Start here: if AEO, GEO and AIO still blur together, read SEO vs AIO vs AEO vs GEO: What Actually Changes first. It explains what each discipline optimizes for.
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the work of becoming the source that assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews name when someone asks a question. Because the discipline is young, agency pricing is all over the place: some list a four-figure retainer, some ask for a five-figure minimum, and many publish nothing at all. This guide lines up what agencies actually publish in 2026, so you can tell a fair quote from an inflated one. (If you want the wider picture across AEO, GEO and AI-driven SEO, see our AI search optimization cost breakdown.)
The short answer
Published AEO retainers cluster in four bands. Entry programs run about $800 to $2,500 per month, starter and growth programs about $2,500 to $5,000, mid-market programs about $3,000 to $10,000, and enterprise or category-leadership scopes $10,000 to $25,000 or more. One-off audits are usually priced separately, either as a fixed project or by the hour.
Published AEO retainer ranges by tier
Tier names and ranges as each source labels them, September 2026. These are ranges to guide you: they overlap because agencies scope differently.
- Entry
- $800–$1,500 / month
- Monitor and maintain
- $1,000–$2,500 / month
- Starter
- $2,500–$4,500 / month
- Growth
- $3,000–$5,000 / month
- Active optimization
- $3,000–$8,000 / month
- Mid-market
- $5,000–$10,000 / month
- Category leadership
- $10,000–$25,000+ / month
- Enterprise
- $15,000–$25,000+ / month
Sources: The Answer Engine (Entry, Growth), Digital Elevator (Monitor and maintain, Active optimization, Category leadership), AI Advantage Agency (Starter, Mid-market, Enterprise). Bars are capped at $24k.
What each tier usually covers
| Tier | Monthly range | What is typically included |
|---|---|---|
| Entry / monitor and maintain | $800–$2,500 | Monitoring on one or two AI platforms, quarterly schema and FAQ updates, basic reporting on AI visibility. Best for businesses testing the channel. |
| Starter | $2,500–$4,500 | Core schema types (FAQ, Article, Organization), 2–4 pages optimized each month, tracking on two AI platforms and monthly reporting. |
| Growth / active optimization | $3,000–$8,000 | Monthly content sprints, entity optimization, structured data work, and digital PR or citation building for competitive B2B industries. |
| Mid-market | $5,000–$10,000 | Expanded schema (LocalBusiness, Product, Person, Service), 6–10 monthly optimizations, 3–4 platforms tracked and bi-weekly reporting with benchmarking. |
| Enterprise / category leadership | $10,000–$25,000+ | Custom schema architecture, site-wide optimization, 5+ platforms, original research and coordinated PR, and executive-level reporting. |
AEO agencies compared: what they list as a starting price
Here is how a handful of agencies present their pricing. North Blue is listed first; the others are the starting figures published in agency directories and reviews, and they change often. Several of these agencies focus on venture-backed SaaS, which is part of why their minimums sit higher.
| Agency | Best fit | Listed starting price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Blue Agency | Small and mid-sized businesses that want AEO, GEO and technical SEO together, in English and Spanish | SEO from $900/month | Published tiers on the pricing page. |
| Flow Agency | Early-stage teams | $1,000 minimum project | As listed in a public agency directory. |
| Epic Slope Partners | Early-stage B2B SaaS | From about $1,500 | Its own FAQ says pricing is set after a discovery call. |
| Skale | Growing B2B SaaS | From $4,000/month | Published on its own AEO agency directory. |
| Omniscient Digital | Established B2B SaaS | $5,000+ minimum project, or about $10,000/month | A directory lists $5,000+; a third-party review reports $10,000/month with a six-month minimum. |
| iPullRank | Enterprise | $50,000+ minimum project | As listed in the same directory. |
One caveat: the Skale directory is published by an agency that is also on the list, so treat its figures as a starting point to verify.
Audits, hourly work and contracts
Not everything is a retainer. One agency quotes audits at $100 to $250 per hour, typically 8 to 20 hours, and project engagements at 4 to 12 weeks. Another puts a scoped audit and restructuring at $2,500 to $5,000, and fixed-fee schema or audit projects reach $5,000 to $50,000 depending on scope. On terms, month-to-month arrangements with no annual contract are common and reasonable for a discipline this new.
What actually moves the price
- Market competitiveness. A personal injury firm in a major city costs more to make citable than a suburban HVAC company.
- Number of AI platforms tracked. Two platforms and five platforms are different reporting workloads.
- Content volume and cadence. Two optimized pages a month versus ten changes the whole staffing model.
- Technical complexity. Multi-location schema and messy legacy sites take longer to get right.
- Reporting depth. Monthly summaries and weekly executive reports are not the same product.
How to compare quotes
- Ask for deliverables in numbers: pages optimized, schema types added, platforms tracked, report frequency.
- Ask how citations are measured: which engines, which questions, how often.
- Be wary of guaranteed citations. Nobody controls what a model quotes.
- Check that a person reviews everything published, even if AI helps draft it.
- Do not read a low or high price as a quality signal on its own. Deliverables matter more than the label on the invoice.
What an AEO agency does each month, and what you are paying for
An AEO agency charges for three jobs that repeat every month: measuring which AI answers mention your brand, fixing what stops engines from citing you, and producing content in answer format. When you compare quotes, you are really comparing how much of each job fits inside the retainer.
Here is what that cycle looks like when we run it at North Blue:
- Measurement. We run your buyers’ question set in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews, and log who gets cited in each answer. The list stays the same every month, so changes are comparable.
- Technical fixes. We remove what blocks citation: AI crawler access, structured data, and a consistent name, category and location across your site and external profiles.
- Content. We rewrite or create the pages that should answer those questions, with the answer in the first sentence and the facts a model needs to cite you. A person reviews everything before it goes live.
- Reporting. Answer presence, citation quality and qualified leads from those channels, with next month’s plan already set.
In our engagements AEO typically shows results within 3 to 6 months, as laid out in our SEO vs AIO vs AEO vs GEO comparison. If you are weighing a one-off audit first, our AI search optimization cost breakdown explains what an AEO audit includes and what it costs.
AEO agencies and pricing: common questions
We answer the most common questions about our services
What does an AEO agency do?
It measures which answers from assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews mention your brand, fixes the technical issues that stop engines from citing you, and produces content in answer format. A monthly report tracks answer presence, citation quality and qualified leads.
How much does an AEO agency charge per month?
In published ranges, entry programs run about $800 to $2,500 per month, starter and growth programs about $2,500 to $5,000, mid-market programs $3,000 to $10,000, and enterprise scopes $10,000 to $25,000 or more.
How do I choose an AEO agency?
Ask for deliverables in numbers, ask which engines and questions they will track and how often, treat any guaranteed citation as a red flag, and check that a person reviews everything that gets published.
How long does AEO take to show results?
In our engagements AEO typically shows results within 3 to 6 months. Technical fixes can register sooner, but stable presence in AI answers is built month by month.
Where to start
For most small and mid-sized businesses, a starter-level program is the sensible first step: fix the technical foundation, turn key pages into clear answers, and begin measuring citations before scaling content. If you want a scope for your own site, talk to us, or explore our AEO service, the AEO glossary entry and the related GEO service.
Sources: tier ranges from The Answer Engine, Digital Elevator, AI Advantage Agency and Fuel Online; agency starting prices from the Skale AEO agency directory, the Derivatex Omniscient Digital review and Epic Slope Partners. Reviewed in September 2026; prices change, so verify before you decide.
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