tobecited vs Profound
Profound Starter costs $99 a month and checks one assistant: ChatGPT. Perplexity and Google AI Overviews arrive on Growth at $399; Claude and Gemini only on Enterprise, priced on request. tobecited checks all 4 for $19, and for nothing on the free check. Profound tracks 50 questions to our 10.
Where these numbers come from
Profound figures were read from its own pricing page on August 28, 2026, with two exceptions marked where they appear: the agency line, reported at $399 per client workspace, which we did not re-verify that day, and Enterprise pricing, which Profound does not publish at all — the $2,000–5,000 range comes from third-party reviews. Ours are printed from the plan catalogue this site runs on.
| Compared on | tobecited Pro — $19/mo | Profound Starter — $99/mo |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $19 (€17) | $99 |
| Assistants at that price | All 4: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity | ChatGPT only |
| Getting a second assistant | Included — the panel is identical on every plan | Growth at $399/mo: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews |
| Claude and Gemini | On every plan, free check included | Enterprise only — up to 9 engines, price on request (reviews: $2,000–5,000/mo) |
| Buyer questions per run | 10 | 50 on Starter, 100 on Growthahead of us |
| Answer volume per month | 160 on Pro, 800 on Max | 1,500 on Starter, 9,000 on Growthahead of us |
| Free check without a card | Yes — 3 questions × 4 assistants = 12 answers | No free tier |
| Ready-to-publish fixes | Yes — llms.txt, schema markup, titles, FAQ blocks | No — monitoring and analytics |
| Reviews on G2 | None yet | 323ahead of us |
Cells marked "ahead of us" are the ones where the other tool wins.
One assistant for $99
Profound Starter covers ChatGPT and nothing else: 50 tracked questions, 1,500 answers a month, one seat, $99. If your buyers only ask ChatGPT, that is a deep and well-built plan and the price is defensible.
The moment a second assistant matters, the price steps. Growth at $399 a month adds Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. Claude and Gemini are not on Growth at all — they arrive on Enterprise, which covers up to nine engines and is priced on request; third-party reviews of 2026 put it between $2,000 and $5,000 a month.
Our entry price is $19 and the panel does not change with the plan. The free check runs the same 4 assistants as Max does.
Answers per month and checks per month are not the same unit
Profound counts answers: 1,500 a month on Starter. We count checks, and a check is one question asked of one assistant in one market on one run — one paid model call. On Pro that is 160 a month (10 questions × 4 assistants × 4 weekly runs); on Max, across 5 monitored sites, 800.
The units are close enough to compare and not identical, so read them as orders of magnitude rather than as a score. Profound buys far more volume on one assistant; we buy the whole panel on fewer questions.
If any vendor puts these two numbers in one column and declares a winner, that is a reason to distrust the table, ours included. The definition has to travel with the number.
What happens after the report
Profound reports, and reports well: it is an analytics product with an API, SSO and multi-brand workspaces behind it. What it does not do is hand you the file.
tobecited generates an llms.txt, schema blocks for pages that lack them, rewritten titles and FAQ sections built from the questions the assistants were actually asked. You download them and publish them yourself.
What we will not claim is causation. There is no large-scale evidence that publishing an llms.txt or a schema block makes an assistant cite you. What those files do is remove ambiguity about what your business is and who it serves, which is a precondition and not a result.
Where Profound is ahead
Volume and enterprise plumbing. Fifty questions and 1,500 answers on the entry plan against our 10 questions and 160 checks; an API, SSO, several companies in one account and up to nine engines at the top of the range. If you are a large brand with a team, Profound is built for you and we are not.
It also has a track record we do not: 323 reviews on G2 as of August 2026, against none for tobecited. That is a fair thing to weigh, and we would rather write it here than have you find it and wonder what else this page left out.
For agencies, Profound has a per-client-workspace line reported at $399. We did not re-verify that figure on the date at the top of this page — treat it as a lead to check rather than a quote.
Check your own site before you pick a tool
No card. Four assistants. The report is yours whether you buy anything or not.
What this comparison is not
- This is not a claim that Profound is overpriced. Its $99 plan buys 1,500 ChatGPT answers a month; ours buys 160 checks spread across 4 assistants. Those are different products at different depths.
- This is not an Enterprise price comparison. Profound does not publish Enterprise pricing, and the range quoted on this page did not come from Profound.
- We do not promise that any assistant will start recommending you, and we do not sell placement in AI answers.
- We do not check Google AI Overviews or Copilot at all. If those surfaces matter to you, this table is not the whole picture.
Questions buyers ask before switching
- Which AI assistants does the $99 Profound plan check?
- ChatGPT only. Perplexity and Google AI Overviews come with Growth at $399 a month, and Claude and Gemini require Enterprise, which covers up to nine engines and is priced on request. Read from Profound's pricing page on August 28, 2026.
- How much is Profound with Claude and Gemini?
- Profound does not publish it — those engines sit on Enterprise, quoted per customer. Third-party reviews of 2026 put Enterprise between $2,000 and $5,000 a month. tobecited includes both on every plan, starting with the free check.
- Does Profound have a free plan?
- No free tier as of August 28, 2026. The tobecited free check needs no card: 3 buyer questions across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, 12 answers, plus a readiness report on your site.
- Profound checks 1,500 answers a month. How many does tobecited check?
- 160 a month on Pro — 10 questions × 4 assistants × 4 weekly runs — and 800 on Max across 5 monitored sites. On Starter, Profound's number is 1,500 answers from a single assistant; ours are spread across four. Compare depth against coverage, not the bare digits.
- Which one is better for a large brand?
- Profound, in most cases. API access, SSO, several companies in one account, up to nine engines and 323 G2 reviews are all things we do not have. We are built for one site or a handful of them, at $19 to $99 a month.
- What does tobecited do that Profound does not?
- Two things: all 4 assistants at the entry price, and downloadable fixes — llms.txt, schema markup, rewritten titles and FAQ blocks generated from the same run. Profound reports; it does not hand you files to publish.