Generative engine optimization (GEO), sometimes called AEO or AI search optimization, is the work of getting your business cited and recommended in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Google's AI Overviews. Because the category is new, pricing is all over the place. Some vendors sell dashboards, some agencies rename their old SEO packages, and many hide prices behind a sales call. This guide explains what you are actually paying for so you can judge any quote you get, including ours.
What are the three ways GEO is sold?
| Format | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Monitoring tool | Software that runs prompts across AI engines and shows where your brand appears | Teams that already have people to act on the data |
| One-time audit | A diagnosis of why AI engines do or do not cite you, with a prioritised action plan | Businesses deciding whether to invest, or with an in-house team |
| Monthly retainer | Ongoing content, technical, entity and outreach work plus prompt tracking | Businesses that want it done for them |
The most common mistake is buying the first when you need the third. A tool shows you that you are missing from AI answers. It does not change that.
What drives the price of a GEO engagement?
- Competition in AI answers. A local plumber competing with five firms in one town needs far less work than a SaaS company competing with global brands for "best tool for X".
- The state of your site. If AI crawlers are blocked, content is rendered only with JavaScript, or service pages are thin, the first months go into fixing foundations.
- How much citable content is missing. Clear answers, comparison pages, FAQs and original data take time to research and write well.
- Entity and third-party work. Getting your business consistently described across directories, review platforms, industry lists and press is slow, manual outreach.
- Number of engines, languages and markets. Tracking one engine in one language is very different from tracking five engines across four countries.
- Reporting depth. A monthly prompt test is cheap; a large, statistically meaningful prompt set with competitor share of voice is not.
What should a GEO audit deliver?
A one-time audit is the cleanest entry point, and a good one should leave you with a plan you could execute without the agency. Expect:
- A crawl-access check for AI bots (OAI-SearchBot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended) and server-side rendering.
- An indexing review in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, since ChatGPT and Copilot rely partly on web search indexes.
- A content review: do your key pages open with a direct answer that an engine can quote?
- A structured data and entity review: Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, FAQPage, consistent name and contact details everywhere.
- A baseline prompt test across engines, showing who gets recommended for your buyers' questions and which sources are cited.
- A list of third-party sources that AI engines already cite in your niche, and where you are missing.
- A prioritised action list, ordered by impact.
We published our own version as a free self-check: the AI visibility audit checklist.
What should a monthly GEO retainer include?
- Content: new and rewritten pages built around real buyer questions, each with a short, quotable answer at the top and FAQs underneath.
- Technical: structured data, llms.txt, internal linking, speed and indexing fixes.
- Entity work: consistent profiles on directories, review sites and data sources engines rely on.
- Third-party mentions: outreach to lists, roundups, partners and publications already cited in AI answers for your niche.
- Reviews: a system for collecting genuine reviews on the platforms that matter.
- Tracking and reporting: a fixed prompt set tested monthly across engines, plus AI referral traffic and leads in analytics.
If a retainer only covers "monitoring" and a monthly PDF, you are paying for a tool with extra steps.
Is GEO priced separately from SEO?
It often is, but it should not be treated as a separate discipline. AI search engines retrieve pages from the web, and pages that rank well and answer clearly are the ones most often cited. Much of GEO is good SEO done with more discipline: direct answers, structured data, clean indexing, real expertise. The genuinely new parts are prompt-level tracking, the focus on third-party sources that engines trust, and writing for extraction. A sensible offer combines both and does not charge twice for the same work. We cover the overlap in our guide on getting recommended by ChatGPT.
Why can a European agency deliver the same scope for less?
The work is the same everywhere: research, writing, technical fixes, outreach and testing. What differs is the cost of the people doing it. Agencies in Eastern Europe have lower salary and office costs than agencies in New York or London, so the same deliverables can be priced lower without cutting hours. The trade-offs to check are language quality for your market and familiarity with the sources AI engines cite in your country. A Romanian team writing for a US audience should show you native-level English work; for local markets, it should know the local directories and publications. More on that in our guide to choosing an SEO agency in Romania.
How do you compare GEO offers?
Put every quote against the same checklist:
- Which engines and how many prompts will be tracked, and how often?
- How many pages will be created or rewritten each month, and who writes them?
- What technical work is included: schema, llms.txt, crawl access, rendering?
- Is third-party outreach included, and can they show you examples of placements?
- How will they connect AI visibility to leads or sales in your analytics?
- Who owns the content, the accounts and the tracking data if you leave?
- Do they promise specific placements in AI answers? Nobody can guarantee that, so treat it as a red flag.
How long until GEO shows results?
Technical fixes and new pages can start appearing in AI answers within weeks of being indexed, especially in engines that search the web live. Stable, repeated recommendations usually take a few months, because they depend on third-party mentions and reviews that accumulate slowly. Plan for at least a quarter before judging a retainer, and make sure the baseline prompt test is done before work begins so you can see the change.
Frequently asked questions
How much does GEO cost?
It depends on how competitive your niche is in AI answers, how much content and technical work your site needs, and how many engines and markets are tracked. It is usually sold as a monitoring tool, a one-time audit or a monthly retainer, so compare offers by deliverables.
Is a GEO tool enough on its own?
Only if you have an in-house team to act on the data. A tool shows where you appear in AI answers; content, technical fixes, entity work and outreach are what change it.
What is included in a GEO audit?
A crawl-access check for AI bots, an indexing review, content and structured data analysis, a baseline prompt test across AI engines, a list of cited third-party sources and a prioritised action plan.
Should GEO be priced separately from SEO?
It can be, but most of the work overlaps. Pages that rank well and answer clearly are the ones AI engines cite. A good offer combines both and does not charge twice for the same tasks.
Can an agency guarantee my business will appear in ChatGPT?
No. Nobody controls which sources AI engines cite. A credible agency will promise specific work and transparent tracking, not guaranteed placements.
How long does GEO take to work?
New and fixed pages can be cited within weeks of indexing. Stable, repeated recommendations usually take a few months because they depend on mentions and reviews building up.
Want to know what GEO would involve for your business?
We will run a baseline check of what ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity say about your niche and send you a written scope, not a vague package.
Call: +40 758 80 20 20 SEO and GEO services