and every change re-run against the prompt it targeted. It is our product, so weigh that disclosure. Qwairy remains the better choice if you need its ten engines, including Copilot, Grok, Claude, Mistral and DeepSeek, on a self-serve plan. Profound is the deepest enterprise tracker and AthenaHQ the best free alternative.
Prefer starts at $24/mo for 30 prompts on five engines, with 15 AI articles included. Qwairy, read on its pricing page's USD toggle on 26 September 2026, is $89 a month for Starter (1 workspace, 1,300 credits, up to 100 prompts, MCP access, Content Studio), $229 for Growth (5 workspaces, 3,900 credits, up to 300 prompts, REST API), $519 for Business (20 workspaces, 10,400 credits, up to 800 prompts, Crawler Analytics, Looker Studio) and custom for Enterprise (white label, SSO). Annual billing is $74, $190 and $432 a month. The EUR prices are €79, €199 and €449 monthly. Every plan includes the same ten engines; the plans differ on credits, prompts and workspaces.
Prefer has no free tier either: it offers a free AI visibility audit and a 7-day free trial with no card, then plans from $24 a month. Qwairy's pricing FAQ says you can start on a free plan with 120 credits and no credit card, with paid billing starting only when you choose a subscription. We did not see a recurring monthly free allowance, so treat it as a one-time balance. At one credit per prompt per model, 120 credits is one run of 12 prompts across all ten engines, or 120 prompts on one engine. For a free tier you can keep, AthenaHQ's Essential is free across five models.
Prefer is the switch for teams whose problem is the doing, not the watching: content is included in the plan price rather than charged at 50 credits a brief, and the change is verified against the prompt afterwards. The documented reasons teams look past Qwairy are the shared credit pool (one credit per prompt per model, analyses pause at zero), and the tiering of Crawler Analytics and Looker Studio at Business and white label, custom domain and SSO at Enterprise. If ten engines on a self-serve plan is what you value, staying on Qwairy is reasonable.
Prefer tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode on every plan, with Claude on Enterprise. Qwairy's pricing page says all plans include ChatGPT (UI and API), Perplexity (UI and API), Copilot, Gemini (UI and API), Google AI Overview, Grok (UI and API), Claude (API), Mistral (API), Google AI Mode and DeepSeek (API): ten engines, which its comparison table calls 10+. That is the widest self-serve engine list on this page. The trade-off is that each engine you run a prompt on costs a credit, so wider coverage spends the pool faster.
Prefer starts at $24 a month, below Qwairy's $89 Starter, and Otterly at $29. Per prompt the gap is narrower than the stickers suggest: Qwairy's Starter is $0.89 per prompt ($89 for 100), Prefer's is $24 for 30, Otterly's is $1.93 ($29 for 15) and Peec AI's and PromptWatch's are $1.90 ($95 for 50). Qwairy's per-prompt price assumes you run each prompt on one engine; every additional engine costs another credit. AthenaHQ starts free with 300 credits across five models.
References
How to choose
If your buyers ask Copilot, Grok, Claude, Mistral or DeepSeek as well as the big five, Qwairy's ten-engine plans are hard to beat on a self-serve budget; Profound offers up to nine on Enterprise and AthenaHQ eleven from $295. If ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's two AI surfaces cover your market, Prefer tracks all five on every plan from $24 with no credit spent per engine.
That is the most common reason to leave. Prefer uses flat prompt counts (30 on Starter, 150 on Growth, 500 on Scale) across all five engines, so nothing pauses at zero. Otterly and Peec AI also use flat prompt counts; AthenaHQ and PromptWatch meter like Qwairy does.
Qwairy charges 50 credits per brief; PromptWatch starts articles at $245. Prefer includes 15 AI articles a month at $24, and Prefer Managed does the off-page work. If you write everything yourself, a pure monitor like Peec AI or Otterly is cheaper.
Prefer re-runs the targeted prompt after a change and shows whether the answer moved. No other tool on this page documents that loop; Qwairy, Profound and AthenaHQ measure metric movement over time instead. If your stakeholders ask for before-and-after evidence per fix, that is the deciding feature.
Keep going
See how answer engines describe your brand today, and where the openings are to outpace the competition.
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