> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.echod.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart

> Go from a new account to your first AI crawl in five short steps.

When you sign up, Echod opens the setup wizard. It researches your brand, suggests what to track, and starts the first crawl as soon as you finish. Most people get through it in under ten minutes.

> [!NOTE]
>
> New accounts start on a free 7-day trial of the Starter plan. No credit card is needed. The wizard shows how many trial days you have left at the top of each step.

## Before you start

Have these ready:

* Your website address
* A rough idea of the subjects your buyers ask AI assistants about
* The two or three competitors you lose deals to most often

You can change everything later, so do not aim for perfect on the first pass.

## Walk through the wizard

**1. Brand profile**

Enter your website URL. Echod researches your brand on the web and fills in the **Brand name**, **Description**, **Industry**, **Content language** and **Brand identity** fields for you.

Check the content language carefully. Topics and prompts are generated in this language, and it cannot be changed after the project is created. If your buyers search in a different language from the one your website is written in, pick theirs.

If Echod cannot research your brand, the fields stay empty and you fill them in by hand.

![Setup wizard, Brand profile step with the researched fields filled in](https://mintcdn.com/sherpas-design/qmEl5MUhXLHMeD6J/images/quickstart/wizard-brand-profile.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=qmEl5MUhXLHMeD6J\&q=85\&s=efb3dff1c067d119ac489671de962d3c)

**2. Topics & Regions**

Echod suggests eight topics based on your brand profile. Keep the ones that match how your buyers think, delete the rest, and use **AI Suggest** for more ideas. You can add more topics after setup on the **Topics** page.

On the same step:

* **Regions to track**: pick the countries whose answers you care about. Every topic is tracked in every region you select.
* **AI Platforms to track**: turn on the platforms you want to measure. Your plan sets how many you can enable.
* **Crawl schedule**: how often Echod collects fresh answers. Every current plan crawls daily, once every 24 hours.

Read [Topics](https://docs.echod.ai/setup/topics.md) and [Regions and platforms](https://docs.echod.ai/setup/regions-and-platforms.md) for guidance on choosing them.

**3. Prompts**

For each topic, Echod writes five prompts - the questions a buyer would type into an AI assistant. Edit them, remove weak ones, or add your own. Each prompt can be up to 500 characters.

The **Tracked prompts** meter shows how many prompts you are using against your plan's allowance. If you go over, **Continue** is disabled until you delete enough prompts to fit.

See [Prompts](https://docs.echod.ai/setup/prompts.md) for tips on writing prompts that produce useful data.

**4. Competitors**

Echod suggests up to eight competitors by domain. Remove any that are not real alternatives and add missing ones by domain. You can track up to 20.

Brands you do not add here are still detected automatically in AI answers. See [Competitors](https://docs.echod.ai/setup/competitors.md).

**5. Summary**

Review the totals for prompts, AI platforms and regions, then click **Start tracking**. Echod creates the project and starts the first crawl straight away.

## While the first crawl runs

The dashboard shows a progress card while answers are collected, for example "34 of 90 answers collected". A first crawl usually takes a few minutes, depending on how many prompts, platforms and regions you selected.

Until the first results are published, only the **Dashboard**, **Billing** and **Help & Support** pages are available in the sidebar. Everything else unlocks when the data is ready. If you turned on the **Crawl activity** email, Echod lets you know when the dashboard is ready.

![Dashboard card showing the first AI crawl in progress with an answers-collected progress bar](https://mintcdn.com/sherpas-design/qmEl5MUhXLHMeD6J/images/quickstart/first-crawl-progress.png?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=qmEl5MUhXLHMeD6J\&q=85\&s=9ebb8ece8f6570ef146c24a7dc76a2d3)

## What to do next

> **[Understand the numbers](https://docs.echod.ai/metrics/overview.md)**
>
> Learn what Visibility, Share of Voice, Position and Sentiment tell you.

> **[Read your dashboard](https://docs.echod.ai/analyze/dashboard.md)**
>
> A tour of every widget on the dashboard.

> **[Refine your prompts](https://docs.echod.ai/setup/prompts.md)**
>
> Better prompts mean more reliable numbers.

> **[Invite your team](https://docs.echod.ai/account/members.md)**
>
> Everyone in your organization sees every project.


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.