Reffed vs Profound: enterprise data, or SMB execution?

If you're Fortune 1000, use Profound. If you're not, use Reffed.

Profound is one of the most comprehensive AI search visibility platforms on the market — 10+ AI engines, Agent Analytics for AI crawler attribution, Conversation Explorer for real-time prompt data, ChatGPT Shopping coverage, SOC 2 Type II compliance. It's built for organizations that treat AI search as mission-critical and have dedicated GEO ownership. Reffed is built for everyone else.

Profound is the enterprise standard for a reason.

If you're running AI search visibility as a strategic priority at a company with the budget to staff it properly, Profound has the deepest data in the category. 10+ AI engines, 400M+ real conversations, 2.6B+ citation dataset, hourly refresh. Their case studies (Ramp's 7× AI visibility lift, becoming the 5th most-cited fintech globally) are real and well-documented.

Agent Analytics — tracking how AI crawlers (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended) access and interpret your site — is something nobody else does at this depth. If you need that level of infrastructure-side visibility, Profound is essentially the only option.

SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA compliance also matter if you're in a regulated industry. Reffed doesn't currently have these certifications.

Reffed is built for the 99% of businesses Profound isn't.

Profound's Starter tier at $99/mo tracks ChatGPT only. To get Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, and Copilot you need the $399/mo Growth tier. To get implementation help you need a custom enterprise contract. The pricing is designed for organizations that need depth and have a procurement team.

Reffed Foundation ($129/mo, coming Q4 2026) covers all 6 major AI engines and actually deploys the fixes — schema, meta tags, content rewrites, citations — into your site. We're closer to a managed service for small businesses than an enterprise dashboard.

If you're an SMB, solo founder, or small agency, paying Profound's $399/mo for data you then have to act on yourself doesn't make sense. Pay Reffed Watch $29/mo today; upgrade to Foundation when it ships for full auto-fix.

Honest take.

Pick Profound if: AI search is a strategic priority at your company, you have a dedicated team that owns it, you need data depth across 10+ engines, you operate in a regulated industry that needs compliance certifications, you're tracking thousands of prompts, and you want enterprise-grade analytics infrastructure with the budget to match.

Pick Reffed if: you're a small business, solo operator, or SMB-focused agency, you can.t justify $99-$399+/mo for visibility data, you want the work done rather than the data shown, you operate primarily in English, and you'd rather pay $29/mo for Watch today (Foundation $129/mo for auto-fix coming Q4) than pay $399/mo for a dashboard you'll have to act on.