AthenaHQ Review: Pricing, Credits and What It Does
AthenaHQ tracks how often ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and other AI engines mention your brand, and suggests content and outreach to change it. It is a Y Combinator company (Winter 2025) from San Francisco. Every price, plan and feature below was checked on AthenaHQ's own pages on 30 October 2026.
AthenaHQ has a free plan and one self-serve paid plan, Starter at $295 a month. The plan limit that matters is credits: 3,600 a month, one per AI response, five for Claude.
Price: free, $295 a month, or custom. Plans
Credits: about 24 prompts a day on five engines, 12 with Claude. The maths
Outreach: finds the author and drafts the email. Sending isn't described. Details
Asked about AI visibility tools, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini named AthenaHQ in 5 of 102 answers. ChatGPT named it in none of its 34. Profound came up in 27.
Our scans, 27 July to 18 October 2026. A small sample: read it as direction. Details.
AthenaHQ pricing
The plans page lists three plans. Yearly billing takes 17% off.
| Plan | Price | Credits | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Essential | Free | 300 ("$25 free credit") | 5 engines, unlimited users, prompt and source analysis, content recommendations |
| Starter | $295 a month | 3,600 a month ("$300/month free credit") | 11 models, unlimited prompts and competitors, CSV export, on-page and off-page actions. API and extra credits are paid add-ons |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | API included, SSO, audit log, multi-region and language, persona targeting, Citation Engine |
On G2, AthenaHQ rated 4.9 out of 5 from 39 reviews when we checked.
What 3,600 credits buy
The plans page says "1 credit = 1 AI response". AthenaHQ's changelog adds that "Grok responses are now billed at 5 credits each, like Claude, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral". So the engines you pick decide how far Starter goes. A 30-day month, one location:
| Setup | Credits a month | Fits Starter? |
|---|---|---|
| 10 prompts, daily, the free plan's 5 engines | 1,500 | Yes |
| 24 prompts, daily, the same 5 engines | 3,600 | Exactly |
| 12 prompts, daily, 5 engines plus Claude | 3,600 | Exactly |
| 20 prompts, daily, 5 engines plus Claude | 6,000 | No |
| 50 prompts, weekly (4 runs), 5 engines plus Claude | 2,000 | Yes |
Our assumption: the free plan's engines (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot) cost 1 credit, as none is on the changelog's 5-credit list. The credit calculator also counts locations, and finding an author or drafting a pitch uses credits too. AthenaHQ's credit calculator estimates your own setup. On the free plan, 300 credits is 2 prompts a day on those five engines for 30 days.
Which AI engines AthenaHQ tracks
Essential covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter lists "Visibility across 11 models" and "Additional models available upon request". Enterprise names ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok "and more". Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral are the 5-credit models.
Does AthenaHQ do outreach?
Partly. Its platform page shows "Outreach detail with a drafted email to the page author": it finds the author of a page AI cites and drafts a pitch. The changelog describes finding authors, drafting and moving pages through statuses. We found nothing about it sending the email.
For placements, AthenaHQ partnered with Noble in March 2026, a "media outreach platform": "Noble procures the placements", while AthenaHQ shows where you are missing.
Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| A free plan, and a self-serve paid plan with a public price | One paid step: $295 a month, then custom |
| 11 models on Starter, unlimited prompts and competitors | Credits cap daily tracking: 24 prompts on five engines |
| Finds cited authors and drafts the pitch | No sending described. Placements go through Noble |
| Unlimited users on every plan | API access is a paid add-on on Starter |
How often AI engines name AthenaHQ
MentionAgent's AI visibility scans put buyer questions about AI visibility, GEO and AEO tools to ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini between 27 July and 18 October 2026. How often each engine named AthenaHQ, next to three rivals:
| Engine | Answers | AthenaHQ | Profound | Peec AI | Otterly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 34 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| Claude | 34 | 2 | 10 | 8 | 5 |
| Gemini | 34 | 3 | 12 | 7 | 9 |
| All three | 102 | 5 | 27 | 18 | 17 |
A tool that tracks 11 AI engines is rarely named by them: in this panel they named Profound five times as often. That says nothing about the quality of its tracking.
Method: MentionAgent production records, answers marked ok, questions matching AI visibility, GEO, AEO or LLM tracking tools, with harvest questions and MentionAgent's own sales workspace left out. AthenaHQ counts only "AthenaHQ", "Athena HQ" or athenahq.ai, never a bare "Athena". 102 answers is a small sample: read it as direction, not a share of voice.
AthenaHQ alternatives
| Option | What it does | Price |
|---|---|---|
| AthenaHQ (baseline) | Tracks 11 models, drafts outreach | Free, $295 a month or custom |
| MentionAgent | Tracks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and pitches bloggers to earn mentions | From $99 a month |
| Otterly | A lighter AI visibility tracker (otterly.ai) | See our comparison |
| Profound | Enterprise tracker across up to 9 engines | See our review |
1. MentionAgent: send the pitches AthenaHQ drafts
Where AthenaHQ drafts the pitch, MentionAgent sends it: it finds blog posts in your niche and emails each site's owner from a warmed inbox on a separate domain it registers for you. It tracks fewer engines, ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini against AthenaHQ's 11, with no Perplexity, Copilot or Google AI Overviews. From $99 a month with a 14-day full refund. See the outreach agent.
2. A different tracker
See Athena vs Goodie, Athena vs Bluefish AI, the Peec AI alternatives, or the full list of Athena alternatives.
Go after AI mentions, not just measure them
MentionAgent finds blogs in your niche, emails the person who runs each one and brings their reply to you. From $99/mo, no per-link fees.
See how MentionAgent worksFrequently asked questions
How much does AthenaHQ cost?
Essential is free with 300 credits. Starter is $295 a month with 3,600 credits a month, 17% less billed yearly. Enterprise is custom. Checked 30 October 2026.
How do AthenaHQ credits work?
AthenaHQ's pricing page says 1 credit = 1 AI response. Its changelog bills Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral at 5 credits per response. Starter's 3,600 credits cover about 24 prompts checked daily on five 1-credit engines, or 12 if you add Claude.
Does AthenaHQ do outreach?
Its Outreach page finds the author of a page AI cites and drafts a pitch email. Its changelog describes drafting, not sending. For placements it partners with Noble, which in AthenaHQ's words procures the placements.
Is AthenaHQ worth it?
It suits a team that wants a self-serve tracker across many engines and can live within 3,600 credits a month. Try the free plan first to see how fast your prompts use credits.
What is the best AthenaHQ alternative?
MentionAgent, from $99 a month, if you want the pitches sent rather than drafted: it tracks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and emails bloggers for you. Otterly or Peec AI if a cheaper tracker is all you need.