Search for a GEO agency, and almost every result is an agency selling GEO. This guide has the same problem, and we’d rather say so in the first paragraph than hide it. What follows is a way to compare generative engine optimization services on things you can check yourself, without taking anyone’s word for it, ours included.
Who Wrote This Guide: A GEO Agency Team, Disclosed
Indie Stack Lab is run by the same team that runs AI SEO Hacker, a GEO agency. We are a GEO agency ourselves, so why publish a comparison? Because the search results for this topic are mostly agency sales pages, and a buyer deserves a list of checks that works on any provider, including us.
The other agencies on this page appear anonymously as Agency A, B, C and D, because we have no standing to publicly score our peers. They are agency types, not individual firms, and nothing here describes a specific company. AI SEO Hacker is named, with its limits written next to its strengths.
Sources: Google Search Central documentation, OpenAI’s crawler documentation, the research paper that named GEO, Pew Research Center, an Ahrefs pricing survey, the FTC and public agency directories. Data collected: October 2026.
There’s one more reason to be this direct. The FTC’s 2024 rule on fake reviews prohibits a business from misrepresenting that a website it controls provides independent reviews (FTC, 2024). On this topic, this site isn’t independent, so we won’t act as if it were.
Key Takeaways
GEO matters because fewer people click: Google users who saw an AI summary clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits, against 15% for users who saw none (Pew Research Center, 2025). Judge any GEO agency on what you can verify: a dated baseline, named deliverables, crawler know-how, references and exit terms. Walk away from anyone who guarantees AI citations. Sounds strict? It’s the same standard Google sets for any SEO.
What Generative Engine Optimization Services Include
Generative engine optimization services are paid help to get your brand mentioned and cited in AI answers from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and similar engines. Google’s own guide says “optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO” (Google Search Central). So a GEO service is SEO work aimed at a new kind of results page, not a separate science. To see how one of those results pages picks its sources, read our guide to how Google AI Overviews work.
The term comes from a research paper accepted at KDD 2024, whose best methods improved source visibility in generative engine answers by up to 40% on the paper’s own benchmark (Aggarwal et al., arXiv). That’s a lab result on a test set, not a forecast for your site. For the basics of the field, see our guide to what generative engine optimization is.
Most GEO proposals combine some of these five jobs:
- Baseline and tracking. A list of prompts your buyers ask, run through AI engines, with a record of who gets mentioned and cited.
- Technical access. Making sure AI crawlers can reach your pages. OpenAI says “Sites that are opted out of OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers” (OpenAI).
- Content. New pages and updates to old ones that answer those prompts directly, with facts worth quoting.
- Off-site mentions. Digital PR, reviews and listings on the third-party sites that AI answers tend to quote.
- Reporting. Google’s guide points to the Generative AI performance report in Search Console for Google’s features (Google Search Central); other engines need a separate tracker.
Which of these do you actually need? A small site with sound SEO basics often needs only the first three. If you’d like to run the tracking part yourself, our roundup of AI search visibility tools covers the software side.
Why the Choice of GEO Agency Matters More Than the Fee
A weak GEO agency costs you months, not just money, because AI visibility is slow to judge and easy to misread. One day of AI answers is a snapshot, not a trend, and a retainer can run for months before anyone can tell whether the work moved anything.
The downside can also be worse than wasted time. Google warns: “If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, your site could be removed entirely from Google’s index” (Google Search Central). A GEO agency that mass-produces thin pages or fake mentions puts the site you already have at risk.
So what should you compare first? Not the price. Compare how each agency will prove its work, and what you keep if you leave.
4 Types of GEO Agencies Compared, Plus Our Own
Most GEO agencies start from one of four places: classic SEO, AI answer tracking, digital PR or a software product. That starting point predicts what they do well and where you should push. Why sort by starting point rather than by size or price? Because the starting point is what an agency falls back on when a plan stops working.
| Type | Starting point | Push them on |
|---|---|---|
| Agency A: legacy SEO agency | Classic SEO and content | AI-specific tracking and reporting |
| Agency B: GEO-first specialist | AI answer tracking | SEO fundamentals and track record |
| Agency C: PR-led firm | Earned media and mentions | Fixes on your own site |
| Agency D: tool-first vendor | Its own software | Advice that isn’t tied to its tool |
| AI SEO Hacker (our own agency) | Content writing and updates | See its limits below |
We don’t give anyone a star score on this page, ourselves included. There’s no neutral data to score real agencies with, and a grade we gave ourselves would just be marketing.
Agency A: Legacy SEO Agency
Agency A is a classic SEO agency that added GEO to its service list. Its strength is the foundation: crawling, site structure, content plans and Search Console reporting. Since Google calls GEO “still SEO,” that foundation is real value, not a weakness.
The limit is that some agencies renamed their services without changing the work. Ask to see an AI answer report from a current client, with engines and dates. If all they can show is a ranking report, you’re buying SEO with a new label. It fits sites whose SEO basics are still broken.
Agency B: GEO-First Specialist
Agency B started with AI answers. Its strengths are prompt tracking across several engines, fast reading of what each engine cites and comfort with new tools.
The limits: the firm may be young, with a short list of finished projects, and some lean on tactics Google says it doesn’t use, such as special AI text files. Ask how long their oldest client has stayed. It fits sites with sound SEO that now want to know where they stand in AI answers.
Agency C: PR-Led Firm
Agency C comes from public relations. Its strength is earned mentions on the news sites, reviews and lists that AI answers often quote. For brands that the wider web barely covers, that can matter more than any change to their own pages.
The limit is that mentions have to be real. Google says seeking “inauthentic ‘mentions’ across the web isn’t as helpful as it might seem” (Google Search Central), and a PR firm rarely fixes your own site. It fits companies with real news, products or expertise that nobody has written about yet.
Agency D: Tool-First Vendor
Agency D sells software first and adds a service team on top. Its strength is data: dashboards, prompt history and exports you can keep reading after a meeting ends.
The limit is that the advice tends to follow what the tool measures. Switching later can also mean losing your history. Remember that “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems,” as Google puts it (Google Search Central). It fits teams with in-house writers who need data more than labor.
AI SEO Hacker (Our Own Agency)
AI SEO Hacker is the GEO agency run by the team behind this site. Its work is content-led: writing new articles and updating existing ones so they answer the questions buyers ask AI engines, alongside technical checks and AI answer tracking. It sells fixed-term packages rather than open-ended hourly work.
Here’s the catch for most readers. Most of AI SEO Hacker’s clients are businesses in Taiwan, and most of its work is in Traditional Chinese. This site is written for a US audience, so for most of you it’s probably not the right fit, and you won’t find client results on this page to judge it by. It fits a business in Taiwan that wants content-led GEO. It doesn’t fit a US company that needs an English-speaking team in its own time zone.
How to Judge a GEO Agency: 6 Criteria You Can Check Yourself
Judge a GEO agency on six things you can check without trusting its sales deck, starting from Google’s plain warning that “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” (Google Search Central). Each criterion below has a way to test it.
| Criterion | What it means | How to check it yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Dated baseline | They measure where you stand before they price the work | Ask for a sample baseline: engines, prompts, date and method |
| Named deliverables | You know what arrives each month | Get the scope in writing, with counts of pages, updates and reports |
| Crawler know-how | They understand how AI engines reach your site | Ask how OAI-SearchBot differs from GPTBot |
| Honest claims | No guarantees about rankings or citations | Compare the pitch with Google’s warnings |
| References | Past clients will talk to you | Call two of them yourself |
| Exit terms | You keep your content, data and accounts | Read the notice period and ownership clauses |
The crawler question is a quick filter. OpenAI’s documentation says OAI-SearchBot is used to surface websites in ChatGPT’s search features, while disallowing GPTBot signals that content shouldn’t be used to train its models (OpenAI). An agency that can’t explain that difference in a sentence probably shouldn’t edit your robots.txt.
What does a good baseline look like? It names each engine, lists the exact prompts and gives a date. Our Otterly.AI vs Writesonic GEO tools comparison shows that format, prompt by prompt and engine by engine.
10 Checks Before You Sign a GEO Contract
Run these 10 checks before you sign; the first three are questions Google itself suggests asking any SEO (Google Search Central). Are ten checks too many for a small contract? No. Most take one email.
- Ask: “Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?”
- Ask: “Do you follow the Google Search Essentials (previously known as Webmaster Guidelines)?”
- Ask: “What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?” Get the answer in writing.
- Ask for the exact prompt list they plan to track, and add your own.
- Ask which AI engines they will report on, and how often.
- Ask for a sample monthly report from a current client, with names removed.
- Ask who writes the content, and who reviews facts before it goes live.
- Ask whether they buy links, reviews or mentions. The answer should be no.
- Confirm that you own the content, the tracking account and the data.
- Read the minimum term, the notice period and what happens to unfinished work.
Honestly, check 9 is the one people skip. When a contract ends, you want your history to stay with you, not with the agency’s software.
What GEO Services Cost
We found no public pricing survey specific to GEO, so the closest reference is classic SEO. Ahrefs polled 439 SEO providers: 78.2% charged a monthly retainer, the most common bracket was $501 to $1,000 a month, and 79.1% of respondents in the US and Canada charged at least $1,001 a month (Ahrefs). Treat those as a rough floor for SEO-style work, not a GEO price list.
You’ll usually meet four pricing models:
- Monthly retainer. Ongoing work billed every month, often with a minimum term.
- Fixed-term package. A set scope for a set number of months, paid up front or in parts.
- One-off audit. A technical and AI visibility review with a written action list.
- Hourly consulting. Advice for teams that do the work themselves.
Directories help you compare before you call: agency profiles on Clutch show details such as minimum project size, and its listings can be filtered by client budget and hourly rate (Clutch).
Don’t forget tool costs. AI answer trackers are often billed separately; the cheapest entry plan in our GEO tools comparison was $29/month. Ask who pays for the tracker, and whose name is on the account.
Is a cheap retainer a bargain? Only if the scope says what you get. A low price with no named deliverables usually means a monthly report and little else.
Red Flags in GEO Agency Pitches
The clearest red flag is a guarantee. Google says “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” and tells readers to beware of SEOs that “allege a ‘special relationship’ with Google” or “advertise a ‘priority submit’ to Google” (Google Search Central). The same logic applies to promised citations in ChatGPT or Perplexity.
Watch for these, too:
- Claims of special access to AI systems. Google says no third-party tool has access to its ranking or AI systems.
- AI text files sold as a must-have. Google says new machine-readable files “will neither harm nor help” your visibility in Google Search (Google Search Central). Other engines may treat them differently, so ask which engine the file is for.
- Bought mentions or reviews. Google discounts inauthentic mentions, and the FTC rule bans fake reviews, including AI-generated ones.
- The research figure used as a promise. The “up to 40%” result came from a benchmark in a research paper. It isn’t a forecast for your site.
- Reports with no method. A visibility score with no engines, prompts or dates can’t be checked, so it can’t be trusted.
Why do these pitches work? Because the field is new and buyers can’t yet tell a real method from a confident slide. A few pointed questions close that gap quickly.
What a Real GEO Case Study Should Show
A real GEO case study shows a dated starting point, the exact change made and an outcome measured the same way at a later date. Google suggests asking past clients whether an SEO “provided useful service, was easy to work with, and produced positive results” (Google Search Central). A case study should make that call easy.
We don’t publish AI SEO Hacker’s client results on this page, by choice: a results claim in a guide written by our own team would be exactly the kind of evidence we’re telling you to doubt. Hold every agency to the same standard instead.
Look for these parts in any case study you’re shown:
- The baseline: which engines, which prompts and the date of the first check.
- The work: pages written or updated, technical fixes and outreach, with dates.
- The timeframe: how many months passed before the second measurement.
- The method: the same prompts and engines both times, or a stated reason why not.
- What didn’t work: an honest case study has at least one thing that failed.
- A reference: a client who will confirm it on a call.
What if an agency has no case studies at all? That’s normal for a new firm. Then ask for a paid audit first, and judge the quality of that work before you commit to a long contract.
Where to Find and Vet Other GEO Agencies
You don’t need this site to find a GEO agency: directories, review platforms and business records let you build and check a short list on your own. Clutch, for example, keeps a category for generative engine optimization companies, marks sponsored listings and says “We may earn a fee for some placements” (Clutch).
Use more than one source:
- Clutch. Browse the GEO category, read the client reviews and notice which listings are sponsored.
- G2. Its SEO services category lists agencies with client reviews; check how many reviews each one actually has.
- Better Business Bureau. Search the agency on bbb.org for complaints and how they were answered.
- Google Business Profile reviews. Read the low ratings, not just the stars. Be wary of many short five-star reviews posted in the same week, or reviewers with no other reviews.
- References and contracts. Call past clients, and have someone outside the deal read the contract.
Which source should you trust most? None on its own. A good agency looks consistent across all of them.
If neither the options above nor our own service fits your needs, use the resources listed above to find other providers.
Choosing a GEO Partner: The Short Version
Pick a GEO agency by how it proves its work, not by how confident it sounds. Ask for a dated baseline, a written scope and two references. Check that it understands AI crawlers, refuses to buy mentions and never guarantees citations. Then make sure you own the content and the data when the contract ends.
Would we hold our own agency to this list? Yes, and you should. Want the wider picture before you talk to anyone? Our guide to the best AI SEO tools shows what you can measure on your own first, and our five-step plan for getting cited by ChatGPT covers the work any agency would be doing for you.
If this article helped you decide, we would be glad to hear from you; if you have already found the right partner, we wish you a great collaboration.
References
- Pew Research Center: Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results (2025)
- Google Search Central: Optimizing for Generative AI Features on Google Search
- Google Search Central: Do you need an SEO?
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI Crawlers
- Aggarwal et al.: GEO: Generative Engine Optimization (arXiv, KDD 2024)
- Ahrefs: SEO Pricing: How Much Does SEO Cost? 439 People Polled
- Federal Trade Commission: Final Rule Banning Fake Reviews and Testimonials (2024)
- Clutch: Top Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Companies
- G2: SEO Services
- Better Business Bureau