I recently came across a large agency charging over £1,200 a month for SEO, then offering "GEO" (generative engine optimisation) as an add-on for roughly the same again. For a small business, that is the difference between around £14,400 and £28,800 a year.
This article is part of my small business guide to SEO.
That is a big jump, so it is worth knowing exactly what the second invoice pays for. In this guide I break down what UK GEO services cost, go through the deliverables GEO providers themselves say a "credible" programme includes, and check each one against what good SEO already does.
What GEO costs in the UK
GEO pricing varies wildly, partly because there is no agreed definition of what it includes.
One UK GEO agency's 2026 pricing guide sets out these monthly tiers:
| Tier | Monthly price | Typical deliverables |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | £800 to £2,000 | 2 to 4 content pieces, basic schema, 2 to 3 AI platforms |
| Foundation | £2,000 to £5,000 | 6 to 10 content pieces, 4 to 5 platforms, entity mapping |
| Authority | £5,000 to £10,000 | 10 to 16 content pieces, all major platforms |
| Dominance | £10,000 to £20,000+ | 16 to 30+ content pieces, dedicated team |
The same guide lists one-off onboarding audits of £1,500 to £5,000, and minimum contract terms of 12 months for everything above the starter tier. Another UK GEO pricing guide, published in August 2026, says entry-level GEO starts at "a few hundred pounds a month" and national programmes run past £20,000.
Interestingly, the first guide also says that anything under £1,500 a month claiming to be "full GEO" is usually rebranded SEO. I would go further. Look at the deliverables, and much of it is SEO at any price.
The deliverables, line by line
A GEO agency's own August 2026 guide lists what it calls the core components of a credible GEO programme. Here is each one, next to the SEO work it corresponds to.
Entity clarity
What it means: Making sure AI systems clearly understand who your business is, what it does and where.
The SEO equivalent: Consistent business name, address and phone number across your website, Google Business Profile, directories and trade bodies, plus a clear About page and service pages. Local SEO has called this citation building for well over a decade.
Evidence it matters: Yes. In my test of ChatGPT's local recommendations, directories or trade bodies were cited for 9 of 10 searches. But it is SEO work.
Structured schema markup
What it means: Code on your pages that describes your business, services, reviews and FAQs in a machine-readable way.
The SEO equivalent: Schema markup, a standard technical SEO task. Google's AI features guidance says no special AI-only markup is required.
Evidence it matters: Useful, but it is typically set up once and maintained, not rebuilt monthly.
Technical infrastructure: llms.txt and crawler access
What it means: Adding an llms.txt file and making sure AI crawlers can access your site.
The SEO equivalent: Crawler access is part of any technical SEO audit, and it has become more important because some hosting and security settings block AI crawlers by default. llms.txt, on the other hand, has no confirmed effect. Google says such files "neither harm nor help" visibility in Google Search, and no major AI company has confirmed using it. More on that in llms.txt and the other AI SEO myths.
Evidence it matters: Crawler access, yes. llms.txt, no.
Content pieces
What it means: Articles and pages written to be cited by AI tools, typically 2 to 30 pieces a month depending on tier.
The SEO equivalent: Content marketing. Helpful, specific, well-structured content earns rankings in Google and citations in AI tools for the same reasons. Google says you do not need to write in a special way for AI.
Evidence it matters: Good content matters. Content written for an AI format rather than for people does not have evidence behind it.
Brand mentions and digital PR
What it means: Getting your business mentioned on other websites, publications and communities.
The SEO equivalent: Digital PR and link building. Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands found web mentions correlated more strongly with AI Overview visibility than backlinks did, which is a good reason to value unlinked mentions more than SEOs traditionally did. It is still the same activity.
Evidence it matters: Yes, as long as it is legitimate. See what GEO agencies are really selling you for the versions to avoid.
Weekly AI answer tracking and citation logs
What it means: Running a set of prompts through ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity every week and logging where you are mentioned.
The SEO equivalent: This is the one part that is new. Rank tracking tells you where you appear in Google, but it does not tell you what an AI tool said.
Evidence it matters: Limited, because AI answers are unstable. In my test, only 40% of the businesses ChatGPT recommended appeared in all three runs of the same search. Tracking can show broad trends, but it is a report, not work that improves your visibility. You can do a basic version yourself by searching for your services in ChatGPT a few times a month. For my own clients I can set up ChatGPT tracking as part of their SEO, reported as a trend over time rather than a headline score, not sold as a second service.
So what does the second invoice buy?
Take the typical deliverables above and remove everything that competent SEO already includes. What is left is mostly reporting on AI answers, plus an llms.txt file with no confirmed effect.
That is why I do not think a separate GEO fee makes sense for most small businesses. You are not paying for a new kind of work. You are paying again for work that should already be in your SEO, plus a dashboard.
There are two situations where paying more can be justified:
- Your current SEO does not cover the basics. If nobody manages your Google Business Profile, reviews, listings or technical health, you need better SEO. Buying GEO on top of weak SEO is putting a new roof on a house with no walls.
- You are a large national brand with a big content and PR budget. At that scale, detailed AI answer monitoring across many product lines can inform decisions. That is not the situation most local and small businesses are in.
Where an extra £1,200 a month would do more
If you have budget to spare, these will almost always do more for a small business than a GEO add-on:
- A proper review generation process. In my test, ChatGPT showed Google star ratings and review counts exactly as they appear on Google. More genuine reviews improve your Google map rankings, your click-through rate and how you look in AI answers at the same time. I cover why in how online reviews benefit SEO.
- Better service and location pages. Specific pages for each service and area give Google and AI tools a clear answer to "who does this, here?"
- Google Ads. If you need enquiries now, paid search delivers them while SEO builds. A combined SEO and PPC package usually costs less than SEO plus GEO.
- Genuine local PR. Sponsorships, local press, supplier case studies and trade body features create the brand mentions AI tools value, and they win you work directly too.
Questions to ask about any GEO quote
- Which of these deliverables is my SEO provider not already doing?
- How much of the monthly fee is reporting, and how much is work?
- How do you separate real changes in AI visibility from answers simply varying run to run?
- What is the minimum contract term, and what happens to the work if I leave?
- Can you show enquiries or sales, not just mentions, from a business like mine?
If the answers point back to SEO tasks, you already know what you are being asked to pay for twice.
Conclusion
UK GEO services range from a few hundred pounds to over £20,000 a month, often on long contracts. When you check the deliverables line by line, almost all of them are established SEO work: citations, schema, technical access, content and digital PR. The only new part is monitoring AI answers, and the answers change too much between runs to justify a large monthly fee for most small businesses.
My approach is simple: the work that gets you found in AI tools is included in SEO, so it is included in my SEO. Every SoNick SEO package starts from £449 a month plus VAT and includes Google Business Profile management, technical SEO, Bing Webmaster Tools set-up, rank tracking and monthly reporting as standard, and I can set up ChatGPT visibility tracking too, without a second invoice for GEO. If you are looking at a GEO quote and want an honest second opinion, get in touch. And for the full background, start with GEO vs SEO.
