AthenaHQ vs Otterly

AthenaHQ and Otterly both measure how your brand shows up in answers from AI engines such as ChatGPT and Perplexity. They are close enough that the choice usually comes down to a few practical questions: how you want to start, which engines are included in the base plan, and how you want to get the data out. If you are also looking at AthenaHQ against another tool, see our comparison of AthenaHQ and Profound. For Otterly, see Otterly vs Profound.

This comparison draws on each vendor's public website as we read it on 24 October 2026, plus our own compare pages for AthenaHQ and Otterly. Vendors change their products often, so confirm details with them before you buy. We have left out competitor prices on purpose, because they change and are best read on each vendor's own pricing page.

The two tools in brief

AthenaHQ offers a free Essential plan, a Starter plan and a custom Enterprise plan. Essential covers five engines: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter covers eleven engines. API access is a paid add-on.

Otterly sells Lite, Standard and Premium plans. Each tracks ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Copilot. Claude, Google AI Mode and Gemini are available as paid add-ons. Otterly offers a free trial.

Engines covered

AthenaHQ's free Essential plan includes five engines. Starter adds six more: Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. That brings the total to eleven.

Otterly's plans cover four engines as standard. If you want Claude, Google AI Mode or Gemini, you add them for an extra cost. The model is to pay for the base set and add what you need.

The practical difference is in the lists. AthenaHQ names Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral among its engines, and Otterly's public plans do not list them. Otterly offers Claude, AI Mode and Gemini as add-ons, while AthenaHQ includes Gemini on its free plan and the other two on Starter.

Getting started

AthenaHQ lets you begin on its free Essential plan with five engines. Starter is the next step when you want more engines.

Otterly lets you begin with a free trial.

Prompts, competitors and exports

AthenaHQ's Starter plan includes unlimited prompts, unlimited competitors and CSV export. If you track many prompts or a wide competitor set, those are the lines to check against your needs.

If you track a small set of prompts and only need the core engines, either vendor's entry plans may be enough. If you expect to add engines or competitors over time, compare the cost of moving up a plan at AthenaHQ with the cost of adding engines to a plan at Otterly, using each vendor's own pricing page.

Data access: API and MCP

This is another place where the two are packaged differently.

AthenaHQ sells API access as a paid add-on. Otterly includes API and MCP access from its Standard plan.

If you want to connect AI visibility data to your own reports or tools, check both lists against the plan you intend to buy, since the API sits in different places in each.

Which to pick

• You want to start on a free plan: AthenaHQ's Essential plan, with five engines.
• You want a free trial instead: Otterly, after checking the trial terms.
• You want eleven engines, including Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral: AthenaHQ Starter.
• You want API and MCP in a standard plan: Otterly, from Standard.
• You want CSV export, unlimited prompts and unlimited competitors: AthenaHQ Starter.
• You need a custom plan: AthenaHQ offers Enterprise.

Where Pineprompt fits

Pineprompt is a self-serve tool for tracking brand visibility in AI answers. It runs your tracked prompts daily on six live AI platforms: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Copilot. It reports mentions, position, sentiment, cited sources, competitors and share of voice.

The MCP server is on every plan, and the API and Looker Studio connector are on Professional and Business. Plans start at $99 a month. Pineprompt does not list the eleven-engine coverage of AthenaHQ Starter.

For a side-by-side, see Pineprompt vs AthenaHQ and Pineprompt vs Otterly, or read the pricing page. You can sign up at pineprompt.com/app.