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Cost guide

How much does AI search optimisation cost in 2026?

A monthly AI search programme runs $500–$3K per month at the direct rate, priced against what ships each month rather than against citations, which nobody can sell. The foundations sprint (a fixed scope at a fixed price, with an end date) and the per-page restructure are priced on their own below, and every figure becomes a written proposal within 48 hours.

Request this optionSee the full rate card

Direct rate, in ₹ or $ · Itemised proposal in 48 hrs

The range

What it costs,
at the direct rate.

One practice for being cited in AI answers (AEO, GEO and Google AI Overviews), priced as a foundations sprint, a monthly programme, or per page for teams that run their own SEO; the visibility audit stays free, and nothing here promises a citation.

  • One-offFoundations sprint$500–$2.5Kone-time
  • RetainerMonthly AI search programme$500–$3Kper month
  • Per unitAnswer-first restructure, per page$150–$400per page

Indicative: every figure is refined into an itemised proposal within 48 hours.INR figures shown excl. GST.

Every option includes a Prism workspace for requests, approvals, tasks and the weekly review.

What moves the price

Why the range
is a range.

01

Which lanes are in scope

AI search is one practice split into lanes. AEO is being cited by answer engines such as ChatGPT and Perplexity. GEO is being described correctly by generative engines that synthesise an answer. AI Overviews is Google's AI layer above the results. Work on your own pages is the bottom of the range. Adding the third-party corpus, the sites and databases engines read about you, adds outreach hours and moves the number up.

Biggest lever
02

How much foundation exists

Engines cite what they can reach and parse. A site that blocks GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended in its robots rules, CDN or firewall is invisible before a word is written. Valid structured data (schema, the markup that tells engines what a page is) and one consistent description of the business make a short sprint. A site with neither pays to build the foundation first.

Hidden lever
03

How many questions buyers ask

The programme works from a question map: the questions buyers put to an engine that your pages should answer. A focused product with a short map needs few pages restructured or written. A category with a long tail of comparison, pricing and how-to questions needs many, and each is research, writing and schema. The free visibility review sizes the map.

Content lever
04

How the web describes you today

Generative engines compose an answer from what they trust about you, and much of that lives off your site: profiles, directories, reviews and the databases that feed the models. Where those agree with your site, entity work is light. Where they carry an old name, a wrong category or a competitor's description, aligning them is correction and outreach, and it moves the programme up the range.

Corpus lever
05

Whether classic SEO is in place

Engines draw on the same authority signals Google ranks with. A site with strong fundamentals pays for the answer layer only. A site with weak crawling, thin pages and no earned links cannot be optimised for AI on top, and the visibility audit says so. Where the fundamentals need work, it is priced under SEO, not hidden here.

Often forgotten
06

Markets and languages

Each market has its own question map, its own third-party corpus and its own engine behaviour, and each language multiplies the answer-first content. One market in one language is the bottom of the range. Several of each is a scope of its own, shown as separate lines so you can sequence them.

Scope lever
The options

Which option
fits your case.

Each option below is one way to buy AI search optimisation. Read what it is and who it fits, then request the one that matches your case; the proposal itemises it.

One-off

Foundations sprint

$500–$2.5Kone-time
What it is

The work everything else depends on, done once: the engines let in, the pages that sell made parsable and quotable, your business described one way across your site and profiles, and a dated baseline of where you are cited today, so any later claim can be judged against something.

Who it fits

Buyers starting from a site never prepared for AI engines, and anyone who wants to know where they stand before committing monthly. It does not fit a site whose fundamentals are broken, which needs technical SEO first, or a team that needs only a few pages restructured, which the per-page unit covers.

Included
  • Crawler access fixed for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended
  • Schema deployed and validated on money pages
  • Direct-answer blocks and question-form headings on the priority pages
  • One consistent description of your business (its entity) across your site and profiles
  • Dated citation baseline on an agreed question set across the major engines
Not included, quoted separately
  • Third-party corpus work and digital PR (the GEO lane)
  • New content production
  • Classic technical SEO fixes beyond crawler access
Turnaround
3 to 5 weeks
Moves the number
How much foundation exists: valid structured data and a consistent business description make a short sprint; a site blocking every AI crawler does not.
Request this option →
Retainer

Monthly AI search programme

$500–$3Kper month
What it is

The practice run monthly against the question map: pages shipped or restructured to answer first, your entity kept consistent everywhere machines read about it, access and markup re-checked as platforms change, citations spot-checked, and a weekly report that separates what is measured from what nobody can measure yet.

Who it fits

Businesses in categories where buying research now ends in an AI answer, with a site that can already be crawled and trusted. It does not fit a site with no classic SEO in place, or a buyer who wants a citation count in the contract, which we will not write.

Included
  • Answer-first pages shipped or restructured each month against a question map
  • Your business described consistently across site, profiles and the databases engines read
  • Monthly crawler-access and schema re-verification
  • Scheduled citation spot-checks across the major engines, recorded over time
  • Weekly report: AI-referral traffic, citation snapshots and classic rankings side by side
Not included, quoted separately
  • Digital PR and earned coverage beyond the included consistency work
  • Paid campaigns on AI platforms (see AI platform ads)
  • Long-form content production
Turnaround
Monthly, 3-month minimum; first fixes within 14 days of NDA
Moves the number
Which lanes are in scope: your own pages only sits at the bottom; adding the third-party corpus and earned coverage moves it up.
Request this option →
Per unit

Answer-first restructure, per page

$150–$400per page

One unit: one existing page restructured to be quotable: direct-answer block, question-form headings, page-level schema, and a before-and-after spot-check

What it is

One existing page made quotable, so that when a model lifts the answer it stands alone and names you as the source. It is the answer layer by the unit, applied to pages you already have.

Who it fits

Teams that run their own SEO and need only the answer layer on the pages buyers ask about. It does not fit a page with no target question, or a site that blocks AI crawlers, where the restructure cannot be read by the engine it was built for.

Included
  • Direct-answer block written from the page's target question
  • Headings and tables reshaped so the core answer stands alone
  • Page-level schema added and validated
  • Citation spot-check before and after
Not included, quoted separately
  • Net-new pages
  • Fixing how third-party sites describe you
  • Consolidating near-duplicate pages
Turnaround
5 working days per page; batches of 8 or more scheduled weekly
Moves the number
How much of the page has to be rewritten to answer its question first, rather than reordered.
Request this option →
Cheaper or dearer

What moves a quote
down, or up.

The proposal itemises pages, lanes and checks rather than citations, so each item below is a line you can trade in or out.

Brings the quote down
  • AI crawlers already allowed through robots rules, CDN and firewall
  • Valid structured data on the money pages and one description of the business everywhere
  • A short question map: a focused product with a clear set of buyer questions
  • A classic SEO programme already running beside the answer layer
  • One market, one language, and your own pages only
Pushes the quote up
  • The third-party corpus in scope: profiles, directories and databases to align, coverage to earn
  • A site blocking AI crawlers, with schema missing or invalid on the pages that sell
  • A long question map across comparison, pricing and how-to intent
  • An entity described wrongly off-site: an old name, a wrong category, a competitor's words
  • Several markets or languages, each with its own map and corpus
What you get

What the fee
actually buys.

The fee buys access, structure, consistency and measurement, with a weekly account of each. No citation is promised, because nobody outside the engine companies controls what a model quotes. The work that makes citation likely is.

01

Crawler access, verified and re-verified

GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended checked against your robots rules, CDN and firewall at the start and again each month, because a platform change can shut the door quietly.

02

Schema on the pages that sell

Organisation, service, product, article and FAQ markup deployed where it earns something and validated, so engines parse who is speaking instead of guessing.

03

Pages an engine can quote

Each priority page carries a direct-answer block and question-form headings, so the core answer stands alone when a model lifts it into a reply.

04

One description of your business, everywhere

Who you are, what you do and where you operate, stated the same way across your site, your profiles and the databases engines read.

05

A report that names its gaps

AI-referral traffic where analytics can see it and citation spot-checks on your question set, beside classic rankings, with the limits of each stated rather than papered over.

06

Everything in your name

The question map, the baseline, the content and every account stay yours from the first week. Leaving takes an email, not a recovery process.

AgenciesAgency partners buy at the partner rates on agencies.pixelcrayons.com; volume terms are agreed under NDA.

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Questions

Frequently
asked.

Because nobody can sell one. Engines change retrieval behaviour without notice, and nobody outside those companies controls what a model quotes. A per-citation price would reward chasing easy questions nobody buys from, or be a promise that cannot be kept. The fee buys the work that makes citation likely, itemised, and a dated report of where you were cited on an agreed question set.

No. They are lanes of one practice, and the foundations serve all of them: crawler access, schema, answer-first pages and a consistent entity. AEO and AI Overviews work mainly on your own pages, so the sprint and the per-page unit fit. GEO adds the third-party web and earned coverage, which is why a programme with GEO in scope sits higher. Each lane is its own line in the proposal.

Less than starting from nothing, because the fundamentals overlap. The visibility audit marks each finding classic, AI or both, so you see how much of the AI work your programme already covers. What remains is usually the answer layer and entity work, added beside the existing programme as the sprint or the per-page unit. You are not sold the same work twice.

It is enough to be reachable and parsable, and to know where you stand. It is not enough to be cited on questions you have no page for, or to correct how the rest of the web describes you, because both are ongoing. Buy the sprint alone when your team will carry the content and entity work afterwards. Move to the programme when you want it run and measured.

The per-page unit covers reshaping: the answer block, the headings, the schema and the check. A page whose content does not answer its question at all needs writing, not reordering, and that is content work priced by the article under SEO. The spot-check before the work shows which pages fall on which side, so each page is priced as the job it is.

From the report, with its limits named. AI-referral traffic is real but undercounted, because many answers send no click. Citation spot-checks on your question set are observable but a sample, not a census. Classic rankings beside them remain the best proxy for the authority engines draw on. What you will not get is an invented visibility score with false precision.

Related

Other cost guides
and the service itself.

How much does SEO cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what moves the price and what the fee buys.How much does technical SEO cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what moves the price and what the fee buys.How much does link building cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what moves the price and what the fee buys.About AI search optimisationThe service page: what the work is, how it runs and the proof behind it.AI search optimisation on the rate cardThe same ranges beside every other service, in one card.

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