Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about how HOOKiQ's AI audience simulation works, what it costs, and how it handles your data.
What is HOOKiQ?
HOOKiQ is an AI-powered audience simulation platform that helps marketing, communications, and brand teams predict how target audiences will react to campaigns, product launches, or public statements before they go live. You upload context documents, define an audience, and HOOKiQ generates AI personas that have a simulated discussion across Twitter and Reddit, producing a predictive report with sentiment analysis, engagement signals, and risk indicators in minutes.
How does HOOKiQ work?
You upload a document describing your campaign, product, or message (PDF, Word, or plain text). HOOKiQ either auto-infers persona attributes from the document or lets you select demographic dimensions yourself: age, gender, region, ethnicity, education, political affiliation, and more. It then generates AI personas matching your audience, runs a multi-round simulated discussion across Twitter and Reddit, and produces a report with sentiment breakdowns, demographic heatmaps, topic-sentiment matrices, and the most quote-worthy posts. The whole process takes minutes, not weeks.
Is the simulation data real or AI-generated?
Every persona, post, and reaction in a HOOKiQ simulation is AI-generated using large language models tuned to the audience definition you provide. It is not real social media data and personas are not real people. Think of it as a directed audience simulation, useful for predicting reactions and stress-testing messaging.
Who is HOOKiQ for?
Marketing teams, communications professionals, brand strategists, product managers, and PR teams who need fast, directional feedback on how an audience might react before they invest in a real launch, focus group, or media buy. Common users include in-house brand teams running ~weekly campaigns, agencies stress-testing client work, and crisis-comms teams previewing public statements.
How is HOOKiQ different from a traditional focus group?
Focus groups recruit 6–12 real people, take 2–4 weeks to organise, and typically cost AU$5,000–$15,000+ per session. HOOKiQ generates 5–100 AI personas representing your target audience, runs a simulated discussion in minutes, and starts free.
How accurate are HOOKiQ's predictions?
HOOKiQ surfaces directional signal: which themes resonate, which raise concerns, which audience segments split for or against an idea. It does not predict exact sentiment percentages, virality, or sales numbers. Treat outputs as informed hypotheses to validate, not absolute truths. Accuracy depends on the quality of the audience definition and source material you provide.
What kinds of documents can I upload?
PDFs, Word documents (.doc and .docx), Markdown files, and plain text. The Free tier caps a single file at 2MB and reads roughly the first 10 pages of text; Pro lifts the per-file cap to 25MB across up to 5 files and reads roughly the first 20 pages; Business raises that to 50MB per file across up to 20 files and roughly the first 80 pages. You can also run prompt-only simulations (no document) on the Free and Pro tiers if you provide a brief of at least the minimum word count.
Is my uploaded data private and secure?
Yes. Uploaded documents are stored on your private user-scoped data area, encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS), and never shared between users. Document content is sent to AI providers (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic via OpenRouter) to generate the simulation; we do not sell or resell your data. Full details are in our Privacy Policy.
How much does HOOKiQ cost?
Free is AU$0 and is a 7-day trial that includes up to 2 simulations, 5 personas per discussion, and a basic report. After 7 days the trial ends — your existing reports stay accessible but you'll need to upgrade to run new simulations. Pro is AU$149/month or AU$1,639/year (one month free) and includes 10 simulations/month, up to 30 personas, full reports with charts, 5 persona interactions per report, PDF export, and email support. Business is AU$399/month or AU$4,389/year (one month free) and includes unlimited simulations, up to 100 personas, unlimited persona interactions, and priority support. All prices are in Australian dollars and exclusive of GST; GST is added at checkout for Australian customers.
Can I cancel my subscription?
Yes, anytime. From the Settings page click Manage Subscription, which opens the Stripe Customer Portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You keep paid-tier access until that date, then the account reverts to the Free tier. We do not pro-rate refunds for unused time within a period you chose to cancel.
Where is HOOKiQ based?
HOOKiQ is built by Hook Creative Studio Pty Ltd (ABN 66 670 923 958), a company registered in Victoria, Australia. We are based in Melbourne. Servers are hosted in DigitalOcean's Sydney (SYD1) region.
Do HOOKiQ personas represent real people?
No. Every persona is an AI-generated character matching demographic and psychographic dimensions you select. Personas do not correspond to any real individual, real social media account, or real survey response. Anything they 'say' in a simulation is generated by a language model based on your audience definition and context document.
Question not answered here? Email hello@hook-iq.com and we'll add it.