Cape Wired · GEO & AI Search Guides
How Much Does GEO and AI Search Optimisation Cost?
What GEO and AI search optimisation cost, what you are actually paying for, and how to tell a credible proposal from a promise nobody can keep.
In short: GEO is usually priced as a one-off visibility review, a fixed-scope implementation project or monthly support. The price depends on how many brands, markets, products, competitors, prompts and AI platforms are involved, and on how much website and content work is needed. At Cape Wired, an AI Visibility Review is £995, a GEO Foundation Project starts at £4,000, and ongoing support starts at £1,250 a month. No provider can honestly guarantee that AI tools will mention or recommend your brand.
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is still new enough that pricing varies wildly. Some offers are a report and a few prompt screenshots. Others include research, website changes, content and months of measurement. Without a common reference point, it is hard to know what a fair price looks like.
This guide explains what GEO work involves, what drives the cost, what each level of budget realistically buys and how to judge whether the investment is working. Where it helps, it uses Cape Wired's own published prices as worked examples.
In this guide
What are you actually paying for with GEO?
Credible GEO work is less about tricks and more about making accurate, useful information about your business easy to find, understand and trust. A typical engagement covers some or all of the following:
- Research: the customer questions and prompts that matter commercially, and how AI tools currently answer them.
- Visibility measurement: where your brand and competitors are mentioned, cited or recommended across a defined prompt set.
- Website improvements: clearer brand, product and service information, stronger commercial pages and accurate structured data.
- Content: answer-led guides and comparisons built around real customer problems, connected to the pages that sell.
- Evidence: consistency across profiles, reviews and third-party sources that AI tools may draw on.
- Monitoring: repeating the measurement over time so changes can be compared against a baseline.
Why do GEO prices vary so much?
The scope drivers are similar to SEO, with a few additions specific to AI search:
- Brands and websites: each brand needs its own research, prompts and measurement.
- Markets and languages: AI answers can differ by country and language.
- Catalogue size: a few hero products need far less work than thousands of SKUs.
- Competitor set: more named competitors means more comparison and analysis.
- Prompt set and platforms: tracking more prompts across more AI tools takes more time to run and interpret.
- Implementation: recommendations alone cost less than recommendations plus the website and content work to act on them.
What are the main GEO pricing models?
One-off visibility review
A fixed fee to establish how your brand appears today, against which competitors, and what to fix first. Best as a starting point. Watch for reviews based on a handful of unrepeatable prompts.
Fixed-scope project
A defined set of website, content and information improvements around one priority product, category or customer problem. Watch for projects with no baseline to measure against.
Monthly support
Regular monitoring, interpretation and improvement. Best once there is a baseline and a clear list of priorities. Watch for retainers that report numbers without changing anything.
AI visibility tool subscription
A tool can track prompts and mentions, but it does not decide what to change or make the changes. Useful alongside a service, rarely a substitute for one.
What does each level of GEO budget buy?
As a practical example, here is how Cape Wired's published GEO prices map to different stages. Starting prices assume one brand, one website and one principal market.
AI Visibility Review
A structured review of how one brand appears across an agreed set of prompts, competitors and supported AI platforms: prompt and topic research, brand and competitor visibility, mentions, citations and sentiment, a website and content-gap assessment, a prioritised 30, 60 and 90-day action plan and a findings call.
GEO Foundation Project
A first implementation project around one priority opportunity: brand and product-information improvements, priority commercial page optimisation, one pillar page or guide, up to three supporting articles, internal linking, implementation QA and measurement notes.
AI Visibility Support
Defined prompt and competitor monitoring, monthly interpretation, limited website or content improvements, product-information consistency checks, SEO and GEO priority planning, and a monthly report and review call.
GEO Growth Programme
A faster pace: expanded prompt and competitor tracking, regular answer-led content, product and collection improvements, entity and brand-content work, structured-data and technical implementation, and detailed monthly analysis.
Large or international programmes
Multiple brands, websites, countries or languages, large catalogues, extensive competitor groups or specialist prompt sets.
For most businesses, the lowest-risk route is a review to set the baseline, a focused project to fix what matters most, and ongoing support only once you can see what is working. That is a Cape Wired recommendation, not an industry rule.
What is usually not included in a GEO price?
Some work varies too much to fit inside a starting price. Expect these to be scoped separately:
- additional brands, markets, languages, prompt groups and platforms
- digital PR
- large-scale content production
- extensive technical remediation
- major theme development
- custom software
A review is also a diagnosis, not implementation. Check whether a quote includes the work to act on its findings, and who will do it.
Do you need to pay for SEO and GEO separately?
Not always. The foundations overlap heavily: crawlable pages, clear product and service information, useful content and strong internal links help in traditional search and in AI search. Google says established SEO fundamentals continue to apply to its AI features.
The GEO-specific parts are mainly prompt research, AI visibility measurement and attention to how your brand is described across the wider web. If you already invest in SEO, ask whether that work can include AI visibility monitoring rather than buying two separate programmes. Cape Wired's ongoing ecommerce SEO support, for example, already includes search and AI visibility monitoring.
Should you buy an AI visibility tool or a GEO service?
Tools measure. Services interpret and implement. A tracking tool can show how often your brand appears for a set of prompts, but it will not tell you why a competitor is recommended instead, which pages to change or what evidence is missing.
Many businesses benefit from both: a tool for consistent tracking, and expert time to decide and deliver the changes. If a provider's service is mostly a tool's dashboard with their logo on it, the price should reflect that.
How do you judge whether GEO is worth the cost?
Agree what will be measured before the work starts. Useful measures include:
- brand visibility across a fixed prompt set
- citations of your own pages
- how often you are recommended, not just mentioned
- share of voice against named competitors
- referral traffic from AI tools
- enquiries and sales from the pages you improved
As an example, RUNESILK's beard-dandruff project combined Shopify improvements, an eight-part educational content cluster, technical SEO, internal linking and GEO-focused content structure. The shampoo went from 5 to 10 units a month to 137 on Amazon UK alone between 15 September and 15 October 2026, before counting Shopify sales. That came from a connected programme of work, not one isolated change. Within the prompts, competitors and platforms monitored, tracked brand visibility reached 50%, share of voice 17.24% and the average rank 1.10. These figures relate to defined reporting periods and a defined monitoring set, and do not represent every possible AI answer.
Results take time to appear and vary between platforms. For realistic timescales, see How Long Does It Take to Improve AI Search Visibility?
What are the red flags in a GEO proposal?
- Guaranteed AI mentions or recommendations. No one controls how AI tools answer.
- A single trick sold as the fix, such as "AI schema" or an llms.txt file on its own.
- Fake reviews, mentions or citations. They mislead customers and can breach platform policies.
- Screenshots instead of measurement. One answer on one day proves very little.
- No baseline. Without one, progress cannot be shown.
- No changes to your website or content. Reporting alone does not move visibility.
What should you ask before paying for GEO?
- Which prompts, competitors and AI platforms will be tracked, and how often?
- What baseline will you record before work starts?
- What will you change on our website, and who implements it?
- How does this work connect to our existing SEO?
- What is excluded from the price?
- How will you report results without overstating them?
Quick answers: GEO pricing
How much does GEO cost per month?
The monthly cost depends on how much monitoring, content and implementation is included. At Cape Wired, AI Visibility Support starts at £1,250 a month and the GEO Growth Programme starts at £2,000 a month.
What does a £995 AI Visibility Review include?
One brand, one website, one principal market and an agreed set of prompts, competitors and platforms, with a prioritised 30, 60 and 90-day action plan and a findings call. It is a diagnostic, so implementation is separate.
Is GEO more expensive than SEO?
Not necessarily. At Cape Wired, monthly SEO and GEO support start at the same prices (from £1,250 and £2,000 a month), and much of the foundation work overlaps. The GEO-specific cost is mainly prompt research and AI visibility measurement.
Can anyone guarantee my brand will appear in ChatGPT or Google AI answers?
No. AI tools decide what to include, answers vary between users, platforms and days, and no provider controls them. Credible GEO improves the information available and measures the change honestly.
Do you work with brands outside the UK?
Yes. Cape Wired is based in Cambridgeshire, UK, and works with clients worldwide. Prices are shown in pounds sterling, and additional markets or languages are scoped individually.
Cape Wired GEO & AI Search Visibility
Find out where your brand stands in AI search
The £995 AI Visibility Review shows how your brand appears across an agreed set of prompts, competitors and AI platforms today, and what to fix first.
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