How much does GEO cost — and what should you pay for?

Buy a work programme, not a screenshot.

You ask ChatGPT to recommend a provider in your market. Competitors appear; your company does not. The tempting next step is to buy a service that promises to put you first. Before signing, ask what the provider will actually change.

A useful GEO proposal connects the diagnosis with deliverables. If your service pages are unclear, it should name the pages to rewrite. If the site blocks search access, it should include a technical fix. If profiles describe different businesses, it should explain which information will be corrected.

You are paying for that work, its implementation and its verification. An attractive answer screenshot can illustrate a result, but it does not tell you which question was tested, how often the brand appeared or whether a customer ever contacted the business.

What does “GEO from $1,500” mean at BeeCited?

It is the starting price for an agreed project, not the cost of buying a position in an AI answer. Projects run from 60 days. Before work starts, we define the market, languages, priority services and changes your website needs.

The programme connects website development or improvements, content, consistent brand information, relevant external mentions and measurement. Analytics, tags, client-owned advertising accounts, social profiles and an eligible Google Business Profile are included within the agreed scope. Profile maintenance continues during the project.

A large rebuild, several markets or extensive integrations can change the quote. Ask for a page list, deliverables and exclusions before comparing prices. Advertising spend and third-party costs should be agreed separately rather than hidden in the word “turnkey”.

A $1,500 project can be $500 per month.

For example, if we agree on a three-month project with a total price of $1,500, the payment schedule can be three monthly instalments of $500. You spread the cost across the period when the work takes place.

The total is still $1,500. This example is a payment schedule, not a separate $500 service or a promise that every project lasts three months. The final scope, amount and dates are confirmed before the start.

For a small business, this can make a coordinated programme easier to budget than paying the whole amount at once. It also gives you a reason to agree on monthly deliverables: what gets published, what gets fixed and what will be checked next.

Do you need the whole programme yet?

A missing recommendation does not automatically mean you need every service. Start with the business problem. If customers cannot understand your offer or the website fails on mobile, promoting it more widely will not repair that experience.

The prices below are BeeCited starting prices for different scopes, not market averages or interchangeable packages. A focused improvement can be the sensible first purchase when the problem is contained.

Five questions that make quotes comparable.

Ask both providers to answer for the same market and languages. A quote for advice alone cannot be compared fairly with a quote that includes development, publishing and ongoing profile work. Keep account ownership and access in the agreement too.

• What did you find in our current website and public brand information?
• Which pages, profiles, integrations and publications will you work on?
• Who implements the changes, and what must our team supply or approve?
• Which tools, placements, advertising costs and ongoing fees are outside the quote?
• How will you distinguish brand mentions, source links, visits and qualified inquiries?

What should you see in a progress report?

Start with a saved baseline: relevant customer questions, the original answers, test conditions and the sources used. Repeat a stable question set. Alongside visibility, report the actual pages published, technical fixes and corrected profiles.

Then look at visits and inquiries separately. Being named in an answer is not the same as receiving a visit, and a visit is not automatically a qualified lead. A report should make those differences visible instead of adding everything into one impressive number.

Set commercial expectations using your own business. Illustrative calculation: if a completed sale contributes $500 after delivery costs, three additional sales would cover a $1,500 project fee. That is a budgeting exercise, not a forecast of what GEO will produce.

A special AI file is not a complete service.

Google’s guidance says the usual SEO foundations apply to its AI features. A proposal built only around new files or special markup leaves the website and offer untouched.

Technical discovery files can be useful parts of a site. They should support readable pages, accurate information and working navigation. Ask what changes for the customer after the implementation, not just which acronym is added.

Be careful with guaranteed positions in independent AI products. A provider can commit to deliverables and a repeatable measurement method. It cannot choose every answer a platform will give to every person.

Google: AI features and your website

Get a scope you can actually compare.

Send us your website, target market, working languages and the service you most want to sell. If you have already checked AI answers, include the questions and screenshots as starting evidence.

We can then discuss whether a focused fix or a full GEO project fits the situation. You will have a defined scope, total price and payment schedule to evaluate before committing.