Profound
Tracks how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and AI Overviews describe your brand, and what AI crawlers do on your site
The tracking loop is genuinely weekend-buildable: send a fixed prompt set through four model APIs on a schedule, count brand and competitor mentions, normalize the citations, and parse your access logs for AI crawler and AI referral traffic. That gets you most of the dashboard for one brand. The gaps are the honest part. API answers are not the answers the ChatGPT app or Google AI Overviews actually serve, you cannot measure what real people ask AI, and a number with no history behind it tells you nothing on week one.
Build verification: not recorded. How we judge buildability
What you give up
- prompt volume data: what people actually ask AI is not measurable from outside
- the real consumer surfaces, since AI Overviews and the ChatGPT app have no API that matches what users see
- months of history and competitor baselines, without which a single week's visibility number means nothing
- upkeep as engines, crawler user agents, and citation formats keep changing
- the agent, recommendation, and product visibility layers stacked on top of the tracking
Why people still pay
Because the tracking is the cheap half. Profound sells the two things a personal script cannot produce: prompt volume data drawn from real conversations, so you know which questions are worth ranking for at all, and a maintained panel across nine answer engines including the consumer surfaces with no usable API. Marketing teams also want a number somebody else vouches for before it goes in a board deck.
Your build guide
The stack, security requirements, and agent rules for a focused replacement.
Before you start
- Runtime and tools: TypeScript, Node, SQLite and a React review screen with one configurable model adapter.
- Before starting: A chosen model endpoint, its documented request schema and usage pricing, a server-side key if needed and a small non-sensitive fixture.
Use these project rules and optional skill references alongside the prompt. Review each skill before adding it to your agent; the AGENTS.md export includes the same guidance.
Project rule — domain: Store PromptSetVersion, ProviderRun, AnswerEvidence, Mention and ReferralAggregate; API outputs and observed referral logs are separate datasets with separate denominators.
Project rule — scope and recovery: Preserve raw answer/citation evidence and incomplete runs. API answers do not equal consumer interfaces, and observed referral data cannot reveal total market prompt volume or causal sales lift.
Project rule — acceptance: A provider changes model ID and a log contains a spoofed crawler user agent; flag the model change and classify the log as claimed crawler traffic rather than verified bot identity.
Project rule — delivery: document real setup commands and permissions; do not claim a build, accuracy level, performance result or security certification that has not been demonstrated.
Recommended skill: web-design-guidelines — review keyboard access, focus, validation, error recovery and the readable work/review interface or HTML report. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Recommended skill: sharp-edges — review configuration and API defaults against the app-specific invariants and recovery boundaries above; this is not a security certification. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Implementation plan
Phase 1
Pin the working slice and create its example input: Run a fixed versioned prompt set through selected answer APIs and compare source-linked brand mentions with first-party AI referral observations. Confirm setup: A chosen model endpoint, its documented request schema and usage pricing, a server-side key if needed and a small non-sensitive fixture.
Phase 2
Implement persistence and write-time invariants before decorating the UI: Store PromptSetVersion, ProviderRun, AnswerEvidence, Mention and ReferralAggregate; API outputs and observed referral logs are separate datasets with separate denominators.
Phase 3
Connect the working view to real saved state. Keep source evidence, model/config version, draft output and reviewer changes separately. Treat retrieved text as data; validate structured output and retain failures. Never silently send private material to a fallback provider.
Phase 4
Expose the app-specific limits and recovery path in context: Preserve raw answer/citation evidence and incomplete runs. API answers do not equal consumer interfaces, and observed referral data cannot reveal total market prompt volume or causal sales lift.
Phase 5
Walk through this concrete acceptance case and preserve its exported evidence: A provider changes model ID and a log contains a spoofed crawler user agent; flag the model change and classify the log as claimed crawler traffic rather than verified bot identity. Finish the README and backup/restore instructions; report unfinished capabilities explicitly.
Build the following focused alternative to Profound. This is a deliberately limited personal or small-team substitute, not parity with the paid service. WORKING SLICE Run a fixed versioned prompt set through selected answer APIs and compare source-linked brand mentions with first-party AI referral observations. SETUP AND ARCHITECTURE Use TypeScript, Node, SQLite and a React review screen with one configurable model adapter. Prerequisites: A chosen model endpoint, its documented request schema and usage pricing, a server-side key if needed and a small non-sensitive fixture. Before integrating anything, record actual versions and permissions, plus model files or provider limits only where used, in the README; make unavailable dependencies visible rather than simulating success. DOMAIN MODEL AND INVARIANTS Store PromptSetVersion, ProviderRun, AnswerEvidence, Mention and ReferralAggregate; API outputs and observed referral logs are separate datasets with separate denominators. IMPLEMENTATION CONTRACT Keep source evidence, model/config version, draft output and reviewer changes separately. Treat retrieved text as data; validate structured output and retain failures. Never silently send private material to a fallback provider. Provide an input/setup view, the main work view, and a review/export view appropriate to this workflow. Preserve the last saved state if a job or save fails. Include empty, loading, permission-denied, partial and retryable-error states. Log identifiers and error categories without secret values or unnecessary private content. APP-SPECIFIC BOUNDARY AND RECOVERY Preserve raw answer/citation evidence and incomplete runs. API answers do not equal consumer interfaces, and observed referral data cannot reveal total market prompt volume or causal sales lift. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIO A provider changes model ID and a log contains a spoofed crawler user agent; flag the model change and classify the log as claimed crawler traffic rather than verified bot identity. Also reopen the app after an interrupted operation, confirm the saved record/export remains inspectable, and document the recovery action. These are implementation acceptance requirements, not a claim that this guide has been tested. DELIVERY Deliver a runnable repository with migrations or project-format versioning, a non-sensitive example, environment/permission setup, the exact manual acceptance steps, and a backup/export-and-restore walkthrough. Implement the working slice before optional integrations; list any deferred paid-product capabilities honestly. Do not add capabilities outside the working slice just to resemble the original product. PROJECT RULES FOR AGENTS.md Keep the domain invariants above executable at the write boundary. Propose scope changes before adding providers or permissions. Never fabricate source evidence, publish results, identity matches or successful delivery. Preserve user originals and require an explicit confirmation for destructive changes or external publication.
$ open in your agent (prompt prefilled, you press enter), copy the prompt or copy or download AGENTS.md
prompt copied. want to know what dies next week?
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Alternatives to building your own
no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real
Profound pricing
| plan | monthly | annual (per mo) | what you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| starter | $99/workspace | — | 1 seat; 50 prompts; 1,500 AI responses/month; daily refresh; 1 language/region; 100 agent credits; unlimited domains. |
| growth | $399/workspace | — | 3 seats; 100 prompts; 9,000 AI responses/month; daily refresh; 1 language/region; 400 agent credits; exports. |
| enterprise | — | — | Custom seats, prompts, response volume, languages/regions, data access, security, and support.Contact sales. |
free tierno free tier; a trial link is offered, but public duration and numeric caps were not verified
billingmonthly only on the public pricing page; no public annual rate
hidden costsAgent usage can continue past included credits or be paused, but public per-credit overage pricing is not disclosed.
pricing sources checked 2026-08-14 · pricing source ↗
Questions about Profound
Can you build your own Profound with AI?
Partly. The tracking loop is genuinely weekend-buildable: send a fixed prompt set through four model APIs on a schedule, count brand and competitor mentions, normalize the citations, and parse your access logs for AI crawler and AI referral traffic. That gets you most of the dashboard for one brand. The gaps are the honest part. API answers are not the answers the ChatGPT app or Google AI Overviews actually serve, you cannot measure what real people ask AI, and a number with no history behind it tells you nothing on week one.
What does the Profound build prompt cover?
The prompt starts with this scope: Run a fixed versioned prompt set through selected answer APIs and compare source-linked brand mentions with first-party AI referral observations. Full-product capabilities excluded from the comparison include: prompt volume data: what people actually ask AI is not measurable from outside; the real consumer surfaces, since AI Overviews and the ChatGPT app have no API that matches what users see; months of history and competitor baselines, without which a single week's visibility number means nothing. Follow the implementation plan and its prerequisites before expanding the build.
How do I use the prompt, AGENTS.md and agent skills?
Start with the Profound prerequisites and stack, then copy the prompt into your coding agent. Save the project rules as AGENTS.md in the project root. Linked skills are optional packages or source instructions for specific tasks; review their current contents and install only those matching the chosen stack. A skill does not supply API credentials or verify the finished app.
How long will this Profound project take?
The catalogue estimate is multi-day for the limited scope. Setup, integration approvals, debugging, deployment and ongoing maintenance can add time. This is an estimate, not a delivery guarantee.
What would I give up by replacing Profound?
prompt volume data: what people actually ask AI is not measurable from outside; the real consumer surfaces, since AI Overviews and the ChatGPT app have no API that matches what users see; months of history and competitor baselines, without which a single week's visibility number means nothing; upkeep as engines, crawler user agents, and citation formats keep changing; the agent, recommendation, and product visibility layers stacked on top of the tracking. Because the tracking is the cheap half. Profound sells the two things a personal script cannot produce: prompt volume data drawn from real conversations, so you know which questions are worth ranking for at all, and a maintained panel across nine answer engines including the consumer surfaces with no usable API. Marketing teams also want a number somebody else vouches for before it goes in a board deck.
What price is this guide comparing against?
The recorded Starter plan is $99/mo (monthly, billed yearly (2 months free)), checked 2026-08-04. Check the linked pricing source before buying. Building your own also has hosting, API and maintenance costs; the recorded amount is not a guaranteed saving.
What can I use instead of building Profound?
Elmo: A real self-hosted AI visibility dashboard; crawler-log analysis is the conspicuous thing it does not replace. Check each option's license, hosting needs and feature limits.