Updated 2026-09-03
GEO agency: what it costs, what it does, and when you don't need one
A GEO agency charges €1,500 to €4,000 for an audit, and €1,500 to €5,000 a month for an ongoing engagement. Here is what is inside, and how to tell whether you are there yet.
You are looking for a GEO agency. Before asking for three quotes, it is worth separating two things agencies sell together: measuring your visibility inside AI answers, and improving it. The first is short, tooled work. The second is long, human work. They have neither the same price nor the same urgency.
What a GEO agency charges
| Service | Observed range | What is inside |
|---|---|---|
| AI visibility audit | €1,500 – €4,000 | a quantified assessment, a report, a debrief |
| Monthly engagement | €1,500 – €5,000/mo | content production, PR and directory work, technical fixes, reporting |
| One-off project | €800 – €2,500 | a page overhaul, a content plan, work on sources |
These orders of magnitude are those of agencies that added GEO to an existing SEO offer. The cost is mostly human time: a €2,000 audit generally corresponds to three or four consultant days, a large share of which goes into building the measurement itself.
When an agency is the right call
An agency earns its price when the problem is no longer knowing where you stand.
- You have already measured, and now you need to produce: content, pages, presence on the sources AIs read.
- Your visibility depends on third parties — trade directories, tourist boards, comparison sites, specialist press — and someone has to approach them one by one. That is relationship work, not tooling.
- You have several brands, countries or languages, and need to arbitrate between them.
- You want someone to own the subject for you, with a named contact and a rhythm.
In those cases, paying for an engagement is coherent. Much of GEO plays out off your own site, and that does not automate.
When an agency is premature
The classic trap: buying a €2,500-a-month engagement before knowing whether you have a problem, and which one.
Our public measurements show wildly different situations from one market to the next. In campsites in Normandy, no property exceeds 14% of answers and the most-cited name is a regional tourist board: the lever is not your site, it is your presence with intermediaries. In hotels, a single property takes a quarter of all answers: the lever is understanding what it does, and where. Two markets, two opposite action plans — and neither can be guessed without measuring.
Paying for an action plan before having the measurement is buying the answer before the question.
The alternative: measure first, decide after
That is what MentionCount does. A GEO audit at €149 excl. VAT: 40 of your buyers' questions put to three AI assistants, three times each, 360 measurements, a report within 48 hours.
| GEO agency | MentionCount | |
|---|---|---|
| Audit | €1,500 – €4,000 | €149 excl. VAT |
| Lead time | 2 to 4 weeks | 48h |
| Volume measured | often 10-20 questions, one pass | 40 questions, 3 passes, 360 measurements |
| Discovery call required | yes | no |
| Implementation | included in the engagement | on quote, separate |
| Commitment | 3 to 12 months | none |
The comparison is not "cheaper therefore better". An agency sells you brain time and hands; we sell a measurement. If your problem is producing, the agency wins. If your problem is knowing, the audit answers the same question for a tenth of the price — and you walk into the agency with figures instead of a hunch, which incidentally makes their quote a great deal easier to argue with.
How to choose a GEO agency, if you take one
Four questions to ask before signing:
- How many questions, and how many times each? An audit that asks twenty questions once mostly measures chance. A language model does not answer the same way twice; one test proves nothing.
- Do the questions contain my company name? If they do, the result is skewed: the AI talks about you because you asked it to.
- Which assistants, and with web search enabled? A model queried without web access answers from training memory. That is not what your customers get.
- Are the consulted sources returned? That is the actionable part of the report. Without it you have a score, not a plan.
Those four questions separate a method from a pitch fairly quickly.
What about an independent GEO consultant?
In between: expect €500 to €1,500 for an audit, €600 to €900 a day for ongoing help. The best value when you need a brain rather than a team — but the same rule applies, ask them the four questions above.