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Cost guide

How much does AI search optimisation cost in 2026?

AI search optimisation costs $625–$3,750 per month for a monthly programme at the direct rate. You pay for the work done each month, not for citations, because no one can sell those. The foundations sprint (a fixed scope at a fixed price, with an end date) and the per-page rewrite are priced separately below. Every figure becomes a written proposal.

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Direct rate, in ₹ or $ · Reply within four business hours (typical)

The range

What it costs,
at the direct rate.

Work to get you cited in AI answers (AEO, GEO and Google AI Overviews). Choose a foundations sprint, a monthly programme, or a per-page price if you run your own SEO. The visibility audit stays free, and nothing here promises a citation.

  • One-offFoundations sprint$625–$3,125one-time
  • RetainerMonthly AI search programme$625–$3,750per month
  • Per unitAnswer-first restructure, per page$200–$500per page

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

Where the engagement includes it, a Prism workspace holds requests, approvals, tasks and reviews.

What moves the price

Why the price
varies from job to job.

01

Which kinds of AI search are in scope

AI search work covers three kinds of AI answer. AEO gets you cited by answer tools such as ChatGPT and Perplexity. GEO gets AI tools that write their own answers to describe you correctly. AI Overviews are the AI answers Google shows above its results. Work on your own pages sits at the bottom of the range. Work on other sites that AI tools read about you adds outreach hours and costs more.

Biggest factor
02

How ready your site already is

AI tools cite what they can reach and read. If your site blocks GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot or Google-Extended, they cannot see it at all. Blocks can sit in your robots rules, your CDN or your firewall. Valid structured data (schema, the markup that tells engines what a page is) and one clear description of your business make for a short sprint. A site with neither pays to set them up first.

Hidden cost
03

How many questions your buyers ask

The programme works from a question map. That is the list of questions buyers ask AI tools that your pages should answer. A focused product with a short list needs only a few pages reworked or written. A broad category with many comparison, pricing and how-to questions needs many. Each one takes research, writing and markup. The free visibility review sizes the list.

Content
04

How other sites describe you today

AI tools write their answers from what they trust about you. Much of that sits on other sites: profiles, directories, reviews and the databases the tools learn from. If those match your site, there is little to fix. If they show an old name, the wrong category or a competitor's description, we have to correct them. That takes outreach and moves the programme up the range.

Other sites
05

Whether your basic SEO is in place

AI tools rely on the same trust signals Google uses to rank pages. A site with strong SEO basics pays only for the AI answer work. A site that is hard to crawl, has thin pages and no earned links cannot be fixed for AI on top. The visibility audit says so. Where the basics need work, we price it under SEO, not hidden here.

Often forgotten
06

How many markets and languages

Each market has its own questions, its own outside sites and its own AI tool habits. Each language adds more answer-first content to write. One market in one language sits at the bottom of the range. Several of each gets its own scope, with separate lines so you can choose the order.

Scope
The options

Which option
suits your business.

Each option below is one way to buy AI search optimisation. Read what it is and who it suits, then ask for the one that fits. Your proposal itemises it.

One-off

Foundations sprint

$625–$3,125one-time
What it is

The one-off work everything else depends on. We let the AI tools in, and make the pages that sell easy for them to read and quote. We describe your business the same way across your site and profiles. Then we record where you are cited today, with a date, so you can judge any later result against it.

Who it fits

Buyers whose site was never prepared for AI tools, and anyone who wants to know where they stand before paying monthly. It does not suit a site with broken basics, which needs technical SEO first. It also does not suit a team that needs only a few pages reworked, which the per-page option covers.

Included
  • Crawler access fixed for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended
  • Schema added and checked on the pages that make you money
  • 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
  • Work on other sites that describe you, and digital PR (the GEO part)
  • New content production
  • Classic technical SEO fixes beyond crawler access
Turnaround
3 to 5 weeks
Moves the number
How much groundwork is already done. Valid structured data and a consistent business description make the sprint short. A site that blocks every AI crawler takes longer.
Request this option →
Retainer

Monthly AI search programme

$625–$3,750per month
What it is

Monthly work against your question map. We publish or rework pages so they answer first. We keep your business described the same way everywhere AI tools read about it. We re-check access and markup as the tools change, and spot-check citations. Each week you get a report that separates what can be measured from what no one can measure yet.

Who it fits

Businesses where buyers now finish their research with an AI answer, and whose site can already be crawled and trusted. It does not suit a site with no basic SEO in place. It also does not suit a buyer who wants a citation count in the contract, which we will not write.

Included
  • Pages written or rebuilt each month to answer the questions on your list
  • Your business described consistently across site, profiles and the databases engines read
  • Crawler access and schema checked again every month
  • 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
Moves the number
Which parts are included. Work on your own pages only sits at the bottom. Adding other sites that describe you, and earned press coverage, moves the price up.
Request this option →
Per unit

Answer-first restructure, per page

$200–$500per 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 of your existing pages reworked so AI tools can quote it. When a tool lifts the answer, it makes sense on its own and names you as the source. It is the AI answer work, bought one page at a time.

Who it fits

Teams that run their own SEO and need only the AI answer work on the pages buyers ask about. It does not suit a page with no question to answer. It also does not suit a site that blocks AI crawlers, because the tools could not read the reworked page.

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
  • 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 makes your quote
lower or higher.

The proposal lists pages, types of work and checks, not citations. So each point below is a line you can add or remove.

Brings the quote down
  • AI crawlers already allowed through your robots rules, CDN and firewall
  • Valid structured data on the pages that sell, and one description of your business everywhere
  • A short list of buyer questions, for a focused product
  • A standard SEO programme already running alongside the AI work
  • One market, one language, and your own pages only
Pushes the quote up
  • Work on other sites in scope: profiles, directories and databases to correct, and coverage to earn
  • A site that blocks AI crawlers, with schema missing or broken on the pages that sell
  • A long list of comparison, pricing and how-to questions
  • Other sites describing your business wrongly: an old name, the wrong category, a competitor's words
  • Several markets or languages, each with its own questions and outside sites
What you get

What your fee
pays for.

Your fee pays for access, page structure, a consistent description of your business and measurement, with a weekly report on each. We don't promise any citation, because only the AI companies control what their tools quote. We do the work that makes a citation more likely.

01

AI crawler access, checked every month

We check GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Google-Extended against your robots rules, CDN and firewall at the start. We check again each month, because a platform change can block them without warning.

02

Schema on the pages that sell

We add and test markup for your organisation, services, products, articles and FAQs where it helps. Then AI tools can tell who is speaking instead of guessing.

03

Pages an AI tool can quote

Each priority page gets a direct answer near the top and headings written as questions. So the answer makes sense on its own when a tool lifts it into a reply.

04

One description of your business, everywhere

Who you are, what you do and where you work, said the same way on your site, your profiles and the databases AI tools read.

05

A report that says what it can't measure

Visits from AI tools where analytics can see them, and citation spot-checks on your questions, next to standard rankings. We state the limits of each measure, rather than hide them.

06

Everything in your name

The question map, the starting record, the content and every account are yours from the first week. If you leave, it takes one email, not a recovery project.

AgenciesThe ranges above are direct prices. Agency partners buy from the partner price list, about 20% lower on packages.

See the partner price list →
Questions

Frequently
asked.

Because no one can sell a citation. AI tools change how they find answers without notice, and only the companies behind them control what they quote. A price per citation would also reward chasing easy questions that no one buys from. Your fee pays for the itemised work that makes citation more likely. You also get a dated report of where you were cited on an agreed set of questions.

No. They are parts of one service, and the same groundwork serves all three: crawler access, schema, pages that answer first and one clear description of your business. GEO adds work on other sites and earning coverage, so a programme that includes it costs more. Each part is its own line in the proposal.

Less than starting from nothing, because much of the groundwork is shared. The visibility audit marks each finding as standard SEO, AI or both. So you can see how much your current programme already covers. What is left is usually the AI answer work and fixing how your business is described. You add it as the sprint or per page, so you never pay twice for the same work.

It is enough to make your site reachable and readable by AI tools, and to show where you stand. It is not enough to get cited on questions you have no page for, or to fix how other sites describe you. Both need ongoing work. Buy the sprint alone if your team will carry on that work. Choose the programme to have us run and measure it.

The per-page price covers reworking a page: the answer block, the headings, the schema and the check. A page that doesn't answer its question at all needs writing from scratch. That is content work, priced per article under SEO. A spot-check before we start shows which pages need which.

From the weekly report, which names its limits. Visits from AI tools are real but undercounted, because many AI answers send no click. Citation spot-checks are a sample, not a full count. Standard rankings are still the best guide to the trust AI tools rely on. We will never give you a made-up visibility score.

Related

Other cost guides
and the service page.

How much does SEO cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what changes the price and what the fee buys.How much does technical SEO cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what changes the price and what the fee buys.How much does link building cost in 2026?Cost guide: the options, what changes 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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