---
title: "Top 10 AI visibility players in 2026: revenue, users, marketing spend and moat"
summary: "Profound raised $180M at a $1.8B valuation, Adobe paid $1.9B for Semrush and Sitecore bought Scrunch AI for about $225M. Meanwhile bootstrapped tools such as Rank Prompt and AEO Engine show $43K and $135K of verified monthly revenue on TrustMRR."
description: "Profound, Semrush, Ahrefs, Peec AI and six more compared on revenue, customers, marketing spend and moat, with TrustMRR-verified revenue."
section: "News"
published: 2026-10-14T06:03:42.000Z
modified: 2026-10-14T06:03:42.000Z
canonical: https://builtbynpcs.com/stories/top-10-ai-visibility-players-revenue-users-marketing-moat
publisher: "Built by NPCs"
disclosure: "Our team picks every story and reviews it before it goes out; AI helps with research and drafting."
topics: ["AI visibility", "GEO", "Semrush", "Profound", "SEO"]
---

# Top 10 AI visibility players in 2026: revenue, users, marketing spend and moat

## How the ten were picked

These ten were picked for impact: money raised or paid, customers, and revenue someone has verified. The group mixes incumbents that added AI visibility tools (Semrush, Ahrefs), venture-backed specialists (Profound, Peec AI, Scrunch AI, Promptwatch), bootstrapped tools (Otterly.AI, Outrank) and products whose revenue is verified on [TrustMRR](https://trustmrr.com/faq) through payment-provider keys (Rank Prompt, AEO Engine). The pay-to-rank board [outbid.lol](https://outbid.lol/category/seo-ai-visibility) served as a reference list of the space. Its order reflects what each product paid for its spot, so it did not decide who made the list.

:::bookmark url="https://outbid.lol/category/seo-ai-visibility" title="SEO & AI Visibility ranking (outbid.lol)"
The pay-to-rank board used as a reference list. Rank here is what each product paid.
:::

## The ten at a glance

Semrush's $443.6M of company revenue dwarfs the rest, but the fastest movement is among AI visibility specialists. Profound says its revenue tripled in six months, and Promptwatch reached EUR 2M ARR within a year of launch.

| Player | Type | Latest revenue | Customers or users | Funding or owner | Figure type |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Profound](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/15/aeo-startup-profound-hits-unicorn-valuation-raises-180m-series-d-7-months-after-last-round/) | Venture-backed specialist | Not disclosed. Says it tripled in six months | 1,000+ enterprise customers | $180M Series D at $1.8B valuation, Sept 2026 | Company statement |
| [Semrush](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1831840/000162828026013251/semrush8-kexhibit991q42025.htm) | Incumbent | $443.6M for 2025, up 18%, for the whole company | About 117,000 paying customers (Q3 2025) | Bought by Adobe for $1.9B, closed 28 April 2026 | Filed results |
| [Ahrefs](https://getlatka.com/interviews/ahrefs-tim-soulo-2024) | Incumbent | About $149M ARR for 2024 | 50,000+ customers (2021) | Bootstrapped | Estimate |
| [Peec AI](https://ayzeo.com/comparisons/geo-platforms-compared) | Venture-backed specialist | About $10M ARR | 2,500+ customers | $29.1M raised | Reported by third parties |
| [Scrunch AI](https://multiplierai.ai/resources/profound-alternatives) | Specialist, acquired | Not found | Not found | Sitecore bought it in June 2026 for about $225M | Price per Bloomberg, via a secondary source |
| [Outrank](https://arrfounder.com/product/outrank) | Bootstrapped content and backlinks | $300K+ MRR (April 2026) | 2,500+ websites | No funding found | Founder-reported |
| [Promptwatch](https://sifted.eu/articles/promptwatch-raises-seed-round) | Venture-backed specialist | EUR 2M ARR (May 2026) | Almost 2,000 users | EUR 7.2M raised | Company-reported |
| [Otterly.AI](https://visible.seranking.com/blog/otterly-ai-review/) | Bootstrapped monitor | Est. $770K for 2025 | 40,000+ users | Self-funded | Revenue estimated, users company-reported |
| [AEO Engine](https://trustmrr.com/startup/aeo-engine) | Done-for-you agency | $135,128 MRR, $171,015 in the last 30 days | 52 active subscriptions | No funding found | Verified on TrustMRR |
| [Rank Prompt](https://trustmrr.com/startup/rank-prompt) | Bootstrapped dashboard | $43,474 MRR, $48,661 in the last 30 days | 210 active subscriptions | No funding found | Verified on TrustMRR |

Customers, users, sites and subscriptions are different units, so read each row on its own terms. The long tail is small: on TrustMRR, [Elmo](https://trustmrr.com/startup/elmo) shows $4,608 MRR, [Promptmonitor](https://trustmrr.com/startup/promptmonitor-ai-visibility-geo-tracker) $2,473 and [FixAEO](https://trustmrr.com/startup/fixaeo) $29.

## Marketing spend

Only Semrush discloses its marketing spend: $176.6M of sales and marketing expense in 2025, about 40% of revenue, per its [filed results](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1831840/000162828026013251/semrush8-kexhibit991q42025.htm). Ahrefs publishes no figure. Its CMO said in [a 2024 interview](https://getlatka.com/interviews/ahrefs-tim-soulo-2024) that it hired its first salesperson around 2021 and grew on product quality, a blog, YouTube and free tools. Rank Prompt lists a blog, content marketing and a newsletter as its channels on TrustMRR, and its 16,364 visitors in 30 days earned $2.98 of revenue each.

Outrank and CrowdReply each bought the #1 spot on outbid.lol and reported results, per the board's [About page](https://outbid.lol/about).

| | Paid for #1 | Reported result | Implied cost |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Outrank | $12,000 on 24 August. The board now shows $13,005 | 53 extra trials over three days against a baseline of about 20 a day. Trial to paid is about 50%, and lifetime value is about $2,000 | About $226 per extra trial |
| CrowdReply | $12,700 on 23 August | 6,550+ clicks, 1,800 signups and 50+ demo calls booked in 48 hours, with $50,000 a month in pipeline | About $7 per signup |

Outrank's founder says six of the 53 trials need to stick to break even, which is 11%. CrowdReply counts signups and pipeline rather than paying customers.

## Moats

The sturdiest moats belong to those who own data or distribution: Semrush, Ahrefs and Profound. Most of the others rely on features a bigger rival can copy. The last column is my read and has no measurement behind it.

| Player | What it has that others lack | My read of durability |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Profound](https://aigrowthagent.co/articles/profound-vs-competitors/) | Proprietary prompt data, crawler-log analysis, SOC 2 and SSO, an agents layer, and plans to post-train models for marketing | Medium to high. Depends on keeping its data lead. It dropped its $99 and $399 self-serve plans in September 2026 |
| [Semrush](https://getpacerai.com/semrush-adobe-acquisition-case-study/) | 55+ products on one platform, the largest paying base in the group, and now Adobe's enterprise sales force | High. Breadth and distribution are hard to copy |
| [Ahrefs](https://tooldirectory.ai/tools/ahrefs) | Its own web crawler and index. Brand Radar draws on 271M+ prompts across six AI surfaces | High. Proprietary data, and profitable without outside funding |
| [Peec AI](https://surferstack.com/guides/peec-ai-vs-profound-vs-otterly-ai-vs-athenahq-vs-scrunch-vs-rankshift-vs-search-party-in-2026-every-major-ai-visibility-platform-compared) | Clean self-serve analytics, public pricing and about 300 new customers a month | Medium. Monitoring features are copyable, and its action layer is limited |
| [Scrunch AI](https://multiplierai.ai/resources/profound-alternatives) | A layer that reformats pages for AI agents, now inside Sitecore's customer base | Medium. Its roadmap now depends on Sitecore |
| [Outrank](https://www.arr.club/outrank/outrank-arr-hit-3m-300-300k-mrr-in-15-months-) | A backlink marketplace its founder calls a compounding network effect | Medium. Real while publishers stay, and exposed to how search engines treat paid links |
| [Promptwatch](https://sifted.eu/articles/promptwatch-raises-seed-round) | Content agents that write and publish pages, plus Reddit marketing and AI-crawler logs | Medium to low. Early, and close to what rivals offer |
| [Otterly.AI](https://visible.seranking.com/blog/otterly-ai-review/) | A $29 entry price, a Gartner Cool Vendor listing for 2025 and no investor pressure | Medium to low. A low price is easy to match |
| [AEO Engine](https://trustmrr.com/startup/aeo-engine) | A done-for-you service earning about $2,600 a month per subscription ($135,128 across 52) | Low to medium. A service grows with headcount, though the ticket size is high |
| [Rank Prompt](https://trustmrr.com/startup/rank-prompt) | One dashboard for tracking, competitor analysis, citations and content, with plans from $150 to $2,000 a month | Low to medium. Wide feature set, with distribution that depends on its own content |

## What it adds up to

- Money and buyers are moving fast. Profound has raised more than $335M, per Bloomberg, Adobe closed Semrush for $1.9B on 28 April 2026, and Sitecore bought Scrunch AI on 3 June 2026 for about $225M.
- Revenue still sits with two incumbents. Semrush and Ahrefs account for about $590M of the reported figures, while Peec AI, Outrank, Promptwatch and Otterly.AI add roughly $17M between them.
- Monitoring is getting cheaper and vendors are moving into action. Entry prices start at $29 a month at Otterly.AI, Profound ended its self-serve plans, and Promptwatch sells content agents alongside tracking.
- Small tools can earn real money. Rank Prompt and AEO Engine show $43,474 and $135,128 of MRR on TrustMRR, though most of the long tail earns far less.

## Where these products are heading

The next phase looks like consolidation at the top, bundling in the middle and a squeeze on plain tracking. This is my read of the evidence, and nobody has published it as a forecast.

- Fewer independents at the top. Adobe and Sitecore have each bought one player, and with Profound valued at $1.8B and Peec AI reportedly in talks at about $200M, other marketing and SEO suites have targets to weigh.
- Tracking becomes a feature. SurferStack finds most platforms are still monitoring-only dashboards, ThriveStack says the field is consolidating around action, log intelligence and attribution, and Ahrefs already ships Brand Radar inside its platform.
- Execution raises the stakes. Vendors that place content on Reddit or other sources face removals, as CrowdReply's reviewers report, and Profound plans to post-train models for marketing, which points to deeper automation.
- Prices split. Entry plans start at $29 a month, while Profound ended its $99 and $399 self-serve plans.

## Should an indie builder enter this market?

Yes, but only in a narrow lane, because another prompt-tracking dashboard would get lost in the field. The field is crowded. Tracxn counts 66 active competitors in Otterly.AI's peer group, 16 of them funded, and Promptwatch's CEO puts the serious players at about ten worldwide. The median revenue-positive startup tracked by TrustMRR earns about $7 MRR, per [BigIdeasDB](https://bigideasdb.com/docs/trustmrr-overview). Yet room exists: Rank Prompt's verified monthly revenue rose from $8,279 in November 2025 to $45,493 in September 2026 on a blog, content and a newsletter, and AEO Engine earns about $2,600 a month per subscription.

What an indie builder must be ready for:

- Running costs. Tracking means repeated queries across several AI engines, so usage grows with every customer and every prompt.
- Bundling. Ahrefs includes AI visibility in its platform, and Adobe bought Semrush to boost its marketing tools.
- A low price floor. With plans from $29 a month, a generic monitor ends up competing on price.
- Pressure to prove revenue. Buyers want AI visibility tied to traffic and signups, which is why tools such as AthenaHQ connect to GA4.
- Reputation risk if you sell placements. Comments and posts can be deleted, and undisclosed paid placements can backfire.

How to stand apart:

- Sell the fix instead of a dashboard. Promptwatch's content agents and AEO Engine's done-for-you service both sell the finished work.
- Own a vertical. Local businesses, Shopify stores or SaaS founders each need different prompts and advice. Whereon, on the outbid.lol board, targets local businesses.
- Meet builders where they work. CrowdReply offers an integration for Claude and Cursor, and SEOAgent and InhouseSEO, both on the board, work inside Claude Code and with Search Console.
- Publish your own data. Ahrefs grew on a blog, YouTube and free tools, and an indie can publish findings from the prompts it tracks.
- Price by use and show proof. FlexQueries, on the board, charges per action run. A payment-verified TrustMRR profile, as Rank Prompt and AEO Engine have, builds trust fast.

:::sources
- [Rank Prompt](https://trustmrr.com/startup/rank-prompt), [AEO Engine](https://trustmrr.com/startup/aeo-engine), [Elmo](https://trustmrr.com/startup/elmo), [Promptmonitor](https://trustmrr.com/startup/promptmonitor-ai-visibility-geo-tracker) and [FixAEO](https://trustmrr.com/startup/fixaeo) on TrustMRR: payment-verified revenue, MRR and subscriptions. [TrustMRR FAQ](https://trustmrr.com/faq): how revenue is verified.
- [SEO & AI Visibility ranking](https://outbid.lol/category/seo-ai-visibility) and [About](https://outbid.lol/about) on outbid.lol: the reference list, and Outrank's and CrowdReply's reported results.
- [Semrush fourth quarter and full year 2025 results (SEC)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1831840/000162828026013251/semrush8-kexhibit991q42025.htm): revenue and sales and marketing expense.
- [Adobe form 10-Q](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000796343/000079634326000112/adbe-20260529.htm), [Docket](https://www.docket.io/resources/research/semrush-review) and [Acquiry](https://www.acquiry.com/insights/adobe-semrush-acquisition/): Semrush's acquisition and customer count. [Pacer](https://getpacerai.com/semrush-adobe-acquisition-case-study/): its product breadth.
- [Ahrefs founder interview (GetLatka)](https://getlatka.com/interviews/ahrefs-tim-soulo-2024) and [Tool Directory](https://tooldirectory.ai/tools/ahrefs): Ahrefs revenue, growth approach and Brand Radar.
- [TechCrunch on Profound's Series D](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/15/aeo-startup-profound-hits-unicorn-valuation-raises-180m-series-d-7-months-after-last-round/), [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-15/profound-hits-1-8-billion-value-to-boost-brands-in-ai-search) and [AI Growth Agent](https://aigrowthagent.co/articles/profound-vs-competitors/): funding, customers, total raised and data assets.
- [GEO platforms compared (Ayzeo)](https://ayzeo.com/comparisons/geo-platforms-compared), [TurboAudit](https://turboaudit.ai/blog/best-ai-visibility-tools-2026) and [SurferStack](https://surferstack.com/guides/peec-ai-vs-profound-vs-otterly-ai-vs-athenahq-vs-scrunch-vs-rankshift-vs-search-party-in-2026-every-major-ai-visibility-platform-compared): Peec AI's revenue, customers and growth.
- [Multiplier AI](https://multiplierai.ai/resources/profound-alternatives): Scrunch's sale to Sitecore and Profound's plan changes.
- [Outrank on Arrfounder](https://arrfounder.com/product/outrank) and [ARR Club](https://www.arr.club/outrank/outrank-arr-hit-3m-300-300k-mrr-in-15-months-): Outrank revenue and its network effect.
- [Sifted on Promptwatch](https://sifted.eu/articles/promptwatch-raises-seed-round): revenue, users and funding.
- [SE Ranking on Otterly.AI](https://visible.seranking.com/blog/otterly-ai-review/) and [GetLatka](https://getlatka.com/companies/otterly.ai): Otterly's users and estimated revenue.
- [Tracxn on Otterly.AI](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/otterlyai/__wEAJgSfWCyGM1xLopj3P9dGEGBQQznPce8YfS0ZrUPI), [BigIdeasDB](https://bigideasdb.com/docs/trustmrr-overview), [ThriveStack](https://www.thrivestack.ai/research/ai-visibility-tools-landscape-2026) and [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/19/adobe-ai-semrush-stock-deal.html): how crowded the field is, the TrustMRR median, consolidation and Adobe's reason for the deal.
- [CrowdReply on Product Hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/p/crowdreply/crowdreply-2-0), [Runtime Wire](https://runtimewire.com/zh/article/crowdreply-ai-search-rankings-million-dollar-growth-claim) and [Surmado](https://www.surmado.com/blog/best-ai-visibility-tools-2026): comment removals, the Claude and Cursor integration, and GA4 attribution.
:::