Scrunch is enterprise-priced at $3K+/mo for most B2B SaaS deployments. These are the six tools teams actually move to when the CFO asks for a renewal justification — ranked by how well each closes the loop from AI citation to HubSpot pipeline.
The dimensions B2B SaaS buyers actually rank on.
| Feature | Lantern | Profound | AthenaHQ | Peec AI | HubSpot Grader | Ahrefs Brand Radar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $99/mo | $499/mo | $199/mo | $89/mo | Free | Ahrefs plan |
| Typical B2B SaaS spend | $99/mo or Enterprise | $3–8K/mo | $399–$999/mo | $89–$399/mo | Free | $129–$449/mo |
| Primary buyer | CMO / Head of Growth | VP Marketing / CMO | Marketing ops | SEO lead | Content marketer | SEO team |
| AI engines tracked | ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini | 8+ engines | 6 engines | 5 engines | ChatGPT primarily | 6 engines |
| HubSpot CRM integration | Native day-one | Enterprise tier | ||||
| Citation → opportunity attribution | Partial (enterprise) | |||||
| Monthly ROI PDF | Enterprise only | |||||
| Share-of-voice tracking | Sample only | |||||
| Annual contract required | No (monthly) | Yes (most tiers) | Encouraged | No | N/A | Via Ahrefs |
| Onboarding time | ~10 min | 2–4 weeks | ~1 week | ~30 min | ~2 min | ~15 min |
Pricing and feature data verified against each vendor's public site and G2 reviews as of April 17, 2026.
Price: $99/mo flat or Enterprise. Buyer: B2B SaaS CMO or Head of Growth. Best for: 50–500 person B2B SaaS teams on HubSpot who need a monthly board-ready ROI number.
Lantern is the only tool on this list purpose-built around the one question Scrunch-level buyers actually need answered at renewal: how much pipeline did the AEO program drive through HubSpot this month? The product connects HubSpot and GA4 in roughly ten minutes, reads the deal pipeline and AI-referrer traffic, and ships a monthly PDF that names the dollar figure. That's the wedge.
What Lantern doesn't try to do: compete with Profound on breadth, compete with Scrunch on enterprise sales motions, or compete with Otterly on price. It is intentionally narrow — $99/mo, HubSpot-first, mid-market B2B SaaS. If you are evaluating AEO comparison pages to downgrade from Scrunch without losing the ROI output, this is the mid-market default. The Enterprise tier handles multi-brand and larger pipeline volumes.
Where it loses: if you need non-HubSpot CRM support, heavy international coverage, or an enterprise procurement motion with security review, Lantern V1 isn't there yet. Those teams stay on Profound or Scrunch.
Price: $499/mo entry, typical $3–8K/mo. Buyer: VP Marketing at enterprise or late-stage scale-up. Best for: Teams with existing Scrunch-level budget who want category-leading breadth.
Profound has the largest G2 footprint in the AEO category, raised institutional funding, and ships the broadest engine coverage (eight-plus AI answer engines as of early 2026). The product is rich: prompt-level tracking, SoV, competitor intel, multi-brand workspace, and on higher tiers, CRM syncing including HubSpot. It is the closest like-for-like Scrunch replacement if budget isn't the issue.
The catches are price and onboarding. Entry is $499/mo but most mid-market B2B SaaS land in the $3–8K/mo range once prompt volume and users are priced in. Implementation is typically two to four weeks with solution-consultant support. If you are swapping from Scrunch to Profound, you're swapping vendors at roughly the same tier, not saving money.
Profound wins when the CFO has already approved enterprise AEO spend and the question is just which enterprise tool. Lantern wins when the CFO is asking whether the spend justifies itself — because $99/mo is inside every CMO's discretionary approval window, where $3–8K/mo isn't.
Price: $199–$999/mo. Buyer: Marketing ops and SEO leads. Best for: Teams wanting a pretty dashboard without a CRM layer.
AthenaHQ sits between the SMB monitoring tools and Profound's enterprise footprint. The product is clean, the reporting is polished, and the price is defensible for a growing B2B team. Six AI engines tracked, brand and competitor monitoring, prompt-level reports. It is a good dashboard.
The limitation is the same as most tools in the category: no native HubSpot writeback, no citation-to-opportunity attribution, no monthly pipeline PDF. AthenaHQ assumes the buyer wants to see the data and interpret it themselves. That works for an analyst-led marketing org. It doesn't work when the CMO needs to hand a single number up the chain.
AthenaHQ is a legitimate Scrunch swap if your renewal problem is price, not output. If your renewal problem is output, Lantern closes the loop.
Price: $89–$399/mo. Buyer: SEO lead at mid-market B2B. Best for: International teams or SEO-analyst-owned AEO programs.
Peec AI is a European-origin AEO tool that has grown quickly on the back of strong share-of-voice reporting and competitive pricing. The product does five AI engines well, has decent country coverage, and ships a lightweight prompt-tracking workflow. It is a direct competitor to Otterly in the SMB tier, and a budget alternative to AthenaHQ for mid-market.
Peec's limit for a Scrunch replacement is the same as AthenaHQ's and then some: no HubSpot integration, no pipeline attribution, no board-ready PDF. It is a dashboard that an SEO analyst can run well. It is not a CMO tool.
Run Peec for visibility if the SEO team owns the AEO line item. Run Lantern at $99/mo in parallel if the CMO needs the attribution layer — combined cost is still under a single Profound entry tier.
Price: Free. Buyer: Content marketers and HubSpot admins. Best for: Deciding whether AEO matters for your category at all.
HubSpot's AEO Grader is a free, one-time visibility audit. Paste a URL, get a score, see whether your pages are cited in AI answers across a handful of canonical queries. It's a diagnostic, not a monitoring tool, and it's not a Scrunch replacement by any stretch. But it is the right first step before spending anything.
For existing Scrunch users, the Grader is useful as a sanity check: run it against your category once a quarter to see whether the shape of your AI visibility is moving. For teams deciding whether to buy any AEO tool at all, the Grader output can kill or confirm the need. If the Grader score is 85+ across your target prompts, maybe you don't need a paid tool yet. If it's 30, you have a real problem and need continuous monitoring.
Price: Part of Ahrefs plan ($129–$449/mo). Buyer: SEO team. Best for: Teams already on Ahrefs who want one more tab, not one more tool.
Ahrefs Brand Radar is the SEO giant's AEO play — built into Ahrefs plans, focused on brand mention tracking across AI answer engines. It is not a standalone purchase and it is not a pipeline attribution tool. What it does well: consolidates brand monitoring into the SEO dashboard the team already opens every day.
Brand Radar is useful as a companion to a real AEO tool. It is not a Scrunch replacement because it doesn't touch the CRM and doesn't produce a pipeline number. If you're on Ahrefs anyway, turn it on. If you're picking a primary AEO tool, look at Lantern, Profound, or AthenaHQ.
The CFO's Guide to AEO Budget Defense walks through the scorecard, the memo, and the objection handling for each of the six tools above. Read it before your next renewal review.
Read the CFO guideIf yes: you need an attribution tool, not a monitoring tool. Jump to the next question.
If no and you just need visibility: HubSpot AEO Grader (free) or Ahrefs Brand Radar (if on Ahrefs) covers the job without new spend.
Yes + mid-market budget: Lantern at $99/mo. Native HubSpot, monthly PDF, 10-minute onboarding.
Yes + enterprise budget and breadth requirements: Profound's higher tiers.
No, other CRM: Profound is the safest bet; Scrunch and AthenaHQ handle non-HubSpot with manual CSV workflows.
SEO team: Peec or AthenaHQ produce the dashboards the SEO lead wants. Cheaper too.
CMO: Lantern or Profound. These are the two that produce a number the CMO can defend.
Both: stack Peec ($89) + Lantern ($99) for under $200/mo combined — still less than Profound entry.