What GEO costs in 2026: agencies, tools and placements compared
GEO costs from $0 to over $10,000 a month. Trackers start at $29 a month, list placements at about $135 once, and the GEO agency retainers we checked from $2,500 a month.
GEO costs from $0 to over $10,000 a month. Doing it yourself with a tracker starts at $29 a month. Placements in third-party lists cost about $135 to $500 once, or from $2,000 a month for a managed service. GEO agency retainers we checked start at $2,500 a month and mostly sit between $5,000 and $10,000.
All prices below come from each company's own public page, read on 2026-10-31. Prices change, so check the linked page before you buy. If you are new to the topic, start with the guide to LLM SEO.
What are you paying for when you pay for GEO?
"GEO" (generative engine optimization) is sold as three different things. Most budgets mix them:
**Agencies** do the work: strategy, content on your site, technical SEO, and sometimes outreach and digital PR. You pay a monthly retainer.
**AI visibility trackers** measure the result: how often ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, AI Overviews and others name your brand for a set of prompts. You pay a monthly subscription.
**Placement services** get you onto third-party pages AI assistants cite, mostly "best X" list articles. You pay once per placement, or monthly.
This split matters because the pages assistants cite for category questions are mostly not yours. In a Foundation and AirOps study of 5.1 million AI responses for 50 B2B SaaS brands, only 2.24% of citations on unbranded category questions went to the brand's own pages (Foundation). An agency that only works on your site is paying for a small share of what gets cited.
How much do GEO agencies charge?
GEO and AEO agency prices for B2B SaaS (published starting prices)
Agency
Starting price
What the price covers
Embarque
$2,500 a month
Starter plan, minimum 3 months paid upfront and quarterly; site says SEO and GEO are one job. embarque.io
Starting prices as published on each agency's own site, read 2026-10-31. Most agencies quote custom prices above these floors.
Three patterns stand out. Commitments lower the rate: Discovered Labs and Rock The Rankings both charge more month-to-month. Bigger packages add off-site work: Stratabeat's higher tiers add Reddit marketing and digital PR. And most agencies sell GEO as part of SEO, not as a separate line. For a full comparison, see the best GEO agencies for B2B SaaS and the best SEO agencies for B2B SaaS.
How much do AI visibility tools cost?
AI visibility tracker prices (entry plans)
Tool
Entry price
Prompts and engines on that plan
Otterly.AI
$29 a month ($25 a month billed annually)
15 prompts; ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity, Copilot. Standard is $189 a month for 100 prompts. otterly.ai/pricing
50 prompts; 3 active models from a list including ChatGPT, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Gemini and Copilot. peec.ai/pricing
AthenaHQ
$295 a month
3,600 credits (1 credit is 1 AI response); 11 engines listed, including Claude. A free plan has 300 credits. athenahq.ai/pricing
Scrunch
$300 a month ($250 a month billed annually)
350 custom prompts; ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, Google AI Mode and AI Overviews, Meta. scrunch.com/pricing
Profound
Custom (Enterprise)
Free 7-day trial with 50 prompts a day; Enterprise covers up to 9 engines. tryprofound.com/pricing
Entry plans as shown on each vendor's pricing page, read 2026-10-31. Peec shows prices with a $ sign but does not name the currency. Otterly sells Claude, Gemini and AI Mode as paid add-ons.
The going rate for self-serve tracking is roughly $1 to $2 per tracked prompt a month at entry level, falling as plans grow. The price differences come from three things: how many prompts, how many engines, and how often each prompt runs. Because AI answers change from run to run, more prompts and more runs give a steadier number. More detail is in the best AI visibility tools.
A tracker only measures. It tells you which pages get cited; it doesn't get you onto them.
Monthly while the spot is live (annual agreement, paid monthly), or once for a new post.
Prices from each service's own page, read 2026-10-31. More prices are in the listicle placement price index.
One-off placements are the cheapest way in. The weak point is what happens after: the publisher can update the article and drop your entry, and nobody is checking. Monthly models charge for the time the spot is live, which costs more over a year but keeps someone accountable. The trade-offs are in Rank Monthly vs listicle placement services, and a wider set of prices is in the listicle placement price index.
Where does Rank Monthly fit, and when is it not the answer?
Rank Monthly books brands into list articles, sponsored articles and LinkedIn creator posts, and keeps them there. Brands pay monthly only while the spot is live, or once for a new post, and payment is held until the placement is verified live. Pricing is on request during early access.
It is not an agency and it is not a tracker. It won't fix your site or write your strategy, and it only covers publishers who have joined so far. If your own site is not indexed or doesn't say clearly what you do, fix that first; it costs less than any placement.
What drives the cost of GEO?
**Scope.** Work on your own site costs less than outreach, digital PR and placements on other sites.
**Content volume.** Agencies price largely on how many pages they write or update each month.
**Engines and prompts.** Tracking 15 prompts on 4 engines is a different product from 350 prompts on 6 or more.
**Site strength.** A placement on a strong, well-ranked site costs more than one on a new blog.
**One-off or monthly.** One-off placements look cheap; monthly placements cost more but include the time the spot stays live.
**Commitment.** Several agencies charge less for a 3-month, 6-month or 12-month commitment, and some ask for payment upfront.
What do you get at each budget level?
What a monthly GEO budget typically buys
Budget
Typical mix
Good fit for
$0 to $100 a month
You do the work; a manual prompt check in a spreadsheet or an entry tracker
Early-stage teams testing whether they are named at all
$100 to $1,000 a month
Entry tracker plus a few one-off placements, or one monthly spot; content done in-house
Small teams with someone who can write
$1,000 to $5,000 a month
A mid-tier tracker, regular placements, a freelance writer; or an entry agency retainer
Teams with a clear category and some content already ranking
$5,000 to $10,000 a month
Most GEO agency retainers, often with a tracker included or added
Teams that want the work done for them
$10,000 a month and up
Full-service agencies, digital PR, enterprise trackers
Larger teams in competitive categories
Ranges built from the published prices in the tables above, read 2026-10-31. Not quotes.
What does a worked GEO budget look like?
**Example only.** A B2B SaaS team with a $2,500 monthly budget and a marketer who can write might split it like this:
Example budget: $2,500 a month (illustration, not a quote)
Line
Example monthly cost
Why
Tracker (Peec AI Starter, 50 prompts)
$95
Monthly baseline of where you are named
One-off list placements (about 3 a month at $400 to $500)
about $1,350
Get onto pages already cited for your category
Freelance writer for comparison and use-case pages
about $1,000
Make your own site easy to quote
Total
about $2,445
Leaves a small buffer for review-site work
Example built from prices published by Peec AI and Loganix on 2026-10-31. The writer cost is an assumption for illustration, not a market price.
After three months, compare the prompt results with the first month. Keep paying for the sources that show up in answers and drop the rest. If list spots keep vanishing after you pay, a monthly placement may cost less than replacing them.
How do you decide where to spend?
**Measure first.** Run 20 to 50 buyer prompts several times on each engine. Free, or $29 to $95 a month with a tool.
**Look at the sources.** If answers cite your own site, spend on your site. If they cite lists and reviews, spend there.
**Check who will do the work.** No writer in-house means an agency is likely cheaper than hiring.
**Ask what happens after you pay.** For placements: who checks the spot is still live next quarter? For agencies: what is reported each month?
**Avoid guarantees.** Nobody controls what ChatGPT or Google says. A vendor that guarantees mentions or rankings is promising something it can't deliver.
Between $0 and over $10,000 a month. A self-serve AI visibility tracker starts at $29 a month. GEO agency retainers we checked on 2026-10-31 start at $2,500 a month (Embarque) and most fall between $5,000 and $10,000 a month. Placements in list articles cost about $135 to $500 once, or from $2,000 a month for a managed service.
Is GEO more expensive than SEO?
Usually not. Most agencies sell GEO as part of their SEO retainer at the same price, and Google says good SEO is good GEO for its own AI features. The extra cost comes from off-site work, such as placements, digital PR and tracking across several AI engines.
What is the cheapest way to start with GEO?
Write 20 to 50 prompts your buyers would ask, run each one several times on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google, and note which pages get cited. That costs nothing but time. Then fix your own pages and contact the authors of the cited lists. Add a tracker from $29 a month when the manual check takes too long.
Are one-off listicle placements worth it?
They can be a cheap way onto pages AI assistants already cite, at about $135 to $500 per spot. The risk is that the publisher later updates the article and your entry disappears without anyone noticing. Check placements every month, or use a model where you pay only while the spot is live.
Can a GEO agency guarantee AI mentions?
No. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google decide which sources to use, and answers change from run to run. A good agency improves your odds and reports how often you are named. Treat any guarantee of mentions or rankings as a warning sign.
Peec AI for a public price, Profound for enterprise, Scrunch and AthenaHQ for wide engine lists, Otterly.AI from $29. Ten trackers checked on their own sites, plus what trackers can't do.
Ten GEO and AEO agencies that get B2B SaaS brands named in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews, ranked by AI focus, named results, how they measure and price.
Ten SEO agencies that work for B2B SaaS companies on Google and on AI answers, ranked by SaaS focus, AI search work, named results and how open they are about price.