A new category. Priced like work, not like a subscription.
What AI SEO costs and why it is not a separate invoice
Being cited by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews is not a product you switch on. It is search work aimed at a different surface, and it is priced the same way — by how far you are from the answer today and how contested that answer is.
Why it is not a separate line item
The overlap is most of the work.
An AI assistant answers by assembling what it read: your pages, plus the review sites, community threads and roundups it trusts. That is the same raw material classic SEO produces. A site with poor technical health and thin topical depth struggles to be cited however cleverly its pages are structured.
What AI SEO adds on top is real but narrower — extractable structure, crawler access, and earned presence on the specific sources feeding your category’s answers. Sold as a standalone product it would be overpriced for what is genuinely new. Run as one engine, most of the cost is shared.
What actually moves the price
- 01
How many prompts you need to own
Tracking and winning five buying-intent prompts is a different scope from a category-wide set of two hundred. The prompt set is built during scoping, so you see the size of the job before you commit to it.
- 02
Whether the sources are winnable
Some categories are answered from a handful of review platforms you can realistically get onto. Others lean on publications with long lead times. That difference changes the effort more than anything on your own site does.
- 03
The state of your crawler access
If GPTBot is blocked or your pages render empty without JavaScript, that is a short, cheap fix with a large effect. If everything is already open, the work starts further up the curve and costs accordingly.
- 04
How contested the answer already is
Displacing a well-represented incumbent takes more sustained third-party work than entering an answer nobody owns yet. Both are possible; they are not the same price.
Packages
The three ways we work
The same three packages as classic SEO — AI visibility is run as part of the same engine, not a separate menu.
Foundation
Set at scoping
One-time engagement
- Crawler access, llms.txt and structured data fixed once
- Priority pages rebuilt so assistants can extract them
- A one-time technical clean-up of AI readability, not an ongoing programme
- A baseline read on where you currently stand in AI answers
Growth
Set at scoping
Ongoing retainer
- TechDevs runs as your dedicated AI-visibility team month to month
- A tracked buying-intent prompt set, reported on an ongoing cadence
- Content written for both the ranking and the quote
- Earned presence on the third-party sources your answers are assembled from
Enterprise
Set at scoping
Advisory engagement
- TechDevs works alongside your in-house team as consultants
- Strategy and working sessions on which prompts and surfaces to contest
- A quarterly roadmap for aggressive AI-visibility growth
- Senior oversight rather than day-to-day execution
Why the traffic is worth more per visit
Visitors arriving from an AI assistant have already had the comparison done for them, so they land further through the decision than a typical organic click. For our compliance-SaaS client those visitors converted 4.4 times better than classic organic traffic — a multiple that matches Semrush’s analysis of 30 million AI-referral sessions.
That does not make the work cheap. It does mean a smaller volume of citations can be worth more than a larger volume of rankings, which is why we scope against the prompts closest to a purchase rather than the ones with the most searches.
Find out if your prompts are winnable
Run the free AI visibility checker first, then bring the result to a 30-minute call. We will tell you honestly whether the answers in your category are contested or closed.
FAQ
Questions buyers ask us first.
How much does AI SEO cost?
It runs as a monthly retainer sized to how competitive your category is and how far your current citation share sits from where it needs to be. There is no sticker price, because the number depends on how many prompts you need to own and how contested those answers already are. We scope it on a first call and give you a real range.
Should I buy AI SEO separately from regular SEO?
Usually not. AI answers are assembled from the same content and third-party authority that classic rankings depend on, so most of the work is shared and buying them separately means paying twice for the overlap. The genuinely additional part — extractable structure, crawler access, earned presence on cited sources — is narrower than most vendors imply.
Is AI SEO worth paying for yet?
It depends entirely on whether your buyers ask an assistant before they shortlist. In considered B2B and high-ticket purchases many now do, and being absent from that shortlist costs the enquiry regardless of your rankings. In categories decided on price and proximity, local search is still where the money is.
Can you guarantee my brand gets mentioned?
No, and nobody can. Model output is not controlled by any agency, so a guaranteed mention is a promise about someone else’s system. What we will do is tell you before you commit whether your prompts look winnable, and report citation share weekly so you can see movement rather than take it on trust.
What happens if the models change how they answer?
They will, repeatedly, and answers are reassembled on every crawl rather than banked. That is why this is a retainer rather than a project: holding a citation is continuous work. The underlying levers — being genuinely useful, being readable, being referenced by trusted sources — have been stable even as the models have not.
What happens next
- Answer a few quick questions about your business. About two minutes.
- Pick a time that suits you for a free 30-minute call with a founder.
- We study your site before the call, so you leave with a plan, not a pitch.
Free, no obligation. Your answers save as you go, so you can stop and pick up where you left off.