# AnswerThePublic AnswerThePublic (answerthepublic.com) is a "search listening" and [[Keyword Research|keyword research]] tool. You type a keyword, and it shows you what people search for around it: the questions they ask, the prepositions and comparisons they use, and related searches. Search Engine Land called it "a favorite among search marketers for years" back in 2022. It's owned by NP Digital, the agency co-founded by Neil Patel. Why care? Because writing about things nobody is looking for is a great way to waste a week. AnswerThePublic is a quick way to see the exact words people use before you decide what to write. ## How it works The raw material is search autocomplete. When you start typing in [[Google]] or Bing, the search box predicts the rest of your query. Back in 2019, the homepage put it like this: "The auto suggest results provided by Google & Bing are a goldmine of insight for today's marketeers". AnswerThePublic queries those suggestions in bulk around your seed keyword and sorts what comes back into groups: - **Questions**: your keyword with question words, e.g. how, what, why (the app's own tooltip says these are "great for featured snippets and AI citations") - **Prepositions**: your keyword with a preposition, e.g. "for" or "with". A testimonial on the 2022 homepage: "I really like the Prepositions wheel. Try it." - **Comparisons**: your keyword compared with something else, e.g. "vs" - **Alphabeticals**: the A to Z autocomplete list - **Related**: other searches around the topic The signature is the visual "search wheel" that spreads the results around the keyword. You can export it as a high-res image, which is why agencies like to drop it into client decks. If you'd rather filter and pivot, you can export to CSV or Excel. What does Google say about where these predictions come from? They "reflect real searches that have been done on Google", ranked by how common they are, then adjusted for the language, the location, trending interest and the searcher's own history. Keep that in mind; it matters in the limits section below. ## Data sources and features Since the NP Digital takeover, the tool has grown well beyond the wheel: - **Sources**: Google, Bing and YouTube keyword searches. The homepage now also claims Amazon and ChatGPT ("Google, YouTube, Amazon, ChatGPT and more"), and the app has Instagram results - **Metrics**: search volume and cost-per-click (CPC) data per keyword. The FAQ says the numbers are estimates from "multiple data providers", similar to the ones other SEO tools use - **People Also Ask expansion**: you can expand questions from Google's "People Also Ask" box (each expansion costs 2 searches) - **AI search results**: prompt suggestions and "prompt responses & sentiment", i.e. what people ask AI assistants and how they answer - **Search Listening Alerts**: a saved search re-runs and you get a weekly email listing the new questions people ask about a topic. Useful for tracking a brand, a competitor or seasonal shifts - **Organization**: compare results over time, hide branches you don't care about, keyword lists with saved snapshots, team workspaces - **Content Studio** (called "Composeo" in the pricing file): an AI writer bundled with every paid plan. It drafts SEO articles from the keywords you pick, schedules them and publishes to WordPress. According to the FAQ, it uses [[Perplexity]] for fact-checking and Claude 4 Sonnet and GPT o3 for writing ## Free vs paid The free tier is tiny. Without an account you get 1 search a day. With a free account you get 3 a day (Semrush's guide confirms the 3 per day). Paid plans, from the official pricing file (USD; the site shows local currency, e.g. EUR for me, and offers 4 free months on yearly billing): | Plan | Monthly | Yearly | Users | Searches | Listening alerts | Content Studio | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Starter | $20 | $160 ($13.33/month) | 1 | 100/month | 1 | 2 projects, 60 credits, up to 6 articles | | Growth | $99 | $792 ($66/month) | up to 3 | 200/month | 5 | 4 projects, 350 credits, up to 35 articles | | Business | $199 | $1,592 ($132.67/month) | up to 10 | 300/month | 20 | 8 projects, 800 credits, up to 80 articles | The tiers also differ on AI prompt suggestions (1,000 / 2,000 / 3,000 a month) and prompt responses (30 / 60 / 100). One article costs 10 credits, a "deep search" costs 8, and credits expire every month. Custom plans exist on request. Watch the refund policy: there's a one-time 7-day free trial on monthly subscriptions, and "all other purchases are final and non-refundable". ## History and ownership - **Origins**: built by the team behind CoverageBook (a PR coverage reporting tool). In 2019 the footer read "AnswerThePublic - trading name of Propellernet Ltd", with an address in Brighton, UK. It was already being shared on Hacker News in October 2016 - **Acquisition**: NP Digital announced on May 31, 2022 that it had bought AnswerThePublic. Terms weren't disclosed. At the time, the tool had about 1 million monthly users, and NP Digital owned Ubersuggest (about 3 million). CEO Mike Gullaksen called Google search users "the largest focus group in the world". The archived homepage still credited CoverageBook in October 2022 and showed NP Digital by December 2022 - **Pricing shift**: in January 2023, the paid plans were Individual (100 searches per day, sold as a $99 lifetime deal), Pro ($99/month or $79/month yearly, unlimited daily searches) and Expert ($199/month or $149/month yearly). Today it's 100 to 300 searches per MONTH, and the AI content suite is the headline feature - **AI pivot**: in November 2025 it announced an AI dashboard. The current homepage leads with Content Studio, not with the wheel. The pricing page claims "over 1.1M users" ## Use cases - **Content ideas**: one seed keyword gives you dozens of real questions. Each one is a candidate post, FAQ entry, video or newsletter section. It's a cure for staring at a blank page - **SEO**: long-tail questions are easier to rank for than head terms, and they map well to featured snippets and "People Also Ask" boxes (see [[Search Engine Optimization (SEO)]]) - **[[AI SEO]] / [[Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)]]**: the newer prompt suggestions aim at the same job for AI assistants like [[ChatGPT]] - **Audience research**: this is the "search listening" angle. People type things into a search box they'd never say in a survey. The homepage quotes Seth Stephens-Davidowitz: "Google searches are the most important dataset ever collected on the human psyche." PR teams and consumer researchers use it that way For my own [[My Content Strategy|content strategy]], the audience research angle is the one I care about most. I don't chase search traffic, but I DO want to write about the problems knowledge workers actually have, in their words. It also matches [[Jon Brosio]]'s advice I saved in August 2024: write at the intersection of your expertise, what's popular and what's profitable, and use tools like Quora and AnswerThePublic to find what's popular. ## Limits and criticisms - **Autocomplete isn't popularity.** Google adjusts predictions for location, trending interest and personal history, and filters out predictions that break its policies. Semrush says it plainly: autocomplete suggestions "aren't necessarily the most popular searches". A question showing up in the wheel proves someone searched for it, not that many people did - **The free tier is a teaser.** 1 to 3 searches a day is enough to try it, not to work with it - **Less for more.** Going from unlimited daily searches (2023) to 100 searches a month at the entry tier is a big cut. Expect to ration your searches - **Thin metrics.** You get volume and CPC estimates, but the pricing page doesn't list keyword difficulty or SERP analysis. A DemandSage review calls it unsuitable for "ultra-deep keyword research" next to [[Ahrefs]] or Semrush - **Product drift.** The pricing and homepage now push AI article generation. If you only want the research, you're paying for a content factory you won't use. (I'm biased: I don't want AI-generated articles anywhere near my publications) - **Community verdict**: on Reddit it's still recommended as a solid source of content angles, with remarks like "looks simple, kinda outdated sometimes" but "those search insights quietly fuel content ideas for weeks". Back in 2020, before volume data existed in the tool, one blogger noted it was "harder to figure out which KW works". On Hacker News, it mostly shows up as a link in "how do I do keyword research" threads, and one 2022 commenter mistook it for a "People Also Ask" aggregator ## Alternatives - **[[Answer Socrates]]**: a cheaper (and partly free) clone of the same idea, with recursive search and keyword clustering - **AlsoAsked**: built on Google's "People Also Ask" data instead of autocomplete, so you see the follow-up questions Google associates with a query. 3 free searches a day; paid plans from $12/month (Basic, 100 credits), $23 (Lite) and $47 (Pro, with API and an MCP server), billed yearly - **Ahrefs and Semrush question reports**: Ahrefs' free Keyword Generator has a "Questions" report ("keywords phrased as a question"); Semrush's Keyword Magic Tool has a "Questions" filter with intent, volume, trend and keyword difficulty. Better metrics, but you need the bigger (and pricier) suite for serious use - **Google itself**: type your keyword plus "how", "why", "vs" and read the autocomplete, then check the "People Also Ask" box on the results page. Free, slow, and personalized to you - **Exploding Topics**: a different job. It tracks topics that are growing before they go mainstream, instead of questions around a keyword you already know. Plans from $39/month, with a 7-day trial ## References - AnswerThePublic llms.txt: https://answerthepublic.com/llms.txt - AnswerThePublic pricing (Markdown, USD): https://answerthepublic.com/pricing.md - AnswerThePublic pricing page, plan comparison and FAQ: https://answerthepublic.com/en/pricing - AnswerThePublic homepage: https://answerthepublic.com/en - AnswerThePublic features: https://answerthepublic.com/en/pages/features - AnswerThePublic Search Listening Alerts: https://answerthepublic.com/en/pages/search-listening-alerts - AnswerThePublic homepage, archived June 2019 (CoverageBook, Propellernet): http://web.archive.org/web/20190602075027/https://answerthepublic.com/ - AnswerThePublic homepage, archived June 2022 (autocomplete description, Prepositions wheel quote): http://web.archive.org/web/20220602015154/https://answerthepublic.com/ - AnswerThePublic homepage, archived October and December 2022 (ownership switch): http://web.archive.org/web/20221001230132/https://answerthepublic.com/ and http://web.archive.org/web/20221202000413/https://answerthepublic.com/ - AnswerThePublic pricing, archived January 2023: http://web.archive.org/web/20230121150601/https://answerthepublic.com/pricing - Danny Goodwin, "NP Digital acquires keyword research tool AnswerThePublic" (Search Engine Land, 2022-05-31): https://searchengineland.com/np-digital-acquires-answerthepublic-385501 - "AnswerThePublic Launches AI Dashboard to Enhance Strategic Content Intelligence Advantages for Marketers" (GlobeNewswire via FinancialContent, 2025-11-04, headline only): https://markets.financialcontent.com/stocks/article/gnwcq-2025-11-4-answerthepublic-launches-ai-dashboard-to-enhance-strategic-content-intelligence-advantages-for-marketers - Google Search Help, "How Google autocomplete predictions work": https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/7368877 - Rachel Handley, "How to Find Question Keywords" (Semrush blog): https://www.semrush.com/blog/question-keywords/ - Josh Howarth, "Top 9 AnswerThePublic Alternatives" (Exploding Topics, updated 2026-04-22): https://explodingtopics.com/blog/answerthepublic-alternatives - Shubham Singh, "12 AnswerThePublic Alternatives" (DemandSage, updated 2025-12-31): https://www.demandsage.com/answerthepublic-alternatives/ - AlsoAsked homepage and pricing: https://alsoasked.com/ and https://alsoasked.com/pricing - Ahrefs Keyword Generator: https://ahrefs.com/keyword-generator - Exploding Topics pricing: https://explodingtopics.com/pricing - Hacker News stories (2016-2020): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12812900 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13883829 - Hacker News comment calling it a "People also asked" aggregator (2022): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32650139 - Reddit, r/digital_marketing (2026-05-15): https://www.reddit.com/r/digital_marketing/comments/1tdmwra/whats_one_marketing_tool_you_pay_for_that_youd/olwejcr/ - Reddit, r/bigseo (2026-06-01): https://www.reddit.com/r/bigseo/comments/1tth39o/what_free_keyword_research_tools_are_you_using_in/op2zpl4/ - Reddit, r/Blogging (2020-05-26): https://www.reddit.com/r/Blogging/comments/gpjp96/making_income_while_blogging_as_a_side_hustle/frugwi9/ ## Related - [[Keyword Research]] - [[Search Engine Optimization (SEO)]] - [[AI SEO]] - [[Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)]] - [[Answer Socrates]] - [[Ahrefs]] - [[Google]] - [[My Content Strategy]] - [[Jon Brosio]]