# Keats vs AthenaHQ: free plan, credits and proof compared

> In short: AthenaHQ has a free plan on five engines, then eleven engines on credits from $295/month, with a content agent, Shopify and GA4. Keats covers five assistants weekly at lower published prices, ranks each fix with a brief, and gives every shipped change a verdict at day 21 and day 35. AthenaHQ reaches more engines and shows case studies; Keats is the cheaper route to proof the work paid off.

Comparison from Keats, published 2026-11-13, updated 2026-11-13. Canonical: https://getkeats.com/compare/keats-vs-athenahq

AthenaHQ opens with "Become the Brand AI Trusts" and backs it with case studies that have numbers in them: Grüns, it says, took its share of voice from 2.0% to 12.6% in 60 days. It also has something few tools in this market do, a free plan rather than only a trial. Keats has neither a free plan nor case studies yet, so it's worth being clear about what you'd be trading.

Everything said here about AthenaHQ was taken from athenahq.ai (the pricing page and the home page) on 12 November 2026.

## How AthenaHQ is sold

AthenaHQ prices in credits, where one credit is one AI response. Its free plan, Essential, gives 300 credits across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot. Starter is $295/month for 3,600 credits that roll over for a month, and it opens up eleven engines: those five plus AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral. Topics, prompts and competitors are unlimited; what runs out is credits. Seats are unlimited at every level.

Starter adds GA4, Search Console, Shopify and Webflow connections and a content optimization agent that recommends on-page and off-page fixes. API access is a paid add-on. SSO, BI dashboards, a dedicated Slack channel and audit logs come with Enterprise. The page doesn't say how often prompts are tracked.

## How Keats is sold

Keats prices by tracked question, not by response: 50 questions for $49/mo, 200 questions for $149/mo, 750 questions for $399/mo. Each question goes to Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode and AI Overviews once a week, with repeat samples on most of them, and the API and MCP server are included on all three plans. You don't budget credits; you decide which questions matter and Keats asks them.

## What each covers

AthenaHQ's column reflects its site on 12 November 2026.

| | AthenaHQ | Keats |
|---|---|---|
| Free to use | Essential plan, 300 credits | No free plan; 14-day trial |
| First paid plan | $295/month, 3,600 credits | $49/mo, 50 questions weekly |
| Engines | 5 free, 11 on Starter | 5 on every plan |
| Unit you buy | Credits (one per response) | Tracked questions |
| Content help | Content optimization agent | A brief for every card |
| Store and analytics | Shopify, GA4, Search Console, Webflow | Search Console only |
| API | Paid add-on on Starter | Included, with an MCP server |
| Telling real moves from chance | Not described | A noise band on every number |
| Did the fix work? | Case studies; share of voice by period | A control-group verdict on days 21 and 35 |
| SSO and audit logs | Enterprise | Neither |

## AthenaHQ's strengths

Reach is the first. Eleven engines on Starter means you see Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI as well as the five Keats reads. The free plan lets a team look before it commits, before paying anything. The Shopify and GA4 connections let an online store tie AI answers to sales, which Keats can't do; for shops, [AEO for ecommerce](https://getkeats.com/guides/aeo-for-ecommerce) explains why that link matters. And the content agent drafts recommendations for you where Keats hands over a brief.

The case studies matter too. A buyer who wants evidence that a tool has worked for someone like them will find it on AthenaHQ's site and won't on Keats's.

## What Keats does instead

Keats spends its effort on whether a number is real. Each weekly figure carries its [noise band](https://getkeats.com/glossary/noise-band), so you can see when a rise is within normal swing. And when you ship a change, Keats compares the questions it targeted with ones it left alone at day 21 and day 35. A before-and-after chart can't separate your work from a model update; a control group can. [Proving AEO results](https://getkeats.com/guides/prove-aeo-results) walks through it.

Keats also costs less per month. Its first plan is below AthenaHQ's Starter, and the API comes with it rather than as an extra, so an agent can run the weekly cycle from day one.

## AthenaHQ fits when

- You want to start on a free plan and upgrade later.
- You need Claude, Grok, DeepSeek or Meta AI tracked now.
- You run a Shopify store and want answers tied to orders.

## Keats fits when

- You need a verdict on each piece of work for a boss or client.
- ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's two AI answers are enough, at a lower monthly cost.
- Your agent should read the gaps and act through the API without an add-on.

Another option with per-persona tracking and agent traffic is covered in [our page on the Sitecore-owned platform](https://getkeats.com/compare/keats-vs-scrunch). The [AEO tools roundup](https://getkeats.com/compare/best-aeo-tools) has the wider field.


## Where each is better than Keats

- **AthenaHQ:** AthenaHQ has a free plan, not only a trial, reaches eleven engines on Starter (Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI and Mistral among them), connects to Shopify, GA4 and Webflow, includes a content optimization agent, and publishes customer results with numbers. Keats has no free plan, five assistants, no Shopify connection and no case studies yet.

## Sources

- [AthenaHQ: pricing](https://athenahq.ai/pricing), read 2026-11-12
- [AthenaHQ: home page and FAQ](https://athenahq.ai), read 2026-11-12
- [Keats: llms.txt, what Keats does and what each plan includes](https://getkeats.com/llms.txt), read 2026-11-12