How much does Gumshoe AI cost?

Starter is $99 a month per project and Pro is $299 a month per project, both billed monthly with unlimited seats and no annual commitment, per Gumshoe’s pricing page on October 9, 2026. A project is one brand plus a focus area, usually one product or service line. A free sample audit needs no credit card, and many brands or clients are priced through sales.

Does Gumshoe AI track sentiment?

Yes, through its Sentiment Audit, which is on the $299 Pro plan and not on the $99 Starter. The Citation and Content Audits are Pro only too, per Gumshoe’s pricing page on October 9, 2026.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Gumshoe AI?

Among the tools on this page, Otterly.ai has the lowest monthly-billed price, $29 a month for 15 prompts on four engines, refreshed daily. Cituna is $39 a month for 10 prompts on seven engines daily, with the fixes and articles written. Rankscale’s Essentials plan is $204 a year, billed yearly only. AthenaHQ has a free tier.

8 Best Gumshoe AI Alternatives in 2026: Engines and Price

Q: What is the best Gumshoe AI alternative?

For seven engines, Claude, Grok and Google AI Mode among them, checked daily with the fix for each gap written, Cituna, from $39 a month: it checks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode every day. For sentiment reported daily, Peec AI from $95 a month. For persona-based tracking on a self-serve plan, Scrunch AI from $250 a month.

The short version

The best Gumshoe AI alternative for a team that wants seven engines, Claude, Grok and Google AI Mode among them, checked daily with the fix for each gap written, from $39 a month, is Cituna: it asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode your buyers’ questions every day, shows which answers name a competitor instead of you, and writes the fix for each gap.
Gumshoe’s $99 Starter monitors weekly and leaves out its Sentiment, Citation and Content Audits, which start on the $299 Pro (gumshoe.ai/pricing, October 9, 2026).
Cituna does not build buyer personas or score sentiment. If those are why you chose Gumshoe, the other picks fit better: Peec AI for daily sentiment and share of voice from $95, Scrunch AI for persona-based tracking with site audits from $250, and AthenaHQ for persona targeting on its Enterprise plan after a free start.
Otterly.ai suits a $29 start with Microsoft Copilot included, LLMrefs eleven engines on one $79 plan with a weekly refresh, Rankscale a nine-plus engine list on credits from $99, and Trakkr eight listed engines checked daily, Meta AI and DeepSeek among them, from $100.
Disclosure: we build Cituna. Every Gumshoe figure comes from Gumshoe’s own site on October 9, 2026, and every other rival figure from that vendor’s pricing page, with the date we read it.

Gumshoe AI is an AI search visibility platform built around buyer personas. Which alternative fits depends on what sent you looking: a weekly refresh at entry, sentiment and citations held for the top plan, or a bill that grows with every product line. Below we compare eight tools on engines, refresh, sentiment, price and how you start, with Gumshoe as the baseline.

Fair-comparison note:

We build Cituna, one of the alternatives below. Every rival figure comes from that vendor’s own page on the date shown, and where a page is silent we say so. Tell us if anything is out of date.

What Gumshoe AI does, and why teams compare it

Instead of a flat list of prompts, Gumshoe starts from profiles of the people who buy from you, each with a role, goals, pain points and a buying context, and asks AI models the questions those people would ask. Its reports then show how often your brand appears for each persona and each model. Its home page says it runs 6 models per audit, drawn from 11 tracked, naming ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews among them.

On October 9, 2026, Gumshoe’s pricing page listed three ways in:

Free sample audit: one audit with 4 personas, 5 prompts per persona and 4 models, with no credit card. Gumshoe says it does not expire.
Starter, $99 a month per project: a monthly Visibility Audit with weekly Snapshot Audits between full audits, 10 Technical Audit runs and 3 content generation runs a month, and unlimited seats. The Sentiment, Citation and Content Audits are not included.
Pro, $299 a month per project: all five audits (Visibility, Sentiment, Citation, Content and Technical) each month, 50 Technical Audit runs, 10 content generation runs, daily Snapshot Audits and unlimited seats.

Gumshoe defines a project as one brand plus a focus area, usually one product or service line, so a brand tracking three lines runs three subscriptions. Both plans bill monthly with no annual commitment, and many brands or clients are priced through sales. Its pages invite you to start free with no credit card required, through that sample audit. Its home page lists full CSV and JSON exports on every paid plan and an API for custom integrations, without saying which plan carries the API.

Why teams look elsewhere

The persona model is the reason to choose Gumshoe: it shows that two different buyers can get different recommendations from the same engine. Teams usually look elsewhere for one of four reasons:

They want daily data at entry. Starter monitors weekly; daily Snapshot Audits start at $299.
They need sentiment or citation sources without the Pro step. Both audits are Pro only.
They sell several product lines. Pricing is per project, so each line is another $99 or $299 a month.
They want every tracked model in every run. Each Gumshoe audit uses 6 of its 11 models.

How we chose these eight

Each tool had to pass four tests, with Gumshoe kept as the baseline rather than counted as an entry:

It records AI answers for prompts you set, showing whether engines mention or cite your brand and which competitors they name, the job Gumshoe’s Visibility Audit does.
It answers at least one of the four reasons above: daily data on its first paid plan, sentiment or citation reporting below $299, pricing that is not per product line, or a wider set of engines in each check.
It publishes a price or a trial you can start without a sales call.
Every fact is the vendor’s own and dated. Gumshoe from its pricing and home pages on October 9, 2026; LLMrefs on October 7; Peec AI’s plans, Otterly.ai, Rankscale, Trakkr, Scrunch AI and AthenaHQ on October 1, 2026, each from its pricing page, unless a different date is given beside the fact.

Cituna comes first because it is ours. The other seven follow in order of their lowest paid monthly price. The numbers help you find an entry; they are not a ranking.

Gumshoe AI alternatives at a glance

Gumshoe AI alternatives by engines, refresh, sentiment, price and how you start, October 2026
#	Tool	Best for	Engines on the entry plan	Refresh	Sentiment	Entry price	How you start
1	Cituna	Seven engines daily, with the fixes written	7	Daily	No	$39/mo per plan (10 prompts)	3-day trial, card required
2	Otterly.ai	A $29 start with Copilot included	4, more as add-ons	Daily	Not stated in our data	Otterly.ai $29/mo	Free trial, length not stated
3	LLMrefs	Eleven engines on one flat plan	11	Weekly	Not stated in our data	LLMrefs $79/mo	7-day trial
4	Peec AI	Sentiment and share of voice daily	3 you choose from 6	Daily	Yes	Peec AI $95/mo, $80 billed annually	Free trial, length not stated
5	Rankscale	Nine-plus engines on a schedule you set	9+	Hourly to monthly	Not stated in our data	Rankscale $99/mo (credits)	7-day trial
6	Trakkr	Eight engines daily, Meta AI included	8 listed (not stated per plan)	Daily	Not stated in our data	Trakkr $100/mo	14-day trial
7	Scrunch AI	Persona tracking with site audits	4	Not stated in our data	Yes	Scrunch AI $250/mo	7-day trial
8	AthenaHQ	A free tier, then eleven models	5 free, 11 on Starter	Not stated in our data	Not stated in our data	$0, then AthenaHQ $295/mo	Free tier
	Gumshoe AI (baseline)	Visibility by buyer persona	6 per audit, from 11 tracked	Weekly on Starter, daily on Pro	Pro only ($299)	Gumshoe $99/mo per project	Free sample audit, no credit card

Monthly billing unless stated. Gumshoe AI from gumshoe.ai/pricing and gumshoe.ai, October 9, 2026. Cituna from cituna.com/pricing. LLMrefs from its pricing page, October 7, 2026. Otterly.ai, Peec AI, Rankscale, Trakkr, Scrunch AI and AthenaHQ from each vendor’s pricing page, October 1, 2026, with Peec AI’s free-trial button re-read October 9. Cituna does not track Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI or DeepSeek. Pricing in this category changes often; check before you buy.

The 8 best Gumshoe AI alternatives in detail

1. Cituna (best for seven engines daily, with the fixes written)

Cituna asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Grok, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode your buyers’ questions every day, on every plan. For each answer it records whether you are named, where you sit among the brands listed, which of your pages it cites and which competitors it recommends. Where a competitor wins, Cituna writes the fix: schema, FAQs or an llms.txt entry. AutoSEO writes 30 articles a month on Starter for questions your site has no page for, held as drafts by default or published to your CMS. Every plan runs unlimited page audits, and the built-in Search Console connection ties each change to real clicks. API keys work on every paid plan; MCP read access comes with Starter and MCP write access with Pro.

Best for: a brand or agency that wants every engine checked daily from the first plan, and the fix rather than another report.
What it costs: Starter $39 a month (one brand, 10 prompts), Pro $119 (three brands, 30 prompts, five seats), Max $399 (ten brands, 90 prompts, 15 seats). Prices are per plan, not per product line. Every tier is on the pricing page.
Where it falls short against Gumshoe: Cituna does not build buyer personas, score sentiment, or track Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI or DeepSeek. Its Starter covers 10 prompts, against the 20 persona prompts in Gumshoe’s free sample audit, and its trial is 3 days and asks for a card, with no charge during it.

2. Otterly.ai (best for a $29 start with Copilot included)

Otterly.ai’s Lite plan is $29 a month for 15 prompts on Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot, refreshed daily on every tier. Gemini, Google AI Mode and Claude are paid add-ons. Otterly.ai’s Standard plan, at $189 for 100 prompts, adds API and MCP access, and Otterly.ai lists support for more than 50 countries (otterly.ai/pricing, read October 1 and September 25, 2026).

Best for: a small team that wants daily data at under a third of Gumshoe Starter’s price, with Copilot from day one.
What it costs: Otterly.ai is from $29 a month.
Where it falls short: 15 prompts is a small sample, Grok is not on its list at any price, and there are no personas in our data. See Otterly alternatives.

3. LLMrefs (best for eleven engines on one flat plan)

LLMrefs sells one plan. On October 7, 2026, it was $79 a month, marked “limited time only”, for 500 prompts across eleven engines including Claude, Grok, Microsoft Copilot, Meta AI and DeepSeek, with geo-targeting in more than 50 countries, unlimited team members and projects, API access and a 7-day free trial (llmrefs.com/pricing).

Best for: a team with several product lines, since LLMrefs projects are unlimited rather than billed one by one.
What it costs: LLMrefs is $79 a month.
Where it falls short: the refresh is weekly, the same as Gumshoe’s Starter, it reports positions without writing fixes, and the price is marked as limited time. See LLMrefs alternatives.

4. Peec AI (best for sentiment and share of voice daily)

Peec AI tracks visibility, position, sentiment and share of voice daily against competitors you name, with unlimited users and an MCP server on paid plans. Peec AI’s Starter is $95 a month, or $80 billed annually, for 50 prompts on three models you pick from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews, Microsoft Copilot, Gemini and Naver AI. Peec AI’s Pro at $245 lifts prompts to 150, and Advanced at $495 to 350 with multi-country tracking. Peec AI’s pricing page offers a free trial, length not stated (peec.ai/pricing, read October 1, 5 and 9, 2026).

Best for: a team that wants the sentiment reporting of Gumshoe’s Pro, daily, for under a third of the price.
What it costs: Peec AI is $95, $245 or $495 a month; Enterprise is custom.
Where it falls short: three models per self-serve plan, Claude and Grok held for Peec AI’s Enterprise plan, and no buyer personas in our data. See Peec AI alternatives.

5. Rankscale (best for nine-plus engines on a schedule you set)

Rankscale’s Pro plan is $99 a month for 1,200 credits across a list of nine or more engines that includes Claude, Grok and Microsoft Copilot, checked on a schedule you choose from hourly to monthly, with MCP access and page audits. Rankscale’s Pro+ at $229 adds a REST API, and its Essentials plan is billed yearly only, at $204 a year (rankscale.ai/pricing, read October 1, 2026).

Best for: a team that wants Gumshoe Starter’s price with more engines in each check and control over how often they run.
What it costs: Rankscale is $99 a month for Pro, its monthly entry, with a 7-day trial.
Where it falls short: credits make heavy use hard to predict from the headline price, its audits report findings rather than writing the change, and it has no Search Console integration. See Rankscale alternatives.

6. Trakkr (best for eight engines daily, Meta AI included)

Trakkr lists eight engines, checked daily, including Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI, from $100 a month, with an MCP server on the entry plan, 25 articles a month on its Growth plan and a 14-day trial (trakkr.ai/pricing, read October 1, 2026).

Best for: a team that wants Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI checked every day, at about the price of Gumshoe Starter.
What it costs: Trakkr is from $100 a month.
Where it falls short: no Microsoft Copilot, no Search Console integration, and no personas or sentiment in our data. See Trakkr alternatives.

7. Scrunch AI (best for persona tracking with site audits)

Scrunch AI is the closest match on this page to Gumshoe’s persona model. Scrunch AI’s Core plan, from $250 a month with a 7-day free trial, covers 125 prompts and 5,000 responses a month on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Microsoft Copilot, with sentiment, AI bot traffic reporting, five site audits a month and five user licenses (scrunch.com/pricing, read October 1, 2026). Core tracks one persona, one country and one language; Scrunch AI’s Enterprise plan moves to nine engines with Claude, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Grok, plus an API and single sign-on (read September 25, 2026).

Best for: a team that values personas and site audits and needs Microsoft Copilot, which Gumshoe’s pages do not name.
What it costs: Scrunch AI is from $250 a month; Enterprise is custom.
Where it falls short: one persona on Core against four in Gumshoe’s free sample audit, Claude and Gemini only on Enterprise, and no plan below $250. See Scrunch AI alternatives.

8. AthenaHQ (best for a free tier, then eleven models)

AthenaHQ’s Essential tier is free and covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. AthenaHQ’s Starter, at $295 a month, buys 3,600 credits (one credit is one AI response) across eleven models, Claude, Grok and Google AI Mode among them, with GA4 and Search Console integrations. AthenaHQ’s custom Enterprise plan adds persona targeting, multiple countries and SSO (athenahq.ai/plans, read October 1, 2026).

Best for: a team that wants to see its exposure free, then eleven models on one plan.
What it costs: AthenaHQ is free, then $295 a month; Enterprise is custom.
Where it falls short: AthenaHQ has nothing between free and $295, credits that make the monthly cost move with use, and personas only on Enterprise. See AthenaHQ alternatives.

How to choose a Gumshoe AI alternative

Start from the reason you are leaving. If it is the weekly refresh, Cituna, Otterly.ai, Peec AI and Trakkr check daily on their entry plans and Rankscale runs on the schedule you set, while LLMrefs stays weekly. If it is sentiment, Peec AI and Scrunch AI both report it below Gumshoe Pro’s $299. If it is the per-project bill, compare what one plan covers: Cituna Pro tracks three brands for $119 and LLMrefs allows unlimited projects. If personas are what you would miss, Scrunch AI is the self-serve option and AthenaHQ the Enterprise one. Our AI visibility audit guide sets out what to measure before you pick, and the brand sentiment guide covers tone if that is the gap.

One way to test: write 20 buyer questions, run them on two trials for three days, and compare the raw answers rather than the scores. Which brands were named, which pages were cited, and did the tool show you what to change?

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.