Alphaa vs Scrunch: Which AI Search Tool Fits? (2026)

By the Alphaa team — we build an AI agent that checks what ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity say about businesses, so read this as one side's view. Every Scrunch figure below was read from Scrunch's own pricing and home pages and Sitecore's press release on 8 October 2026, and prices change.

Short answer: In Alphaa vs Scrunch, Scrunch is the bigger platform: prompt-level AI search monitoring, page audits and an agent-ready copy of your site for brand and agency teams, from $250 a month billed annually. Alphaa is an AI agent for one business that checks four assistants weekly and publishes approved fixes, from $99 a month.

Both products start from the same observation: customers now ask AI assistants which business or product to pick, and the answer is decided before anyone clicks. They differ in who they are built for, how much they measure, and whether the product does the fixing or helps a team decide what to fix. This page sets out what each publishes about itself and how to choose.

What does Scrunch do?

Scrunch is an AI search visibility platform that shows brands how they appear in AI answers and helps them improve it. Its home page calls it "The AI Customer Experience Platform", and the product is organised around prompts: you track the questions customers ask, by persona, and see where your brand is mentioned, cited or missing.

The pricing page lists a Prompt Manager, Insights, citation tracking, page audits, a reporting dashboard, unlimited key topic monitoring, agent traffic monitoring and integrations on every plan. Its distinctive piece is the Agent Experience Platform, or AXP, which the home page describes as a parallel, lightweight version of your site translated for AI agents, so they can parse your pages while the human-facing design stays the same. The home page also lists SOC 2 Type II, role-based access control and deployment across multiple brands, sites, regions and languages. That is an enterprise-grade toolset, and it assumes a team that will use it.

Who owns Scrunch now?

Sitecore, the digital experience platform company, announced on 3 June 2026 that it had acquired Scrunch. The press release says Scrunch's insights and AXP are being combined with Sitecore's content management, content marketing and digital asset management products, so that recommendations can be acted on inside Sitecore workflows. It describes Scrunch as trusted by more than 500 brands and agencies.

The release does not say whether anything changes for Scrunch customers who do not use Sitecore, and Scrunch's own site still sells standalone plans. If you run Sitecore, the acquisition is a point in Scrunch's favour. If you run WordPress or Shopify, it is worth asking Scrunch how its roadmap treats non-Sitecore sites before signing an annual plan.

What does Alphaa do?

Alphaa is an AI agent that asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity real customer questions about your business every week, records who they recommend, checks 23 things those engines read on your site, and drafts the fixes. You approve each public change, and Alphaa publishes it through its WordPress plugin, its Shopify and Webflow apps, or by emailing the exact change to your web person. Every change has an undo.

The fixes are the ones that usually decide whether a smaller business gets named: service pages that answer the questions customers ask, FAQ content, structured business facts, an llms.txt file, AI-crawler rules, replies to Google reviews and consistent listings. There is no persona builder and no multi-brand console. The design assumption is an owner who will spend a minute a week approving work. The mechanism is explained in how to get recommended by ChatGPT.

How much do Alphaa and Scrunch cost?

Scrunch starts at $250 a month billed annually or $300 month to month, and Alphaa starts at $99 a month, month to month. Scrunch prices by seats, prompts, personas and page audits; Alphaa prices by business. Here is what each publishes, as of 8 October 2026.

Scrunch offers a 7-day trial of Starter with no credit card, which is a fair way to look before paying. Alphaa has no free trial; the free 60-second check shows what the four assistants say about your business today instead. The volume gap is large: 350 custom prompts and three seats is a lot of measurement for a single local business, and it is about right for a brand with several product lines.

Which AI engines does each one track?

Scrunch tracks more surfaces, including Google's, and Alphaa tracks the four assistants people ask directly. Scrunch's pricing page lists ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Google AI Overviews and Meta. Alphaa asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, and does not track Google's AI surfaces or Meta.

If Google's AI results are your main concern, Google's own guidance, AI Features and Your Website, says there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond normal SEO best practice. Tracking Google tells you where you stand; it does not unlock a separate set of fixes. For how the assistants differ on local questions, see ChatGPT vs Gemini vs Perplexity.

Who does the work in each product?

In Scrunch a marketing or agency team does the work with the platform's insights; in Alphaa the agent drafts the work and the owner approves it. The steps below show where each product sits.

1. Choosing what to track. Scrunch: you build custom prompts and personas on top of its industry prompt set. Alphaa: you confirm the customer questions it proposes for your business and location.
2. Reading the results. Scrunch: mentions, citations, page audits and agent traffic in a reporting dashboard, shared across seats. Alphaa: a plain weekly note saying who each assistant named and why it skipped you.
3. Deciding the fix. Scrunch: your team reads insights and audits and decides. Alphaa: the agent picks the next fix from its 23-point check and the week's answers.
4. Changing the site. Scrunch: AXP serves an agent-ready version of your pages, and the Sitecore release describes recommendations being automated inside Sitecore's CMS. Alphaa: publishes approved pages, FAQ content, schema, llms.txt and crawler rules to WordPress, Shopify or Webflow, with undo.
5. Local signals off the website. Alphaa drafts Google review replies and Business Profile posts and checks listing consistency. Scrunch is aimed at brand visibility rather than local listings.

Neither product can edit an AI model, and neither can promise a recommendation. Both improve the public signals the engines read and then measure whether the answers change. The honest timeline is in how long AEO takes.

When is Scrunch the better choice?

Scrunch is the better choice when AI search is a channel that a team owns and reports on. Specifically:

• You have a marketing team or an agency. Three to five seats, personas and hundreds of prompts reward people who read the data every week.
• You need Google's AI surfaces or Meta tracked. Alphaa covers neither.
• You run Sitecore. The acquisition puts Scrunch's insights inside your existing CMS workflow.
• You run several brands, regions or languages. Multi-brand deployment, RBAC and SOC 2 Type II are listed on its home page.
• You want to serve AI agents a dedicated version of your site. AXP is a feature Alphaa does not offer.

When is Alphaa the better choice?

Alphaa is the better choice when you own a small or local business, nobody on staff does marketing, and the goal is to be the business an assistant names. Specifically:

• Nobody will run a platform. A drafted fix that needs one tap is more likely to ship than an insight that needs a marketer.
• Budget is under $250 a month. Alphaa Starter is $99, and Full Service, with a person doing the publishing, is $299 month to month.
• You want month to month without a discount for committing. Alphaa costs the same monthly with no contract; Scrunch's lower price needs annual billing.
• Your site runs on WordPress, Shopify or Webflow. Alphaa publishes there directly; see the integrations page.
• Your customers are local. Review replies, Business Profile posts and listing consistency are part of the job.

If you are weighing several tools, our honest comparison of AEO tools, Profound vs Peec AI vs Alphaa and Alphaa vs AthenaHQ cover the other main options.

Can you use Scrunch and Alphaa together?

You can, though few businesses need both. An agency might use Scrunch to monitor a portfolio of brands across seven surfaces and use Alphaa on a local client that needs pages, reviews and listings handled weekly. For one small business, pick one: Scrunch if a team will run it, Alphaa if the owner will only approve. Either way, start by seeing where you stand with the free AI visibility check.

What else do people ask about Alphaa vs Scrunch?

Is Scrunch more expensive than Alphaa?

Yes: Scrunch Starter is $250 a month billed annually or $300 month to month, and Alphaa Starter is $99 a month, as of October 2026. Scrunch includes three seats and far more prompts at that price.

Does Scrunch have a free trial?

Yes, a 7-day trial of the Starter plan with no credit card, according to its pricing page. Alphaa has no free trial but offers a free 60-second check of what four assistants say about your business.

What is Scrunch AXP?

AXP, the Agent Experience Platform, creates a lightweight version of your site formatted for AI agents while your human-facing pages stay the same. Scrunch's pricing page does not tie AXP to a specific plan, so ask before buying.

Did Sitecore buy Scrunch?

Yes. Sitecore announced the acquisition on 3 June 2026 and said it is combining Scrunch's insights and AXP with its content management and marketing products. Scrunch still sells standalone plans on its own site.

Is Alphaa a Scrunch alternative for a small business?

For a local business without a marketer, yes, because it does the work rather than giving a team a platform to run. For a brand team that needs Google AI surfaces, personas and multiple seats, it is not a like-for-like alternative.

Will either tool guarantee AI recommendations?

No, and be wary of any tool that does. AI answers are generated fresh each time from public signals, so both products work on those signals and measure whether the answers change.