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AthenaHQ
San Francisco startup from Y Combinator's Winter 2025 batch that tracks brand visibility across 11 AI models and recommends content changes to improve it.
Marketing and SEO teams that want broad model coverage, citation analysis, and content recommendations in one tool, with a free plan to start.
Buyers who want a simple flat price with no credit math, or enterprises that want a vendor with a long track record.
Verdict
AthenaHQ is a young San Francisco company that helps brands see and improve how ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI answers, and eight other models present them. It suits marketing teams that want tracking and content recommendations in one place. Its founders' background in Google Search gives it a clear view of how AI answers are changing brand discovery.
Score Breakdown
How AthenaHQ scores in the categories that matter to its buyers.
Pricing
AthenaHQ publishes a free plan and a monthly Starter price, with 17% off annual billing. Plans are metered in credits, where one credit equals one AI response.
| Plan | Price | What stands out |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | Free | 300 credits, 5 models, unlimited users |
| Starter | $295 / month | 3,600 credits, 11 models, unlimited topics and competitors |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom credits, SSO, audit log, white-glove setup |
| Add-ons | Quoted | API access and extra credits on Starter |
The Field at a Glance
How AthenaHQ compares with other AI search visibility vendors we reviewed, by Overall Score and relative typical engagement cost.
AthenaHQ scores 7.6 in AI search visibility, under Peec AI (8.2) and Evertune (8.1), and ahead of Bluefish (7.4). Relative cost lands mid-band for this subcategory.
Use-case matrix
| Use case | Fit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Model coverage | Strong | Tracks 11 models, with more on request. |
| Citation analysis | Strong | Finds the websites AI answers cite. |
| Content recommendations | Strong | Includes a content optimization agent. |
| Free plan | Strong | 300 credits a month at no cost. |
| Credit-based metering | Mixed | Usage depends on prompts times models. |
| Vendor track record | Weak | A Winter 2025 Y Combinator company with a team of about 12. |
Who it’s for
Good fit
- Marketing teams starting AI search work
- SEO teams wanting broad model coverage
- Content teams needing specific fixes
Poor fit
- Buyers wanting flat pricing
- Risk-averse enterprises
- Teams needing API access without add-ons
Review Excerpts
Below are excerpts from public reviews. Our team scoured public reviews, forums, and chat rooms to get a balanced view of customers' experience with this company. Paid reviews and pay-for-play sites such as Clutch were excluded.
AthenaHQ tracks brand visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, Grok, DeepSeek, Meta AI, and Mistral, and says AI search teams using it cut time spent on visibility tracking by 50%.
AthenaHQ's Essential plan is free, with 300 credits a month, unlimited users, prompt and response analysis, and content recommendations.
AthenaHQ's $295 Starter plan includes 3,600 credits, where one credit is one AI response, and API access and extra credits cost more on top of the subscription.
Company Facts
- Headquarters
- San Francisco (Y Combinator)
- Accelerator
- Y Combinator, Winter 2025 batch (Y Combinator)
- Team size
- 12 (Y Combinator)
- Funding
- $2.2M seed (AI Journal)
- Founders
- Andrew Yan (CEO) and Alan Yao (CTO) (Y Combinator)
- Website
- athenahq.ai
Key Leadership
Andrew Yan
Co-founder and CEO
Methodology
This page is an independent evaluation of AthenaHQ for buyers comparing options in AI search visibility. AI Industry Reviews accepts no sponsorships, advertising, or pay-for-placement fees. AthenaHQ did not pay for this review.
What we scored
The headline number is an Overall Score on a 0-10 scale. Eight criteria sit under it in two groups.
- Buyer outcomes (for AI search visibility)
- Model coverage
- Content and action tools
- Credit system clarity
- Vendor maturity
- Company & commercial
- Innovation & product leadership
- Project management & communication
- Pricing
- Contract fairness
Pricing measures whether the price looks fair for the value delivered, including packaging and renewal friction that show up in real buying cycles.
Score Composition
| Input | Weight | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Reviews | 40% | A proprietary read of what practitioners say about likes, complaints, and day-to-day use, including public review sites, forums, and private chat rooms. Paid reviews and pay-for-play sites such as Clutch are out of scope. |
| Product | 35% | Hands-on look at screens and workflows. |
| Pricing | 15% | Whether the price looks fair for what you get. |
| Docs & training | 10% | Docs, tutorials, and training material. |
How we balanced the evidence
The Overall Score is the simple average of the eight criteria. Recommendation language follows that score and the fit pattern described above.
Scope
AthenaHQ is graded here as AI search visibility. Criteria scores can move as more review volume and product checks are added.