Should you choose Scout LLM or Athena HQ for AI search visibility?
The difference that matters is metering. Athena sells credits, where one credit buys one AI response, so your allowance is spent in answers rather than in questions and the arithmetic changes with every engine you add. We sell prompts and multiply them by the engines on your plan. On price, their free tier is more generous than ours and their paid tier is not. Starter is US$295 a month against A$149 for ours, and for that they give ten models against our pool of five. Choose them for model breadth and a free tier to explore on. Choose us for a cheaper paid plan and for measurement you can pin to a named city.
By Top4 TechnologyAthena HQ details checked 3 September 2026
Which one should you choose?
Choose Scout LLM if
Your paid budget is closer to A$149 than to US$295, you want to measure a named city rather than a region, or you would rather count questions than count responses.
Choose Athena HQ if
You want the widest published model list, including Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI, or you want a free tier with real allowance to explore before paying anything.
Side by side
| Scout LLM | Athena HQ | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | Free plan, then A$149 a month. | A free tier, then US$295 a month billed annually or US$300 month to month (Starter). |
| Free tier | A free plan with 1 brand and 3 prompts, which does not expire. | A free tier carrying 300 credits, described on their page as US$25 of free credit. |
| How usage is metered | Prompts, multiplied by the engines on your plan. | Credits, where their page states one credit buys one AI response. Starter carries 3,600 credits. |
| Engines | A pool of five, which are ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google AI Overview and Google AI Mode. Paid plans track any four, and Claude is a paid add-on. | ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Gemini and Copilot on the free tier. Starter adds Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI, for ten models. |
| Geographic precision | Global, country, or a named city, passed as a native location signal. | Multi-region and multi-language support is listed on the Enterprise tier. City-level targeting is not published. |
| Seats | Unlimited on every paid plan. | Unlimited members, listed from the free tier. |
| API access | Read-only API over MCP and REST on Agency. | An optional paid add-on billed on top of the Starter plan rather than included in it, which their page states twice. |
| Beyond measurement | Cited-source analysis, competitor discovery from the answers, and a fix loop that records whether a published change moved the answer. | Content optimisation agent, on-page and off-page actions, self-learning content improvement, and a citation engine on Enterprise. |
Athena HQ details were read from the sources at the foot of this page on 3 September 2026. Both products change, so check their pricing page before you decide on a number.
What does metering by credit actually change?
It changes how you forecast. A prompt allowance is a count of questions, and you multiply it by your engines to get responses. A credit allowance is already the count of responses, so adding a model does not cost you a bigger plan, it just spends the same pool faster.
Neither model is better in the abstract and both are honest. What matters is that you cannot compare the two headline numbers without doing the conversion. Their Starter carries 3,600 credits, which is 3,600 answers however you divide them across ten models. Our Starter is 40 prompts across four engines, which is 160 answers a day and roughly 4,800 a month, so on raw response volume the comparison is closer than the prompt counts suggest.
Work out your own shape before comparing. If you want a small number of questions asked of many models, credits suit you. If you want a larger question set on a few engines, prompts do.
Where does each one actually win?
Athena wins on model breadth and on the free tier. Ten models on a published self-serve plan is more than we offer, and a free tier carrying real allowance is a better way to explore than a trial with a clock on it, which is what most of this category sells.
We win on the price of the paid plan and on geography. A$149 against US$295 is a material gap for a team that has decided to track properly, and a named city is a measurement their published plans do not offer. Their multi-region and multi-language support is listed against Enterprise rather than the self-serve tier.
One thing to price carefully on their side. API access and extra credits are add-ons billed on top of Starter rather than included in it, and their own page says so twice, which suggests it is a question they are asked often.
Frequently asked questions
Is Athena HQ cheaper than Scout LLM?
Not on the paid plan. Their Starter is US$295 a month billed annually against A$149 for ours. Their free tier is more generous than ours, carrying 300 credits against our 3 prompts.
What is an Athena credit?
Their plans page states that one credit buys one AI response. Starter carries 3,600 credits, so the allowance is counted in answers rather than in questions, which is the opposite of how we and most of this category meter.
How many models does each track?
Athena publishes ten on Starter, adding Google AI Mode, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek and Meta AI to the five on their free tier. We track a pool of five with any four on a paid plan, and sell Claude as an add-on.
Can either track a single city?
We can, using a city token passed as a native location parameter. Athena lists multi-region and multi-language support against its Enterprise tier and does not publish city-level targeting, so ask them if city precision decides it.
Sources
- 1Athena HQ plans and pricing, Athena HQ
- 2Scout LLM pricing, Top4 Technology
