Updated May 2026
Found by AI vs AthenaHQ
A GEO copilot guiding your team. Or someone producing the content for you.
AthenaHQ is a polished GEO platform - it monitors your brand across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Copilot, then tells you what to fix on your own site through structured recommendations and an agentic copilot ("Ask Athena"). Self-Serve runs $295/month on a credit-based plan, with a Shopify add-on for ecommerce teams. If you want a serious tool that guides your team's on-site work, it's a credible choice. Found by AI is built for a different situation: lightweight monitoring (€14/month annual) plus recurring done-for-you AI Content production (€199-€799/month). One guides. The other does the work for you. Some teams will run both.
Stop at the dashboard.
Show the gap. Don't address it with content production. A client looking at a monitoring dashboard with no content production is not a recurring conversation; it's a quarterly question.
Write briefs from keyword tools.
Briefs come from search-volume guesswork. They produce useful articles, but the priorities don't reflect what AI assistants are actually citing for the client's category.
Turn monitoring evidence into the next brief.
Last month's monitoring evidence - competitor appearances, citation gaps, missing facts, weak topics - becomes next month's content brief. Then the monthly proof report shows what changed.
The wedge is the loop, not any single layer of it.
What each one is for
A copilot for your own site.
Or done-for-you content production.
AthenaHQ is a polished GEO platform. It tracks how your brand appears across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Copilot, then surfaces recommendations: content restructuring, additional FAQs, schema, strategic outreach. The agentic copilot ("Ask Athena") answers questions like "why is my competitor ranking above me on ChatGPT?" with data-backed responses. The Self-Serve plan is $295/month for 3,600 credits (one credit per AI response), with a $95 first-month intro. There's a Shopify add-on that publishes GEO-optimized blog posts directly to your store, but the content still lives on your own domain. For teams who want a serious tool guiding the work on their existing site, it's a credible offering.
Found by AI is built for a different situation. Monitoring (€14/month annual) is a calm weekly read on whether AI is mentioning your business - citation, sentiment, and competitor benchmarking on every tier. AI Content (€199-€799/month, AI Monitoring Minimum included on every plan) is recurring done-for-you content production - structured articles, comparisons, FAQs, refreshes, publishing support, and optional profile inclusion when useful at no extra cost. AthenaHQ tells your team what to fix. We fix it for you. Two different jobs - and for some teams, both at once.
Where each one sits
What AthenaHQ is best at
- GEO guidance across six engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Copilot) with specific, structured fixes - content restructuring, FAQs, schema, outreach
- The agentic copilot ("Ask Athena") that lets marketing teams ask competitive and gap questions in natural language and get data-backed answers
- Shopify publishing add-on for ecommerce teams that want to push GEO-optimized blog posts to their own store with revenue attribution
What Found by AI is best at
- Lightweight ongoing monitoring at a calm price (€14/month annual on Minimum; €39/month on Growth with a personalized site-aware monthly playbook) - citation, sentiment, and competitor benchmarking on every tier
- Recurring done-for-you AI Content production (€199-€799/month) - structured articles, comparisons, FAQs, refreshes, publishing support, and optional profile inclusion when useful at no extra cost
- Monitoring and content in one subscription. AI Content includes AI Monitoring Minimum on every plan, so the read and the work live together
The operating difference
Monitoring shows the gap. AI Content does the work.
Found by AI pairs low-cost AI Monitoring with recurring content production. The found-by.ai profile is an optional included surface, not a separate product or proof claim.
| Generates content? | Publishes for you? | Publishing surface | |
|---|---|---|---|
| AthenaHQ | Yes (optimization guidance) | No | Customer's own site |
| Found by AI | Yes | Yes | Recurring AI Content; optional found-by.ai profile |
AthenaHQ
Found by AI
AI Monitoring is the diagnostic. Recurring AI Content is the paid work; the optional profile is included and can be skipped without changing price.
Feature comparison
AthenaHQ Self-Serve at $295/month is the closest plan to compare against. Enterprise pricing is on request and adds volume tracking, multi-country, and the ACE Citation Engine.
| Found by AI | AthenaHQ (Self-Serve) | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | €14/mo annual (Monitoring Minimum: 15 prompts, 3 engines) | $295/mo Self-Serve (3,600 credits; $95 intro first month) |
| AI engines covered | 3 (Minimum: ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, Perplexity), 5 (Growth: + Microsoft Copilot, Claude) | 6 (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Copilot) |
| Optimization guidance | Standard playbook (Minimum); personalized site-aware (Growth - LLM scans your site monthly) | Structured GEO fixes + agentic copilot ("Ask Athena") |
| Content publishing model | AI Content production; optional free profile when useful, with optional profile inclusion when useful at no extra cost | Shopify add-on publishes to customer's own store |
| Optional found-by.ai profile | Yes - recurring AI Content with publishing support and optional profile inclusion when useful | — |
| Volume / multi-country / citation engine | Citation tracking on every tier; competitor benchmarking included | Enterprise-only (Self-Serve is single-country, no volume) |
| Free entry point | Free AI Visibility Check + 30-day Minimum trial (CC required); 14-day money-back on Growth | $95 first-month intro on Self-Serve |
| Monitoring inclusion | AI Content includes AI Monitoring Minimum on every plan | — |
Key Differences
Choose AthenaHQ if...
- You want a polished GEO platform that tells you exactly what to fix on your own site, with structured outputs and an agentic copilot
- You want broad engine coverage (six engines including DeepSeek) and your team will act on the recommendations themselves
- You're a Shopify ecommerce team and want GEO-optimized blog posts published to your own store with revenue attribution
- $295/month for guidance fits your budget and your team will handle the recurring content production themselves
Choose Found by AI if...
- You want cheap honest monitoring (€14/month annual) AND someone producing the recurring AI Content for you, with optional profile inclusion when useful
- You'd rather have recurring AI Content produced for your customer site, with publishing support and optional profile inclusion when useful than be told what to change on your own site
- You want a clear monthly playbook telling you what to prioritize - without paying $295/month for a credit-based model
- You want one purchase: AI Content (€199-€799/mo) includes AI Monitoring Minimum on every plan
Why this isn't 'AI in a coat'.
Every prospect asks the same question: why can't I just do this with ChatGPT myself? The honest answer: you can write one good article that way.
We built an engine for the next 50 - multi-pass humanization, structured review gates, and prompt engineering tuned specifically against the generic AI tone. It's a built product, not a single prompt to a chatbot - and not something a single ChatGPT session replicates.
See the case studies on AI Content → Real output. Read them and judge for yourself. Before/after samples available on a call.
Frequently asked questions
What does AthenaHQ actually do?
AthenaHQ is a polished GEO (generative engine optimization) platform: it tracks how your brand appears across ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, DeepSeek, and Copilot, then surfaces structured recommendations - content restructuring, additional FAQs, schema fixes, strategic outreach. The agentic copilot ("Ask Athena") answers questions like "why is my competitor ranking above me on ChatGPT?" with data-backed responses. Self-Serve is $295/month for 3,600 credits (one credit per AI response, $95 first-month intro). A Shopify add-on publishes GEO-optimized blog posts directly to your store. Enterprise pricing on request adds volume tracking, multi-country, and the ACE Citation Engine. For teams who want a serious tool that tells them exactly what to fix on their own site, it's a credible offering.
Does AthenaHQ produce content for me?
Not by default - AthenaHQ's core is guidance, not done-for-you content. It surfaces what to change (FAQs, schema, structure) and your team makes the changes. The Shopify add-on does publish GEO-optimized blog posts to your store, but the content still lives on your own domain and the workflow assumes your team owns the editorial side. Found by AI is the opposite: we produce customer-site AI Content with publishing support and optional profile inclusion when useful at no extra cost. If you want a copilot guiding your team's work, AthenaHQ. If you want the work done for you, Found by AI. Some teams will run both - AthenaHQ to optimize their own site, Found by AI to add an optional found-by.ai surface.
What's the difference between AthenaHQ and Found by AI?
AthenaHQ improves what already lives on your domain - six engines monitored, an agentic copilot, structured GEO fixes, a Shopify publishing add-on, $295/month Self-Serve on a credit-based plan. The mechanism is to make your own site more legible to AI. Found by AI is built for the other side of the equation: cheap ongoing monitoring (€14/month annual) plus recurring done-for-you AI Content production (€199-€799/month, AI Monitoring Minimum included on every plan). Monitoring shows the gap; AI Content addresses it. Different jobs entirely.
Should I use Found by AI instead of AthenaHQ?
Not necessarily - they actually fit alongside each other for many teams. AthenaHQ is the right tool if you want a polished GEO copilot to audit your own site, suggest fixes, and track visibility across six engines on a credit-based plan, and your team will act on the recommendations. Found by AI is for businesses that want cheap honest monitoring (€14/month annual) AND someone producing the recurring AI Content for them each month - done-for-you rather than guided. Some teams run both: AthenaHQ for on-site optimization, Found by AI for ongoing content production. Different shape, complementary rather than competing.
Bottom line
AthenaHQ is a credible GEO platform: six engines tracked, structured on-site fixes, an agentic copilot, and a Shopify publishing add-on, all at $295/month on Self-Serve. For teams that want a polished tool guiding the work on their own site, it earns its price. Found by AI is built for the other job: lightweight monitoring (€14/month annual, €39/month for Growth with a personalized site-aware playbook) plus recurring done-for-you AI Content production (€199-€799/month, AI Monitoring Minimum included on every plan). AthenaHQ tells your team what to fix on your domain. We produce the content for you each month, with optional profile inclusion when useful. Two different shapes - and for some teams, both at once.
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