OtterlyAI vs AthenaHQ: 2026 Comparison
Published November 3, 2026
OtterlyAI and AthenaHQ both track how a brand appears in AI answers, and both include unlimited team members. OtterlyAI sells prompt-based plans from $29 per month with four engines included and others as paid add-ons, while AthenaHQ sells a free Essential plan and a $295 Starter plan that bills in credits, one per AI response, across 11 models. OtterlyAI is the cheaper tool for every workload we priced, and AthenaHQ covers more engines without add-ons.
Our analysts compared each vendor's pricing pages, changelogs, and product blogs as of November 3, 2026, then priced three common tracking workloads on each. In the following sections, we compare the two tools on the points buyers weigh most, price the same work on both, and explain which buyer each fits and what changed recently.
| What buyers compare | OtterlyAI | AthenaHQ |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price per monthSources 2, 4 | $29 (Lite, 15 prompts)Cheaper paid plan | Free (Essential, 300 credits). Paid plans from $295 (Starter, 3,600 credits) |
| Plans per monthSources 2, 4 | Lite $29, Standard $189, Premium $489. Enterprise: custom, from 1,000 prompts | Essential: free. Starter: $295, or less on annual billing. Enterprise: custom |
| Cost: 1 brand, 15 prompts, 3 enginesSources 1, 2, 4 | $29 per month (Lite)Cheaper | $295 per month (Starter) |
| Cost: 1 brand, 40 prompts, 3 enginesSources 1, 2, 4 | $189 per month (Standard)Cheaper | $295 per month (Starter, 3,600 credits used in full) |
| Cost: 1 brand, 100 prompts, 3 enginesSources 1, 2, 4 | $189 per month (Standard)Cheaper | $295 per month plus 5,400 extra credits, price not published |
| Prompt limitsSources 2, 4 | Lite 15, Standard 100, Premium 400. Extra prompts $99 per month per 100 on Standard and Premium | Unlimited topics and prompts, limited by credits |
| How usage is countedSources 2, 4 | Prompts, each tracked daily on every included enginePrompts, not credits | 1 credit equals 1 AI response. Starter includes 3,600 credits per month, and extra credits are a paid add-on at a price AthenaHQ does not publish |
| AI engines coveredSources 2, 4 | Included: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot. Google AI Mode and Gemini from $9 per month each, and Claude from $29, as paid add-ons | Starter: 11 models, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, and Mistral. Essential: 511 models on Starter |
| Update frequencySources 2, 4 | DailyPublished frequency | Not published |
| Countries and regionsSources 2, 4, 5 | Unlimited countries and languages on every plan | Country-level support on Starter. Multi-region and multi-language support on Enterprise. Tracking in 185 markets down to the city level since August 2026 |
| Team seatsSources 2, 4 | Unlimited team members on every plan | Unlimited on every plan |
| Reporting and exportsSources 2, 4 | Detailed reports and export on every plan. Looker Studio connector on Standard and Premium. Standard: 2,000 API and 2,000 MCP requests per month. Premium: 5,000 of eachAPI included | CSV export and integrations on Starter. API access is a paid add-on on Starter. Enterprise adds BI dashboards for Tableau, Power BI, and Looker |
| AI traffic and crawler dataSources 2, 3, 4 | Agent Analytics: 200,000 events per month on Standard and 1 million on Premium | Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console integration, and AI crawler access managed through robots.txt and llms.txt |
| Content and optimization toolsSources 2, 4 | Recommendations, GEO URL audits (1,000 per month on Lite, 5,000 on Standard, 10,000 on Premium), and a query fan-out tool | Athena AI agent on every plan. Content optimization agent and on-page and off-page actions on StarterContent agent |
| Free trialSources 3, 4 | 7-day free trial | Free Essential plan with a $25 free credit and 300 creditsFree plan |
| Best forSource 1 | Teams with a short or fixed prompt list who want the lowest published price and API access included | Teams that want 11 models without add-ons, a content agent, or to start free |
Starting price per month
- OtterlyAI
- $29 (Lite, 15 prompts) Cheaper paid plan
- AthenaHQ
- Free (Essential, 300 credits). Paid plans from $295 (Starter, 3,600 credits)
Plans per month
- OtterlyAI
- Lite $29, Standard $189, Premium $489. Enterprise: custom, from 1,000 prompts
- AthenaHQ
- Essential: free. Starter: $295, or less on annual billing. Enterprise: custom
Cost: 1 brand, 15 prompts, 3 engines
- OtterlyAI
- $29 per month (Lite) Cheaper
- AthenaHQ
- $295 per month (Starter)
Cost: 1 brand, 40 prompts, 3 engines
- OtterlyAI
- $189 per month (Standard) Cheaper
- AthenaHQ
- $295 per month (Starter, 3,600 credits used in full)
Cost: 1 brand, 100 prompts, 3 engines
- OtterlyAI
- $189 per month (Standard) Cheaper
- AthenaHQ
- $295 per month plus 5,400 extra credits, price not published
Prompt limits
- OtterlyAI
- Lite 15, Standard 100, Premium 400. Extra prompts $99 per month per 100 on Standard and Premium
- AthenaHQ
- Unlimited topics and prompts, limited by credits
How usage is counted
- OtterlyAI
- Prompts, each tracked daily on every included engine Prompts, not credits
- AthenaHQ
- 1 credit equals 1 AI response. Starter includes 3,600 credits per month, and extra credits are a paid add-on at a price AthenaHQ does not publish
AI engines covered
- OtterlyAI
- Included: ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot. Google AI Mode and Gemini from $9 per month each, and Claude from $29, as paid add-ons
- AthenaHQ
- Starter: 11 models, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, and Mistral. Essential: 5 11 models on Starter
Update frequency
- OtterlyAI
- Daily Published frequency
- AthenaHQ
- Not published
Countries and regions
- OtterlyAI
- Unlimited countries and languages on every plan
- AthenaHQ
- Country-level support on Starter. Multi-region and multi-language support on Enterprise. Tracking in 185 markets down to the city level since August 2026
Team seats
- OtterlyAI
- Unlimited team members on every plan
- AthenaHQ
- Unlimited on every plan
Reporting and exports
- OtterlyAI
- Detailed reports and export on every plan. Looker Studio connector on Standard and Premium. Standard: 2,000 API and 2,000 MCP requests per month. Premium: 5,000 of each API included
- AthenaHQ
- CSV export and integrations on Starter. API access is a paid add-on on Starter. Enterprise adds BI dashboards for Tableau, Power BI, and Looker
AI traffic and crawler data
- OtterlyAI
- Agent Analytics: 200,000 events per month on Standard and 1 million on Premium
- AthenaHQ
- Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console integration, and AI crawler access managed through robots.txt and llms.txt
Content and optimization tools
- OtterlyAI
- Recommendations, GEO URL audits (1,000 per month on Lite, 5,000 on Standard, 10,000 on Premium), and a query fan-out tool
- AthenaHQ
- Athena AI agent on every plan. Content optimization agent and on-page and off-page actions on Starter Content agent
Free trial
- OtterlyAI
- 7-day free trial
- AthenaHQ
- Free Essential plan with a $25 free credit and 300 credits Free plan
Best for
- OtterlyAI
- Teams with a short or fixed prompt list who want the lowest published price and API access included
- AthenaHQ
- Teams that want 11 models without add-ons, a content agent, or to start free
List prices in US dollars before tax, billed monthly unless the row says otherwise. Workload costs are the cheapest published plan that covers the job with daily tracking. AthenaHQ's extra-credit price is not published.
OtterlyAI vs AthenaHQ Cost for the Same Workload
OtterlyAI sells prompt-based plans and AthenaHQ bills in credits, one per AI response, so the Top GEO Agencies research team priced the same tracking jobs on both. Each workload is tracked daily for 30 days on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity, three engines both tools include:
- One brand with 15 prompts, which is 1,350 AI responses per month.
- One brand with 40 prompts, which is 3,600 AI responses per month, the full Starter allowance on AthenaHQ.
- One brand with 100 prompts, which is 9,000 AI responses per month.
Each cost is the cheapest published plan that covers the workload. OtterlyAI also tracks Microsoft Copilot at no extra cost on each plan.
| Workload | OtterlyAI | AthenaHQ |
|---|---|---|
| 1 brand, 15 prompts, 3 engines | $29 (Lite) | $295 (Starter) |
| 1 brand, 40 prompts, 3 engines | $189 (Standard) | $295 (Starter, 3,600 credits) |
| 1 brand, 100 prompts, 3 engines | $189 (Standard) | $295 (Starter) plus 5,400 extra credits at an unpublished price |
- OtterlyAI's prompt limits set the plan: Lite covers 15 prompts and Standard 100, each tracked daily on four included engines.
- AthenaHQ's Starter includes 3,600 credits, which covers the first two workloads. At full use, that equals about $0.082 per AI response, and 100 prompts need 5,400 credits beyond the plan.
OtterlyAI or AthenaHQ: Which Fits Which Buyer
OtterlyAI costs less at every workload we priced, and AthenaHQ's strengths are its engine coverage, its content agent, and its free plan.
Choose OtterlyAI if
- You track a short list. 15 prompts cost $29 per month on Lite against $295 on AthenaHQ Starter.
- You track 100 prompts. Standard covers them for $189 per month on four engines, while AthenaHQ needs extra credits at an unpublished price.
- You want API and MCP access in the plan price. Standard includes 2,000 API and 2,000 MCP requests per month.
- You report in Looker Studio. The connector is included on Standard and Premium.
Choose AthenaHQ if
- You want 11 models without add-ons. Starter covers Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, and Mistral.
- You want a content agent. Starter includes a content optimization agent and on-page and off-page actions.
- You want to start free. Essential includes a $25 free credit and 300 credits across five engines.
- You sell on Shopify. Shopping Pages keeps prices and variants synced with the store.
Recent Changes to OtterlyAI and AthenaHQ
Both vendors ship often, and the dates show how current any price quote is.
- June 22, 2026: OtterlyAI made Claude available as a tracked engine, sold as a paid add-on.
- August 4, 2026: OtterlyAI launched Agent Analytics, which shows the AI agents and crawlers that visit a site and the pages they reach.
- August 19, 2026: AthenaHQ's August release added Shopping Pages with Shopify catalog sync, ChatGPT Ads reporting on Enterprise and Agency plans, and visibility tracking in 185 markets down to the city level.
- October 5, 2026: OtterlyAI added brand sentiment and average position to the main Brand Reports chart, plus timeline annotations.
- October 21, 2026: OtterlyAI released Brand Profiling, which shows the attributes, objections, and claims that AI engines attach to a brand compared with its competitors.
- October 30, 2026: AthenaHQ began breaking YouTube citations down by channel, video category, length, and the moment in a video that an AI answer links to.
Where the Two Tools Are Headed in 2027 and Beyond
OtterlyAI: OtterlyAI launched a public API on May 27, 2026, an MCP server on June 8, and API and MCP creation of brand reports on September 29, and its changelog shows most recent work going into brand reporting, API, and MCP access.
AthenaHQ: AthenaHQ's pricing page lists the Athena Citation Engine and the Athena Recommendation Engine under Enterprise, and its Starter plan sells API access and extra credits as paid add-ons. Its August 2026 release moved the product toward commerce and local search, with Shopify-synced shopping pages and city-level tracking.
OtterlyAI is building out measurement and reporting, while AthenaHQ is building content, commerce, and local tools on top of tracking.
Data Collection and Methodology
Prices and plan details come from each vendor's pricing, changelog, and blog pages as of November 3, 2026, except where a source line shows another capture date. All prices are list prices in US dollars per month before tax, billed monthly unless the row says otherwise. A "prompt" is one question the tool asks the AI engines. AthenaHQ bills in credits, where one credit is one AI response.
Enterprise prices are quoted privately on both tools, so none appears in the cost table. AthenaHQ's price for extra credits is not published, so the 100-prompt workload shows the Starter price plus the credits needed.
We calculated products, differences, and ratios from the published values.
OtterlyAI publishes three self-serve plans, engine add-ons by plan, and a custom tier from 1,000 prompts. AthenaHQ publishes a free plan, one paid plan, and a custom tier.
We computed AI responses for each workload as prompts times engines times 30 days.
Sources
- Top GEO Agencies analysis of OtterlyAI and AthenaHQ plans, prices, and limits, conducted November 2026. Download the data (CSV)
- OtterlyAI, Pricing, https://otterly.ai/pricing, captured November 3, 2026.
- OtterlyAI Help Center, Changelog, https://help.otterly.ai/changelog, captured November 3, 2026.
- AthenaHQ, Plans and Pricing, https://www.athenahq.ai/pricing, captured November 3, 2026.
- AthenaHQ, What's new in Athena: August 2026, https://athenahq.ai/blog/athena-august-2026-feature-drop, captured November 3, 2026.
- AthenaHQ, YouTube in AI search, https://athenahq.ai/blog/youtube-citations-in-ai-search, captured November 3, 2026.