Frequently asked questions

Allspice adds premium cooking tools directly to your recipe site, including recipe search, guided cooking, saved recipes, grocery lists, pantry tools, meal planning, and AI assistance. Allspice was shaped by the suggestions of over 100 different recipe publishers.

The goal is to give readers the modern cooking experience they expect while keeping them engaged with your content and your site.

Allspice is built for established food publishers: recipe sites and publisher networks with a sizable, engaged audience, typically 250,000+ monthly pageviews. It's for publishers who want to:

• deliver a better reader experience
• increase session time and returning visitors
• build direct relationships with their readers
• earn revenue from paid memberships and meal plans

Readers get the tools they already use elsewhere - recipe saving, meal planning, grocery lists, pantry tracking, AI help - directly on your site and tied to your content.

Publishers get a more interactive reader experience that can increase engagement, keep readers on recipe pages longer, and make the site feel more useful during cooking, planning, and shopping. Maximizing returning visits has become increasingly important as traffic has become more variable.

Allspice also gives publishers controls for placement, styling, and analytics, and lets you sell paid memberships and meal plans through your own Stripe account.

Yes. We can share live examples so you can see the reader experience on desktop and mobile.

Because each publisher can configure Allspice differently, examples may vary by button placement, styling, enabled features, and ad setup.

Some platforms focus primarily on shoppable recipe links, sponsored campaigns, affiliate commerce, creator monetization, or sending users into a separate destination.

Allspice is different because it is built as an on-site cooking layer for publishers. The experience lives on your site and is designed to support the ad-supported recipe page model while adding search, saving, guided cooking, grocery lists, meal planning, memberships, and optional AI tools.

The goal is to keep more of the reader's cooking workflow connected to the publisher's own content, rather than treating the recipe page only as a place to send traffic elsewhere.

Yes. We're focused on the U.S. first, but the platform is designed for global publishers.

Allspice periodically offers early adopter, partner, or event-specific discounts.

Annual billing also provides savings compared with monthly billing. Any available discount code or offer will be shown during signup or shared directly by the Allspice team.

Right now, Allspice primarily supports WordPress publishers through our WordPress plugin.

We are also expanding support for non-WordPress publishers through script-based integrations. If your site is not on WordPress, reach out and we can confirm whether your setup is supported.

Not yet - but it's coming soon.
In the meantime, creators will be able to use a "link in bio" flow that opens an Allspice-hosted experience with the same tools plus a searchable library of their recipes.

Soon, yes. Social-first creators will be able to publish recipes via caption content or link-based import and offer a full Allspice recipe experience to their audience.

Download the Allspice plugin from the Publisher Portal (click your domain, then the WordPress tab) and install it. After that it updates itself. It adds a small loader script to every page and loads the widget on your recipe posts.

Yes - recipes are auto-detected.
Recipes are detected from their schema.org Recipe JSON-LD, which is required. Most recipe card plugins (WP Recipe Maker, Tasty Recipes, Create by Mediavine) output it automatically.

Allspice appears on eligible recipe posts that can be parsed successfully and meet the minimum content requirements for a usable recipe experience, including at least one ingredient and sufficient recipe structure.

Yes. Page visibility (Publisher Portal → your domain → General tab) lets you show Allspice on all pages except the paths you list, or only on pages under the paths you list. We can also help you plan a more selective rollout during onboarding.

Yes. Posts marked no-index are left out of Allspice by default, and sites using WordPress Direct can choose to include no-index recipes or articles. In the Allspice search settings you can also exclude articles by category or tag, and exclude specific posts by URL slug. This is useful for old content, roundup pages, non-recipe posts, or sections you don't want in recipe search.

Yes. With the recommended setup, the adaptive rail shows a Find a Recipe search button on pages that aren't recipes. For a specific entry point, such as a "Search recipes" link in your header or a homepage call-to-action, add a custom button.

Yes. Add a data-allspice-id attribute with your button's ID to any element, such as a button, link, or image, and choose its action in the Publisher Portal. You style it however you like.

Most sites don't need buttons: the recommended Floating (desktop) and Inline (mobile) widget styles add Allspice to your recipe pages automatically. For extra entry points, use custom buttons. Premade buttons still work on existing sites but are deprecated.

Yes. You can set theme colors, logos, the assistant's name and persona, and how the widget appears on your pages. Fully replacing Allspice branding is part of Ecosystem. We add more customization options by request.

Yes. The recommended setup is the Floating widget on desktop and Inline on mobile, with the adaptive rail, and neither uses the full-page overlay. There's also a standalone search page. The original overlay still works but is deprecated.

We support public dev environments.
Because Allspice needs to crawl/scrape and access public pages (like sitemaps), private staging environments may not work unless publicly accessible.

If your domain's DNS is managed by Cloudflare, you should add the necessary TXT record directly within your Cloudflare DNS settings.

In some cases, publishers may need to allowlist the Allspice crawler in their firewall, security plugin, CDN, bot-protection service, or hosting configuration.

If recipe crawling or setup is blocked, allowlisting Allspice crawler traffic (including IP 34.171.197.31 where applicable) can resolve access issues.

Team members let colleagues, developers, or agencies work on your Allspice setup with their own login instead of sharing yours.

There are two roles you can assign: Admin, who can change domains, widget and chat settings, and memberships, and Member, who can view everything and make a smaller set of changes. Only the account owner can manage the team, payments, and billing. See Team Members & Roles for the full list.

For food publishers, Allspice is a much more comprehensive product than Slickstream.

Slickstream is primarily a content discovery and engagement layer: site search, recommendations, saved content, and prompts that help readers browse more posts.

Allspice includes those core discovery features, but they are only the starting point. Allspice is built around the full recipe workflow: recipe search, recommendations, saving, recipe questions, substitutions, adaptations, grocery lists, guided cooking, meal planning, memberships, premium recipes, and return visits across a reader's cooking journey.

At the center is an AI assistant that answers readers' questions from your own recipes and notes, scales recipes, runs Cook Mode, and builds grocery lists, so readers get answers on your page instead of opening ChatGPT or Google.

In other words, Allspice does the core discovery work publishers expect, then adds the cooking-specific functionality that generic engagement tools do not provide.

Slickstream helps readers find content. Allspice helps readers find, ask, use, save, shop, cook, plan, and return to recipe content.

Switching is easy: import your Slickstream favorites, and readers' saves are waiting when they sign up.

Grow is generally focused on helping publishers build reader relationships through engagement, identity, email capture, and audience tools.

Allspice is focused specifically on the recipe and cooking experience. It gives food publishers tools for recipe search, saving, grocery lists, guided cooking, meal planning, memberships, and premium recipes directly around their content, with an AI assistant that answers readers' questions from your own recipes and notes, scales recipes, and runs Cook Mode, so readers get answers on your page instead of opening ChatGPT or Google.

For food publishers, Allspice is meant to make the recipe page more useful, interactive, and actionable while keeping the reader connected to the publisher's site.

Not necessarily. Allspice can work alongside existing publisher tools, depending on the site's setup and goals.

Some publishers use Allspice as a full cooking layer across search, saving, grocery lists, guided cooking, meal planning, and memberships. Others use a more focused configuration, such as recipe search, inline recipe tools, premium recipe support, or standalone pages.

The right setup depends on the publisher's site, ad strategy, existing tools, and reader experience.

Yes, from Slickstream. Upload your Slickstream favorites export in the Publisher Portal (see Migrating saves from Slickstream), and when readers create an Allspice account with the same email, their saved recipes are already waiting. Your readers' saves then live in Allspice, independent of your ad network. Migration from Mediavine Grow is coming soon.

Yes. Allspice supports integrations with common email platforms, including Kit, Mailchimp, MailerLite, and Flodesk. If you use a different email provider, let us know. In many cases, we can quickly add support or recommend the best integration path.

Allspice is designed to load asynchronously and minimize impact on page performance. The current implementation supports lightweight loading patterns and multiple placement options so publishers can choose the setup that works best for their site.

As with any third-party script, actual performance can vary by theme, caching setup, optimization plugin, ad stack, and implementation choices. We monitor compatibility and can help troubleshoot if a site-specific configuration creates issues.

Yes. The plugin automatically excludes its scripts from WP Rocket, Cloudflare Rocket Loader, and LiteSpeed optimization. For other optimization plugins, exclude asx-bootstrap from JavaScript delay and deferral. See Plugin compatibility for details.

Yes. Footer ads, video players, and floating units keep showing while readers use Allspice, and inline ad placements are supported where your ad provider allows them.

No. Allspice works alongside your ad provider and doesn't replace it. The recommended Floating and Inline widget styles move out of the way of sticky footer ads and floating video players rather than covering them. Make sure your sticky footer ad has a high enough z-index (see Ads / UI overlap issues). Allspice can also send open and close events so your ad setup can respond when readers use it.

No. With the recommended setup (Floating on desktop, Inline on mobile, with the adaptive rail), Allspice never covers an ad and doesn't affect ad viewability. The Inline widget sits in the page flow, and the floating widget and rail move out of the way of sticky and floating ad units. If you've heard otherwise, that information is based on older or alternative Allspice setups that are not recommended.

Cook Mode is designed to increase engaged time while still supporting publisher monetization.

Ad behavior depends on your provider and configuration. Allspice can support high-value placements such as footer ads, video players, floating placements, and inline ads where supported. We recommend reviewing the setup during onboarding so the experience works well for both readers and revenue.

No. Allspice works directly on your site.
Users can optionally use the Allspice app/website later as their "home base" to manage saved recipes across multiple sites.

Allspice is built mobile-first because most recipe traffic happens on phones. The mobile experience is designed to be compact, easy to open and close, and useful while cooking. Publishers can also choose button placements and configurations that fit their site layout.

Yes. Users can use Allspice anonymously at first, but they'll eventually be prompted to create an account so their data stays safely saved and synced.

No. Most readers never create an account: search, Cook Mode, grocery lists, and saving all work without one. Readers who want to keep their saved recipes, grocery lists, pantry, and preferences across devices can create one free Allspice account, and it works on every Allspice site. The exception is sites with their own Ecosystem sign-in, where accounts belong to that publisher's sites. Because Allspice covers saving, search, grocery lists, meal planning, and more, readers don't need separate accounts with other engagement tools. Engagement with the recommended Allspice setup is significantly higher than with existing engagement tools.

Their saved recipes, grocery lists, pantry data, and preferences can sync across:

• devices
• Allspice website
• Allspice app

Yes. Readers can share a grocery list or pantry with a link.

No. On your site, Allspice is designed to search and recommend recipes from your domain only. That applies to recipe search, AI-powered recipe search, and ingredient-based discovery. Cross-site recipe discovery is only planned for opt-in publisher groups or other experiences controlled by participating publishers.

No. Allspice is designed to keep the reader experience on your site. The AI assistant and cooking tools are built into the Allspice experience so readers can ask questions, cook, save, plan, and shop without needing to copy your recipe into a separate AI tool.

Not yet, but it's planned. With Publisher Groups, publishers with several sites will be able to let readers search across all of them, and partner publishers will be able to create a shared group to cross-promote recipes. Groups will be opt-in and controlled by the publishers in them.

Cook Mode is a cleaner, step-by-step cooking experience that turns your recipe into something users can actually cook from, without clutter.

Cook Mode includes step-by-step instructions with the ingredients for each step, multiple timers, Voice Mode for hands-free control, keeping the screen awake, and the assistant for questions while you cook.

Cook Mode can support ads, but the best setup depends on your ad provider, site layout, and revenue strategy. Allspice is designed to preserve key monetization placements where possible, and publishers can decide whether Cook Mode fits their site strategy.

Because it gives users a reason to stay on your page while they cook - rather than copying/pasting into another app or leaving for a tool like ChatGPT.

Allspice includes an AI assistant (Pico by default, and you can rename it) that answers questions from your recipes and notes, scales recipes, recommends recipes from your site, runs Cook Mode, and manages grocery lists and pantries. Every answer shows readers whether it came from your page or from general cooking knowledge. See Pico chat for details.

Allspice combines recipe data, ingredient intelligence, and site-specific context to make the experience more relevant to each publisher. For niche sites, such as gluten-free, vegan, keto, allergy-friendly, or regional cuisine sites, we can review how your recipes are parsed and improve how important ingredients, substitutions, and terminology are handled over time.

Readers who aren't signed in can send 4 messages before creating a free account, for security reasons, and tapping a suggested question doesn't use the allowance. For standard sites, each reader gets 25 free chat credits per month for open-ended AI chat. Sites with a membership program can include unlimited chat as part of the offering.

Allspice uses its own ingredient data to combine ingredients across recipes, remove duplicates, and leave off what the reader already has in their pantry. Readers can check items off in the store, print or share the list, or send it to a delivery service.

On your site, ingredient-based recipe results come from your own recipes. Allspice is designed to help readers discover more of your content, not send them to other publishers' recipes.

Yes. Users can edit recipes and save personal versions, so the recipe evolves with them.

Yes. Readers can build their own dated meal plans and turn a whole plan into one grocery list. You can also offer your own free or paid meal plans (see Meal plan products).

Yes - users can track pantry items and keep grocery lists connected to what they already have.

Allspice is designed to improve user experience, increase engagement, and keep users on your site longer during cooking and planning.

You can also sell paid memberships and paid meal plans through your own Stripe account and keep 90% of each sale after payment-processing fees. Your existing ads keep running alongside Allspice.

Grocery shopping doesn't earn revenue by default, but you can provide your own Instacart affiliate key and keep 100% of that revenue.

Yes. For paid memberships and paid meal plans you create through Allspice, you keep 90% of each sale after payment-processing fees, and Allspice retains a 10% platform fee. Sales are processed through your own connected Stripe account. See Publisher Commerce & Revenue Sharing for details.

Grocery shopping doesn't earn revenue by default, but if you provide your own Instacart affiliate API key, 100% of that Instacart revenue goes to you with no Allspice commission. Grocery revenue is usually small.

Allspice is a premium product for publishers.

Pricing reflects the infrastructure, ongoing development, and support required to deliver a high-performance on-page experience across a wide range of sites and configurations. See Pricing for current plans.

Allspice pricing is generally based on your site's typical traffic level, not a single unusual spike. If your traffic is seasonal or one month is unusually high, we can review the broader pattern during onboarding so your plan reflects the real size of your site.

Most of the Allspice widget experience is free for readers, including recipe search, AI-powered recipe search results, guided cooking, saved recipes, and grocery lists.

Open-ended AI chat has a free monthly allowance of 25 chat credits because it has ongoing infrastructure costs. Readers pay only if they choose to buy something you sell, such as a membership, which can include unlimited chat, or a paid meal plan.

Yes. The Publisher Portal shows usage for your domains, and the Revenue page shows your membership and meal plan sales. The Analytics API lets you read post performance and reader questions in your own tools or in Claude. Our new Performance reporting is rolling out in phases and isn't available to every publisher yet.

Daily.

They include recipe, usage, and ingredient performance, membership and meal plan revenue, and, through the Analytics API, post performance, reader journeys, and the questions readers ask.

Publisher analytics are anonymized and aggregated, and subject to Allspice terms. You do get reader-level data in three cases: your own members, whom you can see and export; readers who choose to join your email list; and, on Ecosystem sites, the readers who create accounts in your ecosystem, whom you can see and export. Over time, we'll add richer insights (for example, "what % of your audience prefers gluten-free") while keeping reader data private.

No. The standard Allspice implementation does not provide publishers or third parties with raw user data, user IDs, credentials, personal identifiers, or individual-level Allspice User data by default.

Publisher analytics are aggregated and anonymized. Any limited sharing of Personal Data with a publisher, such as an email address, must be user-initiated, purpose-limited, revocable, and is not the default behavior.

Allspice also does not use publisher recipe content to train machine learning or AI models without the publisher's prior written approval.

Allspice is designed with privacy and compliance in mind, including support for CCPA-style requirements.

GDPR and UK GDPR readiness are in progress. We are continuing to update our policies, data handling practices, and publisher documentation as those requirements are finalized. If your site has specific legal or compliance requirements, contact us and we can provide more detail for your legal team.

You should review your own privacy policy and legal requirements before enabling any third-party service.

Many publishers already have privacy policy language covering embedded tools, analytics, user accounts, and third-party services. For transparency, some publishers choose to mention Allspice as a third-party tool used to enhance recipe browsing, saving, cooking, grocery list, and meal planning experiences.

Suggested language:

"This site uses Allspice, a recipe assistant that provides search, cooking guidance, and saved recipe features. Allspice sets one first-party cookie (asx_vid) containing a random identifier. This identifies your anonymous Allspice account so that recipes you save and lists you create are still there when you come back. It contains no personal information and is not used to track you across other websites. Allspice also stores information in your browser, including a session identifier, your saved recipes, and your preferences.

Allspice collects anonymous usage information including pages viewed, time on page, device type, approximate time zone, referral source, and interactions with the assistant. If you use the chat feature, your messages are processed to generate responses and are de-identified before storage. Allspice does not use third-party advertising cookies and does not track you across other websites. If you choose to create an Allspice account, you provide your email address and agree to Allspice's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which govern how that information is handled. You can clear locally stored information at any time by clearing your browser data."

Once approved from the waitlist, create an account in the Publisher Portal, add and verify your domain, then download the WordPress plugin from your domain's WordPress tab. Most sites are set up in under an hour, and we're happy to walk you through it.

After you create an account, you can start the setup process in the Publisher Portal and schedule an intro or onboarding call. If you joined through a partner, event, or discount code, we can help make sure the right offer is applied to your account.

Allspice is built and monitored as production infrastructure. Formal uptime commitments, if any, are governed by the applicable agreement for your account. Availability reports are on our status page.

Membership platforms like Memberful and Gro (Grocers List) help creators sell access, manage subscriptions, and gate content. Allspice has memberships built in, and connects them to the recipe experience: gate a recipe card, a preview, or a full post; bundle paid meal plans; and give members unlimited chat with an AI assistant that answers from your own recipes. Sales go through your own Stripe account. A membership becomes more than a locked page or checkout flow. It becomes a cooking product that gives readers more value from your recipes.

Allspice has site memberships built in. You can gate a recipe card, show a preview, or gate a full post, and Allspice handles checkout, member accounts, and search engine visibility for gated content. If you already use another membership plugin, we can review during onboarding how your gated recipes should be handled, so member-only content isn't exposed unintentionally.

We're actively building:

• support for non-WordPress publishers
• more advanced analytics and reporting
• improved ad options
• social creator support