Side-by-side matrix
| What you get | CitunaThat’s us | AthenaHQ | Peec AI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price / month | $39 | $0 → $295 | $80 |
| Pricing model | Flat tiers | Credit-based | Flat |
| AI engines at entry | 6 | 5 free / 9 paid | 3–6 |
| Claude tracked | |||
| Grok tracked | Paid ($295) | ||
| Microsoft Copilot | Paid ($295) | ||
| Google AI Overviews | Not published | ||
| Refresh cadence | Daily | Not published | Not published |
| Search Console integration | |||
| MCP access at entry | |||
| Generated fixes | Paid agent | ||
| Free trial | 3 days (card) | Free tier | 3 days |
Compiled from each vendor’s public pricing page: AthenaHQ figures from www.athenahq.ai/pricing, checked July 16, 2026; Peec AI figures from peec.ai/pricing, checked August 27, 2026. AthenaHQ: free Essential tier stepping up to a $295/mo Starter. Peec AI: Starter covers three models; tier prices render client-side. “Not published” marks a row the vendor does not state publicly; it is not a “no”. Cituna checks all six 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.
Reading the difference
On cost per engine at entry, the crudest useful way to normalise these two, AthenaHQ works out at about $32.78 per engine per month ($0 → $295 across 5 free / 9 paid) and Peec AI at about $13.33 ($80 across 3–6). Peec AI is the better ratio, by roughly $19.45 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 Claude, Grok (paid ($295)), Search Console integration and generated fixes (paid agent) and Peec AI does not; Peec AI covers an MCP server and AthenaHQ 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 That is the whole difference on the rows both vendors publish, everything else in the matrix either matches or is unpublished by one of them, and an unpublished row is not a “no”.
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 (9 engines). Peec AI: Starter $80 (3 models) · higher tiers add models. That is where most of the apparent price gap between these two either disappears or widens sharply, depending on which engines you actually need.
One practical difference that does not appear in any feature list: AthenaHQ bills as credit-based and Peec AI as flat. 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 AthenaHQ if…
AthenaHQ is the most engine-complete tool in the category, if you can clear the $295 step. Against Peec AI specifically, you are paying $215 a month more than Peec AI for it, it covers more engines at entry (5 free / 9 paid against 3–6) and and it bills as credit-based where Peec AI bills as flat.
- the widest published engine list here: nine on the $295 Starter, including Grok and Microsoft Copilot
- a genuinely free Essential tier covering five engines including Claude, 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 Peec AI if…
Peec AI is the analytics-first choice: sentiment, multi-country and unlimited seats. Against AthenaHQ specifically, it is the cheaper entry by $215 a month, it covers fewer engines at entry (3–6 against 5 free / 9 paid) and and it bills as flat where AthenaHQ bills as credit-based.
- sentiment analysis and multi-country tracking, which is the deepest reporting layer among the self-serve tools here
- unlimited seats on paid plans, so the whole team can read the dashboard without a per-seat conversation
- an MCP server included on paid plans, and published data studies drawn from a very large source corpus
What you give up:
- neither Claude nor Grok appears on its published engine list, which is two of the six engines buyers most often ask about
- the Starter covers three of the six models it lists, so the entry price is not the full-coverage price
- tier prices render client-side, so a crawler that does not execute JavaScript sees no price at all: and no Search Console integration
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.