Promptwatch vs AthenaHQ: feature-by-feature comparison across 30 rows (2026)
Promptwatch and AthenaHQ compared on 30 sourced rows: tracking, citations, crawler logs, traffic, content and pricing, with a worked example for a 100-prompt team.
Promptwatch and AthenaHQ end up on the same shortlist because they court the same buyer: a marketing team that has moved past "are we mentioned in ChatGPT?" and wants to do something about it. They package that very differently. AthenaHQ gives you a free tier, an AI agent from the first day, and on Starter a pool of credits you spend across 11 models. Promptwatch gives you fixed prompt and response allowances, and from $245 a month it adds the diagnostic layer underneath: crawler logs, traffic attribution, and publishing.
This comparison uses AthenaHQ's pricing page and homepage as captured on November 6, 2026, its platform page, agency page and llms.txt as read on November 8, and Promptwatch's own documentation as re-checked on November 4. Where AthenaHQ's pages don't mention a feature, we write "Not listed", not "no". If you're weighing more than two tools, our AthenaHQ alternatives compared feature by feature puts five more on the same grid.
Quick verdict
Pick AthenaHQ if you want to start free, your program lives in one country, and someone will work its action list every week. Pick Promptwatch if you have to prove why a page is or isn't cited and what that is worth in visits and conversions, or if you need personas, city-level tracking, an MCP server or the API without an Enterprise contract. For most teams past the pilot stage the second list is longer, which is why Promptwatch is the one we'd trial first.
At a glance
| Promptwatch | AthenaHQ | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Essential $95/mo, Professional $245, Business $579, Enterprise custom; agency plans $199, $399, $799 | Essential free, Starter $295/mo, Enterprise custom; annual billing 17% off |
| Entry allowance | Essential: 1 project, 50 prompts, 6,000 responses a month | Starter: unlimited prompts inside 3,600 credits a month (1 credit = 1 response), 1-month rollover |
| Engines | Every paid plan can track any supported engine | Free tier: 5; Starter: 11, more on request |
| Trial | 7-day free trial on all six self-serve plans; free AI Visibility Report | Free tier with 300 credits; free audit; paid-plan trial not listed |
| Seats | Unlimited on every paid plan | Unlimited on every plan |
Full feature comparison
| Feature | Promptwatch | AthenaHQ |
|---|---|---|
| Tracking | ||
| Usage model | Fixed prompts and responses per plan | Credits, one per AI response |
| Engines on the first paid plan | Any supported engine. Real UI: ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Alexa, Meta AI; via API: Claude, DeepSeek, Mistral, Grok and more | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, Mistral |
| Prompt research | Prompt Volumes: volume, difficulty and citation rate | Volume estimates (QVEM) on Starter; difficulty not listed |
| Query fan-outs | Exact sub-queries per model | Not listed |
| Personas | Yes, with stacking and Persona Insights | Enterprise only |
| Location | Country on every paid plan; state/city and coordinates from Business | Starter: one country and language; multi-region on Enterprise; state/city not listed |
| Tracking frequency | Daily; every 12, 6 or 1 hours on Business | Not listed |
| Citations and brand | ||
| Page-level citations | All Citations, URL Positions, Citation Trends | Partial: source and citation intelligence; URL depth not stated |
| Social citation reports | Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram | Not listed |
| Track a specific URL | Page Tracker, incl. competitor URLs | Not listed |
| Sentiment and claim narrative | Brand Narrative on every plan | Sentiment intelligence (plan not readable); claim review on Enterprise |
| Fact checking against your pages | Fact Check, Business and up | Enterprise only (claim review, discrepancy detection) |
| Crawlers and traffic | ||
| AI crawler logs | Agent Analytics, Professional and up | Not listed (robots.txt and llms.txt management) |
| IP verification, crawl-to-citation, errors | Yes | Not listed |
| AI-referred visits and conversions | Own script, GTM or WordPress plugin, every plan | Partial: via GA4; Shopify revenue attribution |
| Search Console and Bing | Both, in Search Insights | Search Console; Bing not listed |
| Content and action | ||
| Action queue | Action Board with weekly Discovery agent | Action Center; on-page and off-page actions on Starter |
| Conversational agent | Agent Chat on every paid plan | Ask Athena, from the free tier |
| Content generation | AEO articles from Professional (5/mo) | Content optimization agent on Starter; autonomous ACE on Enterprise |
| CMS publishing | WordPress, Webflow, Framer; automated Content Agent on Business | Partial: Shopify publishing; Webflow and Framer listed as integrations |
| Content refresh | Content Refresh suggestions | Yes, self-learning content improvement on Starter |
| Commerce, integrations and admin | ||
| Shopping tracking | ChatGPT Shopping and Alexa, Business | Partial: Commerce Optimization; tracking not stated |
| Ads inside AI answers | Ads Radar, Business and agency plans | Not listed |
| MCP server | Every paid plan, 110+ tools | Not listed |
| REST API | Every paid plan | Paid add-on on Starter; included on Enterprise |
| BI connector | Looker Studio from Professional | Enterprise only (Tableau, Power BI, Looker) |
| PDF and scheduled reports | PDF of any dashboard; 10 scheduled reports | CSV export on Starter; PDF not listed |
| Security | ISO/IEC 27001, GDPR; SSO on Enterprise | SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, NIST CSF Tier 3; SSO on Enterprise |
| Agency structure | Agency plans with unlimited projects and prompts | Agency program; plan details not published |
| Coding agent visibility | Codex, Claude Code, OpenCode | Not listed |
Sources: AthenaHQ pricing page and homepage captured November 6, 2026; AthenaHQ platform and agency pages and llms.txt read November 8, 2026; Promptwatch llms.txt, ai-agent-instructions and pricing page checked November 4, 2026.
Pricing side by side
AthenaHQ's pricing page, captured November 6, 2026.
The list prices don't compare cleanly, because one vendor sells a quantity of responses and the other sells credits. So here is one realistic team. Assume 100 prompts, four engines (say ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity and Gemini), checked daily, in one country. Over a 30-day month that is 12,000 AI responses.
On Promptwatch, Essential stops at 50 prompts, so this team lands on Professional at $245 a month, or $2,450 a year on annual billing. Professional allows 150 prompts and 18,000 responses, which leaves 6,000 responses of headroom for 50 more prompts later. The same plan includes 25M crawler logs, 1M visitor events, 5 AEO articles, 1,500 Agent Credits and the Looker Studio connector.
On AthenaHQ, Starter is $295 a month with 3,600 credits. The same workload burns 400 credits a day, so the allowance runs out on day 9. The team then has three choices. It can buy extra credits, which AthenaHQ prices on request. It can cut the panel to about 30 prompts checked daily. Or it can keep 100 prompts and run them roughly twice a week, about 9 runs a month. The one-month credit rollover helps in quiet months, and AthenaHQ's annual billing takes 17% off the price.
Promptwatch's pricing page, captured November 6, 2026.
Now add a second country with the same 100 prompts. On AthenaHQ, multi-region tracking is an Enterprise feature at a custom price. On Promptwatch, 200 prompts on four engines is 24,000 responses, which fits Business at $579 a month (350 prompts, 42,000 responses). Business also brings state and city tracking, coordinate targeting and runs as often as hourly.
At the bottom of the range, AthenaHQ is cheaper. Its free tier costs nothing, and Promptwatch Essential at $95 has no crawler logs and no AEO articles. Be clear about which comparison you're making.
Where AthenaHQ wins
AthenaHQ is cheaper to try. Essential is free, with 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot, unlimited users, and the Athena AI agent. Promptwatch has no free plan. Its free starting points are the 7-day trial and the free AI Visibility Report, and its Agent Chat comes with paid plans only.
AthenaHQ's platform page, captured November 8, 2026.
Its Starter packaging is also easy to read. All 11 models are listed on the first paid plan with no engine add-ons, and prompts and competitors are unlimited inside the credit pool. Unused credits roll over for a month. Promptwatch matches it on seats (unlimited on both) and on prompt volume data, since AthenaHQ's QVEM estimates sit on Starter.
Procurement is another point. AthenaHQ lists SOC 2 Type 2 and NIST CSF Tier 3 alongside GDPR. Promptwatch lists ISO/IEC 27001 and GDPR. If your security questionnaire asks for SOC 2 by name, AthenaHQ answers it directly. Both put SSO on Enterprise. AthenaHQ's Enterprise plan also lists BI support for Tableau, Power BI and Looker, where Promptwatch's documented connector is Looker Studio.
Shopify stores get one more thing. AthenaHQ says its Shopify integration publishes AEO-optimized content and attributes revenue. Promptwatch publishes to WordPress, Webflow and Framer, and Shopify isn't among them.
What AthenaHQ is missing
AI crawler logs and the crawl-to-citation link
AthenaHQ lists AI crawler access management (smart robots.txt and llms.txt) and detection of inaccessible pages. A log of which bots actually visited which pages isn't on its pricing or product pages (checked November 2026). In practice that means a team can see a page isn't cited but can't tell whether GPTBot or ClaudeBot ever fetched it. Promptwatch's Agent Analytics, from Professional ($245/mo), logs those visits, verifies each bot against its operator's published IP ranges, explains crawl errors, and shows a citation rate per page.
Location below country level
AthenaHQ Starter covers one country and one language, and multi-region is an Enterprise feature. State, city and coordinate targeting aren't listed on any plan. For a franchise, a retailer with stores, or anyone selling in more than one market, that means paying for Enterprise or tracking an average that hides local differences. Promptwatch includes country tracking on every paid plan, state and city on Business and every agency plan, and coordinate targeting (20 m to 5 km) on Business, Agency Scale and Enterprise. ChatGPT, AI Overviews and AI Mode then answer as if asked from that spot.
Promptwatch Local GEO/SEO targeting, from the Promptwatch changelog. Example project data.
Fan-outs and personas without Enterprise
Query fan-outs aren't listed on AthenaHQ's pages, and persona targeting is Enterprise only. Without fan-outs you see the answer but not the searches the engine ran to build it, and those sub-queries are where you look for the page you haven't written yet. Promptwatch shows the exact sub-queries per model behind each response, and its personas, with stacking and Persona Insights, aren't sold as a higher-tier feature.
Social citation reports and URL tracking
Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram citation reports aren't listed for AthenaHQ, and neither is tracking a single URL over time. Promptwatch has a report for each of those four networks, plus Page Tracker for any URL, including a competitor's. That is how you learn which thread or video an engine keeps citing instead of you.
Native traffic attribution
AthenaHQ connects AI visibility to traffic and conversions through its GA4 integration, and to revenue through Shopify. No tracking script of its own is listed. Promptwatch's Visitor Analytics, on every plan, counts AI-referred visits and conversions through its own script, a GTM template or the WordPress plugin. It also has a toggle that counts utm_source=chatgpt.com visits as ChatGPT again after ChatGPT stopped sending a referrer on October 8, 2026.
MCP, API and coding-agent visibility
An MCP server isn't listed for AthenaHQ, and its REST API is a paid add-on on Starter. Promptwatch puts a hosted MCP server with 110+ read and write tools and the REST API on every paid plan. It also tracks what Codex, Claude Code and OpenCode recommend, which AthenaHQ doesn't list. That matters for developer-tool and API brands.
Promptwatch model picker, from the Promptwatch changelog. Example project data.
Who should pick which
- Pick AthenaHQ if you want a free starting point, you track one country, your team will work the Action Center weekly, and SOC 2 is a hard procurement line.
- Pick AthenaHQ if you run a Shopify store and want publishing and revenue attribution through that integration.
- Pick Promptwatch if you need to explain citation drops with crawler evidence, which starts on Professional.
- Pick Promptwatch if you track several markets or cities, or need personas, without negotiating an Enterprise contract.
- Pick Promptwatch if analysts or agents will query the data through MCP or the API.
Our verdict
AthenaHQ is a capable action tool, and its free tier is something Promptwatch doesn't match. Promptwatch wins the feature-by-feature count because it fills the rows AthenaHQ leaves blank on self-serve plans: crawler logs with IP verification, fan-outs, personas, sub-country location, social citation reports, MCP and API. The deciding row for most teams is the crawl-to-citation rate, since it turns "we're not cited" into a specific fix. Start the 7-day free trial on Professional, connect crawler logs, and run your AthenaHQ prompt list in both tools for a week before you decide.
FAQ
Is Promptwatch cheaper than AthenaHQ?
At list price, Promptwatch Essential ($95/mo) is cheaper than AthenaHQ Starter ($295/mo), but AthenaHQ also has a free tier. For a 100-prompt panel on four engines checked daily, Promptwatch Professional ($245/mo) covers the volume, while Starter's 3,600 credits would need extra credits at a price AthenaHQ quotes on request.
Does AthenaHQ track AI crawlers?
AthenaHQ lists crawler access management through robots.txt and llms.txt and flags inaccessible pages. Bot visit logs aren't on its pricing or product pages (checked November 2026). Promptwatch includes IP-verified crawler logs from Professional.
Can I track multiple countries on either tool?
On AthenaHQ, multi-region and multi-language tracking is on Enterprise. Promptwatch includes country tracking on every paid plan, and state, city and coordinate targeting from Business.