Promptwatch vs AthenaHQ vs Scrunch AI vs Gauge: 2026 Comparison
Four 'more than a tracker' GEO tools compared from an agency desk: Promptwatch, AthenaHQ, Scrunch AI, and Gauge, and which one we actually run.
Once a client is past "just tell us if ChatGPT named us," vendors show up with extra verbs: actions, crawler-side pages, a thousand daily prompts, or publish. Promptwatch is the one we run. AthenaHQ, Scrunch AI, and Gauge are the ones we get asked to justify saying no to.
Google's AI features docs still govern Overviews eligibility. The four tools below are about everything else.
AthenaHQ: we will not surprise a client with credits
AthenaHQ's Action Center is the best "here is the ticket" UI in this set. Essential is free (~300 credits). Starter is $295/mo ($245 annual): 9 engines, one country, unlimited seats, credit-based usage. The features people praise in write-ups (ACE Citation Engine, personas, multi-region) sit in Enterprise, reported around $2,000+/mo.
We have two practical problems on retainers. Credits: catalog G2 notes include teams burning a month of credits in a week. Geography: Starter is one country, and most of our brands are not. If a client's culture is "clear the queue every morning" and they have one market, AthenaHQ can be the right specialist. If they wanted diagnosis and publishing without watching a meter, it is the wrong specialist.
Scrunch AI: interesting serving layer, painful reporting
Scrunch's Agent Experience Platform serves alternate pages to AI crawlers without touching the live site. That is a real lever. Starter is $250/mo annual ($300 monthly). Growth is $417/mo annual ($500 monthly). Enterprise is custom.
We still need a report a marketing lead can open. Public G2 themes on Scrunch include weak exports and Excel rebuilds. Prompt credits count per engine, so the allowance shrinks when we add Gemini next to ChatGPT. Refresh is weekly. Sitecore bought Scrunch in June 2026 (~$225M in public catalog notes). If the client is already in that DXP world, the acquisition is a reason to look. If they wanted a clean GEO home, it is a reason to pause.
Gauge: volume if you will use the volume
Gauge Growth is $599/mo: 600 prompts daily, 6 engines, 18 articles a month, 10 seats, one location. There is a one-week trial. The old $99 Starter is gone. Claude and Grok are Enterprise. Prompts are Gauge-generated, not the client's. Our catalog lists no G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, or Trustpilot presence.
If a client truly wants that answer volume and will accept synthetic prompts, run the trial. We have not made Gauge the retainer default because we cannot send a CMO to a review site, and we write the prompt list with the client rather than inheriting 600 generated ones.
Promptwatch: the default because of the boring modules
Essential $95/mo, Professional $245/mo, Business $579/mo, agency from $199/mo. Paid engines include ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot, Overviews, AI Mode. Crawler logs tell us whether the miss started at fetch. Citation analytics name the winning URL. Visitor analytics catch the session. Content Agents publish to Webflow or Framer. Explore is free for a 10-prompt ChatGPT sandbox.
AthenaHQ can beat us on ticket culture. Scrunch can beat us on crawler-side variants. Gauge can beat us on raw daily checks at $599. We still pick Promptwatch for programs we own, because those three specialist wins do not replace logs plus traffic plus a page. G2 4.7/5, 1,840+ brands on the public fact sheet.
FAQ
Would you ever install Scrunch and Promptwatch together?
Only if the client already bought AXP and still needed a mention-and-traffic log. We would not start a program on both. Two sources of "you are missing" is how retainers stall.
Is Gauge's $599 comparable to Promptwatch Business at $579?
Same neighborhood of money, different product. Business is 350 prompts, 42,000 responses, 10M visitor events, 100M crawler logs, 30 AEO articles, 5 seats. Gauge is 600 prompts daily and 18 articles, one location, synthetic prompts. Compare the brief, not the round numbers.
What do you tell a client who already likes AthenaHQ?
Keep it if they live in the Action Center and the credit math is honest. Add Promptwatch only if they also need crawler logs and visitor conversions. Starting on AthenaHQ's free credits is reasonable. Staying there by default is not how we staff a retainer. Product we run: promptwatch.com.