Spook vs Koala AI

Word-credit AI writer with chat, images and SEO tools

Koala AI bundles an AI writer (KoalaWriter), a chat assistant with live web data, an internal-linking tool, image generation and an SEO dashboard behind word-and-credit plans. It starts at $9 a month for 15,000 words and climbs through nine tiers to $2,000 for ten million words. It publishes to WordPress, Shopify, Webflow and Ghost, and a scheduled Content Calendar Autopilot unlocks on the $99 Boost tier.

Spook does one job and does it end to end: it finds the queries your site can win from your own Search Console data, writes the article, scores it, publishes it to your CMS and builds backlinks, on a schedule, for a flat $60 a month per site. No words to count, no credits to top up, and the autopilot is the product rather than a tier.

Koala Essentials is $9/month for 15,000 words; autopilot needs the $99 Boost tier. Spook is $60/month per site, autopilot included.

Start Spook for free Jump to the feature table

7-day free trial, no credit card. Prices read from koala.sh in September 2026.

Feature by feature

Spook vs Koala AI, row by row

Every row is checkable on both products' public pages. Last read in September 2026. If something has changed, tell us and we will fix the row.

Feature	Spook	Koala AI
Entry price	SpookYes$60/month per site, everything included	Koala AIPartlyEssentials is $9/month for 15,000 words and 250 credits; Professional $49, Boost $99, then $179 up to $2,000
Content volume included	SpookYes30 articles per site per month, written and published	Koala AIPartlyMeasured in words, not articles: 15,000 words on Essentials is roughly 7 to 10 articles; non-default models count 2 to 3x
Full autopilot (research, write, publish)	SpookYesWinnable-query research, writing, SEO scoring and publishing run on a schedule you set	Koala AIPartlyContent Calendar Autopilot only from the $99 Boost tier; lower plans are a writer you drive by hand
Keyword research	SpookYesLive SERP difficulty and Domain Rating checks pick queries your site can realistically rank for, included on every plan	Koala AIYesKeyword, SERP, competitor and traffic data inside KoalaChat and the Brand DNA agent; live SERP research per article
Google Search Console data	SpookYesOne-click OAuth per site; real clicks, impressions and positions feed topic selection and refresh alerts	Koala AIYesSearch Console and Analytics dashboard on Professional ($49) and above
Auto-publishing integrations	SpookYesWordPress, Shopify, Ghost, Webflow, Payload and headless CMSs, Next.js template, or any site via webhook	Koala AIYesWordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Ghost, webhooks, Zapier, Make, Google Sheets - included from Essentials
Review before it goes live	SpookYesPer site: publish live, or land as drafts in your CMS for a final look	Koala AIYesPublish as drafts to review, or auto-publish per brand
Backlink building	SpookYesSpook Network backlink exchange included, 100 credits per site per month	Koala AINoBacklink data and audits only - no exchange, outreach or network
AI visibility tracking (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews)	SpookYesWeekly checks across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews; gaps become planned articles	Koala AINoNot offered
AI images in articles	SpookYesIncluded in every article, in a style you pick per site; optional inline images and YouTube video embeds per site	Koala AIYesKoalaImages with style references and batch generation; limited on Essentials
Languages	SpookYesAny language and market, chosen per site; articles follow that locale's grammar and spelling	Koala AIYes100+ languages
API, CLI and MCP for AI agents	SpookYesAgent API with OpenAPI spec, spook-cli on npm, and an MCP endpoint with 59 tools	Koala AIPartlyAPI on every paid plan; no CLI or MCP server found
Multiple sites	SpookYesEach site is its own $60 plan; volume pricing drops to $45/site at 4+ sites	Koala AIPartlyPublishing to multiple sites is unlimited, but Brand DNA brands are capped per tier (1 on Essentials to 75 on Scale III)
Free trial	SpookYes7-day free trial, no credit card required	Koala AIYes5,000 free words and 25 credits on signup, no credit card required

Both sides

Where each one is the better pick

We would rather you choose right than choose us. These are the honest reasons to pick Koala AI, and the honest reasons to pick Spook.

Where Koala AI wins

A very low price floor
$9 buys a real writer with CMS publishing and API access, and $49 adds the Search Console dashboard and 100,000 words. If you write and publish by hand across many sites, it is hard to beat per article.
Breadth of tooling
KoalaChat with live web data, KoalaLinks bulk internal linking with schema, KoalaMagnets lead magnets, and Amazon affiliate and local roundup article types.
Model choice and bulk mode
Pick between OpenAI, Anthropic and Google frontier models per article, and run true bulk jobs from keyword lists.

Where Spook wins

Autopilot is the product, not a tier
Research, writing, scoring and publishing run on a schedule from day one for $60. On Koala the equivalent Content Calendar Autopilot starts at $99.
Topics come from what you can actually rank for
Spook pairs your Search Console queries with live SERP difficulty and Domain Rating checks, so it only writes for queries your site has a real shot at.
Backlinks and AI visibility included
The Spook Network backlink exchange and weekly checks across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and AI Overviews are in the base plan. Koala audits backlinks but does not build them.
No word or credit accounting
30 published articles a month is the unit. You never work out how many words a model burns or which tier a feature lives on.

The math

What 30 published articles a month costs

Same output, priced the way each product actually bills. Read from both pricing pages in September 2026.

Spook

PLAN: One site, $60/month
INCLUDES: 30 articles, research, publishing, backlinks

~30 articles / mo$60

One flat price per site. No seats, no credits, no add-ons for research or publishing.

Koala AI

PLAN: Boost, $99/month (first tier with autopilot)
INCLUDES: 250,000 words, 2,500 credits, calendar autopilot

~30 articles / mo$99

Professional at $49 covers the words for 30 articles but not the scheduled autopilot; Boost is the first tier that runs on its own.

The verdict

Which one should you pick?

Koala AIPICK IF

Pick Koala AI if you want a cheap, flexible writing workbench, like choosing models per article, and are happy to pick topics and press publish yourself across many sites and brands.

SpookPICK IF

Pick Spook if you want the whole loop to run without you, from topic selection grounded in your own search data through publishing and backlinks, at one flat price per site.

Spook vs Koala AI, answered

For the words, yes: Koala starts at $9 a month and its $49 Professional tier includes 100,000 words. For a hands-off pipeline, no: Koala's Content Calendar Autopilot only unlocks on the $99 Boost tier, while Spook's autopilot is included in the $60 per-site plan along with backlinks and AI visibility checks.

Koala publishes to WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Ghost and webhooks on every paid plan, as drafts or live. Scheduled, unattended publishing through its Content Calendar Autopilot requires the Boost tier or higher.

No. Koala offers backlink data and audits and surfaces unlinked brand mentions, but it has no backlink exchange or outreach. Spook includes the Spook Network backlink exchange in every plan.

Koala counts words against a monthly allowance, and articles written with non-default models count two to three times over. Spook counts published articles: 30 per site per month, whatever the length.

Yes. Koala gives every new account 5,000 words and 25 credits with no card. Spook gives every new account a 7-day trial of the full product with no card.

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