WellowsvsAAthenaHQ
AthenaHQ tracks how AI describes a brand and uses agents to improve its pages, from $295 a month billed monthly ($245 billed annually) on credits. Wellows starts at $29 on a fixed monthly bill and adds outreach to the third-party pages engines cite.
Every Wellows plan covers five AI engines with unlimited projects and seats. Try any plan free for 7 days; a card is required.
Head-to-head
Coverage, measurement, action and reporting, row by row.
| Capability | Wellows Top pick | AthenaHQ |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage and plans | ||
| AI engines | All five, on every plan | 11 AI models on the Starter plan |
| Projects | Unlimited on every plan | Multi-brand workspaces, 'no hard limit' (plan not stated) |
| Team seats | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Usage | 1,800 to 36,000 AI answers a month; nothing sold on top | 3,600 credits a month; extra credits are a paid add-on |
| Measurement | ||
| Visibility score | Daily rank against your competitors | Competitor benchmarking |
| Share of voice | For each engine and rival | Share of voice tracked |
| Sentiment | Rated for each cited page | Brand sentiment tracked |
| Explicit citations | Logged by prompt, engine and URL | Citation rate tracked for prompts |
| Implicit citations | Reported as its own metric | Not split out |
| Daily brief | What changed, and what to do | No daily brief is listed |
| Acting on the data | ||
| Next steps | Quick Wins with a 30-day plan | Agents suggest actions |
| Content opportunities | Missing pages, ranked and titled | Opportunity prioritization |
| Content writing | AI page drafts from KIVA research | Content agents |
| Page optimisation | Section fixes (beta) | Optimisation agent |
| Outreach | Cited pages featuring competitors | Citation Outreach listed; contact and tracking detail not published |
| Contacts and pitch | Verified contact plus email draft | Not listed |
| Outreach pipeline | Open, Contacted, Won, Lost | No pipeline is listed |
| Reporting | ||
| Client reporting | White-label on all plans | Not detailed publicly |
| Performance history | Any two dates, compared | Not stated publicly |
| Exports | CSV by project and date | CSV export; API is a paid add-on |
| Trial | ||
| Free trial | 7 days, card required | No trial; free Essential plan |
Wellows Top pick
Coverage and plans
Measurement
Acting on the data
Reporting
Trial
AthenaHQ
Coverage and plans
Measurement
Acting on the data
Reporting
Trial
AthenaHQ is a trademark of its owner. AthenaHQ details come from its public plans, platform and comparison pages. Plans change often, so confirm on each vendor's site before you buy.
2kinds of citation
decide whether AI names you as the answer: your own page listed as the source, or someone else's page about you listed as the source. Wellows grows each.
2
citation types, measured as two figures
5
AI engines on every plan
∞
projects and seats, no caps
Daily
tone scans covering you and each competitor
Why switch
AthenaHQ fits teams that can fund a credit-based AEO suite. Teams pick Wellows for a fixed price, every brand on one plan and off-site citations.
AthenaHQ sells extra credits and API access on top of Starter, priced on request. A Wellows plan is a fixed balance of AI answers with nothing sold on top, and the $97 Standard plan alone covers 6,500 a month.
Review sites, Reddit threads, roundups and YouTube videos feed much of what AI says about a brand. Wellows shows which of those pages engines cite most, how each describes you, and where a rival is put forward in your place.
If the missing citation is on your site, Quick Wins and the 30-day plan point to the page to write or fix. If it sits on a third-party page, Wellows finds the editor's verified contact and drafts the pitch for you.
Citations
AI answers are built from the pages an engine retrieves. A few may be yours, many will belong to others. Wellows reports both kinds separately and gives each its own set of tools.
ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity took part of its answer from a page you publish and linked to it. Because it is your page, you can rework it to be easier to quote and harder to skip.
Grown on-site with Content Opportunities, KIVA keyword research, AI page drafts and section fixes.
The engine relied on a review, a roundup, a Reddit thread or a YouTube video that mentions your brand. These pages tend to outnumber explicit citations, and they are where your shadow reputation takes shape.
Grown off-site with cited pages that name your rivals, verified contacts and a ready-made pitch.
See it
A plain written brief opens the overview: what moved since the last scan, which competitor gained, where you dropped and what to tackle first. Rank, visibility and citations follow.
Every tracked prompt lists its topic, buyer intent, mention type and visibility score. Open one to read the answer and all the sources it cited, each graded for tone, which puts your shadow reputation in front of you.
Third-party pages engines cite that name a competitor and leave you out, ranked by domain authority and the citations each one could add.
Beyond agents
List of third party pages that your AI engines cite which include competition but not you. Pages are ordered by authority and likely boost. Include verified contact details and sample message ready to send.
KIVA will analyse your Search Console to find out what search terms are needed and what are the invisible questions the AI engines ask when they cannot find your page. Wellows will then write the first draft of the page based on this research making sure it is structured in a way that can be quoted by the search engines.
Pages you never wrote shape what AI engines say about you. Wellows scores the tone of each cited page and ranks the critical ones by how often engines pull them in, so the worst get fixed first.
A short summary lands each morning: what changed, which competitor gained ground and where you slipped. Rivals get the same tone scan as you, so a change in how AI describes them is easy to catch early.
Per-client and per-country dashboards in your agency's branding. On every plan from $29.
Every brand, market and client is its own project. One answer balance shared by every project, and no per-seat fees.
Example
A widely cited comparison post recommends a rival for a buyer question you care about. Here is what each tool gives you.
Outcome: The gap has an owner, a pitch and a result.
Outcome: Your own pages improve, and the post is flagged as a target.
Further
Both tools track AI visibility and help improve it. Wellows moves ahead in three specific areas.
Wellows
Explicit and implicit, by URL
AthenaHQ
Citations, not split by type
Both citation types are logged per prompt and engine. Wellows also opens every cited page to read how it describes you, and each type has its own way to grow.
Wellows
Outreach with verified contacts
AthenaHQ
Citation Outreach listed; contact detail not published
For third-party sources, Wellows finds the editor and drafts the pitch. For your own pages, KIVA research, AI drafts and section fixes improve them without a rival page.
Wellows
Fixed bill, from $29 (1,800 answers)
AthenaHQ
Credits plus add-ons, from $295 a month billed monthly ($245 billed annually)
Every plan tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode, and includes tone grading by cited page, share of voice and branded dashboards for one fixed fee.
This is how Wellows does it
Wellows’ proven framework for AI visibility optimization.
“See, Craft, Proof, Sell” is what you experience. C.I.T.A.T.I.O.N.™ is the eight-step method behind it.
Eight steps, one loop. That’s the difference between a platform that reports a number and a method built to move it.
See the method in actionExactly where you’re cited today and where you’re not, against every named competitor.
We check both the AI answer and the source pages behind it, the layer most tools never open.
The gap becomes a ranked list: the prompts and pages worth going after first, not a generic content calendar.
KIVA, our built-in writing assistant, drafts the page against your own Search Console data.
Citations you can go earn directly, not just wait for.
Nothing sits still. Every shift surfaces the next day, at the URL level.
The goal was never a mention. It’s being the source the model pulls from.
Pick two dates, see the exact lift, and put your climb next to a named rival.
Swipe or tap a letter to see all eight steps.
Trusted by 6,341+ brands and agencies
Testimonials
Feedback from people working in AI search.
Your client's competitors are being cited by ChatGPT. Your client isn't. And until you fix that, the gap is only going to widen. The strategy is simple. Get your client onto the pages that LLMs already trust. But finding those pages? That used to be a nightmare. Wellows changes this completely.
Freddie ChattEcommerce SEO ConsultantIf you want to measure AI visibility, reliably track your LLM citations, identify where competitors are winning, and systematically close those gaps. That's exactly what Wellows is built for.
Vladi KriulinContent StrategistYou're guessing which sites to contact. Guessing what to say. Guessing if it'll even move the needle on AI visibility. That's where Wellows turns this into a repeatable system. And it's why I've decided to use this.
Alex GrobermanFounder, Alex Groberman LabsI've been testing a tool called Wellows that turns these hidden signals into real visibility. The workflow is surprisingly smart!
Mike GinleySr. SEO ProfessionalIf you run an agency and clients are starting to ask about AI search, this is the kind of framework you need.
Peter RotaSenior Technical SEOThe Wellows AI visibility platform is transforming how agencies approach AI search for clients.
Julian GoldieOwner, Goldie AgencySwipe to read all 6.
Decision
Try Wellows
Track the same prompts and rivals, and see which cited pages you can win.
Start your 7-day free trialTrial
You get the whole product during the trial. A credit card is needed to begin.
Add your domain, rivals and the prompts you run in AthenaHQ. Pick the engines and how often to scan them.
Look over both citation counts, a tone grade for each cited page and share of voice on each engine. The daily briefs begin.
Pitch the first few cited pages on your outreach list, work a Quick Win, and have Wellows draft a page using KIVA's research.
FAQ
What are the best AthenaHQ alternatives?
Wellows is the best AthenaHQ alternative for teams that want a fixed bill and a way to win citations on third-party pages. Its five engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode) report explicit and implicit citations, tone by cited page and share of voice, and outreach comes on every plan. Profound, Peec AI and AirOps are other common picks.
What is AthenaHQ AI, and how does it work?
AthenaHQ is a generative engine optimisation (GEO) and answer engine optimisation (AEO) platform. It tracks brand mentions, citations, sentiment and share of voice across AI models, benchmarks competitors, and uses agents to suggest and draft content changes.
What is AthenaHQ used for, and by whom?
Marketing teams use AthenaHQ to see how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and other models describe their brand, benchmark against competitors and improve their own pages with its agents. Wellows covers the same tracking and adds outreach to cited third-party pages, from $29 a month.
Does the Wellows free trial require a card?
Yes. Each Wellows plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and a credit card is required to activate it.
Is AthenaHQ free?
No trial, but there is a free plan. AthenaHQ's plans page lists a free Essential plan with $25 of credit (300 credits, 5 models), and Starter at $295 a month billed monthly, or $245 a month billed annually, with 3,600 credits a month and unlimited seats. Enterprise is priced on request. Wellows has a 7-day free trial on every plan, then costs $29 to $497 a month.
How do I switch from AthenaHQ to Wellows?
Comparing options? Book a demo and we'll run your AthenaHQ prompts live, or start a 7-day free trial.
Sources: Wellows AI information page, Wellows pricing, and AthenaHQ's public plans, platform and comparison pages. Product screens use demo or anonymised data.
