Side-by-side matrix
| What you get | CitunaThat’s us | AthenaHQ | LLMrefs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price / month | $39 | $0 → $295 | $79 |
| Pricing model | Flat tiers | Credit-based | Flat monthly |
| AI engines at entry | 7 | 5 free / 11 paid | 11 |
| Claude tracked | Paid ($295) | ||
| Grok tracked | Paid ($295) | ||
| Microsoft Copilot | |||
| Google AI Overviews | |||
| Refresh cadence | Daily | Not published | Weekly |
| Search Console integration | |||
| MCP access at entry | |||
| Generated fixes | Paid agent | Free tools | |
| Content generation | Not published | Not published | |
| Publishes to your CMS | Not published | Not published | |
| Content languages | 50+ | Not published | Not published |
| Free trial | 3 days (card) | Free tier | 7 days |
Compiled from each vendor’s public pricing page: AthenaHQ figures from www.athenahq.ai/plans, checked October 1, 2026; LLMrefs figures from llmrefs.com/pricing, checked October 1, 2026. AthenaHQ: free Essential tier stepping up to a $295/mo Starter. “Not published” marks a row the vendor does not state publicly; it is not a “no”. Cituna checks all seven engines daily and does not track Microsoft Copilot. MCP read tools are included from $39, write tools from Pro ($119); MCP is not exclusive to us. Prices change often: verify before buying. Spot an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
Published entry-tier price per month from each vendor’s pricing page (dates in the matrix note above). Read it against what each tier includes, a lower price can mean fewer engines or prompts.
| Engine | Cituna | AthenaHQ | LLMrefs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Claude | ? | ||
| Grok | ? | ||
| Microsoft Copilot | |||
| Google AI Overviews |
The four engines coverage varies most on. A dash-ringed “?” means we have not confirmed that vendor’s position on that engine (shown as “Not published” in the matrix), never a no we have not earned.
Reading the difference
On cost per engine at entry, the crudest useful way to normalise these two, AthenaHQ works out at about $26.82 per engine per month ($0 → $295 across 5 free / 11 paid) and LLMrefs at about $7.18 ($79 across 11). LLMrefs is the better ratio, by roughly $19.64 per engine. Treat that as a sanity check rather than a verdict: an engine you do not care about is not worth anything, and AthenaHQ’s number improves immediately if its engine mix happens to be the one you need.
The confirmed capability split between these two is narrow enough to state exactly: AthenaHQ covers Search Console integration and LLMrefs does not. That is the whole difference on the rows both vendors publish, everything else in the matrix either matches or is unpublished by one of them, and an unpublished row is not a “no”.
Worth knowing before you shortlist either: neither AthenaHQ nor LLMrefs offers an MCP server. If any of those is a requirement, this comparison is the wrong shortlist and you should widen it rather than pick the better of two tools that both miss what you need.
The tier ladders are worth reading side by side, because the entry price means something different on each. AthenaHQ: Essential $0 (5 engines) · Starter $295 (11 engines, 3,600 credits). LLMrefs: One plan at $79 a month, marked “Limited time only” on its page: 500 prompts on every engine it lists, no per-engine fees. That is where most of the apparent price gap between these two either disappears or widens sharply, depending on which engines you actually need.
They also genuinely overlap on Claude, Grok, Microsoft Copilot, Google AI Overviews and generated fixes, so those rows should not carry weight in the decision even though both vendors market them.
One practical difference that does not appear in any feature list: AthenaHQ bills as credit-based and LLMrefs as flat monthly. A credit-metered plan and a flat plan are hard to compare over a year because only one of them has a predictable ceiling, so run your expected prompt volume through both before treating the entry prices as comparable at all.
Which to choose
Choose Cituna if…
For seven AI engines checked daily and the fixes written, on one plan from $39 a month, the pick is Cituna rather than AthenaHQ or LLMrefs.
- ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, all seven checked daily on the $39 Starter
- the generated fixes to close the gaps, and articles written and published to your site
- a Search Console integration to prove the result; AthenaHQ has one too
- MCP access from the $39 Starter; neither AthenaHQ nor LLMrefs offers it
What you give up:
- Microsoft Copilot, which AthenaHQ and LLMrefs track and Cituna does not
- more engines, which AthenaHQ and LLMrefs list
Choose AthenaHQ if…
AthenaHQ is an eleven-engine platform, if you can clear the $295 step. Against LLMrefs specifically, you are paying $216 a month more than LLMrefs for it and it bills as credit-based where LLMrefs bills as flat monthly.
- eleven engines on the $295 Starter, including Claude, Grok, Google AI Mode and Microsoft Copilot
- a genuinely free Essential tier covering five engines, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, with no card, which is the least risky way to start in this whole category
- a native Search Console integration, still uncommon among the self-serve tools
What you give up:
- the jump from free to paid is a $295 cliff with nothing in between, which prices out most small teams the free tier attracts
- billing is credit-metered rather than flat, so the monthly cost moves with usage and needs a calculator to predict
- no MCP server at entry, so the data cannot be queried from an AI client without export
Choose LLMrefs if…
LLMrefs is an eleven-engine list on one flat plan, refreshed weekly. Against AthenaHQ specifically, it is the cheaper entry by $216 a month and it bills as flat monthly where AthenaHQ bills as credit-based.
- eleven engines, including Claude, Grok and Copilot, with no per-engine fees
- a 7-day free trial, then one flat plan with 500 prompts
- a set of free standalone tools alongside the tracker
What you give up:
- a weekly refresh rather than daily, so a change made on Monday may not be visible until the following week
- no Search Console integration and no MCP server
- the $79 price is marked “Limited time only” on its pricing page, so it may not hold
Drafted with AI assistance from our own research and Search Console data, and reviewed by Rahul A before publishing. Rules and prices change; check the linked official source before you act.