WP SEO AI vs Promptwatch (2026): A year-long managed contract or monthly software you can walk away from?
WP SEO AI sells a managed WordPress program on a 12-month minimum with a start-up fee and one package per domain. Promptwatch is monthly software from $95 with an official WordPress plugin. What each commitment costs, and what you keep if you leave.
If your site runs on WordPress and you want it cited in ChatGPT and Google's AI answers, you'll hit this fork eventually: hire someone to run the work, or buy software and run it yourself. WP SEO AI is the first option packaged as a product. The Amsterdam company, founded in 2023, installs its own plugin, assigns you a customer success manager and runs SEO, GEO and Google Ads for you. Promptwatch is the second, a visibility platform with published prices that now publishes to WordPress through an official plugin.
Two questions settle this. How much are you committing before you know it works, and what is still yours the day you stop paying?
Snapshot
| WP SEO AI | Promptwatch | |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Managed: agents plus a dedicated success manager | Software you operate, with agents that draft and publish |
| Price | Not published; questionnaire and call first | Explore free; Essential $95/mo; Professional $245/mo; Business $579/mo |
| Minimum term | 12 months, paid yearly (quarterly in some cases) | Monthly; annual is 12 months for the price of 10 |
| Setup fee | Start-up investment, amount not published | None listed |
| Trial | None; free AI visibility check by email | 7 days on Essential and agency Kick-off |
| Sites | One package per domain | 2 projects on Professional, 5 on Business, unlimited on agency plans |
| Platforms | WordPress only | Tracking on any site; publishing to WordPress, Webflow, Framer |
| Crawler data | AI Bot Tracking by platform and bot type | Agent Analytics from Professional: named bots, crawl-to-citation path |
| Getting data out | Mention data export; conversions from your GA4 | REST API v2 and MCP server on paid plans; Looker Studio |
What a year of WP SEO AI commits you to
There's no price on the site, but the structure is clear. The minimum term is 12 months, invoiced yearly and paid by bank transfer. A separate start-up investment covers plugin installation and the knowledge bases the agents write from. Each domain is its own package (volume discount possible), so a main site plus two country sites means three.
There's no trial. The vendor argues SEO results take months, which is fair, but your first real evidence arrives after you've signed.
What the money buys is real: a named success manager directing the content, and a paid-search manager reviewing every Google Ads recommendation. For an owner who wants nobody on staff touching SEO, that is the product.
What a year of Promptwatch commits you to
On monthly billing, nothing past the current month. The published prices work out like this:
- Essential, $95 a month: $1,140 over twelve months, or $950 paid annually.
- Professional, $245: $2,940 paid monthly, $2,450 annually. This tier adds Agent Analytics (25M crawler logs) and city tracking.
- Business, $579, five projects: $6,948 monthly, $5,790 annually.
Explore is free and Essential has a 7-day trial. If Professional isn't earning its keep by month three, you're out $735. Owners of many sites can skip per-domain pricing: agency Kick-off at $199 a month has unlimited projects.
The hidden cost is your time, since someone on your side reads the review inbox and decides what goes live.
Inside wp-admin
WP SEO AI's plugin goes deeper. It supports Gutenberg, Classic Editor, Elementor, Divi and Beaver Builder, and handles pruning, mass edits, cannibalization checks and lead forms in posts. It is also WordPress only.
Promptwatch's plugin is narrower. It connects with a sync token, and each Content Agent document becomes a standard post, pushed as a draft or published live. It can also add the visitor analytics script and forward crawler logs, though cached requests never reach WordPress, so Cloudflare users should send logs from the CDN. Our WordPress setup guide has the steps.
Who owns what when you leave
WP SEO AI's public pages don't say whether the plugin keeps working after the contract, what happens to the knowledge bases, or how long bot-tracking history is kept. Some things are safe regardless: published posts sit in your own WordPress database, conversion figures live in your GA4 property, and mention data can be exported. Get the rest in writing.
Pages that Promptwatch publishes are plain WordPress posts too, so they stay on your site if you cancel. The visibility history is a different matter. While subscribed, the API, MCP server and Looker Studio integration let you pull it into your own reporting. Do that monthly and you keep a copy when the subscription ends.
Where Promptwatch fits
On measurement it goes further than WP SEO AI publishes. Agent Analytics names ChatGPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, GoogleOther and the Meta AI crawler and traces crawls to citations. Citation analytics reaches page, Reddit and YouTube level, and prompts carry search volumes. WP SEO AI publishes no prompt allowance or page-level citation analytics, and we couldn't verify either.
If you do sign with a managed provider, a $95 Essential seat is a cheap independent check on its results.
Verdict
Pick WP SEO AI if you want SEO, GEO and Google Ads off your plate for a year on WordPress, and one annual invoice suits you. Get the start-up fee, per-domain price and exit terms in writing.
Most owners still deciding should start with Promptwatch. The price is public, you can stop any month, and drafts land in wp-admin for approval. If you later want a managed service, you'll bring your own baseline to the sales call.
FAQ
How much does WP SEO AI cost per year?
It doesn't publish a price. Expect a 12-month minimum paid yearly, a start-up investment on top, and one package per domain.
Can I leave Promptwatch after one month?
Monthly billing commits you one month at a time. Annual billing trades that for two free months.
Should I run both?
Some teams keep Promptwatch beside a managed service to verify results.