Claude answers API

What the Claude API returns

With web search on, Claude reads a handful of pages and writes a short, careful answer. Each one comes back read the same way as the other engines: brands in order, every citation typed, and the raw response kept as proof.

Claude SEO: what decides which brands Claude names

When Claude searches, it summarises what the pages it found agree on. Its answer to the CRM question began: “across the 2026 roundups I found, a few tools come up repeatedly.” It cited six pages, mostly roundups and review sites (techsifted.com, startupik.com, saasworthy.com, techradar.com), plus folk.app, the site of a brand it then recommended. So the way into Claude's answers is the same as for the other engines: get onto the roundups it reads. The API shows exactly which ones those are for each question.

One question, three different answers

We asked “best CRM for early-stage startups” on each engine from the US on the same morning. Each card is what the API returned: how the answer opens, the brands it named in order, and the first sites it cited.

Where each answer ranks each brand (1 = named first; – = not named)

Brand	Claude	ChatGPT	Perplexity
HubSpot	1	2	1
Pipedrive	2	3	4
Bigin	3	– not named	6
Folk	4	– not named	9
Attio	5	1	3
Close	6	5	– not named
Copper	7	– not named	– not named
Zoho CRM	– not named	4	5
Less Annoying CRM	– not named	– not named	2
Salesforce Starter	– not named	– not named	7

All three name HubSpot, Pipedrive and Attio. Claude puts HubSpot first, as Perplexity does, while ChatGPT leads with Attio. Claude is the only one to recommend Copper, and it shares just one source with ChatGPT (techradar.com) and two with Perplexity (techradar.com and folk.app).

Calling Claude's web search yourself vs aivisibilityskill

You can call Claude with its web search tool yourself. You'd get the answer and its sources, and still have to read the answer for brands, track it over time and keep the same format for every other engine. That's what this API does.

Calling Claude yourself vs through aivisibilityskill

	Claude API with web search	aivisibilityskill
The answer and its sources	Yes	Yes
Brands named	You parse them yourself	Listed with rank, recommendation and sentiment
Source types	No	Every citation typed
Billing	Tokens plus searches	One price per answer; failed answers are free
ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI and others	No	Yes, in the same call

As with the other model APIs, this is Claude through the API with a fresh conversation, not the claude.ai app with a person's own history and settings.

Track brand mentions in Claude

Put a brand, its competitors and its buyers' questions in a project with a daily or weekly schedule. The API returns how often Claude names the brand (with error bars), each competitor's share, the sites Claude cites and the history, and a webhook tells your server when each run is done.

Call the Claude API from TypeScript or Python

The SDKs wrap the same request, retry safely without charging twice, and wait for the answers for you. Free sandbox keys (aiv_test_…) return realistic sample answers, so you can build the whole feature before spending a credit.

TypeScript (npm install @aivisibilityskill/sdk)

import { Aiv } from "@aivisibilityskill/sdk";

const aiv = new Aiv({ apiKey: process.env.AIV_KEY! });

const job = await aiv.checks.create({
  questions: ["best CRM for early-stage startups"],
  engines: ["claude"],
  locale: "en-US",
});
const done = await aiv.jobs.wait(job.id);

for (const answer of done.answers ?? []) {
  console.log(answer.brands?.map((b) => `${b.rank}. ${b.name}`));
  console.log(answer.citations?.map((c) => c.domain));
}

Python (pip install aivisibilityskill)

import os
from aivisibilityskill import Aiv

aiv = Aiv(api_key=os.environ["AIV_KEY"])

job = aiv.checks.create(
    ["best CRM for early-stage startups"],
    engines=["claude"],
    locale="en-US",
)
done = aiv.jobs.wait(job["id"])

for answer in done["answers"]:
    print([(b["rank"], b["name"]) for b in answer["brands"]])
    print([c["domain"] for c in answer["citations"]])

For thousands of questions, send them as one batch of up to 20,000 answers and get one webhook when it's done. Full guides: SDKs, API reference, OpenAPI 3.1 spec.

Prefer a ready-made tool? llm-brand-tracker on GitHub tracks your brand against competitors on all 8 engines every week, free on GitHub Actions. Free and MIT licensed.

Claude API pricing

You pay per answer, in credits. Claude is asked live, one call per answer, so there's one speed. A dollar buys 1,000 credits on a pack; monthly and volume plans include more. An answer reused from a recent identical one (max_age_hours) costs half, and an answer that fails costs nothing.

Every account gets the same API and every engine, starting with 500 free credits and no card. Volume plans start at $500 a month for 750,000 credits, with invoicing and a 99.5% uptime commitment: see volume plans.

Countries and languages

Claude is asked through its API, so it isn't answering from a location. For any locale other than en-US, it's told which country the buyer is in, for any of 250 countries and territories, and it answers in the question's language (de-DE, pt-BR, ja-JP…). The app and search engines answer from the country itself: ChatGPT in 192, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode in 240. GET /v1/locales lists every pair for free.