Wolfram|Alpha Short Answer API — concise text answers to natural-language queries, paid per call via MPP/Tempo.
What it does
This endpoint provides access to Wolfram|Alpha's Short Answer API through the Locus MPP (Micropayment Protocol) gateway. You send a natural-language question (e.g. "population of France", "distance to Mars", "integral of x^2") and receive a concise plain-text answer. The endpoint accepts optional parameters for unit system (metric or imperial) and a processing timeout.
The service is part of a broader Wolfram|Alpha MPP suite hosted at wolframalpha.mpp.paywithlocus.com that also includes Spoken Result, Full Results, and Simple (Image) endpoints. Each call costs 55,000 base units of pathUSD on Tempo L2. Assuming pathUSD uses 6 decimals, that works out to $0.055 (5.5 cents) per request. Payment is handled via the MPP charge intent — a one-shot micropayment settled on Tempo for each API call.
The endpoint is a POST-only route. The probe returned 404 on HEAD and GET, which is expected since the OpenAPI spec defines only a POST method. The OpenAPI schema is well-defined with clear request parameters. No response schema detail beyond "Successful response" is provided, so the exact response format must be inferred from Wolfram|Alpha's standard Short Answer API behavior (typically a plain-text string).
Capabilities
Use cases
- —AI agents that need factual or computational answers inline (e.g. math, science, geography)
- —Chatbots augmenting LLM responses with verified computational data
- —Automated pipelines that resolve unit conversions, statistics, or formulas on the fly
- —Voice assistants needing concise spoken-length answers to user questions
- —Data enrichment workflows requiring authoritative numerical facts
Fit
Best for
- —Agents needing quick, authoritative factual or mathematical answers
- —Pay-per-query access to Wolfram|Alpha without managing API keys
- —Micropayment-native workflows on Tempo L2
- —LLM tool-use where a short text answer is sufficient
Not for
- —High-volume batch queries where per-call pricing adds up quickly
- —Use cases requiring rich structured data or images (use the Full Results or Simple endpoints instead)
- —Scenarios that cannot settle payments on Tempo L2
Quick start
curl -X POST https://wolframalpha.mpp.paywithlocus.com/wolframalpha/short-answer \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"i": "population of France"}'Example
Request
{
"i": "distance from Earth to Mars",
"units": "metric",
"timeout": 5
}Endpoint
Quality
A complete OpenAPI 3.1 schema with clear request parameters and pricing is available. However, the probe only tested HEAD/GET (returning 404) while the endpoint is POST-only, so liveness via 402 challenge was not directly confirmed. No response schema or example responses are provided, and crawled pages returned only generic 404 JSON. Pricing is inferrable but pathUSD decimals are assumed (6).
Warnings
- —Probe did not test POST method; 404 on HEAD/GET is expected for a POST-only endpoint but means the 402 MPP challenge was not directly captured.
- —No response schema is documented — response format is inferred from standard Wolfram|Alpha Short Answer API behavior.
- —pathUSD decimals assumed to be 6; if different, the stated price of $0.055 per call would be incorrect.
- —Currency address 0x20c000000000000000000000b9537d11c60e8b50 could not be independently verified from crawl data.
Citations
- —The endpoint accepts a JSON body with required field 'i' (natural language query) and optional 'units' and 'timeout' parameters.https://wolframalpha.mpp.paywithlocus.com
- —Each call costs 55,000 base units of pathUSD on Tempo L2 with charge intent.https://wolframalpha.mpp.paywithlocus.com
- —The broader service includes Short Answer, Spoken Result, Full Results, and Simple (Image) endpoints.https://wolframalpha.mpp.paywithlocus.com
- —API reference documentation is linked at https://products.wolframalpha.com/apihttps://wolframalpha.mpp.paywithlocus.com