Costs & pricing
Generative engine optimization services: what arrives on the first of the month.
There are three ways to buy this work — a retainer, a tool, or a closed-loop product — and vendors blur them on purpose. Side by side on the only axis that matters: who writes, who publishes, who proves it worked, and what it costs, with every band sourced and verified August 2026.
Updated 2026-10-02 · Prices and data verified 2026-08-11
Search for generative engine optimization services and you will get agencies, software, and a few things in between, all using the same words for different products. The way through is to stop asking what a vendor calls itself and ask what arrives on the first of the month: a report and a call, a dashboard refresh, or a set of changes that were drafted, approved, published and re-measured. Those are three different purchases. GEO services, honestly compared, is that table — and then the questions that separate a provider doing the work from one selling the vocabulary.
The three purchases, side by side
| Compared on | A retainerpeople | A toolmeasurement | A closed loopthe sequence |
|---|---|---|---|
| What arrives on the first of the month | A report, a call, and whatever the team shipped — pages, schema, outreach — depending on the retainer's scope. | A dashboard refresh: who the engines named, on your question set. | Scan results, plus the drafts the system prepared and you approved, plus whether the answer moved. |
| Who does the writing | The agency's writers, at the retainer's cadence. | You, or nobody. | The system drafts; a person approves before anything publishes. |
| Who publishes | Usually the agency, if it has CMS access; otherwise you, from their drafts. | You. | Pulled to WordPress automatically after approval; paste-ready elsewhere. |
| Who proves it worked | The report — ask what it measures and whether it shows the answers themselves. | The dashboard — a score, sometimes the answers. | Re-scans on the same questions, with the dated change and the dated citation side by side. |
| Published price band | $2,000–6,000/month for a boutique retainer (verified August 2026); mid-market bands could not be verified and are not stated. | $29–495/month, engines and prompts metered. | $149–549/month here, with a 7-day trial. |
| Best when | You want strategy and humans in the loop, have budget for both, and can hold a vendor to a measured report. | You have a writer and a publishing process and only lack the measurement. | You have neither a writer nor a process and one approver who can press a button. |
What arrives on the first of the month
A retainer
A report, a call, and whatever the team shipped — pages, schema, outreach — depending on the retainer's scope.
A tool
A dashboard refresh: who the engines named, on your question set.
A closed loop
Scan results, plus the drafts the system prepared and you approved, plus whether the answer moved.
Who does the writing
A retainer
The agency's writers, at the retainer's cadence.
A tool
You, or nobody.
A closed loop
The system drafts; a person approves before anything publishes.
Who publishes
A retainer
Usually the agency, if it has CMS access; otherwise you, from their drafts.
A tool
You.
A closed loop
Pulled to WordPress automatically after approval; paste-ready elsewhere.
Who proves it worked
A retainer
The report — ask what it measures and whether it shows the answers themselves.
A tool
The dashboard — a score, sometimes the answers.
A closed loop
Re-scans on the same questions, with the dated change and the dated citation side by side.
Published price band
A retainer
$2,000–6,000/month for a boutique retainer (verified August 2026); mid-market bands could not be verified and are not stated.
A tool
$29–495/month, engines and prompts metered.
A closed loop
$149–549/month here, with a 7-day trial.
Best when
A retainer
You want strategy and humans in the loop, have budget for both, and can hold a vendor to a measured report.
A tool
You have a writer and a publishing process and only lack the measurement.
A closed loop
You have neither a writer nor a process and one approver who can press a button.
Price bands from lib/seo/market-data.ts AGENCY_RETAINER and TOOL_PRICE_BAND and lib/pricing.ts PLANS (verified August 2026). A mid-market retainer band failed verification and is deliberately absent. The deliverable rows are our description of what each model can structurally provide.
What the work is, whichever way you buy it
The paper that coined the term tested nothing but content changes and found that pages carrying quotations, statistics and citations were drawn into answers more, while keyword stuffing scored below the baseline. That is worth holding onto when a proposal arrives, because it means the deliverable — under any name — is pages that contain evidence and are live where a machine can read them, plus the measurement that shows whether an answer changed. A service that hands over a strategy deck and a score has delivered neither. The paper is read directly on its own page.
What a retainer should contain, in writing
- A fixed question set. The buyer questions the engines will be asked about you — the list, not a keyword strategy.
- A named engine set, and how each is read: live interface, API, or a model asked what it believes. Those are different measurements.
- A publishing commitment. Pages or fixes per month, and who holds CMS access. A draft nobody publishes has no visibility.
- A measurement clause. The same questions re-asked on a schedule, with the answers shown. A score alone is a number you cannot check.
Three questions that expose a vendor selling vocabulary
Ask them of an agency, a tool, or us, and ignore the acronym on the proposal.
- Which questions will you ask the engines about my business — can I see the list?
- Which engines, and how do you read each one?
- Will I see the actual answers each month, or only a number?
A provider who answers all three plainly is doing the work. One who answers with a methodology deck is selling the word. Neither the name AEO nor the name GEO tells you which you are talking to.
When each is the right buy
A retainer, when strategy is the missing piece: a positioning problem, a multi-market governance problem, a category where the questions themselves are unclear. Humans are good at those. Hold the retainer to the four items above.
A tool, when you already have a writer and a publishing process and lack only the measurement. Buy the measurement and keep the writer.
A closed loop, when you have neither a writer nor a process and one person who can approve a draft. That is what we sell, from $149/month with a 7-day trial; the offer itself, and seven questions to ask before signing, are on the services page. If you have a review board rather than one approver, it is the wrong shape, and the enterprise page says so.
The line item every proposal leaves out
Whichever you buy, the work never finishes, because the engines never settle: 40–60% of the sources AI cites change every month (eMarketer, 2026). A proposal with an end date is describing a project; the work is a standing function. Price it as one.
08 · FAQ
The service questions, sourced.
What do generative engine optimization services actually include?
How much do GEO services cost?
What should a GEO retainer contain?
How do I tell a real GEO provider from one selling the vocabulary?
When does a retainer genuinely beat a tool or a product?
How long before a service shows results?
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