# Spook vs Koala AI

> Spook vs Koala AI: a flat $60 per site autopilot versus word-and-credit plans from $9 to $2,000. Autopilot tiers, keyword research, backlinks, publishing and trials compared honestly.

Verified September 2026 against https://koala.sh/pricing.

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.

## Feature by feature

| Feature | Spook | Koala AI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Entry price | Yes - $60/month per site, everything included | Partly - Essentials is $9/month for 15,000 words and 250 credits; Professional $49, Boost $99, then $179 up to $2,000 |
| Content volume included | Yes - 30 articles per site per month, written and published | Partly - Measured 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) | Yes - Winnable-query research, writing, SEO scoring and publishing run on a schedule you set | Partly - Content Calendar Autopilot only from the $99 Boost tier; lower plans are a writer you drive by hand |
| Keyword research | Yes - Live SERP difficulty and Domain Rating checks pick queries your site can realistically rank for, included on every plan | Yes - Keyword, SERP, competitor and traffic data inside KoalaChat and the Brand DNA agent; live SERP research per article |
| Google Search Console data | Yes - One-click OAuth per site; real clicks, impressions and positions feed topic selection and refresh alerts | Yes - Search Console and Analytics dashboard on Professional ($49) and above |
| Auto-publishing integrations | Yes - WordPress, Shopify, Ghost, Webflow, Payload and headless CMSs, Next.js template, or any site via webhook | Yes - WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, Ghost, webhooks, Zapier, Make, Google Sheets - included from Essentials |
| Review before it goes live | Yes - Per site: publish live, or land as drafts in your CMS for a final look | Yes - Publish as drafts to review, or auto-publish per brand |
| Backlink building | Yes - Spook Network backlink exchange included, 100 credits per site per month | No - Backlink data and audits only - no exchange, outreach or network |
| AI visibility tracking (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews) | Yes - Weekly checks across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews; gaps become planned articles | No - Not offered |
| AI images in articles | Yes - Included in every article, in a style you pick per site; optional inline images and YouTube video embeds per site | Yes - KoalaImages with style references and batch generation; limited on Essentials |
| Languages | Yes - Any language and market, chosen per site; articles follow that locale's grammar and spelling | Yes - 100+ languages |
| API, CLI and MCP for AI agents | Yes - Agent API with OpenAPI spec, spook-cli on npm, and an MCP endpoint with 59 tools | Partly - API on every paid plan; no CLI or MCP server found |
| Multiple sites | Yes - Each site is its own $60 plan; volume pricing drops to $45/site at 4+ sites | Partly - Publishing to multiple sites is unlimited, but Brand DNA brands are capped per tier (1 on Essentials to 75 on Scale III) |
| Free trial | Yes - 7-day free trial, no credit card required | Yes - 5,000 free words and 25 credits on signup, no credit card required |

## 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.

## What 30 articles a month costs

- Spook: $60 (One site, $60/month; 30 articles, research, publishing, backlinks). One flat price per site. No seats, no credits, no add-ons for research or publishing.
- Koala AI: $99 (Boost, $99/month (first tier with autopilot); 250,000 words, 2,500 credits, calendar autopilot). Professional at $49 covers the words for 30 articles but not the scheduled autopilot; Boost is the first tier that runs on its own.

## Verdict

- Pick Koala AI 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.
- Pick Spook 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.

## FAQ

### Is Koala AI cheaper than Spook?

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.

### Does Koala AI publish articles automatically?

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.

### Does Koala AI build backlinks?

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.

### How do Koala's word limits compare to Spook's article limit?

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.

### Do both offer a free trial without a card?

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.

Read on the site: https://www.tryspook.com/compare/koala-ai