Prism Audience Questions API
Returns the real questions people ask about a topic, taken from Reddit and YouTube threads and grouped by intent such as who, what, why, how, and comparisons.
GET /v1/prism/audience-questionsLast updated October 2026Maintained by the SocialCrawl team
When to use the Prism Audience Questions API
Use it to build content briefs or FAQs from the audience's own wording rather than searching each platform and reading threads yourself.
From the API reference
Searches Reddit and YouTube (and optionally the universal web search) for a topic, picks the titles and comments that ask a real question (a judgment per text, so Korean and other questions without a "?" count; methodology.question_detection reports how they were picked, with a punctuation heuristic as the fallback), and LLM-clusters them into labeled intent groups with verbatim quotes and per-question source counts (the model only labels/groups: counts and quotes are recomputed in code). The clustering degrades to one ungrouped cluster on LLM failure (no refund). Coverage spine = the per-source search legs (<0.5 → 50% refund; all dead → full refund). Great for content/SEO briefs and FAQ generation. Korean topics: naver adds Naver KnowledgeiN, Korea's question site, as one search of up to 100 rows; every KnowledgeiN row is a question someone asked, so it is kept without judging and counted once per question (KnowledgeiN lists one row per answer), and its raw rows are under sources.naver. A topic written in Hangul defaults to naver,youtube, because Reddit's search returns unrelated threads for Korean terms; pass platforms= to choose for yourself.
Searching 69 platforms in parallel
What can you do with the Audience Questions API?
The Audience Questions endpoint gives you structured Prism data with computed fields in a single request. No scraping infrastructure to build or maintain.
Example Request
# GET /v1/prism/audience-questions: 30 credits per call. Cache hits are free and failed calls are refunded.
# Check the price first for 0 credits: add dry_run=1 to the query. Nothing is fetched or charged.
# --max-time 60: the API's own time limit for this endpoint.
# --retry 3: retries timeouts, 429 and 5xx, honoring Retry-After.
# -o response.json keeps only the final attempt's body.
# One Idempotency-Key per request, reused on every retry, so a retried call is never charged twice.
IDEMPOTENCY_KEY=$(od -An -N16 -tx1 /dev/urandom | tr -d ' \n')
curl -sS --max-time 60 --retry 3 -o response.json \
-H "x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Idempotency-Key: $IDEMPOTENCY_KEY" \
"https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/prism/audience-questions?topic=kubernetes+operators&platforms=reddit%2Cyoutube" && cat response.json# GET /v1/prism/audience-questions: 30 credits per call. Cache hits are free and failed calls are refunded.
# Check the price first for 0 credits: add dry_run=1 to the query. Nothing is fetched or charged.
import os
import random
import time
import uuid
import requests
API_KEY = os.environ.get("SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY", "YOUR_API_KEY")
TIMEOUT_S = 60 # the API's own time limit for this endpoint.
MAX_RETRIES = 3
URL = "https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/prism/audience-questions"
def backoff(attempt):
# Exponential backoff with jitter: about 1 s, 2 s, then 4 s.
return 2 ** attempt * (0.5 + random.random() / 2)
def socialcrawl(params):
# One Idempotency-Key per request, reused on every retry, so a retried call is never charged twice.
idempotency_key = str(uuid.uuid4())
for attempt in range(MAX_RETRIES + 1):
try:
res = requests.get(
URL,
params=params,
headers={"x-api-key": API_KEY, "Idempotency-Key": idempotency_key},
timeout=TIMEOUT_S,
)
body = res.json()
except (requests.RequestException, ValueError):
# A timeout, a dropped connection or a non-JSON gateway page: retry with the same key.
if attempt == MAX_RETRIES:
raise
time.sleep(backoff(attempt))
continue
if body["success"]:
return body
error = body["error"]
# Branch on error["type"], never on the message text.
if error["type"] == "RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND":
return None # refunded: nothing to read
retry_after = res.headers.get("Retry-After")
# SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE without Retry-After is a withdrawn endpoint: permanent.
permanent = error["type"] == "SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE" and retry_after is None
if not error.get("retryable") or permanent or attempt == MAX_RETRIES:
raise RuntimeError(f"{error['type']}: {error['message']} (request_id {body['request_id']})")
# Retry-After (seconds) wins; otherwise back off.
time.sleep(float(retry_after) if retry_after else backoff(attempt))
params = {
"topic": "kubernetes operators",
"platforms": "reddit,youtube",
}
body = socialcrawl(params)
if body is not None:
print(body["data"])// GET /v1/prism/audience-questions: 30 credits per call. Cache hits are free and failed calls are refunded.
// Check the price first for 0 credits: add dry_run=1 to the query. Nothing is fetched or charged.
const API_KEY = process.env.SOCIALCRAWL_API_KEY ?? "YOUR_API_KEY";
const TIMEOUT_MS = 60_000; // the API's own time limit for this endpoint.
const MAX_RETRIES = 3;
type Page = { next_cursor: string | null; has_more: boolean };
type SocialCrawlResponse =
| { success: true; data: any; pagination?: Page; credits_used: number; request_id: string }
| { success: false; error: { type: string; message: string; retryable: boolean }; request_id: string };
const sleep = (ms: number) => new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, ms));
// Exponential backoff with jitter: about 1 s, 2 s, then 4 s.
const backoffMs = (attempt: number) => 2 ** attempt * 1000 * (0.5 + Math.random() / 2);
async function socialcrawl(url: URL) {
// One Idempotency-Key per request, reused on every retry, so a retried call is never charged twice.
const idempotencyKey = crypto.randomUUID();
for (let attempt = 0; ; attempt++) {
let res: Response;
let body: SocialCrawlResponse;
try {
res = await fetch(url, {
headers: {
"x-api-key": API_KEY,
"Idempotency-Key": idempotencyKey,
},
signal: AbortSignal.timeout(TIMEOUT_MS),
});
body = (await res.json()) as SocialCrawlResponse;
} catch (error) {
// A timeout, a dropped connection or a non-JSON gateway page: retry with the same key.
if (attempt >= MAX_RETRIES) throw error;
await sleep(backoffMs(attempt));
continue;
}
if (body.success) return body;
// Branch on error.type, never on the message text.
if (body.error.type === "RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND") return null; // refunded: nothing to read
const retryAfter = res.headers.get("Retry-After");
// SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE without Retry-After is a withdrawn endpoint: permanent.
const permanent = body.error.type === "SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE" && retryAfter === null;
if (!body.error.retryable || permanent || attempt >= MAX_RETRIES) {
throw new Error(`${body.error.type}: ${body.error.message} (request_id ${body.request_id})`);
}
// Retry-After (seconds) wins; otherwise back off.
await sleep(retryAfter ? Number(retryAfter) * 1000 : backoffMs(attempt));
}
}
const url = new URL("https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/prism/audience-questions");
url.searchParams.set("topic", "kubernetes operators");
url.searchParams.set("platforms", "reddit,youtube");
const body = await socialcrawl(url);
if (body) console.log(body.data);Parameters
| Parameter | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|
| topic | Yes | The topic/keyword to mine audience questions for. |
| platforms | No | CSV subset of reddit,youtube,web,naver. Default reddit,youtube; a topic written in Hangul defaults to naver,youtube (naver = Naver KnowledgeiN questions). |
| max_questions | No | Cap on questions returned. |
| threads_per_source | No | How many top threads to dig per source. |
| timeframe | No | Recency window. |
| include | No | Set `web` to add the universal-search leg. |
What does the Prism Audience Questions API return?
Every response follows one unified schema. Here is a real, unmodified response body, so you can see the exact fields you get back before spending a credit.
Example response
{
"success": true,
"platform": "instagram",
"endpoint": "/v1/instagram/engagement",
"data": {
"engagement_rate_percentages": 38.33,
"recent_posts": 12,
"followers": 87608035,
"comments": 528912,
"likes": 33049046,
"recent_posts_explanation": "Statistics based on the last 12 posts",
"id_user": "2278169415",
"username": "mrbeast",
"is_private": false,
"posts_details": [
{
"likes": 5636982,
"comments": 69484,
"taken_at": 1781457954,
"datetime": "2026-06-14 20:25:54",
"hours_since_post": 461,
"time_ago": "19 days ago",
"likes_per_hour": 12228,
"comments_per_hour": 151
},
{
"likes": 20000768,
"comments": 223510,
"taken_at": 1732824650,
"datetime": "2024-11-28 23:10:50",
"hours_since_post": 13971,
"time_ago": "2 years ago",
"likes_per_hour": 1432,
"comments_per_hour": 16
},
{
"likes": 929226,
"comments": 30633,
"taken_at": 1782232475,
"datetime": "2026-06-23 19:34:35",
"hours_since_post": 246,
"time_ago": "10 days ago",
"likes_per_hour": 3777,
"comments_per_hour": 125
},
{
"likes": 487761,
"comments": 22482,
"taken_at": 1781799425,
"datetime": "2026-06-18 19:17:05",
"hours_since_post": 366,
"time_ago": "15 days ago",
"likes_per_hour": 1333,
"comments_per_hour": 61
},
{
"likes": 712265,
"comments": 15716,
"taken_at": 1781366405,
"datetime": "2026-06-13 19:00:05",
"hours_since_post": 487,
"time_ago": "20 days ago",
"likes_per_hour": 1463,
"comments_per_hour": 32
},
{
"likes": 1475116,
"comments": 35386,
"taken_at": 1781277094,
"datetime": "2026-06-12 18:11:34",
"hours_since_post": 512,
"time_ago": "21 days ago",
"likes_per_hour": 2881,
"comments_per_hour": 69
},
{
"likes": 1108220,
"comments": 26632,
"taken_at": 1780160249,
"datetime": "2026-05-30 19:57:29",
"hours_since_post": 822,
"time_ago": "1 months ago",
"likes_per_hour": 1348,
"comments_per_hour": 32
},
{
"likes": 542948,
"comments": 28476,
"taken_at": 1779375582,
"datetime": "2026-05-21 17:59:42",
"hours_since_post": 1040,
"time_ago": "1 months ago",
"likes_per_hour": 522,
"comments_per_hour": 27
},
{
"likes": 698514,
"comments": 24401,
"taken_at": 1779120014,
"datetime": "2026-05-18 19:00:14",
"hours_since_post": 1111,
"time_ago": "2 months ago",
"likes_per_hour": 629,
"comments_per_hour": 22
},
{
"likes": 468000,
"comments": 13548,
"taken_at": 1778947209,
"datetime": "2026-05-16 19:00:09",
"hours_since_post": 1159,
"time_ago": "2 months ago",
"likes_per_hour": 404,
"comments_per_hour": 12
},
{
"likes": 526594,
"comments": 24411,
"taken_at": 1777737719,
"datetime": "2026-05-02 19:01:59",
"hours_since_post": 1495,
"time_ago": "2 months ago",
"likes_per_hour": 352,
"comments_per_hour": 16
},
{
"likes": 462652,
"comments": 14233,
"taken_at": 1777580305,
"datetime": "2026-04-30 23:18:25",
"hours_since_post": 1538,
"time_ago": "2 months ago",
"likes_per_hour": 301,
"comments_per_hour": 9
}
]
},
"credits_used": 5,
"credits_remaining": 9999,
"request_id": "req-8Kq2ZmR4vT9xLb3P",
"cached": false,
"redacted": true
}Example captured from the Instagram API. Every SocialCrawl endpoint returns this same unified schema, so your Prism Audience Questions response has the same fields.
How does the Prism Audience Questions API work?
Send a GET request with your API key and get back clean, structured JSON in our unified schema. Supported computed fields are populated when the source provides the required inputs.
Method
GET
Response
JSON
How do you scrape social media data in seconds?
The fastest social media scraping API for developers. Scrape profiles, posts, comments, and analytics from 69 platforms covering 10B+ monthly active users.
One schema, every platform
Query 69 platforms with identical response structures. Write your integration once.
Computed fields, not just scraped
When an endpoint supports these metrics and the source provides the required inputs, the normalized record includes engagement_rate, estimated_reach, content_category, and language. Ready to use.
See your data before you code
Visual Data Explorer. Paste any URL, get rich result cards, sortable tables, CSV export.
import requests
response = requests.get(
'https://www.socialcrawl.dev/v1/tiktok/profile',
params={'handle': 'charlidamelio'},
headers={'x-api-key': 'sc_YOUR_API_KEY'}
)
data = response.json(){
"success": true,
"platform": "tiktok",
"data": {
"author": {
"username": "charlidamelio",
"followers": 152400000
},
"engagement": {
"likes": 12400000000,
"engagement_rate": 0.087
},
"metadata": {
"language": "en",
"content_category": "lifestyle"
}
}
}Have a question? We got answers
Find answers to frequently asked questions about SocialCrawl's API, pricing, and capabilities.
Contact usWhat is the SocialCrawl audience questions API?
How do I use it for content research?
Which parameters shape the harvest?
How much does an audience-questions call cost?
How are questions clustered by intent?
Ask AI about SocialCrawl
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