Frequently asked questions

Public news sources are live. Web search and YouTube results are included where the search and video providers are enabled for the deployment. Reviews and social posts from your own accounts need account connections, which are coming in Phase 2. Every audit lists what was and was not covered. See Free reputation audit.

It is a versioned 0–100 composite of five dimensions — review quality, public sentiment, issue recurrence and severity, response and resolution, and search and brand presence — with proposed weights of 25, 25, 20, 15 and 15 per cent. Dimensions without data are left out and the rest rescaled, never counted as zero. The score methodology publishes every rule.

Spy Monk shows “Not enough verified data to calculate a reliable score” when an audit found fewer than 8 mentions, data from fewer than 2 sources, or dimensions covering less than 60 % of the model. It lists which. Adding aliases, keywords or sources, or widening the period, usually helps — Spy Monk will not fill the gap with a guess.

Neither. It describes public online content about an entity, from the sources Spy Monk could read. It says nothing about finances, must not be used for credit, hiring, tenancy or insurance decisions, and does not establish that anything said about you is true, false or unlawful.

Usually a few minutes, depending on how quickly each source responds. You can watch progress source by source, and the coverage table records any source that did not respond.

Matching uses the names and aliases you enter. Add a location, a speciality, a product line or other distinguishing keywords and run it again, and read each finding at its source before acting on it. Automatic separation of same-name entities is a Phase 2 item.

A source is unavailable when the provider did not respond or access is not permitted, and not connected when it needs an account connection you have not made. Spy Monk shows this rather than guessing, and such sources do not count towards your score.

You can audit yourself, your own organisation, or a client who has authorised you to act for them — the audit asks you to confirm that before it runs, and the confirmation is recorded. A competitor or peer organisation can be added for benchmarking only: Spy Monk reads the same public sources about it and compares in Compare, but you cannot open incidents, correspondence or cases about it, and Spy Monk never suggests who wrote its reviews. Private individuals you do not represent — an ex-employee, someone you are in a dispute with — may not be audited under the acceptable use policy, and a person can never be added as a competitor.

It depends on your plan: Starter projects run weekly, Pro and Business projects can run daily, and every plan can start a manual run. See Monitoring and alerts and the pricing page.

A credit is used each time Spy Monk runs an audit or a monitoring run. Each plan includes a monthly allowance and extra credits can be bought. If a scheduled run finds no credits, Spy Monk records that it was skipped, notifies you and runs when credits are available.

No. Every mention appears in the workspace and in your in-app alerts list, but e-mail and WhatsApp alerts are reserved for mentions assessed as high risk, so an alert still means something. Each user chooses the channels in their communication preferences.

Yes, if you verify your WhatsApp number and opt in. Spy Monk sends approved utility templates — high-risk alerts, case updates, invoices, reports, appointment reminders — and nothing promotional. The templates go live once Meta approves them for Drive Digital's WhatsApp Business account; until then, alerts arrive by e-mail and in the app. Reply STOP at any time to opt out.

It hides the mention in your Spy Monk workspace and keeps it out of your default views. It does not change, hide or delete anything on the original website, and Spy Monk will never describe it that way.

You can add a competitor or peer as an entity and compare on the public sources Spy Monk can read about them — over the same window, on the same model version and only on sources both sides share. Differences are marked as estimates when panels differ, and unfair comparisons are blocked. See Compare.

No one can honestly promise that. Platforms remove only reviews that break their own published policies; Google states that it does not get involved in disputes between businesses and customers. Spy Monk helps you prepare an evidence-based report when a review appears to break those policies, and records the decision. See Can a review be removed?.

For each case Spy Monk shows: request clarification, publish an authorised response, report a documented policy violation, request a publisher correction, request qualified legal review, and continue monitoring — each with its basis, the evidence it needs and whether Spy Monk can send it or hands it to you. There is no delete option, because no one can honestly offer one. See Cases, approvals & evidence.

Respond calmly, acknowledge the experience and offer a private route to fix the problem. Genuine criticism should not be reported as a policy violation. The guide on responding to a negative Google review gives a four-part structure in English and Hindi.

No. Incentives for changing or removing reviews break platform rules and mislead other customers, and the acceptable use policy prohibits using Spy Monk for them. Fix the problem because it is right; let the reviewer decide what to post.

Only when your workspace has a verified sending mailbox, the recipient is a verified official address and an Admin or Owner has approved the exact version — then Spy Monk sends it and records sent and delivered from the mail provider. Otherwise Spy Monk hands you the approved draft and the official portal or mail link, and the timeline says handoff, not sent.

No. Silence, a missing customer record, a display name or a former-employee connection does not show that an experience did not happen. Spy Monk labels such items “unverified”, “no matching record” or “no response received”, and its options stay fair to the person who wrote the review.

No. Spy Monk does not attempt to identify anonymous people. Where the law allows, only a court or a competent authority can direct a platform to disclose such information.

Identify the exact statement, attach the document that contradicts it, and ask for one thing — a correction, clarification, update or publication of your reply — through the publisher's own channel. Press Council norms expect prompt, prominent corrections and a documented right of reply. See the right-of-reply guide.

A case is the record for one issue — a review, article, video, post, impostor account or threat — with its evidence, notes, approvals and a status history from Detected to Closed through eleven stages. See Cases, approvals and evidence.

Consequential external actions — a public reply, a publisher request, a platform report, a legal-review request — need an Admin or Owner to approve the exact version of the text. Spy Monk records who approved, when, the version and a fingerprint of the text; editing it afterwards needs a new approval. Nothing is sent without one.

It matched something Spy Monk never sends without a person checking it: a threat or pressure on someone, an attempt to identify a reviewer or a source, bulk or coordinated reporting, a notice presented as coming from an authority, or someone's private details. Nothing was sent. You can edit the draft or wait for the review team.

That the file in your case is byte-for-byte identical to the one captured or uploaded at the recorded time. It does not prove who wrote the content or that it is false; it proves your evidence has not been altered since capture.

Yes. Invite them as a viewer: read access to cases, evidence and the timeline with no ability to change anything. Audit reports export as dated PDFs; a case PDF export is a Phase 2 item.

Owner, admin, analyst and viewer. Analysts triage mentions, open cases and draft; admins and owners approve; viewers read. Keeping the person who drafts separate from the person who approves is the single most useful habit the product supports.

No. Legal documents should be drafted and sent by a qualified professional. You can send the organised evidence and your questions to counsel you choose with the legal-review request, but Spy Monk forms no legal view; legal escalation inside a case needs a professional-review step that is not yet available, so it cannot be submitted today.

Not in the current version. Advocates in India cannot solicit work under the Bar Council of India's rules, and referral arrangements must comply with professional regulations. An independent advocate network is planned for Phase 4, subject to feasibility and those rules.

Under the IT Rules 2021 as amended in February 2026, an intermediary must take reasonable steps to remove impersonating content within two hours of an individual's complaint, and its grievance officer must acknowledge complaints within 24 hours and resolve them within 7 days. Preserve evidence first, then file the platform's impersonation form. See the first 48 hours guide.

The scope and the sources checked, blocked or missing, the time of the last successful fetch, an executive summary, the score with its methodology, every mention by source with its URL, risk findings with citations, case actions, and recommendations with owners and dates. The limitations pages are never left out. See Reports.

Yes, where your plan includes those formats. Each row keeps its source URL, source name and fetch time. If a format is not in your plan, the export says so; the PDF is available on every plan.

Until the expiry time shown with the link. Links work only for your workspace, can be revoked, and every download is logged. After expiry, create a new link from the audit page. Report-ready messages by e-mail or WhatsApp carry the link, never the report itself.

An optional one-to-two-minute narrated summary of the approved report, labelled “AI-generated summary”, with captions and a transcript. Every figure comes from the report; if narration is unavailable you get captions and a transcript over silent slides, and the PDF is always available.

Yes. Choose the shareable copy, which redacts sensitive details such as third parties' personal data and internal notes. Share the PDF rather than a screenshot so the reader sees the coverage table and the date.

Yes. It covers one entity and a monthly audit credit with a PDF report, and no card is needed. Paid plans add monitoring schedules, more credits, more entities, team seats and case management. See the pricing page.

One-time purchases — such as extra scan credits or a defined audit — are paid once and never renew. Monthly and yearly plans renew automatically at the end of each period until you cancel. Membership shows each option's inclusions, exclusions and caps, and checkout shows the price, GST, total and renewal terms before you confirm.

No. Prices are in INR and exclusive of GST; the checkout and the invoice show the tax line and the total. The prices shown today are illustrative — Drive Digital has not published final prices — and there are no struck-through “was” prices or unsupported discounts. See Pricing.

Yes, from Billing at any time, with no cancellation fee. Cancelling stops the next renewal and the plan stays active until the end of the period already paid for. Refunds follow the refund and cancellation policy, a draft pending legal review that is shown before you pay. See Legal.

A manual scan reserves a credit before it starts and uses it only when the scan completes. If the scan fails for a technical reason on our side, the credit is returned automatically. A repeated payment notification never adds or removes credits twice.

Yes, from Help → Book a consultation in the dashboard. You choose an available time, which is held for you for ten minutes while you confirm; the professional's quote is shown and approved before anything is charged. Consultations are never part of a plan and cannot promise any outcome. If a session does not start on time, it is shown as late with options to reschedule.

Razorpay and Paytm checkouts are built in and offer the methods those gateways support (typically UPI, cards, net banking and wallets) once the operator has connected its own gateway credentials. Access to paid features activates after the payment is verified by the gateway.

Yes, on the Business plan: a documented REST API (OpenAPI 3.0) with idempotency keys and tenant scoping for your own dashboards. Webhooks and scheduled exports are Phase 2. See API.

With a one-time code sent to your e-mail or your WhatsApp number — you choose — or with Google. Codes are six digits, work once and expire quickly. If one channel cannot deliver a code, Spy Monk offers your other verified channel.

No. E-mail and WhatsApp are the only channels Spy Monk uses — for sign-in codes, invoices, reports, alerts, help replies and case updates. The dashboard and the app keep an alerts list you can open at any time, but nothing is sent by SMS and nothing is pushed to your device.

Alerts, scheduled reports and any news from Drive Digital are optional and can be switched off per channel in your communication preferences at any time. Essential service messages — sign-in codes, invoices, case updates, appointment and help messages — stay on while you have an account, but you choose whether they come by e-mail or WhatsApp.

They are what the provider reports. Delivered means the provider confirmed delivery to your inbox or phone. Read appears only when the provider reliably reports it; otherwise the message stays delivered or “not confirmed”, and Spy Monk never guesses.

Wait a minute and check spam or your WhatsApp chats, then ask for a new code — the old one stops working. You can also switch to your other verified channel. After several attempts Spy Monk asks you to wait a few minutes, to protect the account.

Yes. You can turn on two-factor authentication with an authenticator app in your security settings. Platform administrators are required to use it.

Findings are stored in your workspace so you can track change over time and convert them into monitoring projects or cases. Evidence you add is fingerprinted with SHA-256. Retention and deletion are set out in the privacy notice, which is a draft pending counsel review. See the Trust Center.

You can delete your account from Settings in the dashboard or the app. Deletion is scheduled with a waiting period, during which you can sign in and cancel it, and we confirm the date by e-mail. For other data requests — access, correction or a grievance — use the grievance page.

Monitor yourself, your organisation or a client who has authorised you. Do not monitor private individuals. Where personal data is involved, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 applies; the Trust Center explains how Spy Monk treats third-party personal data and which questions remain with counsel.

No. Use internal references, never names, images or records. Such details are personal data under the DPDP Act 2023 — with specific provisions for children — and for clinics are covered by medical confidentiality. The case needs the fact that a record exists, not the record itself.

Yes. Each workspace is a separate tenant with its own entities, projects, cases, roles and billing. Agency staff who serve several clients switch between isolated workspaces. The Trust Center describes the controls in place and those still being built.

Do not pay or negotiate alone. Preserve the messages with dates and the sender's identifiers, report at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930, and contact the police if anyone is in danger. Extortion and criminal intimidation are offences in India. Record everything in an urgent Spy Monk case and consult a qualified lawyer. See the evidence-first guide.

No. If anyone is in danger, contact the police first. For cyber crime, report at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930. Spy Monk is for the evidence, the plan and the paperwork that follow.