What the standardized data shows
- Google returned 958 unique suggestions and 389 unique questions. Bing returned 1,043 unique suggestions, but a smaller 23.7% question share in its own unique set.
- YouTube contributed 439 unique suggestions. Its 46% question share was the highest of the four public sources, which makes video-search demand a distinct research layer.
- Pairwise Jaccard overlap ranged from 4.8% to 12.6%. Even Google and YouTube shared only 156 normalized suggestions across a 1,241-suggestion union.
- The seven commercial or free research products expose different workflows. Four document APIs or bulk access, while several lower-cost options focus on questions, exports, or SERP weakness rather than listening alerts.
- AnswerThePublic remains a reasonable choice for visual exploration and alerting. This evidence does not support calling one alternative universally best because the public experiment measured source diversity, not each vendor's private result set.
Observed source coverage
| Public source | Requests | Unique suggestions | Unique questions | Question share | Average words |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Suggest | 125/125 | 958 | 389 | 40.6% | 4.7 |
| YouTube Suggest | 125/125 | 439 | 202 | 46% | 4.7 |
| Bing Suggestions | 125/125 | 1,043 | 247 | 23.7% | 4.1 |
| DuckDuckGo Autocomplete | 125/125 | 125 | 50 | 40% | 3.3 |
Source-linked comparison
Prices are preserved in the billing unit the vendor publishes. An interactive or custom price is left unconverted. The coverage score is reproducible from the feature flags in the downloadable dataset.
| Tool | Starting price | Free access | Question workflow coverage | Best documented fit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword ToolPublic page exposes free results; paid price is selector-dependent | Interactive plan selector | limited | 100/100 | Autocomplete research across many search and commerce platforms | Official page |
| Keywords EverywhereBronze annual plan; 100,000 credits/year | $84/year | yes | 86/100 | In-browser keyword metrics and lightweight gap research | Official page |
| AlsoAskedBasic plan; annual billing selection shown by source | $12/month | limited | 71/100 | People Also Ask relationship maps by region and language | Official page |
| QuestionDBSolo plan; free plan includes 5 searches/month | $9.99/month | yes | 71/100 | Low-cost question research with keyword metrics | Official page |
| LowFruitsStandard annual equivalent; PAYG starts at $25 | $20.75/month | limited | 71/100 | Autocomplete ideas paired with weak-SERP analysis | Official page |
| AnswerThePublicStarter monthly; lower monthly equivalent on annual billing | $20/month | limited | 57/100 | Visual question discovery and search-listening alerts | Official page |
| Ahrefs Free Keyword GeneratorStandalone public tool with limited returned ideas | Free | yes | 57/100 | Quick cross-platform keyword and question sampling | Official page |
Question research 2 + keyword research 1 + search volume 1 + bulk research 1 + exports 1 + API 1, divided by 7 and converted to 100.Documented feature present = assigned weight; absent or unverified = zero.How to choose without buying duplicate software
Choose AnswerThePublic for visual listening
Its official plans combine question visualization, exports, and search-listening alerts. It is useful when presentation and change monitoring matter more than a programmable workflow.
Choose AlsoAsked for PAA relationships
Its documented strength is mapping People Also Ask connections by region and language, with deeper history, bulk searches, CSV, and API access on higher plans.
Choose low-cost tools for metrics
QuestionDB, LowFruits, and Keywords Everywhere add combinations of volume, difficulty, SERP weakness, or browser-level research at lower published entry prices.
Use multiple sources for topic discovery
The low observed overlap means one autocomplete source should not define the entire content plan. Collect broadly, normalize duplicates, then validate business relevance before publishing.
Methodology
- Selected 25 public SEO and AEO seed topics that span research, technical SEO, local search, content, links, reporting, and AI visibility.
- Built five deterministic query patterns per seed: the seed alone, how to, what is, best, and versus.
- Requested suggestions from four public endpoints with US English parameters where supported, no accounts, no cookies, and no supplied search history.
- Stored rank, source, seed, pattern, exact suggestion, normalized suggestion, deterministic intent, question flag, endpoint, and timestamp for every row.
- Normalized casing, apostrophes, punctuation, and whitespace before calculating unique counts and pairwise Jaccard overlap.
- Separately recorded current tool pricing and features from official vendor pages. We did not claim that public endpoint results represent any vendor's paid database.
Limitations
- Autocomplete is dynamic. Results can change with time, host location, language, device, and engine updates.
- DuckDuckGo returned one suggestion for each request in this collection, so its count is not directly comparable to sources returning longer lists.
- Suggestion presence is not search volume, conversion likelihood, ranking difficulty, or proof that an article should be created.
- The intent classifier uses published phrase rules and can misclassify ambiguous queries.
- We did not log into paid vendor accounts or evaluate private result counts, proprietary metrics, usability, or customer support.
Questions about this benchmark
What is the best AnswerThePublic alternative?
There is no universal winner. AlsoAsked fits PAA mapping, QuestionDB offers low-cost question metrics, LowFruits adds weak-SERP analysis, Keywords Everywhere works inside the browser, and Keyword Tool covers many platforms. The right choice depends on the workflow you need.
Is the public suggestion dataset the same as AnswerThePublic data?
No. It is an independent RadiusRank experiment using public Google, YouTube, Bing, and DuckDuckGo suggestion endpoints. Vendor features are compared separately from official documentation.
Can I reuse the data?
Yes. The dataset is published under CC BY 4.0. Attribute RadiusRank, preserve the snapshot date, and note that autocomplete results are time-sensitive.