Is there a free alternative to Profound?
Short answer: one free plan, several trials, and a distinction between the two that decides whether the exercise is worth starting at all.
Bee LLM is ours. Read the page with that in mind; every figure links to the vendor's own pricing page so you can check it.
People searching for this have usually just been to Profound's pricing page and found no price on it. That is not an oversight. Profound is sold through a conversation, and its entry plan tracks ChatGPT only, with the API reserved for Enterprise.
Which is fine if you are a large team with a procurement process. It is the wrong shape entirely if you wanted a number this afternoon.
Free plan and free trial are not the same thing
This is the distinction the search is really about, and vendors blur it deliberately.
A free plan keeps working when the first month ends, and keeps your history. A trial stops, and takes the accumulating measurements with it. For tracking that difference is not cosmetic: the value comes from watching the same questions over weeks, so a fortnight of data that then vanishes tells you almost nothing.
| Tool | What "free" means here | Card needed | Price after | Engines at entry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bee LLM | Free plan, does not expire. Daily ChatGPT checks, history kept | No | €19.90/mo for 10 prompts | ChatGPT free; Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews from €19.90 |
| Otterly | Free trial, time limited | Check at signup | €29/mo for 15 prompts | ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot |
| LLM Pulse | 14-day trial | Check at signup | €49/mo for 50 prompts, weekly | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Mode, AI Overviews, Gemini |
| Peec | Free trial, time limited | Check at signup | €85/mo for 50 prompts | Any 3 of six |
| Profound | Trial on the Growth plan | Not published | Not published | ChatGPT only |
From each vendor's public pricing page on 1 August 2026, excluding VAT. "Not published" means the page states no number. Whether a trial asks for a card is not always stated on the pricing page, so check at signup rather than trusting a comparison table, this one included.
What our free plan actually does, and what it does not
Since this page exists to answer a question about free, here it is without the marketing. The free plan asks your questions to the real ChatGPT every day and keeps the history, with no card. That gets you a daily presence number and the sources behind it.
What it does not do: the other engines. Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews start at €19.90, and AI Mode, Copilot, DeepSeek and Qwen need the Pro plan. If your buyers are in Gemini, the free plan will not tell you about them. That is a real limit and it is the reason the paid tier exists.
Is one engine enough to start?
To answer "does the AI know I exist", usually yes. ChatGPT is where most of the volume is, and a daily reading of ten questions there will tell you inside a fortnight whether you appear at all.
To answer "where am I losing", no. Engines disagree with each other more than people expect: the same question returns different brands and different sources depending on who you ask. One engine is a diagnosis, not a map.
The sensible order is to start free on one engine, find out whether there is a problem, and only then pay to see its shape.
Where Profound is the right answer
Profound. Its higher tiers go wider than anything compared here, and being sold through a conversation is a feature when the purchase needs a contract, security review and an invoice rather than a card.
Bee LLM's free plan. Daily ChatGPT checks, no card, history kept. Ours, so weigh it accordingly; the limit is that it is one engine until you pay.
LLM Pulse at €49, with five engines and 50 prompts. The frequency is weekly on every standard plan, which is fine for a monthly report and not fine for telling whether last week's page did anything.
Otterly at €29 for 15 prompts across four engines, with Gemini and AI Mode as €9 add-ons rather than a plan upgrade.
The thing no free plan changes
Worth saying plainly, and it applies to ours. A tracker tells you whether you were named and what the answer was built from. It does not make you named.
A review of 45 studies found that what has been demonstrated with rigour is your share of an answer once your page has already been retrieved. Reliably making an engine find you more often is not proven yet. And an audit of 37,000 AI answers found about half of small and regional brands never appeared at all. Free or paid, the tool measures the problem; the work of fixing it is yours.
Questions people ask
Is there a genuinely free alternative to Profound?
One free plan on this list rather than a trial: ours, daily ChatGPT checks with no card and history kept. The others offer time-limited trials.
What does Profound cost?
Not published. Its entry plan tracks ChatGPT only and the API is Enterprise.
What is the difference between a free plan and a trial?
The plan keeps working and keeps your history; the trial stops and takes the data with it. For tracking, that is the whole difference.
When is Profound still right?
Large teams buying through procurement who need the breadth of the higher tiers.
Are you biased?
Yes. Bee LLM is ours, which is why this page states what our free plan does not cover and names other tools for three of the four cases above.
Get a daily number without a card
Bee LLM's free plan asks your questions to ChatGPT every day and keeps the history. If you need the other engines, the table above tells you what each one charges.
Start freePricing verified on the vendors' own pages on 1 August 2026. Read next: the full five-tool comparison · Peec AI alternatives · how we measure.