KIME vs Profound: What is the best AI visibility tool for enterprise

Profound is the enterprise category leader with data KIME cannot match. KIME is the better buy for mid-market teams tracking several markets.

Disclosure: KIME publishes this comparison. Profound is the strongest platform but requires to be highly technical in this category by most objective measures, and we say so below before making our own case. Every figure comes from each vendor's live pages.

Profound raised a $96M Series C at a $1B valuation in February 2026, led by Lightspeed, bringing its total across four disclosed rounds to roughly $154.5M. It is a Gartner Representative Vendor in the 2026 Market Guide for Answer Engine Visibility Tools, holds 4.5 stars on G2 from roughly 950 to 1,130 reviews depending which G2 page you read, and counts Target, Walmart, Figma, MongoDB and US Bank as named customers. If you are running an enterprise evaluation, Profound belongs on your shortlist and probably wins it.

This page exists because the comparison changes shape below the enterprise tier, and that is where most teams actually buy.

What each platform is

Profound describes itself as a "full stack marketing platform for the marketer of the future" organised into four groups: Monitor, Create, Operate and Discover. It tracks up to 9 answer engines, runs Agent Analytics on server logs benchmarked against 2 million-plus pages, and sells Prompt Volumes, a demand dataset built from double opt-in consumer panels covering 1.5 billion-plus real AI conversations.

KIME is a GEO platform built around your own prompt set, running daily across up to 10 AI engines, feeding an 8-factor perception model, citation analytics and AWX, an execution layer that produces finished articles, outreach and technical fixes.

The short version: Profound measures the AI market better than anyone. KIME measures your brand across more markets for less money, and then does the work.

1. Pricing, and where the cliff sits

Both vendors publish self-serve pricing. Reading it carefully is the whole comparison.

Profound

Prices shown are billed yearly with two months free. Data history is "All time" on every tier, and prompts run daily on every tier, both of which are genuinely good.

KIME

Annual billing saves 15%. Explorer and Core carry a 7-day free trial. Profound's Growth tier shows a "Try for free" call to action but does not publish a trial length anywhere on its pricing page.

At the same €399/$399 price point, the two products give you different things. Profound Growth: 3 engines, 1 language, 1 region, 3 seats, 9,000 responses, no API. KIME Core: 3 engines, unlimited languages, unlimited countries, 10 seats, 18,000 responses, MCP access included.

In short, if you sell in one country in one language, Profound Growth is a serious product at that price and its data is better than ours. If you sell across Europe, KIME Core covers markets that Profound reserves for an unpriced Enterprise conversation.

The cliff above $399 is the thing to plan for. On Profound, the API, Prompt Volumes searches, ChatGPT Shopping, multi-region, multi-language, SSO and any engine beyond the third are all Enterprise-gated. Several reviewers describe that gap as steep, and Profound's own pricing page confirms every item on that list.

2. AI engine coverage

KIME lists 10 engines and Profound lists 9. Both gate by plan: KIME Explorer selects 2 and Core selects 3, while Profound Starter is ChatGPT only and Growth is three fixed engines you cannot choose.

The practical difference is choice. KIME lets you pick which engines you track at each tier. Profound Growth fixes the three. If your buyers are on Copilot or Claude, KIME reaches them at €399 and Profound does not reach them below Enterprise.

Both vendors capture responses through the browser rather than through APIs, on the same reasoning: API answers differ from what real users see. That is a shared strength worth knowing about, and it is the correct architectural choice.

3. Where Profound is genuinely ahead

Four things, and they are not small.

Prompt Volumes is the hardest asset in this category to replicate. Most platforms, KIME included, work from prompts you write. Profound licenses double opt-in consumer panels covering tens of millions of real prompts monthly, 1.5 billion-plus conversations, with demographic weighting and statistical correction for geographic bias. That tells you what people actually ask, not what you guessed they ask. Even competing vendors reviewing Profound concede this is category-defining.

Agent Analytics at benchmark scale. Server-log-based AI crawler tracking with spoof verification, nine documented CDN and log integrations, and benchmarking against more than 2 million pages. KIME does not offer crawler log analytics at all. Our nearest capability is AI Site Health, a free scored audit of whether AI can reach, extract from and cite your site, which answers a narrower question.

Enterprise procurement readiness. SOC 2 Type II, SSO via SAML or OIDC, RBAC with fine-grained permissions, a 24-hour SLA and a dedicated specialist. KIME does not publish a compliance posture. If your security review has a checklist, Profound clears it and we may not.

Research depth. Profound publishes original studies at a cadence and sample size nobody in this category matches, including analyses of roughly 12 billion citations across 29 industries and a genuine controlled experiment on markdown versus HTML for AI bots. That is a real moat and an honest signal of technical seriousness.

Add the developer surface: a REST API with OpenAPI spec, official Python and JavaScript SDKs, an MCP server and a Tableau connector. KIME offers MCP on every plan but reserves advanced API access for Enterprise.

4. Where KIME is ahead

Multi-market coverage at a published price. Unlimited languages and countries on every KIME tier, against 1 language and 1 region on both of Profound's self-serve plans. For a European brand this is usually the entire decision, and it is the clearest structural difference between the two products.

Seats. 5 on Explorer and 10 on Core, against 1 on Profound Starter and 3 on Growth.

Execution, not just recommendation. AWX produces GEO-optimised articles, outreach emails to the publishers whose pages the model cited, FAQ pages and technical fixes. Profound's Agents do build automated content workflows, and that capability is real and metered in credits, so this is a narrower advantage than it looks. The difference is that AWX is included at €99 and Profound's credit allowance is 100 per month at Starter.

Sentiment resolution. KIME's AI Perception scores eight named factors: Brand Focus, Language Tone, Competitive Position, Endorsements, Source Credibility, Information Recency, Confidence Level and Risk Factors. Profound ships a standalone Sentiment product plus FactCheck, which finds inaccurate claims and their sources. Both are credible; KIME resolves the drivers more finely, Profound is better at catching outright falsehoods.

Engine choice below Enterprise, covered above.

Summary comparison

In short, Profound has the better data and the better enterprise story. KIME has the better economics for a team tracking more than one country below an enterprise budget.

When to choose Profound

You are an enterprise with a procurement process. SOC 2 Type II, SSO, RBAC and an SLA. This is not close.

You need to know what people actually ask AI, not what you think they ask. Prompt Volumes has no equivalent in this category, including at KIME.

You need AI crawler analytics. Server-log bot tracking with verification and benchmarking. KIME does not offer it.

You want the deepest research and the largest peer base. Roughly a thousand G2 reviews, Gartner recognition, and 20 published case studies including MongoDB and Ramp.

One point of fairness about that review base: Profound has a commercial partnership with G2 and its review count went from "over 140" in late 2025 to around a thousand within about seven months. The reviews are real; the volume reflects an active solicitation programme rather than purely organic accumulation. Worth knowing, not worth discounting.

When to choose KIME

You sell in more than one country or language and are not buying Enterprise. Both Profound self-serve tiers are capped at one language and one region. KIME has no such cap at any tier.

You need more than three seats without an Enterprise conversation.

You want to choose which engines you track. Copilot, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek are reachable on KIME below Enterprise and are not on Profound.

You want the platform to produce the work at a mid-market price. AWX is included from €99.

The matching point of fairness: KIME is a younger company with a thinner public review base and no published compliance posture. If vendor maturity carries weight in your process, that difference is real and it favours Profound.

The complementary case

These two overlap less than the category name suggests. Several teams use Profound for market-level intelligence, Prompt Volumes and crawler analytics, and a cheaper multi-market tracker for day-to-day brand coverage across languages. If your budget stretches to both, that is a coherent split rather than duplication.

If you are choosing one, the honest test is whether your constraint is data or coverage. A team that needs to understand the whole AI market should buy Profound. A team that needs to watch its own brand across six European markets on a published price should buy KIME.

Frequently asked questions

Is Profound better than KIME?

For enterprise buyers, usually yes. Profound has better demand data, crawler analytics, compliance certification and a far larger review base. For mid-market teams tracking multiple languages or countries, KIME covers markets that Profound reserves for Enterprise, at a published price.

How much does Profound cost?

Profound Starter is $99 per month and Growth is $399 per month, both billed yearly with two months free. Enterprise pricing is custom and not published. The API, multi-language, multi-region and engines beyond the third are all Enterprise-gated.

How many AI engines does Profound track?

Nine: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Claude and Google AI Overviews. Starter covers ChatGPT only and Growth covers three. All nine require Enterprise. KIME supports 10 engines with 2 on Explorer and 3 on Core.

Does Profound offer a free trial?

Profound's Growth tier shows a "Try for free" call to action, but the trial length is not published anywhere on its pricing page. KIME offers a 7-day trial on both Explorer and Core, started from the pricing page.

What is Prompt Volumes?

Profound's demand dataset, built from double opt-in consumer panels covering more than 1.5 billion real AI conversations, with intent classification and demographic breakdowns. It shows what people actually ask AI assistants. KIME has no equivalent and tracks the prompts you define instead.

Does KIME offer AI crawler analytics?

No. KIME does not analyse server logs for AI bot traffic. Its closest capability is AI Site Health, a free audit scoring whether AI can reach your brand, extract your content and cite you. Profound's Agent Analytics is the better tool for that question.

Which is better for agencies?

Profound offers a self-serve Agency Growth plan with 400 credits per client workspace, though its price is not published. KIME Agency Starter is €499 per month with 10 seats and unlimited client and pitch workspaces. Compare on client count and how many markets each client needs.

Can I use KIME and Profound together?

Yes. Profound covers market-level demand data and crawler analytics; KIME covers multi-market brand tracking, sentiment scoring and execution. They meter different things, so the spend does not overlap.

Sources. Verified 21 August 2026: tryprofound.com/pricing, tryprofound.com/features, tryprofound.com/features/prompt-volumes, tryprofound.com/features/agent-analytics, tryprofound.com/enterprise, tryprofound.com/customers, Profound's Series C announcement, kime.ai/pricing, kime.ai/integrations, kime.ai/ai-perception, kime.ai/agentic.

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