Which AI Sent vs AthenaHQ: AI visibility agents or lead attribution?

Summary

Choose AthenaHQ if your main question is “how do AI engines describe us, and how do we win more of those answers?”. It tracks prompts and responses across up to 11 AI models, shows the sources they cite and how you compare with competitors, and uses AI agents to recommend and optimise content. It has a free Essential plan with 300 credits, and Starter costs $295 a month. Choose Which AI Sent if your main question is “which customers did AI send us, and what were they worth?”. It follows AI visitors to named leads, bookings and sales, and asks every customer how they found you, so it also counts people who asked ChatGPT and then phoned. It has a free plan; paid plans start at $20 a month.

AthenaHQ works at the top of the funnel (being named and cited). Which AI Sent works at the bottom (the lead and the sale). Some teams use both.

Side by side

	AthenaHQ	Which AI Sent
Main job	AI visibility and optimisation: how AI engines mention and cite your brand, plus agents that help improve it	AI search attribution: the visits, leads and revenue AI sends you
AI models covered	More: 5 on the free plan (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Copilot); 11 on Starter (adds AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, Mistral)	Visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot (plus Meta AI, Grok, DeepSeek and more); weekly check of whether ChatGPT recommends you
How usage is counted	Credits: 1 credit = 1 AI response. 300 on Essential, 3,600 a month on Starter	By website and plan; no credits
Content help	Yes: content recommendations, a content optimisation agent and on-page and off-page actions	No content writing. Site audit, llms.txt maker and business-details (schema) tools instead
Site traffic and sales	GA4 and Search Console integration on Starter to connect visibility with site traffic; Shopify and Webflow integrations	Its own tracking script: one-click on WordPress, Wix and Google Tag Manager, one line of code elsewhere
Ties a visit to a named lead or booking	Its pricing page doesn’t describe lead-level records	Yes: every lead kept with its AI source and the pages it read
Customers who never clicked (phoned or searched your name)	Not covered: it works from AI responses and site data	Yes: a “How did you first hear about us?” question on forms and calls
Evidence label per lead	No	Confirmed, Declared or Assisted
CRM sync	API as a paid add-on on Starter; BI dashboards (Tableau, Power BI, Looker) on Enterprise	HubSpot, GoHighLevel, SmartMoving, Zapier, Make, webhooks and CSV import (Pro)
Free plan	Yes: Essential, 300 credits plus $25 free credit, unlimited users	Yes: one website, AI traffic, no card
Paid plans	Starter $295/month (17% off yearly), Enterprise custom	Starter $20/month, Pro $50/month, Agency $100/month

Where AthenaHQ is the better tool

• You need to watch many AI engines. Starter covers 11 models, including Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok and DeepSeek. Our check only looks at ChatGPT each week.
• You want help getting cited, not just a report. Its content recommendations, optimisation agent and citation data are built to change what AI says about you. We don’t write content.
• You benchmark against competitors. Unlimited competitors, sentiment and share of voice are its core.
• You are a large brand or an agency with many teams. Enterprise adds SSO, audit logs, BI dashboards, multi-region support and white-glove setup.
• You want a free look at AI visibility. The free Essential plan includes real credits and five engines.

Where Which AI Sent is the better tool

• You need to prove AI brings customers, not just mentions. Being cited is not a sale. We keep each AI lead with its source, its pages and its value (see AI lead attribution).
• Your customers call, book or ask for a quote. Service businesses, trades and clinics are paid after a conversation. Only asking customers how they found you catches the ones who never clicked (why every tool undercounts).
• You run a small agency. The Agency plan covers 10 websites, with a private, view-only dashboard per client, for $100 a month.
• Budget matters. The free plan has no time limit, and Pro is $50 a month against $295 for AthenaHQ’s first paid plan.

AthenaHQ alternatives

If AthenaHQ is more than you need, these are the common alternatives, by the job they do:

• Other AI visibility trackers: Profound, Promptwatch, Peec AI, Ahrefs Brand Radar and the Semrush AI Visibility Toolkit track mentions much like AthenaHQ. See Which AI Sent vs Profound, Which AI Sent vs Promptwatch and AI visibility tracking tools compared.
• Attribution tools: Which AI Sent, Attrifast and LeadJourney measure what AI visits turn into. See the best AI attribution tools compared.
• Free first step: GA4 already records some AI visits. Our GA4 guide shows the report and the regex to use.

Still deciding between the two kinds of tool? Read AI attribution vs AI visibility.

Competitor details were taken from each company’s public website on 5 November 2026. Prices and features change; check their site before you decide. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we’ll fix it.