Run a tool, or hand off the work?
Comparison·Updated October 2026·6 min read
The short answer
Profound, Otterly and Peec AI are software: your team runs them, and they tell you whether ChatGPT and the other answer engines name your client. CrawlBit is a white-label subcontractor: it does the off-page work, on pages your client does not own, under your agency's name, at a fixed price per client.
The AI visibility category is well funded and consolidating: Profound raised a $180M Series D at a $1.8B valuation in September 2026, Sitecore acquired Scrunch in June 2026, Peec AI raised a $21M Series A in November 2025, and dozens of tools now track whether answer engines mention a brand. For an agency, that settles one question: measuring is easy to buy. The open question is who does the work once a client asks why a competitor is named instead of them.
Measuring is the easy half. The work is the other one.
Every tool in this comparison can tell you whether an answer engine names your client. That used to be the hard part; now it is a commodity. Through 2026 the gap was action, and it has partly closed: Profound Agents now research, write and publish. So the honest line is no longer "they measure, we act". It is where the work lands, and who does it.
On-page is the half the category has caught up on, and Profound will even publish it on the client's site. Credit where it is due. If your team already writes content and schema for its clients, a tool covers that half well.
Off-page is the stronger signal: what an answer engine says about a brand usually comes from pages the brand does not own. The tools have reached it too. Profound customers can hand outreach, negotiation and payment to Noble, and some platforms now bundle a publisher network, priced per placement on top of the subscription. What they sell is access, and your team drives it. CrawlBit does it for you, under your name.
To be accurate about it, "nobody does off-page" stopped being true in 2026, and the field has since filled in from both ends. Scribble Network runs a marketplace of creators paid per verified AI citation, with managed campaigns from $2,000 a month. Visiblie sells a done-for-you plan at $4,125 a month that includes community signal work on Reddit and LinkedIn. Respona sells placements one at a time, content, outreach and publication included, roughly $100 to $500 each with no retainer and no commitment, read on their pricing page on 27 August 2026, and it publishes a white-label offer for agencies. All three do real off-page work, and the two retainers run at a scale we could not match and would not try to. So the thing that is missing is not a rung on the price ladder. It is a number: almost nobody tells you how many placements they go after for what you pay. A Citation Sprint is $490 once and says three: three off-page placements pursued, then a re-test at 30 days reported with its margin of error, including when it barely moved.
Frequently asked questions
Should an SEO agency run an AI visibility tool or hand off the work?
It depends on who will do the work. If your team will write and publish on your clients' sites, Profound has the widest engine coverage and publishes on the client's site. If you want to monitor and report, Otterly and Peec AI are strong mid-market tools. If you want the off-page work done for a client under your name, without hiring for it, that is what CrawlBit is: a subcontractor, not a tool.
How is CrawlBit different from Profound, Otterly and Peec?
They are software your team operates; CrawlBit is a service you hand a client to. The difference is not measurement, and since 2026 it is not on-site execution either: Profound Agents write and publish content on the client's site. The difference is where the work lands and who does it. These tools give your team the access, and some now connect to services that place pages off-site, per placement or on a budget. CrawlBit is a fixed scope: three off-page placements pursued by us, then a re-test at 30 days, delivered in a report under your agency's name.
How much does CrawlBit cost compared to Profound and Otterly?
A Citation Sprint is $490 one-time per client, at the partner rate: three off-page placements pursued, then a re-test after 30 days. Monthly Tracking, at $390 per month, only follows a Sprint. The others are subscriptions: Otterly runs $29 to $489 per month with enterprise on quote, Peec AI runs €85 to €425 per month with enterprise on quote, and Profound offers brands a free trial and then enterprise pricing on quote, and offers agencies a $99 monthly plan plus $399 per month for each client workspace. Checked 28 September 2026. Prices change; check each vendor for current numbers.
Can my agency resell CrawlBit under its own name?
Yes, that is the model. The report carries your agency's name and colour, never ours, and we never contact your client. You set the price your client pays; the $490 is what you pay us.