Head to head
Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.
Up to 4 tools, same rows for each: what it is, what it really costs, the trap, and how to wire it up. The URL carries your picks — send it to anyone.
ProfoundGoogle Search ConsoleHacker News and Reddit
Quick read
- Free with no card: Google Search Console, Hacker News and Reddit.
| Field | Profoundtryprofound.com | Google Search Consolesearch.google.com | Hacker News and Redditnews.ycombinator.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Profound tracks how a brand appears inside AI answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, reporting share of voice, sentiment, the citation sources models draw on, and the prompts that trigger you. It also analyses AI crawler and agent traffic hitting your own site. | Search Console reports how a site performs in Google: queries, impressions, clicks and average position, plus index coverage, sitemap submission, Core Web Vitals and manual action notices. Data spans 16 months and can be exported by API or streamed into BigQuery. | Hacker News ranks links by upvotes with a steep time decay, and Show HN is the convention for launching your own work. Reddit distributes through topical subreddits, each governed by its own self-promotion rules and volunteer moderators. |
| Category | SEO, growth & newsletter | SEO, growth & newsletter | SEO, growth & newsletter |
| Cost tier | paid | free | free |
| Pricing | Starter $99/mo billed yearly: ChatGPT only, 50 prompts, 100 agent credits/mo. Growth $399/mo billed yearly: 3 answer engines, 100 prompts, 400 credits. Enterprise custom, up to 9 engines with SSO, SAML and SOC 2. | Free forever, no paid tier and no seat limits. Performance data covers 16 months. API, Looker Studio connector and BigQuery bulk export all included at no cost. | Free. Hacker News sells no placement at all. Reddit sells ads separately, but organic posts in any subreddit cost nothing. |
| Why builders pick it | When research traffic never reaches your site, this shows whether the AI answer cited you or a competitor. Citation data reveals which third-party pages the models trust, so you know where to get mentioned. | The only source of real query data — every other tool estimates. It shows which articles Google already ranks and which queries you nearly rank for, which is where the cheapest traffic lives. | A front-page HN post moves thousands of technically-minded readers in an afternoon and reliably produces backlinks. One well-matched subreddit can outperform every paid channel for a niche publication. |
| Watch out for | Starter covers ChatGPT alone with 50 prompts; multi-engine coverage means $399/mo billed yearly. Tracked prompts are the real meter and fill up fast for a broad publication. | The Performance UI caps at 1,000 rows per query and samples heavily; use the API or BigQuery export for full data. Its numbers will never match your analytics tool. | Both punish marketing tone: HN buries promotional titles and Reddit mods ban accounts with no comment history. Spikes are single-day events, and an HN front page can take down under-provisioned hosting. |
| How to wire it up | not logged | Verify via DNS TXT record or your host's one-click integration. | Post as Show HN with a plain descriptive title and no adjectives. |
| Editor's pick | No | No | No |
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# Tool comparison — Profound vs Google Search Console vs Hacker News and Reddit Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects. Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code. ## Profound (profound) - URL: https://www.tryprofound.com - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: paid — Starter $99/mo billed yearly: ChatGPT only, 50 prompts, 100 agent credits/mo. Growth $399/mo billed yearly: 3 answer engines, 100 prompts, 400 credits. Enterprise custom, up to 9 engines with SSO, SAML and SOC 2. - What it is: Profound tracks how a brand appears inside AI answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Copilot, reporting share of voice, sentiment, the citation sources models draw on, and the prompts that trigger you. It also analyses AI crawler and agent traffic hitting your own site. - Why builders pick it: When research traffic never reaches your site, this shows whether the AI answer cited you or a competitor. Citation data reveals which third-party pages the models trust, so you know where to get mentioned. - Trap: Starter covers ChatGPT alone with 50 prompts; multi-engine coverage means $399/mo billed yearly. Tracked prompts are the real meter and fill up fast for a broad publication. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/profound ## Google Search Console (google-search-console) - URL: https://search.google.com/search-console - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: free — Free forever, no paid tier and no seat limits. Performance data covers 16 months. API, Looker Studio connector and BigQuery bulk export all included at no cost. - What it is: Search Console reports how a site performs in Google: queries, impressions, clicks and average position, plus index coverage, sitemap submission, Core Web Vitals and manual action notices. Data spans 16 months and can be exported by API or streamed into BigQuery. - Why builders pick it: The only source of real query data — every other tool estimates. It shows which articles Google already ranks and which queries you nearly rank for, which is where the cheapest traffic lives. - Trap: The Performance UI caps at 1,000 rows per query and samples heavily; use the API or BigQuery export for full data. Its numbers will never match your analytics tool. - Wiring: Verify via DNS TXT record or your host's one-click integration. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/google-search-console ## Hacker News and Reddit (hacker-news-and-reddit) - URL: https://news.ycombinator.com - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: free — Free. Hacker News sells no placement at all. Reddit sells ads separately, but organic posts in any subreddit cost nothing. - What it is: Hacker News ranks links by upvotes with a steep time decay, and Show HN is the convention for launching your own work. Reddit distributes through topical subreddits, each governed by its own self-promotion rules and volunteer moderators. - Why builders pick it: A front-page HN post moves thousands of technically-minded readers in an afternoon and reliably produces backlinks. One well-matched subreddit can outperform every paid channel for a niche publication. - Trap: Both punish marketing tone: HN buries promotional titles and Reddit mods ban accounts with no comment history. Spikes are single-day events, and an HN front page can take down under-provisioned hosting. - Wiring: Post as Show HN with a plain descriptive title and no adjectives. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/hacker-news-and-reddit ## Quick read - Free with no card: Google Search Console, Hacker News and Reddit. ## Rules 1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is. 2. Read the full dossier before integrating. 3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.
Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=profound,google-search-console,hacker-news-and-reddit