---
name: claude-code-search-demand
description: >-
  1,812,840 searches a month, and not one measured cluster is falling. The fastest-growing
  part of it — "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" — is also the easiest to
  rank for, at a difficulty of 10 against 100 for the product name itself. Measured
  2026-09-03 in the United States.
---

# Where is Claude Code demand growing, and which searches are still unclaimed?

1,812,840 searches a month, and not one measured cluster is falling. The fastest-growing part of it — "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" — is also the easiest to rank for, at a difficulty of 10 against 100 for the product name itself.

**claude code** · product · the United States · measured 2026-09-03 · published 2026-09-03

**Measured from:** Google search demand (monthly search volume, cost-per-click, difficulty and 12 months of history); Google organic results (which domains rank across the measured terms, and where; a domain's own ranking footprint; domains competing across the same keyword set); Google Ads Transparency Center (who is buying ads against these terms; the ads themselves, with the dates they ran)

## What this study says

Claude Code is the shape a product takes when its category word is deflating and it is absorbing the demand. Every cluster measured here is rising: the name itself is up 127%, installation up 106%, subscription questions up 1074%. The contested ground is the comparison — "codex vs claude code" and "cursor vs claude code" and their variants grew 219% and carry $692,308 of monthly click value at a difficulty of 10, against 100 for the product name. That is the cheapest position on this map and the one nobody official is writing, because a vendor does not publish the page that names its rivals. Reddit does, and it ranks on 72% of these terms.

## What the numbers show

- Every cluster measured here is rising: the name "claude code" is up 127%, installation up 106%, pricing up 90%, skills up 315% and subscription questions up 1074%. Nothing measured is falling.
- The comparison searches are growing faster than the product itself and are the cheapest thing here to rank for: "codex vs claude code" and its cluster grew 219% and carry $692,308 of monthly click value at a difficulty of 10, against 100 for the product name.
- Reddit is the top-ranking domain on 72% of the largest Claude Code terms, at a median position of 3, earning an estimated $97,617 a month of equivalent paid traffic from them.
- claude.com ranks for 12,515 keywords with 3,309 of them at position one, worth an estimated $1,358,671 a month in equivalent paid traffic.
- One domain was found advertising against Claude Code searches — claudecodeads.com — and it is not a competing tool: it sells ad placements inside Claude Code's own output.
- Demand here is overwhelmingly people asking rather than people navigating: 85% of the measured volume carries informational or commercial intent, across 206 terms and 1,812,840 searches a month.

## Where is the demand, and which way is it moving?

206 terms carry 1,812,840 searches a month in the United States. Buying that attention at published cost-per-click would come to $13,943,387 a month, across the 99% of volume that carried a price at all.

| Cluster | Searches/mo | Click value/mo | Change | Position |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| "claude code" and "claude-code" | 1,100,880 | $8,280,870 | +127% | land grab |
| "install claude code" | 66,760 | $391,686 | +106% | land grab |
| "claude code price" and "pricing" | 56,800 | $354,714 | +90% | land grab |
| "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" | 53,580 | $692,308 | +219% | land grab |
| "claude code skills" | 24,200 | $199,892 | +315% | land grab |
| "claude code agents" | 22,460 | $170,483 | +76% | land grab |
| "claude code subscription" | 21,700 | $148,337 | +1074% | rising fringe |
| "how to use claude code" | 16,000 | $114,901 | +164% | rising fringe |
| "everything claude code" — the community repos | 15,600 | $189,600 | not rated (new) | unproven spike |

Change is measured 12-month swing, trailing quarter against the opening quarter.

## Which individual phrases are growing, and which are not?

| Search term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Change | Cluster |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| claude-code | 550,000 | $7.52 | 100 | +126% | "claude code" and "claude-code" |
| claude code | 550,000 | $7.52 | 100 | +126% | "claude code" and "claude-code" |
| install claude code | 27,100 | $4.53 | 25 | +60% | "install claude code" |
| claude code price | 27,100 | $6.25 | 37 | +83% | "claude code price" and "pricing" |
| claude code pricing | 27,100 | $6.25 | 30 | +83% | "claude code price" and "pricing" |
| claude code install | 22,200 | $6.66 | 25 | +124% | "install claude code" |
| claude code subscription | 18,100 | $7.01 | 34 | +1572% (1,300 → 21,733/mo) | "claude code subscription" |
| codex vs claude code | 14,800 | $21.80 | 22 | +411% | "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" |
| claude code skill | 12,100 | $8.26 | 61 | +315% | "claude code skills" |
| claude code skills | 12,100 | $8.26 | 30 | +315% | "claude code skills" |
| cursor vs claude code | 8,100 | $10.60 | 2 | +142% | "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" |
| how to use claude code | 8,100 | $6.87 | 26 | +126% | "how to use claude code" |
| claude code vs cursor | 6,600 | $5.82 | 0 | -45% | "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" |
| claude code vs codex | 5,400 | $25.28 | 6 | +323% | "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" |
| claude code agents | 5,400 | $8.49 | 45 | -17% | "claude code agents" |
| claude code agent | 5,400 | $8.49 | 65 | -17% | "claude code agents" |
| everything-claude code | 5,400 | $12.24 | 40 | new term | "everything claude code" — the community repos |
| everything claude code | 5,400 | $12.24 | 17 | new term | "everything claude code" — the community repos |
| how to install claude code | 4,400 | $7.35 | 17 | +86% | "install claude code" |
| claude code pro subscription | 3,600 | $5.96 | 35 | +463% | "claude code subscription" |

### "claude code" and "claude-code" — land grab

The two spellings of the name, "claude code" and "claude-code", draw 550,000 searches a month each and the pair is up 127%. It is also the hardest thing on this map to rank for, at a difficulty of 100. Nobody is taking this position from the vendor; the interesting question is what happens beside it.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| claude-code | 550,000 | $7.52 | 100 | informational |
| claude code | 550,000 | $7.52 | 100 | informational |
| code with claude | 880 | $10.08 | 49 | informational |

### "install claude code" — land grab

66,760 searches a month on getting it running, up 106%, at a difficulty of 22. "install claude code" alone is 27,100. Installation demand at this size, this late, means the user base is still expanding rather than settling — people do not search for how to install something they already have.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| install claude code | 27,100 | $4.53 | 25 | informational |
| claude code install | 22,200 | $6.66 | 25 | informational |
| how to install claude code | 4,400 | $7.35 | 17 | informational |
| claude code cli install | 1,900 | $6.22 | 16 | transactional |
| install claude code cli | 1,600 | $7.38 | 10 | transactional |
| npm install anthropic-ai/claude code | 1,600 | $8.20 | 6 | transactional |
| npm install anthropic ai claude code | 1,600 | $8.20 | 6 | transactional |
| install claude code mac | 1,300 | $5.07 | 20 | transactional |

### "claude code price" and "pricing" — land grab

"claude code price" and "claude code pricing" draw 27,100 searches a month each and the pair is up 90%. Pricing demand rising in step with the product name is a buying signal rather than a churn signal; it is what a market looks like when new people are deciding, not when existing users are leaving.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| claude code price | 27,100 | $6.25 | 37 | commercial |
| claude code pricing | 27,100 | $6.25 | 30 | commercial |
| claude code pro price | 1,300 | $6.14 | 41 | commercial |
| claude code pro pricing | 1,300 | $6.14 | 34 | commercial |

### "codex vs claude code", "cursor vs claude code" — land grab

The cluster that matters. "codex vs claude code" draws 14,800 searches a month, "cursor vs claude code" 8,100, and the group grew 219% — faster than the product name itself. It carries $692,308 of monthly click value at a difficulty of 10, which makes it the cheapest valuable position in this measurement. It is cheap because vendors do not write comparison pages naming their rivals, so the demand is answered by whoever will.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| codex vs claude code | 14,800 | $21.80 | 22 | informational |
| cursor vs claude code | 8,100 | $10.60 | 2 | informational |
| claude code vs cursor | 6,600 | $5.82 | 0 | informational |
| claude code vs codex | 5,400 | $25.28 | 6 | informational |
| opencode vs claude code | 2,900 | $8.01 | 5 | commercial |
| claude cowork vs claude code | 1,900 | $6.80 | 7 | commercial |
| claude code extension for vs code | 1,600 | $6.83 | 21 | transactional |
| claude vs claude code | 1,600 | $7.99 | 3 | informational |

### "claude code skills" — land grab

"claude code skill" and "claude code skills" are 12,100 searches a month each and up 315% — the fastest-growing feature term measured here. A capability that did not exist as a search a year ago now draws as much demand as the pricing page.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| claude code skill | 12,100 | $8.26 | 61 | navigational |
| claude code skills | 12,100 | $8.26 | 30 | informational |

### "claude code agents" — land grab

"claude code agents", "claude code agent" and the team variants draw 22,460 searches a month, up 76%. Agent demand growing more slowly than skills or subscriptions is worth noticing — the composable parts of this product are being searched harder than the autonomous ones.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| claude code agents | 5,400 | $8.49 | 45 | informational |
| claude code agent | 5,400 | $8.49 | 65 | informational |
| claude code agents teams | 2,900 | $6.75 | 4 | commercial |
| claude code agents team | 2,900 | $6.75 | 18 | transactional |
| claude code agent teams | 2,900 | $6.75 | 4 | commercial |
| claude code agent team | 2,900 | $6.75 | 12 | transactional |
| claude code-guide agent | 50 | $7.73 | 28 | navigational |
| claude code pr agent | 10 | $10.49 | not reported | navigational |

### "claude code subscription" — rising fringe

Up 1074%, the largest percentage on this map, off a base small enough that the two windows are printed beside it. What it says is simpler than the number: the questions moved from what the product does to what it costs to keep.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| claude code subscription | 18,100 | $7.01 | 34 | transactional |
| claude code pro subscription | 3,600 | $5.96 | 35 | transactional |

### "how to use claude code" — rising fringe

"how to use claude code" at 8,100 a month leads a cluster up 164%. Instructional demand rising alongside installation is the same signal read twice: this is a product acquiring users, not retaining them.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| how to use claude code | 8,100 | $6.87 | 26 | informational |
| how to update claude code | 2,900 | $7.96 | 26 | informational |
| how much is claude code | 2,400 | $6.61 | 33 | commercial |
| how to setup claude code | 1,300 | $7.81 | 29 | informational |
| how to set up claude code | 1,300 | $7.81 | 26 | informational |

### "everything claude code" — the community repos — unproven spike

Five terms around "everything claude code" and its GitHub variants, arriving from nothing inside the window. People are searching for a community catalogue of what the product can do, which is a gap in the documentation stated as a search query.

| Term | Searches/mo | CPC | Difficulty | Intent |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- |
| everything-claude code | 5,400 | $12.24 | 40 | informational |
| everything claude code | 5,400 | $12.24 | 17 | informational |
| everything claude code github | 1,600 | $11.96 | not reported | navigational |
| everything-claude-code github | 1,600 | $11.96 | 10 | navigational |
| everything-claude code github | 1,600 | $11.96 | 10 | navigational |

## Who is capturing this demand today?

Across the 100 largest terms, this demand is **owned**.

| Domain | Ranks on | Median position | Est. traffic value/mo |
| --- | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| www.reddit.com | 72% of terms | 3 | $97,617 |
| www.youtube.com | 68% of terms | 10 | $16,296 |
| github.com | 53% of terms | 5 | $97,316 |
| news.ycombinator.com | 41% of terms | 13 | $5,906 |
| www.claudelog.com | 40% of terms | 27 | $966 |
| claude.ai | 39% of terms | 3 | $204,571 |
| medium.com | 37% of terms | 12 | $5,018 |
| code.claude.com | 33% of terms | 1 | $65,247 |

## How much search does claude.com actually hold?

The domain ranks for 12,515 keywords, 3,309 of them at position one, worth an estimated $1,358,671 a month in equivalent paid traffic. The churn figures are the more interesting half: 7,709 of those rankings are new and 46,856 were lost, which is the footprint of a domain that has recently moved rather than one losing ground — Anthropic's product pages migrated, and the old addresses left the index while the new ones entered it.

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Keywords ranking | 12,515 |
| At position one | 3,309 |
| Est. traffic value a month | $1,358,671 |
| New rankings | 7,709 |
| Lost rankings | 46,856 |

## Who else ranks for the words claude.com ranks for?

Across the whole keyword set, the domains sharing the most ground with claude.com are not rival products — they are platforms. YouTube shares 11,849 keywords, Reddit 11,490, Medium 8,980, GitHub 7,075. The competitive picture for a developer tool at this stage is not other vendors' marketing pages; it is the places developers write things down, which is the same finding the ranking data gives from the other direction.

| Domain | Shared keywords |
| --- | --- |
| youtube.com | 11,849 |
| reddit.com | 11,490 |
| medium.com | 8,980 |
| github.com | 7,075 |
| linkedin.com | 5,779 |

## What are the advertisers actually saying?

Ads found running against this subject, captured from the public transparency record. Each image is served from this origin so the picture and the claim beside it stay the same age.

- **Gabriel Kapuscinski** (claudecodeads.com) — text ad, ran 2026-06-13 to 2026-07-28. Image: https://wutheringai.com/media/case-studies/claude-code-search-demand/CR09416764389739986945.png · Record: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR08042525488112992257/creative/CR09416764389739986945?region=US
- **Gabriel Kapuscinski** (claudecodeads.com) — text ad, ran 2026-06-14 to 2026-06-27. Image: https://wutheringai.com/media/case-studies/claude-code-search-demand/CR16043248291462250497.png · Record: https://adstransparency.google.com/advertiser/AR08042525488112992257/creative/CR16043248291462250497?region=US

## Is Claude Code search demand still growing?

Yes, on every axis measured. The product name is up 127% across the window, installation searches up 106%, pricing up 90%, skills up 315%. Not one of the clusters measured here is falling, which is unusual — most subjects have at least one part of their demand draining away.

## Which Claude Code keywords are worth writing for?

The comparisons. "codex vs claude code" draws 14,800 searches a month and "cursor vs claude code" 8,100, the cluster grew 219%, and it sits at a difficulty of 10 against 100 for the product name. Vendors do not write pages naming their rivals, so that demand is answered by whoever will.

## Who ranks for Claude Code searches?

Reddit, on 72% of the largest terms at a median position of 3. Across claude.com's whole keyword set the domains sharing the most ground are YouTube at 11,849 shared keywords, Reddit at 11,490 and Medium at 8,980 — platforms where developers write things down, not competing vendors' marketing.

## Is anyone advertising against Claude Code?

One domain, claudecodeads.com, and it does not sell a competing tool. Its ads offer to place advertising inside Claude Code's own output — "turn Claude Code's thinking line into income". On a product drawing 1,812,840 searches a month, no rival tool was found bidding at all.

## How was this measured?

Seven calls to a public data API, listed at the bottom of this page with their arguments. Search volumes, cost-per-click, difficulty and monthly history come from Google search demand; the ranking and competitor picture from Google organic results; the advertising picture and the ad images from the Google Ads Transparency Center. Anyone can run the same calls and get the same shape.

## What this study does not show

- This measures search demand in the United States, in English. Claude Code has a global user base and this run does not describe it.
- Search demand is not usage. A product can grow in searches because people are adopting it or because they are stuck, and installation and how-to demand rising together is consistent with both.
- The lost-rankings figure for claude.com is consistent with a domain migration rather than a decline, but this run measured one domain at one moment and cannot separate the two on its own.
- Cluster names are this engine's description of a group of phrases, not a taxonomy anybody else uses. The grouping is reproducible from the terms listed under each one.
- Ad transparency reports ads that were served, not spend. An advertiser absent from it is not proven absent from the auction.
- The Searches/mo column is the source's reported monthly figure, a rolling average, while momentum compares three-month means from the same series. For a term that moved sharply inside the window the two differ, which is why both are printed.
- Click value is monthly searches multiplied by published cost-per-click. It prices the attention, and is not revenue anybody earned.
- 1% of the measured volume carried no published cost-per-click and is excluded from every value figure, rather than counted as zero.

## How to reproduce every figure above

Each figure came from one call. Together they cost 140 cents. Run them with your own token and you get this study's raw inputs, current as of today rather than as of the measurement date above.

```bash
#  — 20c
curl 'https://wutheringai.com/v1/keyword_suggestions?keyword=claude%20code&language_code=en&limit=200&location_code=2840&token=YOUR_TOKEN'
#  — 20c
curl 'https://wutheringai.com/v1/keyword_ideas?keywords=claude%20code&language_code=en&limit=200&location_code=2840&token=YOUR_TOKEN'
#  — 20c
curl 'https://wutheringai.com/v1/domain_serp_rivals?keywords=claude-code%2Cclaude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20pricing%2Cinstalling%20claude%20code%2Cinstall%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20price%2Cclaude%20code%20installation%2Cclaude%20code%20install%2Cclaude%20code%20subscription%2Ccodex%20vs%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20skill%2Cclaude%20code%20cli%2Cclaude%20code%20skills%2Cclaude%20code%20download%2Cwhat%20is%20claude%20code%2Ccursor%20vs%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20docs%2Cclaude%20code%20github%2Cclaude%20code%20desktop%2Chow%20to%20use%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20git%2Cclaude%20code%20vs%20cursor%2Cclaude%20code%20pro%20plan%2Cis%20claude%20code%20free%2Cclaude%20code%20vs%20codex%2Cclaude%20code%20status%2Canthropic%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20plugin%2Ceverything-claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20leaked%20source%2Cclaude%20code%20agents%2Ceverything%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20ai%2Cclaude%20code%20leak%2Cclaude%20code%20plugins%2Cclaude%20code%20agent%2Cdownload%20claude%20code%2Chow%20to%20install%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20costs%2Cclaude%20code%20anthropic%2Cclaude%20code%20usage%2Cclaude%20code%20changelog%2Cclaude%20code%20web%2Cclaude%20code%20plan%2Cclaude%20code%20user%2Cclaude%20code%20plans%2Cclaude%20code%20cost%2Cclaude%20code%20router%2Cclaude%20code%20updates%2Cclaude%20code%20source%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20hooks%2Cclaude%20code%20remote%20control%2Cclaude%20code%20logo%2Cupdate%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20desktop%20app%2Cclaude%20code%20sdk%2Cclaude%20code%20update%2Cclaude%20code%20down%2Cclaude%20code%20pro%20subscription%2Cclaude%20code%20plan%20mode%2Cclaude%20code%20application%2Cclaude%20code%20mcp%2Cclaude%20code%20security%2Cclaude%20code%20agents%20teams%2Cclaude%20code%20version%2Copencode%20vs%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20app%2Cclaude%20code%20tutorials%2Cclaude%20code%20agents%20team%2Cclaude%20code%20subagents%2Cclaude%20code%20reddit%2Cclaude%20code%20free%2Cclaude%20code%20agent%20teams%2Cclaude%20code%20planning%20mode%2Cclaude%20code%20reviews%2Cclaude%20code%20review%2Cclaude%20code%20tutorial%2Cclaude%20code%20documentation%2Cclaude%20code%20versions%2Cclaude%20code%20subagent%2Cclaude%20code%20agent%20team%2Cclaude%20code%20login%2Cis%20claude%20code%20down%2Chow%20to%20update%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20api%2Cclaude%20code%20best%20practices%2Cclaude%20code%20window%2Cclaude%20code%20terminal%2Cclaude%20code%20best%20practice%2Cclaude%20code%20ide%2Cclaude%20code%20commands%2Creddit%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20release%20notes%2Chow%20much%20is%20claude%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20auto%20mode%2Cclaude%20ai%20code%2Cclaude%20code%20command%2Cclaude%20code%20windows%2Cclaude%20code%20pro%2Cclaude%20code%20statusline&language_code=en&limit=50&location_code=2840&token=YOUR_TOKEN'
#  — 20c
curl 'https://wutheringai.com/v1/domain_overview?language_code=en&location_code=2840&target=claude.com&token=YOUR_TOKEN'
#  — 20c
curl 'https://wutheringai.com/v1/domain_competitors?language_code=en&limit=20&location_code=2840&target=claude.com&token=YOUR_TOKEN'
#  — 20c
curl 'https://wutheringai.com/v1/ads_advertisers?keyword=claude%20code&limit=30&location_code=2840&token=YOUR_TOKEN'
#  — 20c
curl 'https://wutheringai.com/v1/ads_creatives?language_code=en&limit=20&location_code=2840&target=claudecodeads.com&token=YOUR_TOKEN'
```

Method: https://wutheringai.com/playbooks · Prices: https://wutheringai.com/pricing