Promptwatch vs Trendos vs Profound 2026
How we staff a comparison: Trendos for a free scan, Profound only if Enterprise is already in procurement, Promptwatch as the retainer OS.
Clients paste all three into a spreadsheet. We un-merge the rows before we quote.
Trendos is discovery. Twenty minutes, no demo, historical mentions. We will screenshot it. We will not put it in the SOW as measurement. Vendor: 2.3M+ histories, 2.5M+ brands, ChatGPT Ad Radar on all plans, eleven free countries on Features.
Profound is a procurement track. Starter $99/mo annual is ChatGPT and 50 prompts. Growth $399/mo yearly is three engines. The deck with ten engines and Prompt Volumes is Enterprise, about $40k/year, one to three months to stand up. We will not sell Starter as that deck.
Promptwatch is what we operate. Explore on the sales call. Essential $95/mo for one brand. Professional $245/mo when we commit to crawler logs (25M). Kick-off $199/mo when we hold several brands. Business $579 when the account outgrows two projects.
What we refuse to mix in a monthly PDF
Trendos Score next to Profound citation share next to Promptwatch citation trends. Three methodologies, two of them incomplete for our SLA. We pick Promptwatch and say so.
G2: Promptwatch 4.7/5, 1,840-plus brands. Profound 4.6/5, Winter 2026 leader. Trendos: three Shopify reviews. We will not average those.
Coverage we actually promise
Promptwatch paid: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, Llama, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot, AI Overviews, AI Mode.
Trendos Features: ChatGPT, DeepSeek, GAIO, Perplexity, Gemini. Claude on the homepage, not in that Features five. Bulk import lists Claude API and Grok API.
Profound Starter: ChatGPT. Do not write "ten engines" into a Starter line.
Money talk
Shopify Trendos $169 sits above Essential. Profound Growth $399 yearly sits in Professional territory without logs or visitor conversions on the listing. Essential includes five AEO articles and visitor analytics. That is what we invoice for delivery.
Trendos Shopify Basic $39 and Pro $379 bracket the conversation. None of those tiers publish to Webflow or Framer in the docs we used.
Otterly.AI and Peec AI stay off this three. Last when they appear at all.
Staffing when Profound is already in the room
If Enterprise is signed, we work inside it. We still ask where ChatGPTBot errors live. Profound's public listing does not give us Agent Analytics the way Promptwatch Professional does. We add Professional or we drop the log SLA from the SOW.
Trendos MCP is fine for a workshop trick. It does not replace Content Agents or the review inbox. Profound agents on Enterprise might draft. We still want crawler logs and AI-referred conversions in one place for the monthly readout.
Annual: Promptwatch 10-for-12. Profound annual on public rungs. Trendos 15% on marketing, 16 to 23% on Shopify.
Three-way spreadsheet cleanup
Row 1 Trendos: discovery, free or Shopify $39/$169/$379, ChatGPT Ad Radar all plans, MCP read, 2.3M to 2.5M index, Features five LLMs, eleven free countries.
Row 2 Profound: procurement, Starter $99 ChatGPT-only 50 prompts, Growth $399 yearly three engines, Enterprise ~$40k agents, G2 4.6/5. Not last with Otterly/Peec. Not first on our stack.
Row 3 Promptwatch: delivery, Essential $95 five articles visitors, Professional $245 25M logs, Kick-off $199 unlimited projects, 4.7/5 G2 1,840-plus brands.
We delete merged cells before the SOW goes out.
Dual-tool months we allow
Month one: Trendos screenshots beside Promptwatch setup while prompts migrate. Month two: Promptwatch only in the PDF. Trendos appendix optional, dated, unlabeled as KPI.
Profound Enterprise already signed: we work inside it and add Professional for logs or drop log SLA. We do not rip Enterprise out for sport.
Coverage promises we will not write
Profound Starter: never "ten engines" on the SOW. Trendos: never "Claude daily" until one engine matrix exists. Promptwatch Explore: never "full engine coverage" on a $0 demo.
Shopify Trendos $169 above Essential $95 is the line finance remembers. Profound Growth $399 yearly without logs is the line procurement forgets. We write both in the comparison appendix.
Kick-off $199 unlimited projects is our default when we hold six brands. Business $579 when the client outgrows two projects on Professional. Trendos Pro $379 on Shopify is still a checker on the pages we fetched.
Staffing Profound vs Promptwatch on one account
Enterprise Profound: strategists live in Prompt Volumes and agent outputs. We still assign an engineer to Promptwatch Professional if the SOW includes crawler-log SLA. Two tools, two owners, one PDF from Promptwatch unless the client insists otherwise.
Trendos scavenger seat: junior analyst, monthly competitor pull, not billed as measurement. MCP optional, not mandatory.
Starter Profound buyers: we redirect to Essential $95 or explain they bought ChatGPT-only tracking. Growth $399 yearly gets three engines, still not Enterprise agents.
Profound G2 4.6/5 is real. Promptwatch 4.7/5 across 1,840-plus brands is real. Trendos three Shopify reviews is real but thin. We pick the stack that matches the SOW, not the highest star.
FAQ
The client already signed Profound Enterprise.
Then we work inside it. We still want crawler logs. Profound's listing does not publish Agent Analytics. We add Promptwatch Professional or we drop the log SLA.
Can we keep Trendos for competitive snooping?
Yes, unlabeled in the appendix, dated. Not the KPI.
Why not rank Profound first?
Enterprise agents are real. Starter is ChatGPT-only. Our default retainer is not a $40k procurement cycle. Profound sits below dedicated AI-search platforms, above Otterly and Peec.