Last updated September 2026.
Two AI SEO tools can list the same $99 sticker price and land on wildly different invoices by your third month. The gap is not a rounding error. It is the billing model underneath the price, and three models cover almost every tool in this category.
Pick the wrong one for your team size, and you pay for it every month you stay.
This guide breaks down the three models with real numbers: what a 5, 10, or 20-person team pays under each one, and what happens once your prompt volume hits 100 or 500 a month. Skip the sticker price and go straight to the invoice.
The 3 pricing models, defined
Now the part that actually decides your bill: what each model costs at real team sizes and real usage.
The math at 5, 10, and 20 users
Seat fees are where per-seat pricing quietly wins or loses a deal. The per-seat column below uses Semrush’s real math: $99 a month for every added user, stacked on an SEO plan that starts at $139.95 a month, so one user already costs $238.95. Here is what each model charges as the team grows, with published prices as of September 2026.
| Users | Per-seat model | Credit/usage-based (Profound) | Plan-based (Temso Growth, 125 prompts) | Flat rate (Peec AI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $634.95 | $399 | $199 | €205, about $220 |
| 10 | $1,129.95 | $399 | $199 | €205, about $220 |
| 20 | $2,119.95 | $399 | $199 | €205, about $220 |
A plan without seat fees does the opposite of per-seat pricing. Twenty people on Temso Growth at 125 prompts pay $9.95 a head, and the 21st hire costs nothing. Twenty people on Peec AI Pro pay about $11 a head. The per-seat model lands at roughly $106 a head at the same headcount, about 10 times more per person. Temso’s price moves with prompts instead: at 1,000 prompts and $1,149, the same 20 people pay $57.45 a head.
Profound and the credit model do not charge by headcount at all. Your bill moves with prompt volume instead of people, which is exactly why it stays flat in this table and belongs in a different comparison: the one below.
The math at 100 vs 500 tracked prompts
Headcount is only half the bill. The other half is how many prompts you track, and this is where the cheapest sticker price on the board can flip into the most expensive.
| Tool | Tier for about 100 prompts a month | Tier for about 500 prompts a month |
|---|---|---|
| Temso | Growth, $199/mo: 125 prompts, 4 included engines | Growth, $649/mo: 500 prompts |
| Otterly.AI | Standard, $189/mo: 100 prompts | Pro, $989/mo: 1,000 prompts |
| Peec AI | Pro, about $220/mo (€205): 150 prompts | None published past Advanced, about $460/mo (€425): 350 prompts |
| Profound | Growth, $399/mo: up to 100 prompts a day | Same Growth plan: the cap is daily, not monthly, so 500 a month clears it easily |
Otterly.AI’s reputation on this site is the cheapest tracking door in, and at 15 prompts that holds at $29 a month. Push it to 500 prompts and Pro costs $989 a month, the single highest number in this table. Peec AI hits a published ceiling at 350 prompts and sends you to a custom quote past that, while Temso Growth publishes tiers through 1,000 prompts.
Profound is built for exactly this problem. Its daily rate, not a fixed monthly count, is why it wins the enterprise case where query volume is large and unpredictable.
Surfer prices usage a different way: by engine access, not prompt count. Standard, $99 a month, tracks ChatGPT alone on a weekly refresh. Pro, $182 a month, unlocks daily tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and Gemini. If content production is the main job and tracking is the bonus, that content-workflow value beats buying prompts by the hundred.
Which pricing model wins on value
Star ratings follow our standard scoring rubric, applied here to the billing model itself rather than a single tool. None of the three is inherently bad. Each one fits a different shape of buyer, and that fit matters more than the label on the invoice.
Flat rate and plan-based, with unlimited users: 4.5/5 stars
Unlimited users keep rewarding you as you grow. Temso is plan-based, not flat rate: with no per-client or per-seat fees, Growth holds its price through 5, 10, or 20 users and moves only with tracked prompts. It earns the highest score on our full value scoreboard largely because of it. Peec AI runs a flat rate with unlimited seats. Both tools sell extra engines as add-ons, and that chips away at the score. Unlimited users also remove the spreadsheet math of tracking who has a seat and who does not, since the answer is always everyone.
Credit and usage-based pricing: 3.5/5 stars
Excellent for the right buyer, a poor fit for most. Profound’s daily-rate cap absorbs a spike that would blow through a flat monthly plan, which is why it wins enterprise-analytics depth on this board. A steady team with predictable volume ends up paying for flexibility it never uses, so budget for this model the way you budget for cloud hosting: a range, not a fixed number.
Per-seat pricing: 2/5 stars
The model that punishes growth. Every hire is a new line item, and cost per head never falls the way it does under a flat plan. It only makes sense for a shop of one or two people who will never add a third login. Run the math before year two: a team that doubles under a per-seat plan doubles its bill, while a team that doubles under a flat plan pays the exact same total.
How to pick the right model for your team
- Solo marketer or a team of two: per-seat fees rarely add up to much at that size, so pick on features and engine coverage instead.
- Growing team or agency adding headcount this year: a plan without seat fees protects you. Peec AI holds its price no matter how many logins you add, and so does Temso for agencies.
- Enterprise brand with bursty, unpredictable query volume: credit or usage-based pricing, like Profound’s daily cap, flexes instead of forcing a mid-quarter upgrade.
Run your own numbers
Count your team size and your real prompt volume before you compare a single sticker price. The full scored breakdown of every tool on this page, including where each one lands on value for money, sits on the AI SEO software rankings.