As AEO has gone from niche concept to budget line item, a wave of agencies and consultancies now offer it as a service — some as a dedicated specialty, most bundled into existing SEO or digital marketing retainers. This guide covers what these companies actually do, what to expect to pay, how to evaluate one before signing, and what to do if you'd rather skip the agency fee entirely.
What an AEO Company Actually Does
Strip away the marketing language, and a competent AEO engagement covers four core activities:
1. Baseline measurement
Auditing your current visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to establish where you stand before any work begins.
2. Content & structure work
Building question-answering content, adding FAQPage/Article schema, and restructuring existing pages to be more citable.
3. Third-party citation building
Pursuing mentions on review sites, directories, and publications that AI engines weight heavily — similar to backlink building, but citation-focused.
4. Ongoing re-measurement
Re-auditing visibility on a regular cadence to show whether the work is actually moving scores.
If an agency's pitch skips straight to deliverables without first measuring your baseline, that's a sign they're treating AEO as a content add-on rather than a measurable discipline.
What AEO Services Typically Cost
| Engagement type | Typical range | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Bundled into SEO retainer | $2,000–$6,000/mo | AEO tasks added to an existing content/SEO scope |
| Dedicated AEO retainer | $5,000–$15,000/mo | Specialized strategy, content, and citation work |
| One-time AEO audit | $1,500–$5,000 | Single assessment and recommendations report, no ongoing work |
| DIY with audit tools | $5–$50/audit | Self-serve measurement; you execute the content/citation work in-house |
Red Flags When Evaluating an Agency
Watch for: agencies that can't show you a before/after AI visibility score for a past client, that only talk about Google rankings rather than ChatGPT/Claude/Gemini specifically, or that promise guaranteed AI "ranking" — AI engines don't have a ranking position in the traditional sense, and any agency claiming to guarantee one doesn't understand how this actually works.
Questions to Ask Before Hiring
- "Can you show me a baseline audit and the result 3-6 months later for a past client?"
- "Which specific AI platforms do you measure and optimize for?"
- "How do you measure success — what's the actual metric you report on?"
- "What's your process for identifying which third-party sites to pursue citations on?"
- "Do you separate AEO reporting from traditional SEO reporting, or is it the same dashboard?"
The DIY Alternative
Not every business needs to pay agency rates for AEO. The highest-leverage first step — measuring your current visibility — can be done yourself with a self-serve audit tool for a fraction of the cost of even a single agency consultation. From there:
- Measurement: run a self-serve AI visibility audit (from $5) instead of paying $1,500+ for an agency baseline report
- Content: use the gaps identified in your audit to brief your existing content team or freelance writers
- Schema: free tools like Google's Rich Results Test and the Merkle Schema Generator handle structured data without a developer retainer
- Citations: directory submissions (Product Hunt, G2, industry-specific listings) are largely free or low-cost and don't require agency management
When an agency does make sense: if you lack internal content/dev capacity, operate in a competitive vertical where dedicated strategy matters, or need someone accountable for consistent execution over months. For most early-stage AEO efforts, though, the DIY path covers 80% of the value at a fraction of the cost.
Start with a free baseline
Before paying for an agency, find out exactly where you stand with a self-serve AI visibility audit.
Run Your Audit →