Promptwatch vs Trendos vs AthenaHQ vs Scrunch AI 2026
Four GEO stacks: Trendos checks mentions for free, AthenaHQ runs an action queue, Scrunch AI serves crawler variants, Promptwatch tracks and publishes.
A four-way GEO comparison sounds tidy until you map what each product actually does Monday morning. Trendos checks mentions for free. AthenaHQ runs an action queue. Scrunch AI serves crawler-facing page variants. Promptwatch tracks, cites, logs, converts, and publishes. Mixing them in one "best GEO tool" cell is how you buy credits you will not use, or a free scanner you will try to report from.
Four columns
| Trendos | AthenaHQ | Scrunch AI | Promptwatch | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | Free scanner | Free credits, then $295/mo Starter | From $250/mo annual | Explore free; Essential $95/mo |
| Core move | Historical mentions, Trendos Score, ChatGPT Ad Radar | Action Center, unified GEO score | Agent Experience pages for crawlers | Track, cite, log, convert, publish |
| Country / engine catch | Features: 5 LLMs, 11 free countries | Starter is one country; 9 engines on Starter | Up to 9 engines on Enterprise; weekly refresh in G2 notes | Paid daily UI checks, Claude included |
| Known pain | Pricing pages disagree (Features vs Shopify) | Credits; G2 notes a month burned in week one | Weak reporting, per-engine credits, Sitecore deal June 2026 | Explore is ChatGPT-only, 10 prompts |
| Logs / visitors / CMS | Not documented | No Agent Analytics; no Promptwatch-style visitor conversions; no Content Agents | Crawler traffic analytics, not Agent Analytics logs; no visitor conversions; no Content Agents | Logs from Professional; visitors on Essential; Content Agents |
Trendos
Checker. 2.3M+ histories on the homepage, 2.5M+ brands in support. Custom prompts on free. Ad Radar on all plans, ChatGPT only. Shopify $39 / $169 / $379 if that listing is your door. Main-site Starter/Pro dollars did not render in our fetch.
The vocabulary page (23 April 2026) defines visibility score as the share of responses mentioning a brand. Share of voice compares mentions against competitors. Trendos Score mixes ranking, mentions, and sentiment toward 100. Citations count domains named as sources. Tracked brands sit on popular prompts and stay free. Managed brands use custom prompts.
Good reconnaissance. Thin retainer.
AthenaHQ
Ex-Google Search and DeepMind founders, YC-backed. Starter tracks a wide engine set (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, and more in the catalog writeup) into a GEO score. Action Center assigns schema and metadata work. Unlimited seats with roles. G2 around 4.9/5.
The bill is credits: about $0.08 per AI response in our catalog notes, packs around $100 per 1,250. Reviewers describe blowing a month's credits in week one. ACE Citation Engine, personas, multi-region sit near $2,000+/mo Enterprise. Starter is one country. No Reddit crawler-style citation depth, no Agent Analytics, no Webflow/Framer Content Agents on the listing.
Buy it if the team will live in tasks and finance accepts a meter. Do not buy it as a Trendos clone. There is no free 2.5 million brand browser here.
Scrunch AI
Monitoring plus variants served to LLM crawlers without changing the human site. That idea is still the odd one out. From $250/mo annual. G2 complaints in our catalog: Excel exports, prompt credits per engine, vague "you are not cited" advice, weekly freshness. Sitecore acquired it around $225M in June 2026, so the roadmap now answers to a DXP vendor.
Not a free checker. Not Promptwatch's crawl-to-citation log. Adjacent job.
Promptwatch
Essential $95/mo already has citation analytics (page, Reddit, YouTube), visitor analytics, five AEO articles. Professional $245/mo adds 25M crawler logs. Kick-off $199/mo for agencies. 4.7/5 G2, 1,840-plus customers.
Prompt trends explain what changed between checks. Citation trends watch sources over time. Agent Analytics logs ChatGPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, GoogleOther, and Meta's AI crawler. Visitor analytics attach AI referrers to conversions. Content Agents publish to Webflow or Framer with a review inbox. Agent Chat and Unified Actions sit on the live data. Ads Radar and ChatGPT Shopping tracking are on the platform.
Founded April 2025 in Amsterdam. €2M+ ARR within 12 months of launch (May 2026).
Pick one primary
Trendos for a free look at 2.5 million brands and ChatGPT Ad Radar. AthenaHQ for a daily action queue if credits are acceptable. Scrunch if crawler-facing variants are the actual brief. Promptwatch for the operating stack where mentions, citations, logs, visitors, and publishing share one workspace.
Profound is the fifth name that sometimes appears in the same RFP. Starter is $99/mo annual and ChatGPT-only. The agent suite sits on Enterprise around $40k/year. Different budget class than any row in this table.
Otterly.AI and Peec AI are not in this four; they stay last when we write tracker roundups.
FAQ
Is AthenaHQ closer to Promptwatch than Trendos is?
On workflow, yes. On price and credits, it is a different purchase than Essential at $95. Trendos is closer to "look up a brand." AthenaHQ is closer to "assign a task."
Does Scrunch replace crawler logs?
No. Serving a variant to a bot is not the same as ingesting ChatGPTBot hits and errors from your CDN.
Can I use Trendos free and Promptwatch paid together?
Yes, briefly. Use Trendos for a category screenshot. Put client reporting on Promptwatch so crawler logs and articles live in the same workspace.