--- title: "Free AnswerThePublic alternative | SEO Skill" description: "Free AnswerThePublic alternative: free backlink, keyword and traffic tools, plus your own Search Console data in your AI agent. Compare features and price." canonical: "https://seoskill.dev/alternatives/answerthepublic" language: "en" --- # Free AnswerThePublic alternative AnswerThePublic is a hosted keyword research tool from NP Digital that pulls autocomplete suggestions from search engines, social media, Amazon and AI tools to show the questions people ask, with Content Studio for writing articles. SEO Skill is free: web tools for the everyday lookups, and your own Search Console, Google Analytics and keyword data in your AI agent. [Get started free](https://seoskill.dev/account) Run it in a terminal, then sign in with Google. Or run it on your machine Installs the CLI, signs you in and adds the skill to your agents. Site crawls and Bing data run this way, on your own machine. A crawl fetches many pages, and Bing blocks our hosted server. ## At a glance The four things most people compare first, from each product's own pages. ### SEO Skill Free use Every on-demand tool, no usage cap Paid $50 a month per site, for the weekly audit Works in web chat Yes Get started Free web tools with no account, or one URL in your AI agent ### AnswerThePublic Free use Free, 3 searches a day Paid US$20 a month (Starter) Works in web chat No. MCP support is announced as coming soon for recurring-plan customers. Get started Create an account ## Free tools for the jobs you use AnswerThePublic for No account and no key. Each one opens in your browser. [ ### Word combiner Combine up to five word or keyword lists, filter the results, and download the combinations. Open the word combiner](https://seoskill.dev/tools/word-combiner)[ ### Competitor keyword research See the keywords a competitor ranks for, or the sites that compete with any domain. Open competitor keyword research](https://seoskill.dev/tools/competitor-keyword-research)[ ### SERP checker See who ranks in Google for a keyword right now, and where your own domain sits. Open the SERP checker](https://seoskill.dev/tools/serp-checker)[ ### SERP preview Preview title and meta description width on desktop or mobile, then copy the finished HTML tags. Open the SERP preview](https://seoskill.dev/tools/serp-preview) ## Pick AnswerThePublic if From AnswerThePublic's own pages. - you want the questions and phrases people type into Google, YouTube, TikTok and Amazon in one visual report. - you want to see which prompts people use in ChatGPT and Gemini and which brands those answers mention. - you only need a few searches a day and the free account covers it. - you want to turn keyword research into AI articles and publish them to WordPress or Webflow. ## Pick SEO Skill if Free SEO tools in your browser, and your own search data in your AI agent. - You want the everyday lookups for free: backlinks, Domain Rating, competitor keywords, SERPs and traffic estimates, with no account. - You want your AI agent to answer from your own Search Console and Google Analytics data, not only from an index estimate. - You already pay for keyword data: SEO Skill uses your own DataForSEO or Ahrefs key, so you pay that provider and nothing on top. - You want a weekly crawl, daily index checks and drop alerts for $50 a month per site, with no seats to buy. ## Side by side Every fact we compared, with AnswerThePublic's taken from the sources at the end of this page. SEO SkillAnswerThePublic Get started SEO Skill: Use the free web tools with no account. For your own data, add https://seoskill.dev/mcp to your AI agent and sign in with Google (read only). AnswerThePublic: Register for a free account to get 3 searches a day. To try a paid plan, switch the pricing page to monthly and start the one-time 7-day free trial. You verify your email and add a payment method, and the trial turns into a paid monthly plan unless you cancel. Yearly plans are charged right away with no trial. What it does SEO Skill: Free web tools: backlink checker, Domain Rating, competitor keywords, SERP checker, traffic estimates, robots.txt, sitemap, schema and more. In your AI agent: Search Console reports (quick wins, low CTR, striking distance, content decay, cannibalization, traffic drops), page checks, index checks, before and after comparisons, and keyword research with your own key. A site crawler and internal links in the CLI. AnswerThePublic: Keyword reports with a keyword wheel, Organic Searches (Google and Bing), Search Modifiers (questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabeticals, numbers), People Also Ask, Trending Keywords, Social Media, Shopping and an AI Models report with ChatGPT and Gemini prompts, intent, sentiment and brand mentions. Also keyword lists, search listening alerts, keyword tracking, compare over time (Growth and Business), exports and Content Studio for AI articles. A public API in Alpha is on active paid plans only, not on the free plan, the trial or Lifetime plans. No MCP yet: its help says MCP support is launching soon for recurring-plan customers. Data SEO Skill: Google Search Console, Google Analytics, URL Inspection, Clicky, and DataForSEO or Ahrefs with your own key. Bing Webmaster Tools in the CLI. Free Domain Rating by Ahrefs on research rows. AnswerThePublic: Autocomplete suggestions from Google, Bing, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Amazon, AI prompt suggestions and answers from ChatGPT and Gemini, Google search volume, updated monthly, and Google Ads CPC, Google People Also Ask, Google Trends for the last 30 days (Trending Keywords), Google Shopping top products, Your site's sitemap and published pages (Content Studio Keyword Coverage) Where you use it SEO Skill: Your browser for the web tools. Claude Code, Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Le Chat and any remote MCP client for your own data. AnswerThePublic: Web app In Claude or ChatGPT on the web SEO Skill: Yes AnswerThePublic: No. MCP support is announced as coming soon for recurring-plan customers. Free SEO Skill: Every on-demand tool, with no usage cap and no time limit. AnswerThePublic: Free account with 3 searches a day, reset daily. Some suggestions are locked, search volume and CPC show for only two branches per report, XLSX exports are capped at 30 keywords, and images download at lower resolution. Free AI Models access includes 30 AI prompt responses a month and 10 prompts per search. No Content Studio credits and no API. Monthly plans also have a one-time 7-day free trial with 36 Content Studio credits and no API. Paid plans SEO Skill: The weekly site audit is $50 a month per site: weekly crawl, daily Google index checks, stored history, drop and return alerts, and a Monday email and webhook. Cancel any time. AnswerThePublic: Starter US$20 a month (1 user, 100 searches a month). Growth US$99 a month (up to 3 users, 200 searches). Business US$199 a month (up to 10 users, 300 searches). Yearly, with a limited-time 50% off offer that ends Nov 8, 2026: Starter US$120 a year (regular US$160), Growth US$594 a year (regular US$792), Business US$1,194 a year (regular US$1,592). Fees are generally non-refundable once paid billing starts. Custom plans by quote. Can it change your site SEO Skill: Read-only Google sign-in. Your agent can start the paid audit for a site, which returns a Stripe Checkout link for you to open. AnswerThePublic: Yes, through Content Studio. It can publish articles to WordPress or Webflow, save them as drafts or auto-publish after an article is generated. The API cannot publish. No changes in Google are stated. Your data SEO Skill: Search Console and analytics rows are fetched on each request and never stored, except what the paid weekly audit keeps for its sites. Your linked accounts and saved keys are kept, encrypted. AnswerThePublic: Not stated. No Google Search Console or Google Analytics connection is stated. History SEO Skill: Google's 16 months, read live. With the weekly audit, crawl and index history for the sites you audit. AnswerThePublic: Not stated. Search volume reflects the previous month, Trending Keywords covers the last 30 days, and Compare shows changes between your own saved reports on Growth and Business. Licence SEO Skill: Hosted service, with the CLI and local MCP server open source (Apache 2.0) AnswerThePublic: Hosted service ## Move from AnswerThePublic in a few minutes Nothing to migrate: SEO Skill reads your accounts live. When you are done, remove AnswerThePublic from your agent and revoke its access. - [Add SEO Skill to your agentUse the setup box above, or the steps for your client on the integrations page.](https://seoskill.dev/integrations) - ### Check your access Ask "list my Search Console properties". Every Google account you link shows up. - [Add your research keySave a DataForSEO or Ahrefs key on your account page if you use keyword research.](https://seoskill.dev/account) - ### Keep what you still need Projects and history you built in AnswerThePublic stay there. SEO Skill reads Search Console live, so you can run both while you decide. ## More comparisons Other ways to give your agent search data, next to SEO Skill. [ ### AccuRanker Free: No. Paid: $249 a month (Professional). Free AccuRanker alternative](https://seoskill.dev/alternatives/accuranker)[ ### Ahrefs Free: Free account, verified sites. Paid: $29 a month (Starter). Free Ahrefs alternative](https://seoskill.dev/alternatives/ahrefs)[ ### Majestic Free: Free account, limits not stated. Paid: $49.99 a month (Lite). Free Majestic alternative](https://seoskill.dev/alternatives/majestic)[ ### Mangools Free: Free plan, 5 lookups a day. Paid: $61 a month (Basic). Free Mangools alternative](https://seoskill.dev/alternatives/mangools) ## Questions about AnswerThePublic Sources for AnswerThePublic, read 3 November 2026: [Plans, monthly and yearly prices, 50% off offer, limits by plan, free account searches](https://answerthepublic.com/pricing), [Free plan limits, 7-day trial, 36 trial credits](https://answerthepublic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/22617503900187-Is-There-a-Free-Version-of-AnswerThePublic), [Trial sign up, payment method, automatic conversion](https://answerthepublic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7414292189595-Payments-Billing-and-Free-Trials-in-AnswerThePublic), [No trial on yearly plans, refund policy](https://answerthepublic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/26990597327259-AnswerThePublic-Refund-Policy), [API in Alpha on paid plans, MCP coming soon](https://answerthepublic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/15219088022555-Does-AnswerThePublic-Have-an-API), [Data sources, reports, tracking and compare](https://answerthepublic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/13932754469275-AnswerThePublic-Starter-Guide), [Content Studio publishing to WordPress and Webflow, Keyword Coverage sources](https://answerthepublic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/48030408830747-Content-Studio-Create-SEO-Content-in-Minutes).