Key Takeaways
- The market: GEO is sold by SEO agencies that have added this service to their offerings, as well as by specialized consultants and content agencies; few have more than two years of measurable track record.
- 2026 Rates: Audit: €1,500 to €6,000; consulting services: €1,000 to €5,000 per month; consultant: €600 to €1,200 per day.
- The Decisive Test: Request a quantified baseline for your requests, a client case study with before-and-after metrics, and the monitoring method.
- To be rejected: Any guarantee of rankings, any service provider who doesn't discuss technical SEO, any contract without metrics defined at the time of signing.
Since 2025, the range of services GEO has grown faster than the relevant skills. Many offers simply repackage standard SEO content services under a new name; others promise mentions in ChatGPT that no method can guarantee. This guide describes the available service providers, their rates, the questions to ask to narrow down your options, and the clauses to include in the contract.
Three profiles, three ways of working
| Profile | Strengths | Limitations | Suitable for |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEO Agency with GEO Services | Proficiency in technical fundamentals and content, team, and monitoring tools | GEO may simply be a sales pitch; verify the method | SMEs that already have SEO needs and want a single point of contact |
| Specialized Consultant | In-depth monitoring of engines, experimentation, responsiveness | Limited production capacity, reliance on a single person | A company with an in-house content team that needs to be trained and managed |
| Content Agency or PR Agency | Editorial content, media relations, and third-party websites cited by AI systems | Weak in technology, measurement, and structured data | A brand that is already well-indexed but lacks third-party mentions |
A fourth option is in-house management: a content manager trained at GEO and equipped with a tracking tool can handle the essentials for an SME. This requires available time and initial training; the skills to be acquired are described in The Role of GEO in an Overall SEO Strategy.
Rates observed in 2026
| Service | Fork | What it must contain |
|---|---|---|
| AI Visibility Audit | €1,500 to €6,000 | Data collected from 20 to 60 queries and 4 to 6 search engines, competing sources, technical issues, and priorities |
| Monthly Support | €1,000 to €5,000 per month | Tracking citations, rewriting or creating 2 to 8 pages per month, managing relationships with third-party sites, reporting |
| Consultant on a daily basis | €600 to €1,200 per day | Scope definition, team building, content review, decision-making |
| Team Building | €600 to €1,500 per day | Methods, tools, and exercises on your own pages |
| Tracking Tool Only | €30 to €500 per month | Automatic querying of engines based on a set of queries, history, and competitors |
A significantly lower quote generally indicates mass-produced content that hasn't been proofread; a significantly higher quote is justified only by a large number of pages or media relations work. In any case, ask for a detailed list of deliverables; a sample list can be found in Deliverables for a GEO service.
Eight Questions to Ask Before Signing
- "How do you measure my current visibility?" The correct answer describes a set of queries, multiple search engines, multiple results, and a score. An answer that mentions only “AI traffic” is incomplete.
- "Show me a client case study with before-and-after photos." Dated records of responses to specific queries are the only evidence. Testimony alone is not sufficient.
- "Which engines do you track, and what tool do you use?" ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Google's AI mode, Claude, and Mistral cover the French market; a service provider that relies solely on ChatGPT is only seeing part of the picture.
- "What are you doing on the technical side?" AI bots, HTML rendering, Bing indexing, structured data. If your answer is “nothing—it’s just content,” move on.
- "How do you handle third-party sources?" AI systems cite comparison sites, media outlets, and forums. A GEO plan that doesn't incorporate these sources will quickly hit a plateau.
- "Who writes, and how is generative AI used in production?" An honest answer describes an expert review and company-specific data, not raw data.
- "How long will it take to see the first results?" A credible response by 2026: 4 to 12 weeks for niche queries, 3 to 6 months for competitive queries.
- "What happens if the citations don't increase?" A good service provider sets a 3-month milestone with a plan review; a bad one guarantees a result.
Warning Signs
- A guarantee of being cited or of “ranking first in ChatGPT”: no search engine can deliver on that.
- An argument that pits GEO against SEO: AI search engines rely on Google’s and Bing’s indexes, and a poorly ranked page is rarely cited there; the relationship between the two is explained in The difference between traditional SEO and GEO.
- The llms.txt argument, presented as decisive: as of 2026, no major search engine has confirmed that it uses it.
- Reporting limited to the number of articles published, without measuring engagement in the responses.
- The absence of any customer references older than six months.
The contract that protects you
Include the following in the contract: the set of reference queries and the baseline metrics (date, search engines, scores), the monitoring metrics and their reporting frequency, ownership of content and tool accounts, a list of monthly deliverables, an initial term of 3 to 6 months with a mid-term review, and a one-month notice period for termination. Reject 12-month commitments without an exit clause: the market and search engines evolve too quickly. The metrics to be included are detailed in GEO's KPIs.
How GreenRed Can Help You
Instead of juggling multiple tools, GreenRed's GEO Tracking module brings these metrics together in a single dashboard, compares them over time, and shows you which actions to prioritize. You can try it for free—no credit card required—on the page Rates.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it better to go with a general SEO agency or a GEO specialist?
For an SME starting from scratch, a solid SEO agency that has incorporated a measured GEO approach is the safest choice, since the technical foundation and Google rankings determine the number of citations. A GEO specialist brings more value to a company that is already well-ranked and wants to improve its visibility in search results.
What is the minimum budget for a useful GEO service?
For a single-business SME, expect to pay €1,500 to €3,000 for the audit, followed by €1,000 to €2,000 per month for six months. For smaller businesses, the service is usually limited to a few generic articles. An alternative is a monitoring tool costing €30 to €200 per month, combined with in-house content creation.
Can a service provider guarantee that a quote will appear in ChatGPT?
No. The results vary with each run and depend on the indexed sources and model updates. A reputable service provider commits to resources, a set of monitored queries, and progress updates—never to a specific ranking. Any guarantee of results on AI-powered search engines is a sales pitch, not a sign of expertise.
Does the service provider have to be located in France?
The French market has its own unique characteristics: French search queries, French sources, and Google’s AI-powered search results, which were rolled out later than in the United States. A service provider that works with search queries and search engines configured for France—and that tracks Mistral in addition to U.S. search engines—is preferable to a provider that simply translates English-language results.