GEO agency: what it does, what it costs and when you need one

What a GEO agency does

A GEO agency takes over the work that makes it possible for an assistant to mention you. It is not a one-off blog assignment and not a promise of a fixed spot in an answer. The work usually comes down to five tasks.

1. A baseline of AI visibility. First record for which questions an assistant does or does not mention you now. Without that starting point you will never know whether the work changed anything.
2. The technical foundation. Crawlers must be able to fetch the page. Structured data should match the text a visitor sees, otherwise an assistant cites a fact that is not on the page.
3. Content an AI can cite. A page that answers the question in the first paragraph, in plain sentences, as text in the source. A PDF or an image with the price in it is often empty to a crawler.
4. Authority and mentions on other sites. The same name, the same service and the same address in places outside your own site. An assistant needs a second source before it trusts you.
5. Measuring and reporting. Asking the same questions again later and showing the difference. A folder of delivered pages without that repeat measurement says nothing about whether you get mentioned.

Still deciding between doing it yourself and handing it off? Read outsourcing SEO and AI visibility.

What does a GEO agency cost?

Most agencies in the US do not publish a GEO price; they quote per client, often as part of an SEO retainer that runs into thousands of dollars a month. You will usually see one of three models:

• Monthly retainer

  The most common model. A fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope, often bundled with SEO. Ask exactly what is included and how many pages or hours that is.

• Project or audit

  A one-time audit and action plan, sometimes with implementation. Useful as a start, but AI answers change, so a one-off audit goes stale.

• Managed service on top of a tool

  An agency runs a GEO platform for you and does the work. You pay for the tool and the hours. Check who owns the account and the data when you stop.

The full overview, including tools, is in what GEO costs, from free to agency, and the return in the ROI of GEO.

Agency, tool or both?

Three questions. The answer points to an agency, a tool, or both. GreatCompany is the tool: Pro is $49 a month for 1 site (extra site $39), Agency is $149 a month for 3 sites (extra site $39). Automatic, made for WordPress, is $99 a month without an annual contract: GreatCompany measures your AI visibility every day and publishes up to 5 improvements to your WordPress site every Monday.

1. Do you have someone who can spend 5 to 10 hours a month on your site?

   Yes: doing it yourself or outsourcing part of it works. No: an agency or a managed service has to write and publish the pages, otherwise it stays a dashboard. On WordPress, Automatic does that part for you.

2. Do you want to learn it yourself, or outsource the work completely?

   Learning it yourself fits a tool plus a step-by-step plan. Outsourcing completely fits an agency that takes over the five tasks above. The middle road is measuring in-house and buying the execution.

3. How much budget do you have per month?

   Around the tool price you measure and improve yourself. A retainer is the budget for an agency or managed service. With no budget, an agency is the wrong first step: first check whether an assistant already mentions you.

If you choose the tool, the plans are on the pricing page.

Checklist: 8 questions to ask an agency

Ask these before you sign a proposal. A useful answer is concrete. An answer that only says "that is part of our approach" is not.

1. How do you measure AI visibility, and for which of my customers' questions?
2. Which AI assistants are in that measurement, and which are not?
3. How often do I get a report, and what is in it besides a list of activities?
4. Who writes the content, and can I reject a piece before it goes live?
5. Do you work in my CMS, or do I get a document I have to publish myself?
6. What is and is not included in the monthly fee?
7. What happens to the content on my site after I cancel?
8. How much notice do you need to cancel, and am I locked into a year or can I stop monthly?

Are you an agency yourself?

This page is for people looking for an agency. If you deliver the work to your own clients, you need software instead of a contractor: GEO software for agencies.