Updated
Updated What changed on
- Added Pew Research's click measurement, so the value of a citation is stated in published numbers rather than promised.
- Added Ahrefs' March 2026 citation study.
How much does GEO cost in the UK? Plain pricing.
The 30-second answer
GEO costs £750 to £15,000+ per month in the UK for consultant or agency retainers. Starter: £750-£1,500/mo (solo consultant, basic retainer). Mid-market: £2,500-£6,000/mo (active citation tracking, content briefs, technical audits, monthly reporting). Enterprise: £8,000-£15,000+/mo (dedicated citation tracker, multi-engine coverage, integrated reporting). One-off audits run £500-£5,000 and senior day rates £400-£850. Most clients can fold GEO into an existing SEO budget because the work overlaps 80%. The £100-£500/mo "AI-specific" line items are citation tracking tools and community-presence work.
What you are actually buying
is how often people clicked a search result when an AI summary was present, against when it was not. Roughly half the click rate.
How it was measured: Browsing data from 900 US adults who agreed to share their activity, covering March 2025. US only, one month, and now over a year old. It remains the largest published real-user measurement rather than a keyword-panel estimate.
of visits to a page carrying an AI summary resulted in a click on a source cited inside that summary.
How it was measured: Same 900-person US panel, March 2025. This is the figure that matters most for anyone selling AI citation as a traffic channel.
of pages cited in Google AI Overviews also rank in the top 10 for that query.
How it was measured: 863,000 keyword SERPs and 4 million AI Overview URLs. Ahrefs measures the top 10 as blocks, counting ads, featured snippets and video packs as separate blocks.
was the same measurement in July 2025, so the overlap between ranking and being cited has roughly halved in eight months.
How it was measured: 1.9 million citations from 1 million AI Overviews. Ahrefs notes it improved its parsing between this study and the 2026 update, so part of the change may be measurement rather than behaviour.
The four pricing bands
| Band | Monthly cost | What you get | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| DIY | £0 | Free tools, manual query sampling, your time | Testing the water |
| Starter | £750-£1,500/mo | Solo consultant: schema audits, tracking setup, content guidance | SMEs, small B2B |
| Mid-market | £2,500-£6,000/mo | Active citation tracking, monthly briefs, technical audits, named-competitor reporting | B2B SaaS, law firms, ecommerce |
| Enterprise | £8,000-£15,000+/mo | Dedicated tracker, multi-engine coverage, board-ready integrated reporting | Global and regulated brands |
Zero budget, manual sampling
£0
Use the free AI Search Visibility tool on this site for a baseline reading. Free Yoast or Rank Math WordPress plugins for schema and llms.txt. Free Firecrawl llms.txt generator. Manual monthly query sampling against ChatGPT, Perplexity etc. Gets you visibility into where you stand. No ongoing programme.
Solo consultant, basic monthly retainer
£750-£1,500/mo
One senior consultant covering schema audits, citation tracking setup (using the free baseline plus a low-tier paid tool like Otterly), monthly content guidance and quarterly reporting. Suits SME and small B2B brands. Below this price you are typically buying junior agency time or pure content production rather than GEO strategy.
Active programme with named competitor tracking
£2,500-£6,000/mo
Active citation tracking (AIClicks $59/mo or Otterly $29-$189/mo as the tool), monthly content briefs the team executes, technical audits, schema work, named-competitor monthly reporting, optional Reddit/community presence work. Roughly the same price band as mid-market SEO retainers. The most common engagement shape for UK B2B at SaaS series A-B, mid-market law firms, established ecommerce brands.
Dedicated programme, multi-engine, integrated reporting
£8,000-£15,000+/mo
Dedicated enterprise citation tracker (Profound, BrandLight or similar), formal monthly board-ready reporting, multi-engine coverage including EU + tier-2 engines (Mistral Le Chat, Apple Intelligence), content programme management, integration with existing SEO and marketing reporting stacks. Suits global brands, regulated industries, multi-region rollouts. Custom scope can be substantially higher.
Retainer, day rate or one-off project?
The bands above are monthly retainers, because that is how most GEO gets bought. There are two other ways to pay, and both suit specific situations better.
Day rate or hourly. Senior UK independents charge £400-£850 per day. Mine is £450. Hourly advisory runs £75-£250. US benchmarks sit at $50-$300 per hour in TeamAI's 2026 survey. A day buys a working session: audit walkthrough, schema spec, or a query baseline against named competitors. Best when you have an in-house team that can execute and just needs direction.
One-off project. A standalone GEO audit runs £500-£5,000 in the UK depending on depth. £500 buys a prioritised 90-day action plan. £1,500-£5,000 buys a full audit: schema spec, bot access review, content gaps, citation baseline. UK agencies also charge one-off onboarding fees of £1,500-£5,000 on top of retainers, so ask before signing. See what a GEO audit includes before paying for one.
Monthly retainer. The four bands above. Best when you need the work done for you, month after month, with someone accountable for the numbers moving.
What drives the price up
- Number of competitors tracked monthly (5 vs 50)
- Number of engines covered (4 priority vs all 11)
- Number of priority queries baselined (10 vs 200)
- Reporting cadence and format (quarterly PDF vs monthly dashboard)
- Whether content production is included or just briefs
- Compliance / regulated industry overhead
- Multi-language / multi-region (EU, US, APAC)
Cost vs SEO
Most clients should fold GEO into an existing SEO budget. About 80% of the work overlaps - schema, named author, content depth, technical health. The "new" GEO-specific spend is mostly tools (AI citation tracker £29-£999/mo) and community work (Reddit posting, typically a couple of hours per week). On most engagements that adds £100-£500/mo on top of the existing SEO retainer rather than doubling spend. If you want to see exactly what the work covers before signing anything, the full GEO field guide walks through the stages in order.
DIY vs paying a consultant
DIY GEO costs £0-£150/mo in tools plus roughly two days of your time each month. The free baseline covers a lot; a low-tier paid tracker (Otterly from $29/mo, AIClicks $59/mo) covers the rest for one brand. The real cost is the learning curve - schema, bot access, citation tracking and content structure all have failure modes that waste months if you guess. I have written up whether you can do GEO yourself with ChatGPT and which GEO tools are worth paying for if you want to try.
The honest crossover point: DIY makes sense if you have one person who already owns content and technical SEO and the brand competes in a quiet niche. Once you are up against funded competitors who are paying £2,500+/mo, two days a month of borrowed time stops keeping pace.
Hidden costs to watch for
- Tool stacking - paying for Profound + AIClicks + Otterly when one is enough
- Content production billed separately - some agencies quote a low retainer then add £500-£2,000/mo for content the GEO work depends on
- Setup fees on enterprise trackers - Profound and BrandLight often have 4-6 figure onboarding charges
- "Premium" GEO services that are repackaged SEO at 1.5-2x the SEO price - the work is the same, the badge is different
UK vs US GEO pricing - the international context
UK GEO retainers are 30-50% cheaper than US equivalents for similar scope. Singularity Digital's November 2025 pricing puts a US mid-tier programme at $8,500/mo (roughly £6,800/mo) and a "fast" programme at $13,000/mo (£10,400/mo), with a GEO-only retainer at $2,000/mo (£1,600/mo). TeamAI's April 2026 cost survey puts the global GEO agency range at $1,500-$50,000/mo and tools at $10-$1,000+/mo. On the UK side, MarGen's April 2026 agency evaluation found UK retainers spanning £800-£20,000+/mo across four tiers, with most specialist B2B work at £2,000-£10,000/mo - which lines up with the bands above.
The takeaway: if a UK quote is closer to the US bands than the UK ones above, ask what is justifying the premium - dedicated team size, multi-region coverage, regulated industry overhead - or push back. Conversely, sub-£750/mo UK quotes are usually junior agency time or pure content production, not GEO strategy work.
More on UK GEO pricing.
What is the cheapest credible GEO option in the UK?
Around £750-£1,500/mo for a basic monthly retainer with a solo consultant covering schema audits, citation tracking setup and content guidance. Below that price you are typically buying junior agency time or pure content production rather than GEO strategy.
What does mid-market GEO cost?
Most UK mid-market engagements sit at £2,500-£6,000/mo. That covers active citation tracking, monthly content briefs, technical audits, schema work and reporting against named competitors. Roughly the same price band as mid-market SEO retainers.
What does enterprise GEO cost?
Enterprise programmes typically run £8,000-£15,000/mo and up. Includes a dedicated AI citation tracker (Profound or similar), formal monthly reporting, multi-engine coverage, content programme management, and integration into existing SEO and marketing reporting. Custom scope for large enterprises can be substantially higher.
Is there a free way to start?
Yes. The free AI Search Visibility tool on this site gives you a baseline. Free WordPress plugins (Yoast, Rank Math) cover schema and llms.txt basics. The free Firecrawl llms.txt generator handles starter file creation. Genuinely zero budget gets you a baseline; £500 of consultant time gets you a 90-day action plan to execute.
How does GEO cost compare to SEO?
Mostly the same. About 80% of GEO work overlaps with SEO, so the cost folds into an existing SEO budget for most clients. The 20% that is new (citation tracking tools, Reddit/community work, bot access management) typically adds £100-£500/mo at mid-market.
What does a GEO consultant charge per day in the UK?
Senior UK independents charge £400-£850 per day. My day rate is £450. Hourly advisory runs £75-£250; US benchmarks are $50-$300 per hour. A day buys a working session - audit walkthrough, schema spec, or a query baseline against named competitors. Best value when your in-house team can execute and just needs direction.
How much does a one-off GEO audit cost?
£500-£5,000 in the UK depending on depth. £500 buys a prioritised 90-day action plan. £1,500-£5,000 buys a full audit: schema spec, bot access review, content gaps and a citation baseline against named competitors. Watch for agencies adding a £1,500-£5,000 onboarding fee on top of the retainer - ask before signing.
How does UK GEO pricing compare to US?
UK retainers run 30-50% cheaper than US equivalents for comparable scope. US mid-tier programmes sit around $8,500/mo (£6,800/mo) per Singularity Digital's November 2025 data; equivalent UK work is £2,500-£6,000/mo. If a UK quote is closer to US pricing than UK pricing, ask what is justifying the premium - dedicated team size, multi-region coverage, regulated overhead. Sub-£750/mo UK quotes are usually junior agency time or pure content production, not GEO strategy.
Jason Burns
Independent UK SEO, GEO and AI consultant. 17 years in search. Portfolio includes 3M, BlackRock, Unilever and E.ON. Owner of SEO Moves Ltd since 2014.
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