Publive AXPvsProfoundvsSemrush

A detailed, side-by-side comparison to help you choose the right AI-visibility tool — across positioning, pricing, onboarding, features and agency fit.

This comparison is maintained by Publive. We know that puts us on the page, so we’ve kept every row factual and sourced from each vendor’s public information (2026) — capabilities and pricing change often, so verify before you buy. The fastest way to judge Publive AXP isn’t our table; it’s to run your own domain through our free AI Audit Hub and see your AI-search results in minutes.

Full comparison

Publive AXPDelivery first
ProfoundMonitoring & agents
SemrushSEO suite add-on
Edge delivery for AI bots

Edge delivery serves a parallel, AI-only view of your existing pages to AI crawlers at the CDN — humans and Google/Bing still get the normal site. It’s where Publive AXP Edge is built to win: readable content, a token-light payload, faster responses and AI-only content fixes, all standalone from day one. Most tools here do none of this; a couple offer a limited, bundled or gated version.

Content readability for AI
Yes — serves a clean, structured, AI-readable version of every existing page at the CDN; content-visibility gain tracked per URL, no rebuild.
No — monitoring and agents only; nothing served to bots.
No — audits AI-bot readability and flags issues, but serves nothing to bots; you fix your live site yourself.
Token optimisation at the edge
Yes — serves a token-light payload so AI spends fewer tokens per page and is likelier to prefer your URL on live fetches; reduction tracked per URL.
No.
No.
Response time (TTFB) for AI bots
Yes — serves each optimised page from the CDN edge to cut TTFB for AI crawlers, so bots succeed on live fetches; response time tracked per URL.
No — no delivery layer.
No — no delivery layer.
AI-only content fixes
Yes — auto-detects gaps and applies surgical fixes (LLM-friendly summaries, FAQ and schema inserts, answer repositioning, meta inserts) only in the HTML served to AI bots, with one-click rollback.
No — agents draft content that publishes to your live pages via integrations, not a separate AI-served view.
No — recommends schema, content and technical fixes, but you apply them to your live site; nothing scoped to bot-served HTML.
Positioning & fit
Category
Delivery first
Monitoring & agents
SEO suite add-on
What it actually does
Makes existing pages AI-readable at the edge from day one, plus publishes net-new AI-first content via Streams.
Monitors and analyses how a brand shows up across AI answer engines — Answer Engine Insights, Prompt Volumes demand data and Agent Analytics for AI-crawler traffic — plus autonomous agents that draft optimised content.
AI-visibility tracking bolted onto the SEO suite — an AI Visibility Score, prompt and competitor research, brand sentiment, prompt tracking and an AI-bot site audit; Enterprise AIO adds a 289M-prompt database and benchmarking.
Best for
Enterprise and agency
Enterprise and Fortune 500 marketing teams
Existing Semrush SEO teams and agencies; Enterprise AIO for large multi-brand enterprises
Delivery model
Both self-serve (AXP Edge) and CSM-led concierge (Streams)
Hybrid: self-serve on Starter and Growth, sales-led for Enterprise
Two-track: self-serve AI Toolkit add-on, sales-led Enterprise AIO
Company status
Both products live, built by Publive — a DXP and AXP platform serving enterprise customers.
Founded ~2024; ~$155M raised (Series C $96M at a $1B valuation, Feb 2026, led by Lightspeed); 2,000+ Fortune 500 marketers (Target, Walmart, Figma, MongoDB).
NASDAQ-listed, 28M+ users; acquired by Adobe (~$1.9B, completed Apr 2026) — and the engine behind Adobe LLM Optimizer.
Onboarding & integration
Time to value
Edge live in under 2 hours
Fast — reads public AI answers, no site changes; no published onboarding SLA
Fast for existing users — web-based, no install; add a domain and prompts and reports populate
How it deploys
CDN middleware, fully self-serve, one-click rollback; no site rebuild
SaaS; reads public AI answers, and Agent Analytics reads CDN logs (Cloudflare, Vercel, AWS) to track AI crawlers — nothing served from your site
Read-only SaaS; queries public AI answers and crawls your site for AI-bot access — nothing touches your CDN
Content route
Streams publishes to yourdomain.com/streams on Publive CMS — no code changes to existing pages
Agents draft content pushed via integrations (Vercel, HubSpot); not a native edge or on-domain publisher
The AI Toolkit doesn’t publish; ContentShake AI can publish drafts to WordPress
Standalone vs bundled
Fully standalone, CDN- and CMS-agnostic
Standalone, expanding into a Monitor / Create / Operate / Analyze suite
Add-on to a paid Semrush plan, not sold fully standalone at the base tier
Feature comparison
Monitoring
Single AI Visibility Score across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and AI Overviews, benchmarked against named competitors
Up to 9 engines on Enterprise (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Copilot, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek); just 1 on Starter and 3 on Growth, plus Prompt Volumes demand data
AI Toolkit tracks mainly ChatGPT and Google AI Mode/Overviews (25 prompts); Enterprise AIO broadens to ~9 engines (adds Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek)
Auditing
Prioritised fix list from AXP Edge; Agents Hub runs continuously with a Brand Reputation Agent and an Outdated Content Agent across AI answers and the open web
Answer Engine Insights for citations and answers, Prompt Volumes for demand, and Agent Analytics for AI-crawler traffic — but no technical rendering or crawl audit
AI Search Site Audit for AI-bot crawlability plus the full Semrush technical Site Audit; Enterprise AIO adds source-level intelligence
Optimising
Serves a clean, token-light view and deploys approved fixes, grounded in a Brand Knowledge Hub (OKF); prompt tracking tests whether a change shifts the AI answer before you commit
Prioritised actions plus autonomous agents that generate optimised content; recommendations and drafting, with no pre-deployment answer-shift test and no edge
Recommend-only — guidance on sources to target and content to update; no execution
Content creation
AI Streams — a managed AI content and intelligence layer publishing a net-new hub on your own domain
One-click AI content and content agents that draft net-new, AI-optimised pages; publishing to your domain relies on integrations, not native hosting
Net-new content via the separate ContentShake AI ($60/mo), which publishes to WordPress
Enterprise-ready
ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II, SSO, RBAC, audit trails, mandatory human edit for regulated verticals, 99.95% uptime SLA
SOC 2 Type II; SSO/SAML and API on Enterprise; 24-hour support SLA. ISO 27001 and RBAC detail not published.
SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI, FedRAMP and CSA STAR L1; SSO and 2FA. RBAC specifics not confirmed.
Pricing & commercials
Entry
AXP Edge Starter $199/mo (200 URLs, 50 prompts)
Starter $99/mo billed yearly (ChatGPT only, 50 prompts, 1 seat)
~$238/mo to get AI + core (SEO plan from $139/mo + the $99/mo AI Visibility Toolkit — 1 domain, 25 prompts, extra prompts cost more); or the bundled "Semrush One" (SEO + AI search) from $199/mo
Mid tier
Growth $499/mo (1,000 URLs, 200 prompts)
Growth $399/mo billed yearly (3 engines, 100 prompts, 3 seats)
No distinct AI tier — scale via add-ons (+$60/mo per 50 prompts, +$99/mo per domain); SEO plans up to ~$549/mo
Enterprise
Custom
Custom (up to 9 engines, API, SSO)
Enterprise AIO custom, sales-led
Content layer
AI Streams from $999/mo (managed content hub)
Bundled — one-click AI content and agents, metered by Agent credits; not sold separately
ContentShake AI (Content Toolkit) $60/mo, publishes to WordPress — a separate add-on
Hidden costs
None; engines included
Steep engine caps (1 on Starter, 3 on Growth, up to 9 only on Enterprise); Prompt Volumes and API are Enterprise-only; agents burn credits per task
À-la-carte stack: the AI Toolkit sits on top of a core plan; extra prompts, domains and per-user seats ($99 each) all bill separately
Billing
Monthly, no annual lock-in; yearly billing saves 20%
Self-serve tiers billed yearly (2 months free); no month-to-month rate published
Monthly or annual (~17% off core plans); the $99 AI add-on costs the same either way
Free trial
No free trial; audit tools are free
Free trial on the Growth tier
7-day trial on core plans; none on the AI Visibility Toolkit add-on
For agencies

Agencies don’t pick a single tier — they build a portfolio of client workspaces. Publive AXP starts at a 3-workspace minimum (3 × Starter = $297/mo, $99 per client brand), then you add workspaces at will.

What the agency resells
A working AI-visibility outcome: edge delivery plus optimisations, live per client brand
A monitoring and reporting dashboard, tracked per client brand under an Enterprise account
White-label AI-visibility and SEO reporting and dashboards, per client domain
Pricing unit
Per client workspace
Per client workspace (Enterprise); agents metered by credits
Per seat and per add-on (core seats + white-label reports + $99/mo AI Toolkit per client domain)
Entry
3 Starter workspaces = $297/mo ($99 each — 200 URLs, 50 prompts)
Not public; multi-client sits inside a custom Enterprise deal
No dedicated agency AI SKU — a core plan + $99/mo AI Toolkit per client domain + report add-ons
Scale
Growth workspace $249/mo each (1,000 URLs, 200 prompts); add workspaces at will, no ceiling
Custom Enterprise; add tracked companies within one account
Scales linearly by domains, seats and prompts; Enterprise AIO custom for large portfolios
Minimum commitment
3 workspaces to start
Annual on self-serve; Enterprise terms custom
Monthly on self-serve; annual optional for the discount
Resale margin
Buy at $99 against a $199 direct list price — a 50% spread to price into a retainer
No reseller or white-label margin programme
No reseller margin programme; value is white-label branding, not wholesale resale
Onboard a new client
Under 2 hours per workspace, self-serve
Data appears fast (it reads public answers); no published per-client onboarding SLA
Fast — add a domain and prompts in the web app; no code deploy
Multi-client management
One agency account, all client workspaces, mix and match tiers
Multiple companies and domains within one Enterprise account
One account, many client domains, a unified portfolio dashboard and client portal ($99/mo per domain for the AI Toolkit)

The one-line takeaway

Publive AXP
Where it wins

The only tool here that measures, fixes at the edge and creates net-new content — all standalone and live in under 2 hours.

Where it loses

Youngest brand in the set; no free trial (free audit tools instead).

For agencies

The only option where the agency sells a fix, not a report. Every workspace ships the full feature set — Enterprise SLAs and a CSM included — at the $99 entry tier.

Profound
Where it wins

The best-funded, broadest AI-visibility monitor — up to 9 engines, Prompt Volumes demand data and AI-crawler analytics — now with content agents, and trusted by Fortune 500 marketers.

Where it loses

Still measures more than it delivers: steep engine and prompt caps on affordable tiers, key data (Prompt Volumes, API) locked to Enterprise, and no way to serve a fixed page to AI crawlers.

For agencies

Real multi-client tracking under Enterprise, but no public agency pricing, no reseller margin and no self-serve workspace — so the agency resells a dashboard, not a fix.

Semrush
Where it wins

Unmatched data depth — AI-visibility tracking bolted onto the industry-standard SEO suite (43B+ keywords, a 289M-prompt database, ~9 engines at Enterprise), now backed by Adobe.

Where it loses

Measures and recommends only — no execution or edge delivery — and the self-serve add-on tracks a narrow engine set (mainly ChatGPT + Google AI Mode, 25 prompts) unless you pay up or go Enterprise.

For agencies

Mature white-label reporting, a client portal and multi-domain management — but costs stack at $99/mo per client domain with no reseller margin, so AI-visibility margins thin out at scale.

All comparisons
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