Publive AXPvsScrunch by SitecorevsSemrush

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
Scrunch by SitecoreMonitoring first
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.
Partly — the AXP add-on can restructure and simplify pages at the CDN, but bundled and Enterprise-tier only.
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 stated capability — the AXP add-on restructures and summarises, but token reduction isn’t a tracked metric.
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.
CDN-layer delivery, Enterprise-only; no stated bot-TTFB metric.
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.
In part — the AXP add-on can restructure, summarise and translate the bot-served view, but bundled and Enterprise-only.
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 first
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.
Measures presence, citations and sentiment across up to 9 LLMs; edge delivery (AXP) is an Enterprise add-on, not the entry point.
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 agency
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)
Self-serve for monitoring; AXP edge is Enterprise-only
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.
Acquired by Sitecore (~$225M, June 2026).
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
Monitoring results in under 30 min; AXP is an infra project
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
CDN middleware, Enterprise tier only, deployed with your infra team
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
No content publishing
The AI Toolkit doesn’t publish; ContentShake AI can publish drafts to WordPress
Standalone vs bundled
Fully standalone, CDN- and CMS-agnostic
CDN- and CMS-agnostic, now part of the Sitecore DXP
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
4 engines on Core, 9 on Enterprise (adds Claude, Gemini, Meta AI, AI Mode, Grok)
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
Site Maps and Deep AI Audit for rendering, structure and access blocks; domain-focused only
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
AXP restructures, summarises and translates with redact/simplify/enhance rules; no pre-deployment answer-shift test
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
None by design; generates briefs, your team writes
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 / OIDC), RBAC, Enterprise Data API
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)
Core $250/mo for brands
~$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)
Agency $499/mo
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; AXP edge is a separate add-on
Enterprise AIO custom, sales-led
Content layer
AI Streams from $999/mo (managed content hub)
Not offered
ContentShake AI (Content Toolkit) $60/mo, publishes to WordPress — a separate add-on
Hidden costs
None; engines included
9-engine coverage only on Enterprise
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%
Monthly, no annual lock-in
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
7-day trial (monitoring only)
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 dashboard. Edge delivery is not available to agencies
White-label AI-visibility and SEO reporting and dashboards, per client domain
Pricing unit
Per client workspace
Per agency seat plan
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)
$499/mo agency plan
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
Enterprise custom
Scales linearly by domains, seats and prompts; Enterprise AIO custom for large portfolios
Minimum commitment
3 workspaces to start
Not published
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
Margin on a $499 flat plan spread across clients
No reseller margin programme; value is white-label branding, not wholesale resale
Onboard a new client
Under 2 hours per workspace, self-serve
Monitoring in under 30 min; edge delivery unavailable to agencies
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
Agency plan
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.

Scrunch by Sitecore
Where it wins

Strong monitoring breadth and Sitecore’s enterprise trust after the acquisition.

Where it loses

Edge delivery — the part that actually changes outcomes — is Enterprise-only.

For agencies

Sitecore’s enterprise trust plus broad engine coverage in reporting — but edge delivery isn’t sold to agencies at any price.

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.

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