Qwairy vs Gauge (2026): Prepaid Credits vs $599 of Daily Volume
Gauge runs 600 prompts a day across six engines. Qwairy pauses at 1,300 credits. Promptwatch is the third column.
Gauge is a volume bet: 600 prompts daily, six engines, ~108,000 answers a month, 18 articles, $599. Qwairy is a €79 prepaid demo of a larger sitemap. Promptwatch is the third column if you want a reviewed vendor in the middle.
$599 is a real commitment. €79 is a wallet. $95 Essential is the seat you can show finance without explaining a credit pause or a vendor with no review footprint.
The three sit on different axes. Gauge sells raw volume at a fixed monthly rate, and the rate is high enough that the purchase has to be justified to someone. Qwairy sells credits that run out, which makes it behave more like a prepaid phone card than a subscription. Promptwatch sells a seat on a platform that includes monitoring, visitor analytics, and, on higher tiers, crawler logs. The point of putting them next to each other is not to declare a winner. It is to show what each one is, so the buyer picks the object that matches the job.
Snapshot comparison
| Qwairy | Gauge | Promptwatch | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free credits; €79/mo | $599/mo Growth (the $99 tier is gone) | Free Explore; $95/mo Essential |
| Volume | 1,300 credits on Starter | ~108,000 answers/mo | 6,000 responses on Essential; 18,000 on Professional |
| Engines | Long list, mixed API/UI | 6 daily (ChatGPT, AIO, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot) | 10+ including Claude |
| Claude / Grok | Claude API-only | Enterprise | Included on paid (Claude); Grok included |
| Content | 50 credits/brief | 18 articles/mo | 5 to 30 AEO articles |
| Reviews | Homepage claim | Zero on G2/Capterra/TrustRadius/Trustpilot | 4.7/5, 1,840+ customers |
| Methodology note | Mixed UI/API | Synthetic Gauge-generated prompts | Live UIs and visitors on Essential; crawler logs on Professional |
Read the table row by row, because each row changes the decision.
Starting price sets the tone of the conversation you will have internally. Qwairy lets you start at zero and then move to €79, which is a wallet you top up. Gauge no longer has a $99 entry; Growth at $599 is the number you have to defend. Promptwatch keeps a free Explore tier and a $95 Essential seat, so there is a path that does not require a budget conversation.
Volume is where the three diverge hardest. Qwairy caps at 1,300 credits on Starter, and credits get spent on checks and on briefs, so the wallet drains with use. Gauge runs ~108,000 answers a month because it pushes 600 prompts a day across six engines. Promptwatch gives 6,000 responses on Essential and 18,000 on Professional, which is less raw volume than Gauge but more structured product around it.
Engines matter for coverage. Qwairy lists a long set but mixes API and UI access, which affects how real the result is. Gauge runs six engines daily: ChatGPT, AIO, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot. Promptwatch covers 10+ engines including Claude, with Grok included on paid plans.
Claude and Grok specifically are a fault line. Qwairy gives Claude through API only. Gauge pushes Claude and Grok to Enterprise. Promptwatch includes Claude on paid plans and includes Grok. If Claude visibility is part of what you are measuring, that single row can decide the column.
Content is bundled differently. Qwairy charges 50 credits per brief, so content competes with monitoring for the same wallet. Gauge ships 18 articles a month in the same bill. Promptwatch ranges from 5 to 30 AEO articles depending on tier.
Reviews are the procurement question. Qwairy has a homepage claim but no third-party score published here. Gauge has zero on G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, and Trustpilot. Promptwatch carries a 4.7/5 rating across 1,840+ customers. A vendor with no review footprint is hard to put in front of finance.
Methodology is the line you should not skip. Qwairy mixes UI and API. Gauge scores visibility on prompts that Gauge itself generates, which is why a trial week checked against GA4 matters. Promptwatch combines live UI monitoring and visitor analytics on Essential, and adds crawler logs on Professional.
The $99 Gauge tier is gone. Growth at $599 is the number. Visibility is scored on Gauge-made prompts. That methodology note is why a trial week against GA4 matters. Qwairy's methodology note is mixed UI/API. Promptwatch combines live UI monitoring and visitor analytics on Essential, while crawler logs begin on Professional.
Qwairy's case
You can try it for €0 credits. $599 Gauge is a real commitment on a vendor with no review footprint.
Qwairy will not give you 108,000 answers. It will give you a pause. 1,300 credits on Starter, 50 credits per brief, Claude API-only. Homepage review claim, unpublished here as a third-party score. MCP is on the card. Daily, weekly, or monthly options do not fix a wallet that hits zero.
The shape of Qwairy is a prepaid demo of a larger sitemap. That is a real use case. If you want to poke at a broad set of prompts without committing to a $599 monthly, the credit model lets you do that, and the free credits lower the barrier to starting. The cost is that the credits are finite. Every check and every brief spends from the same pool, so a busy week ends in a pause until you top up again. The cadence options, daily, weekly, or monthly, change how often you run checks but not the fact that the wallet drains. Claude is API-only, which is a coverage caveat if Claude visibility matters to you. The homepage review claim is not published here as a third-party score, so it cannot be cited to procurement the way a G2 page can.
Gauge's case
Daily cadence. Content engine in the same bill. MCP. GA4/GSC/Slack. One-week trial.
Zero third-party reviews. ~$500K raised (YC S24). $99 Starter removed mid-2026. Visibility scored on Gauge-made prompts. No SOC 2. Claude/Grok/API are Enterprise. Pay monthly.
Six engines daily: ChatGPT, AIO, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot. 18 articles a month. ~108,000 answers. That is the volume mill. Claude and Grok wait for Enterprise. If volume is the job and you will verify against GA4 in the trial week, this is the column. If you need a G2 link for procurement, this is not the column.
Gauge is the column for a team that wants a high daily volume of checks and a content engine in the same subscription. The 600 prompts a day across six engines produce roughly 108,000 answers a month, and the 18 articles ship inside the same bill, so you are not buying content separately. The integrations, GA4, GSC, and Slack, plus MCP, let you wire the output into the stack you already run. The trial week is the safety valve, because the visibility score is computed on prompts Gauge generates, and the only honest way to read that score is to compare it against GA4 traffic in the trial. The gaps are real too. There are zero third-party reviews on the major review sites, the $99 Starter was removed mid-2026, there is no SOC 2, and Claude, Grok, and API access sit behind Enterprise. For a buyer who needs a G2 link for procurement, that gap is disqualifying on its own.
Promptwatch's case
Promptwatch is reviewed and funded, with a €6M seed and a free tier. Essential puts Claude, 200K visitor events, and five AEO articles on the $95 plan. It does not include crawler logs. Professional adds 25M logs at $245. That is less raw volume than Gauge Growth and more product than Qwairy Starter.
Essential includes 6,000 responses, 10+ engines including Claude and Grok, 200K visitor events, and five AEO articles. Professional raises the response allowance to 18,000 and adds 25M crawler logs. Promptwatch is rated 4.7/5 across 1,840+ customers. The $95 plan is the cheaper serious monitoring seat next to $599 and a credit wallet, while crawler analysis starts at $245.
You do not get 108,000 answers. You do not get Gauge's synthetic prompt mill. You do get a vendor a finance person can look up.
The case for Promptwatch is that it is the column with a review footprint and a funding history, and it still has a free tier and a $95 seat. Essential is the plan that makes sense to compare against the other two: it includes Claude and Grok, 6,000 responses across 10+ engines, 200K visitor events, and five AEO articles. Crawler logs are not on Essential. They start on Professional at $245, with the response allowance rising to 18,000 and 25M crawler logs included. The trade is clear. You give up Gauge's raw volume and you give up Qwairy's credit flexibility, and in return you get a platform that ties monitoring to visitor analytics on the lower tier and to crawler logs on the higher tier, sold by a vendor with a 4.7/5 rating across 1,840+ customers.
Who should pick which
Pick Gauge if volume is the job and you will verify against GA4 in the trial week.
Pick Qwairy if $599 is not happening and you like demos.
Pick Promptwatch if you want a vendor you can show a finance person.
Do not pick Qwairy as a cheaper Gauge. You will not get 600 prompts a day. Do not pick Gauge and skip the GA4 check. Do not pick Promptwatch and then complain it is not 108,000 answers.
The framing matters because the three are not substitutes for each other. Gauge is a volume mill, and the only way to use it well is to lean into the volume and check it against your own analytics. Qwairy is a credit wallet, and the only way to use it well is to treat it as a demo of a larger sitemap, not as a daily driver. Promptwatch is a platform seat, and the only way to use it well is to use the parts that the credit wallet and the volume mill do not have, which is visitor analytics on Essential and crawler logs on Professional. Picking the wrong object for the job is the failure mode, not picking the wrong brand.
FAQ
Is Qwairy a cheaper Gauge?
No. Gauge is a volume mill. Qwairy is a credit wallet. $95 Promptwatch is the cheaper serious seat. €79 is cheaper than $599 the way a demo is cheaper than a mill. Different object.