How much do GEO and AEO services cost in 2026?

There is no standard price for GEO and AEO services, and no authoritative public benchmark for what agencies charge. What you pay depends on the pricing model, how much work your site needs, and how much of that work the vendor does for you. Any article that quotes an "average GEO retainer" is quoting an unverifiable number, so this one doesn't.

What you can do is understand the three ways this work is sold, the things that push a quote up or down, and what a published price list looks like. As one concrete example, eSEOspace's combined SEO, GEO and AEO plans run from $750 to $4,000 per month as of October 2026, each including up to a set number of implementation hours. Other agencies price differently, and the sections below show how to judge any quote on its own terms.

GEO (generative engine optimization) is the work of getting your business mentioned and cited in AI-generated answers from tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot. AEO (answer engine optimization) focuses on being the direct answer to a question, in featured snippets, voice results and AI summaries. The two are often sold together, and often with SEO.

Why there is no reliable market average

The price figures that circulate for GEO services come from agency blogs, tool vendors and self-selected surveys. None of them can be checked, and the agencies behind them define "GEO" differently. One may count a monthly report as a GEO service. Another may include content writing, schema, digital PR and tracking software.

That makes averages useless even when they are honest. A lower price for a narrower scope is not cheaper. The only fair comparison is scope against scope, which is why this guide explains what goes into a quote instead of telling you what the number should be.

Google's own guidance on hiring help makes a related point. Its page on whether you need an SEO, updated in June 2026, lists "Optimizing for generative AI" among the services agencies legitimately provide, and says an audit "should be about giving you realistic estimates of improvement, and an estimate of the work involved."

The three pricing models

Many engagements combine them: an audit first, a project to clear the backlog, then a smaller monthly plan. We compare the two main routes in GEO retainer vs. one-time project, and explain what a proper audit contains in what a GEO audit includes.

A fourth cost sits beside all three: tracking software. Some agencies include it in the fee, some bill it separately, and some don't use any. Ask.

What drives the cost

These are the factors that change the amount of work, and so the price, regardless of which agency you ask.

• The state of your SEO. Google says its generative AI features are "rooted in our core Search ranking and quality systems." If your pages aren't indexed, are slow, or are thin, that has to be fixed first, and it takes hours.
• Site size. Reworking 15 service pages is a different job from reworking 400 product pages.
• Locations and markets. Each location adds pages, business profiles and listings that have to agree with each other.
• Content volume. Writing new answer-first pages, comparison pages and FAQs is often a large block of time. Who writes, and who fact-checks, changes the price a lot.
• Off-site work. Earning mentions on other sites, review platforms and industry publications is slow, manual work.
• Engines and prompts tracked. Monitoring 20 prompts on two engines costs less, in software and in analyst time, than 300 prompts on six.
• Reporting depth. A monthly summary is cheap. A board-ready report tying AI visibility to pipeline is not.
• Regulated topics. Health, legal and financial content needs expert review, which adds time to every page.

One published example: eSEOspace's monthly plans

Not every agency publishes prices. eSEOspace does, so its price list is a useful worked example of the monthly model. These are combined SEO, GEO and AEO plans. There is no GEO-only plan. The figures below are from the eSEOspace pricing page as of October 2026, in US dollars, billed monthly.

Each plan is a fixed monthly price that covers strategy, optimization, performance monitoring and prioritization, plus hands-on implementation time up to the stated limit. The hours are spent wherever they are judged to matter most that month: technical SEO, content, local SEO, schema, GEO and AEO work, or authority building. That means a plan is a capacity, not a checklist delivered in full every month.

The pricing page also says you can move up or down between tiers and that nothing is locked into a long contract. It does not publish a price for a paid standalone audit or a one-time GEO project, so those would need a conversation.

What different levels of monthly capacity realistically buy

Whatever agency you use, the amount of hands-on time in the plan sets the pace. The table is our general guide to pace. It is not a description of any agency's deliverables, eSEOspace's included. What the hours cover depends on the site.

If a quote promises the third column's workload on the first column's hours, something is being left out. Usually it is the writing, the fact-checking, or the off-site work.

Tool costs, if you are billed for them

AI visibility tools run a fixed set of prompts through AI engines and record whether your brand appears. What they sell is reporting on visibility. If a vendor also offers help with content or implementation, check whether the plan you are quoted includes it. Vendors commonly price by the number of prompts and engines tracked, or by credits.

Two list prices from vendor pages on October 13, 2026, show how this works. Otterly.AI's pricing page showed its Lite plan at $29 per month for 15 search prompts and its Premium plan at $489 per month for 400, on monthly billing. Semrush's AI Visibility Toolkit page listed the toolkit at $99 per month. Vendor prices change often, so check the page before you budget.

Google's reporting is free: Search Console has a Generative AI performance report, and Google Analytics 4 has an AI Assistant channel. Whether you need paid tracking on top is covered in GEO tools vs. hiring an agency.

How to judge a quote

Use these steps on any proposal, from any vendor.

1. Ask for the scope in writing. List the deliverables or the hours, and what is explicitly excluded.
2. Separate strategy from implementation. Find out who actually edits your pages, writes the content and adds the markup. A plan that only produces recommendations leaves the work with you.
3. Ask how hours are tracked. For an hours-based plan, ask to see a sample time report and what happens to hours you don't use.
4. Ask what is measured and with what. Get the prompt list, the engines tested and the data sources named.
5. Ask how off-site mentions are obtained. Earned and paid placements carry different risks, and paid ones raise disclosure questions.
6. Read the term and exit clauses. Check the length, renewal, notice period, and who owns the content, accounts and tracking data when you leave. This is not legal advice; have your own attorney review a contract before you sign.
7. Check for guarantees. Google's guidance is blunt: "If they guarantee you that their changes will give you first place in search results, find someone else." The same applies to AI answers.

When you have two or three quotes, comparing GEO proposals side by side shows how to put them on the same footing.

Costs that don't show up in the quote

• Your own time. Someone on your side has to approve content, answer questions about the business, and grant access. Slow approvals waste paid hours.
• Development work. If your site is hard to edit or slow, fixes may need a developer outside the plan.
• Subject experts. Accurate content in specialist fields needs input from the people who do the work.
• Other channels. GEO doesn't replace paid search or SEO. Our guide to splitting a budget across PPC, SEO and GEO covers the trade-offs.

When to spend less, or nothing yet

If your site has basic SEO problems, pay to fix those first. A page that Google can't index can't appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode either. If you run a small local business, Google itself says "you can probably do much of the work yourself."

It also helps to be clear on what you are buying. If the difference between the three disciplines is still fuzzy, read GEO vs. AEO vs. SEO before you ask for quotes.

Conclusion

GEO and AEO pricing comes down to how much skilled time your site needs and who supplies it. Ignore market averages, ask every vendor for scope and hours in writing, and compare like with like. If you want a starting point before you request quotes, eSEOspace offers a free GEO audit that reviews your website structure and visibility and sends you insights on improving your appearance in AI search. More guides are in our GEO and AEO Guide.

Frequently asked questions