# Getting started with EqualAI

Set up a project, choose what to track, and understand which settings belong to your project, workspace, or account.

Canonical: https://docs.equalai.io/getting-started
Markdown: https://docs.equalai.io/getting-started.md

EqualAI tracks how AI answers mention a brand and cite websites. Start with a project for the brand or website you want to monitor, then add the prompts and competitors that make the results useful to your team.

## Understand the three scopes

| Scope | What it controls |
| --- | --- |
| Project | Brand identity, target country and language, tracked prompts, competitors, tags, annotations, and automatic prompt runs. |
| Workspace | Subscription, shared project and prompt capacity, AI credits, and workspace owner/admin access. |
| Your account | Your name, password, display currency, and app timezone preferences. |

Selecting a different project changes the context for project pages. It does not create a separate subscription. A workspace admin can access all its projects; an invited member or viewer receives access to the selected project, not every project in the workspace.

## Before you begin

Have the following ready:

- The website domain and recognizable brand name.
- A main country and language for tracking.
- Questions your audience might ask an AI assistant, or topics from which to develop them.
- At least one relevant competitor.
- A decision about which models and run frequency fit your available credits.

You need available project capacity to create another project. Workspace billing changes require a workspace owner or admin. If you joined through an invitation and cannot see a project, check that you accepted the invitation with the intended account.

## Set up your first project

1. Enter your website and targeting preferences.
2. Review the suggested project details and any alternative brand names.
3. Review topics or choose to supply your own prompts.
4. Review competitors and their identifiers.
5. Review or import prompts.
6. Choose initial tracking models and schedule.
7. Review the website report, then the available plan choices.

See [Onboarding](https://docs.equalai.io/getting-started/onboarding) for the exact controls, import limits, and recovery steps. Review suggested content rather than treating it as a verified description of your business.

## Build a useful tracking set

Prefer prompts that represent distinct customer questions. Separate brand-specific questions from broader category questions so you can interpret the results in context. Use [tags](https://docs.equalai.io/tracking/tags) to group prompts by intent, audience, or product area.

**Synthetic example:** a fictional outdoor retailer could track “What should a beginner look for in a hiking backpack?” and tag it `Buying guide`. This is an example of prompt organization, not customer data or a promised result.

Add [competitors](https://docs.equalai.io/tracking/competitors) that genuinely overlap with your audience. Their names, domains, and aliases help identify them in AI answers; they are not additional projects.

## Run and maintain tracking

Open the schedule/run dialog to review model access and the displayed credit estimate before running prompts. A manual run is queued work: submitting it is not the same as receiving completed answers. [Schedules](https://docs.equalai.io/tracking/schedules) explains automatic runs, selected-prompt runs, fan-out, and Instant Run.

Use [annotations](https://docs.equalai.io/tracking/annotations) to record changes such as a content update. An annotation adds context; it does not prove that an event caused a later movement in results.

## When something is unavailable

- **No project:** select an accessible project or ask a workspace admin to invite you.
- **Read-only access:** a viewer cannot make tracking changes. Ask an admin to review your role.
- **Capacity or credit warning:** a workspace admin can review [billing and usage](https://docs.equalai.io/account/billing). Prompt capacity and execution credits are different limits.
- **No results yet:** review the run status and wait for queued work to complete before drawing conclusions.
- **Setup or access error:** use [support](https://docs.equalai.io/account/support) and include the visible error without passwords or tokens.

## Next steps

- [Review project settings](https://docs.equalai.io/account/project-settings).
- [Set personal account preferences](https://docs.equalai.io/account/account-settings).
- [Invite a teammate with the right access](https://docs.equalai.io/account/team-members).
- [Connect an AI assistant with read-only access](https://docs.equalai.io/account/ai-assistant-access).