How much does GEO cost? UK, US, UAE and India prices

Why GEO quotes vary so much

GEO (generative engine optimisation) is the work of getting AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini to name your brand when buyers ask for a recommendation. AEO (answer engine optimisation) covers much the same ground, and many providers sell the two together, often with SEO.

There is no standard package yet, so two GEO quotes can cover very different amounts of work.

GEO pricing per month: what companies spend

Clutch surveyed 600 marketing professionals in August 2025. 78% said their company funds GEO. Monthly GEO budgets broke down like this:

• 25% spend under $500
• 32% spend $500 to $2,000
• 16% spend $2,000 to $5,000
• 10% spend more than $5,000

These are budgets, so they can include tools and staff time as well as agency fees.

The four ways GEO is priced

Monthly retainer. The usual model for ongoing search work. Ahrefs polled 439 SEO providers and found that 78.2% charge a monthly retainer. GEO suits it, because AI answers change and need tracking month after month.

One-off audit. A fixed fee for a baseline and a short plan. We couldn't find a reliable survey of GEO audit prices, so ask exactly what's included.

Project. Fixed work, such as rewriting service pages. Backlinko's survey says project pricing for SEO generally falls between $1,000 and $5,000.

Hourly. For advice or training your team. Backlinko found SEO consultants usually charge $50 to $100 an hour, with senior specialists in the US, UK and Australia averaging $130 and experts $180.

Prices by market: UK, US, UAE and India

We found no published survey of GEO prices by country, so SEO pricing is the closest guide.

UK and US. Backlinko groups these with Australia. There, 34% of SEO providers offer retainers of $2,501 to $5,000 a month, and 19% offer plans above $5,000.

India. Backlinko found retainers under $500 a month mostly in emerging markets: 42% of providers in India and Latin America offer them. Backlinko also found that US-based SEO services cost 3 to 5 times more than those from emerging markets.

UAE. We found no reliable price survey for the UAE. Ask each provider for a written scope to compare the work behind each quote.

Our own prices, as one data point. Our AI Search retainer starts at £1,200 a month in the UK, $1,600 in the US, AED 4,750 in the UAE, ₹75,000 + GST in India and €1,400 in the EU. Each month includes 4 articles, 4 branded mentions on other sites and 10 technical fixes, with AI citations and the visits and enquiries from AI tools and Google tracked and reported. These are starting prices. We give an exact quote after a call, with a written scope.

What drives the price

Buyer questions tracked. AI answers vary between chats, so each question needs asking several times. When we asked ChatGPT for the best employment law firm in the UK for a small business, no firm was named in all five asks and 14 different firms came up. Tracking tools can price this way too: on monthly billing, Otterly.AI's Lite plan is $29 a month for 15 prompts, and its Standard plan $189 for 100.

Markets and languages. Each new market or language means a new set of questions, and the sources behind the answers can differ.

Content volume. More articles and pages each month means more research and writing time.

Outside mentions and digital PR. In our runs, the sources ChatGPT showed included round-up lists, directories and news pages. Getting onto them takes outreach, and some placements carry a fee.

Reporting. Repeating the same questions the same way every month takes time, and it's how you see whether anything moved.

What you should get for the money

Whatever you pay, expect:

• A baseline in the first month: your main buyer questions, each asked several times, showing who was named and which sources the answers used.
• A written scope with counted work each month, such as articles, outside mentions and site fixes.
• The same questions tracked the same way every month, and a clear note of anything paid.
• No promise that ChatGPT will name you. No one controls what AI assistants say.

For questions to ask before you sign, see our guide to hiring a GEO agency in Dubai. They apply in any market.

How GEO cost compares with SEO

Backlinko puts the average monthly cost of SEO at $1,000 to $2,500. In Clutch's survey, 57% of GEO budgets were under $2,000 a month. So most GEO budgets are at or below the average monthly cost of SEO.

Much of the work overlaps: clear service pages, technical fixes, articles and outside mentions help on Google and in AI answers. If you already pay for SEO, ask what GEO would add, so you don't pay twice. We run SEO, AEO and GEO as one retainer for that reason.

What to try yourself first

• Run a 5-minute check. Ask ChatGPT your buyer's question five times, logged out, in fresh chats, and count who gets named. Here's how.
• Open Bing Webmaster Tools. Its free AI Performance report shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and in AI summaries in Bing.
• Say who you serve, where, and what it costs. In our UK employment law run, several firms ChatGPT named published a monthly price on their own pages, and ChatGPT repeated two of those prices.
• Check the round-ups. Search "best [your category] in [your market]" and note which lists leave you out. Here's why those lists matter.

FAQ

How much does GEO cost per month? In Clutch's survey, 57% of GEO budgets were under $2,000 a month and 10% were over $5,000.

How much does a GEO agency cost in the UK? We couldn't find a UK-only GEO price survey. In Backlinko's SEO survey, 34% of providers in the US, UK and Australia offer retainers of $2,501 to $5,000 a month. Ours starts at £1,200 a month.

Is AEO agency pricing different from GEO pricing? Many providers price them together, because the work is largely the same: clear pages, outside mentions and tracking AI answers. If a quote lists them separately, ask what each line adds.

Can anyone guarantee that ChatGPT will name us? No. No one controls what AI assistants say, and answers change between chats. Judge a provider on the agreed work it delivers and whether your counts move.

Check where you stand first

Before you ask for a quote, run our free AI visibility checker. It asks ChatGPT and Perplexity the question your buyers ask and shows who they name. If you'd like help getting named more often, see our AI Search service.