Generative Engine Optimisation Cost UK: What GEO Should Cost a Local Business

It usually starts with an email. “Your competitors are showing up in ChatGPT. You’re not.” Then a monthly figure. If you already pay someone for SEO, the obvious question is whether the generative engine optimisation cost you’ve just been quoted buys new work, or the same work with a new label.

The honest answer is some of each. Google says that, for its own AI results, this is still SEO. But a few pieces genuinely are extra. This guide gives you published UK prices in pounds (not converted US figures), which parts duplicate SEO, which parts can fairly cost more, and the red flags that should end the conversation.

What UK Providers Actually Publish for GEO

From the UK price lists we found, entry-level monthly GEO packages start at £299 and run to about £500. Done-for-you packages aimed at local businesses sit between roughly £450 and £1,250 a month, and the highest published tiers run from about £1,800 to £10,000. One-off audits range from free snapshots to £995.

The US guides ranking for this search start their small-business ranges at $1,500 a month. Several UK providers publish entry prices well below that, in pounds.

UK providers that publish their prices, as published September 2026:

Three things to know before you use it:

1. It’s a small sample. This is every UK GEO price list we could find, not a survey, and many agencies don’t publish GEO prices at all. Read it as the published price lists we found, not a UK average.
2. Estimates aren’t prices. Some UK agencies publish higher market estimates (£800-£2,000 starter). Those are estimates aimed at larger SMEs and B2B brands, not price lists for a single-site plumber.
3. What moves the price. Mostly the number of locations, how many prompts and AI platforms are tracked, and whether content and mention work is included. Check for “+ VAT” too; our local SEO cost guide explains why it matters.

The spread is wide because “GEO” covers anything from a monthly tracking report to a full content and PR programme. The next two sections separate the two.

Why Most of a GEO Invoice Is Work SEO Already Covers

If GEO were a completely different discipline, Google would say so. It says the opposite.

Google’s AI optimisation guide, last updated in July 2026, puts it plainly: “From Google Search’s perspective, optimizing for generative AI search is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO.” The same guide says there’s no special schema markup to add, no need for new AI text files, and “no requirement to break your content into tiny pieces”. That’s Google’s view of its own AI features (AI Overviews and AI Mode), not ChatGPT’s or Perplexity’s.

Work that turns up on GEO proposals but is really SEO:

• Pages Google can crawl and index. A page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet to appear in AI Overviews.
• Clear service and area pages that answer the customer’s question directly.
• Structured data (schema). Useful for SEO, but Google says there’s no special AI version.
• Your Google Business Profile, reviews and consistent listings.
• Links and local mentions from real local sites.

At least one UK agency that sells GEO says the two share most of their foundations, and that running them together avoids paying twice for technical work, content and outreach.

If your SEO retainer already covers these, a GEO proposal that lists them is quoting you twice. Our guide to what GEO is covers the full GEO vs SEO picture.

Put your SEO proposal and the GEO proposal side by side and strike through every line that appears on both. What’s left is what the GEO fee is actually for.

The Four GEO Line Items That Can Fairly Cost Extra

Four things are genuinely new, or newly important. If a GEO fee pays for these, it’s earning its keep.

1. Prompt tracking

Checking a fixed set of questions your customers would actually ask (“emergency plumber in Warrington”, “best family dentist near me”) across ChatGPT, Google’s AI Overviews and similar tools. In pounds, SE Ranking’s AI Search add-on is £69 a month (£55.20 billed annually) on top of a base plan from £95 a month, and Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit is £80.22 a month per domain billed annually, for 25 prompts. You don’t need your own tool if your provider runs a fixed prompt set. Our AI visibility tracking guide covers the method.

2. AI visibility reporting, done properly

AI answers change from one run to the next, so a fair report runs the same prompts repeatedly and tells you how often you appear, not a “position”. SparkToro calls “visibility % across dozens to hundreds of prompts run multiple times” a reasonable metric. A good report also records what the answers actually said, as Provider F’s audit does.

3. Content restructuring

Rewriting service and area pages so a clear answer sits near the top and the facts (areas covered, services, prices if you publish them, accreditations) are stated plainly. Legitimate, but mostly a one-off per page. Provider A puts full content restructuring in its £599 tier.

4. Mentions on other sites

The strongest evidence sits here. Ahrefs’ study of 75,000 brands found branded web mentions had the highest correlation with AI Overview visibility (0.664), against 0.218 for backlinks. Ahrefs’ own caveat applies: “correlation ≠ causation”, and the study looked at larger, established sites. It’s also the costliest item, sitting in upper tiers such as Provider B’s £2,300 and Provider G’s £5,000 (four third-party citations a month). Locally, it should mean local press, trade bodies and the local guides AI tools cite, not national PR.

One AI-specific check sits outside these: ChatGPT search needs OpenAI’s OAI-SearchBot crawler allowed in your robots.txt. That’s a one-off setting, not a monthly fee.

If the extra fee maps to these four items with named deliverables, it’s a fair line item. If it maps to the list in the previous section, it isn’t.

Audit, Tracking or Done-for-You: Which Should a Local Business Buy?

Comparing a £247 audit with a £1,250 retainer is like comparing a survey with a builder. Know which one you’re being sold. GEO pricing comes in three shapes:

One-off audit. A snapshot of what AI tools say about you now, plus a fix list. £247 to £995 in the lists we found (Providers D, E and F). Some providers offer free checks, which are a quick snapshot rather than a full audit. Best for: finding out whether there’s a problem before paying monthly. See our GEO audit guide for what a proper audit should cover.

Tracking-led retainer. Monthly monitoring and reports, with light recommendations. From £299 to £499 (Provider A’s and Provider E’s entry tiers). Skip it if nobody will act on the report, because tracking alone changes nothing.

Done-for-you, usually bundled with SEO. Tracking plus content and mention work. £450 to £1,250 a month in the local-business lists (Providers B and C). Local Magnet includes GEO in the £500 single-city plan alongside SEO and Google Business Profile management; our GEO page lists what that covers.

Already paying for local SEO? Ask your current provider what they’d add before buying a separate GEO retainer from someone else. Paying for nothing yet? A combined SEO and GEO plan usually beats two separate contracts, because of the overlap covered above.

GEO Red Flags: Guaranteed AI Rankings and One-Off AI Scores

Ask ChatGPT or Google’s AI for a list of recommendations twice and you’ll almost never get the same list. In a SparkToro and Gumshoe study, 600 volunteers ran 12 prompts through ChatGPT, Claude and Google’s AI 2,961 times. The result: less than a 1-in-100 chance of the same list of brands in any two answers, and about 1 in 1,000 for the same order.

Four red flags follow:

1. A guaranteed recommendation or “AI ranking”. Google says “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google” and “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems.” SparkToro says any tool giving “a ranking position in AI” is “full of baloney”. At least one UK provider advertises a citation guarantee on its top tiers; read the eligibility small print.
2. A single-snapshot “AI score”. One run of a handful of prompts, scored out of 100, tells you what one answer said on one day. Fine as a free conversation starter, not a baseline to pay against.
3. “AI submission” or special AI files sold as a premium. ChatGPT search finds sites through OpenAI’s crawler, not a submission form. Google says an llms.txt file “will neither harm nor help” your visibility in Google Search, because Google Search ignores it. Harmless, but not worth a monthly fee.
4. Fake forum posts or reviews. Some agencies seed Reddit-style “recommendation” posts naming their client. That’s deceptive and a risk to your name. Fake reviews have been banned in the UK since 6 April 2025 under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

Any of these is a reason to walk away, whatever the monthly price.

Already Paying for SEO? Five Questions Before You Add GEO

Most local businesses being pitched GEO already pay someone for SEO. Five questions, asked of your current provider or the new GEO one, tell you whether the extra fee buys anything.

1. Which of these tasks isn’t already in my SEO retainer? This is the strike-through test from earlier.
2. Which prompts will you track, on which AI tools, and how many times is each one run? One run proves nothing.
3. What will you change each month, not just measure? Tracking alone doesn’t move results.
4. Where will mentions come from, and are they real publications, guides and customers? Anything else is a risk, not an asset.
5. What happens to the tracking account and history if I leave? Your baseline should stay with you.

For the general questions on logins, VAT and contract length, see our local SEO cost guide.

If your current provider can answer all five, you may not need a second one.

FAQ

How much does GEO cost in the UK?

Among UK providers that publish prices, monthly GEO packages start at about £299-£500 and the highest published tiers run from about £1,800 to £10,000. One-off audits run from free snapshots to £995. That’s from the price lists we found, not a survey. Some agencies bundle GEO into SEO: Local Magnet charges £500 a month, no VAT, for SEO, Google Business Profile and GEO together.

Is GEO just SEO with a new name?

For Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google says it’s “still SEO”. ChatGPT and other assistants use their own crawlers, and tracking what they say about you is new work, so a few items are genuinely extra. Most of the rest overlaps with the local SEO you may already pay for.

Can an agency guarantee ChatGPT will recommend my business?

No. SparkToro’s research found AI answers change almost every time the same question is asked, and Google says no one can guarantee a top ranking and no third-party tool has access to its AI systems. Treat a guarantee as a reason to walk away.

Do I need to pay for an AI visibility tracking tool myself?

Usually not, for a single-site business. Trackers priced in pounds start around £69 a month (SE Ranking’s add-on, plus a base plan from £95) or £80.22 a month (Semrush, billed annually). If your provider tracks a fixed prompt set monthly and shares the results, that covers it.

GEO is included in our plans rather than sold on top. Tell us what you do and where, and we’ll give you a straight answer on whether we can help. If we can’t, we’ll say so.