How much does local SEO and AI search optimization cost?

1. What AI search optimization costs a contractor
2. Why two AEO prices are hard to compare
3. What the price has to cover, from our research
4. How to compare AEO and local SEO quotes
5. Questions owners ask
6. How we got these numbers
7. Sources
8. See it on your own website

What AI search optimization costs a contractor

Maybe an agency has quoted you for "AEO" or "AI SEO", or you're wondering what it would take to show up when a homeowner asks ChatGPT for a plumber. Here is what the market charges, and what the price should buy.

What agencies say they charge

Nobody publishes a full price list for the industry, so the best figures come from surveys of the agencies themselves. In a survey of 260 agencies published in December 2024, most served small or local businesses, and the most common monthly fee was $500 to $1,000 ¹. Almost two in three charged under $1,000 a month, and about one in five in the US and Canada charged over $2,000 ¹.

AI search work is mostly added to those packages rather than sold on its own. In the same survey, most agencies planned to offer optimization for AI search, and those that had set a price averaged about $937 a month for it ¹. In an older poll of 439 SEO providers, those serving local markets charged about $1,557 a month on average ².

Treat these as rough ranges. They come from what providers report, the surveys mix very different services, and none of them says what work was included for the money.

What you can't buy

No one sells a place in the answers. Google says it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its search results, and that advertising with Google has no effect on them ³. It doesn't charge for a Business Profile, and it warns owners about callers who ask for money to help with one ⁴. OpenAI says ads don't influence the answers ChatGPT gives ⁵. Anthropic says Claude will stay ad-free and its answers won't be influenced by advertisers ⁶.

So whatever you pay an agency, you are paying for work: pages written, facts corrected, listings fixed, answers checked. The rest of this guide is about telling those apart, because two quotes with the same label can describe very different jobs.

Who sells it

Most offers fall into three groups. Marketing agencies add AI search to SEO packages; in the survey above, most agencies bundled their services into packages and sold other marketing alongside SEO ¹. Tracking tools check what assistants say about you and report it, but change nothing themselves. Website services rebuild and look after your site, sometimes with monitoring included. Google adds that a small local business can probably do much of the work itself ³.

Why two AEO prices are hard to compare

AEO, GEO and local SEO are mostly the same work

Answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) are newer names for helping AI assistants find and trust your business. For Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google says there are no extra requirements or special optimizations ⁷. You don't need special AI files or markup to appear ⁷. Google's own advice on hiring an SEO now asks whether a provider's AEO or GEO advice matches Google's guidance ³.

That guidance covers Google's own features; Google doesn't speak for ChatGPT or Claude. Our records below show those assistants reading contractors' websites and directories, so checking them separately is reasonable. Charging for a separate "AI package" without saying what it adds to ordinary local SEO is not.

A report is not the work

Checking what assistants say about you is useful. But a monthly report changes nothing on its own. Ask which part of the price pays for changes to your pages and listings, and which part pays for checking and reporting. Google suggests asking any SEO whether they will share every change they make to your site, with their reasons ³.

Some reasons an assistant names a business can't be bought

Assistants weigh things no agency controls, such as how soon you can come out, how many real reviews you have and how far you are from the customer. Our research below shows how often those came up. An agency can make sure true facts are easy to check. It can't make you closer or faster.

Be careful with any package that sells reviews. The Federal Trade Commission's rule bans buying or selling fake reviews, including AI-written ones, and lets it seek civil penalties ⁸.

Who owns the website when you leave

When a monthly price includes building your website, read who owns it. Some services keep the design and code while you pay and hand it over only after a set time, or never. Your domain name is a separate question: it should stay in your own name and account either way.

A rebuild can move your rankings for a while

Google warns that rankings can fluctuate when a site moves, and that it can take a few weeks or more for new addresses to replace old ones ⁹. A service that rebuilds your site should explain how it keeps or redirects the pages that already bring you calls.

Guarantees are a warning sign

Google says plainly that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google ³. Treat a promised spot in ChatGPT or AI Mode the same way. A higher price does not buy a surer result.

What the price has to cover, from our research

Between September 2 and October 14, 2026, we asked ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode to recommend a local contractor 47,209 times. The questions covered 147 HVAC, plumbing, electrical and roofing jobs in towns around Tampa Bay, Florida. Our records can't tell you what anyone charges. They do show where the answers looked and what they couldn't check, which is what paid work has to reach. They are observations of answers, not experiments.

Assistants read both your website and your Google listing

In 31,742 ChatGPT and Claude answers about a specific job, 98% linked a contractor's own website and 53% linked a directory or review site. Google AI Mode worked differently. In 74% of its 9,819 job answers, the links opened Google's own listing for a business. 42% linked a contractor's website.

What this means for a quote: a service that only rebuilds your website leaves your Google listing to you. A service that only works on your Business Profile leaves the pages ChatGPT and Claude read. Ask which of the two a price covers, and who does the other.

What Claude said it couldn't confirm

Claude usually tells the customer what it couldn't check. In 6,144 of its 14,467 job answers (42%), it said it couldn't find or confirm something about a company. ChatGPT said so in 241 of 17,275 answers and Google AI Mode in 22 of 9,819, so these counts describe Claude, not every assistant. What Claude most often couldn't confirm:

• A phone number or other way to reach the company: 3,820 answers.
• Reviews it could check: 1,559 answers.
• When the company could do the work: 875 answers.
• Whether the company serves the customer's town or ZIP code: 754 answers.
• A license or insurance it could check: 647 answers.
• A price, or how the job is priced: 451 answers.

I couldn't confirm a phone number for any of these companies, so you'll need to look up the numbers yourself.

I couldn't confirm that any of them has a slot tomorrow morning, because availability isn't posted online.

Most of these are facts you already know. Paid work earns its price when it puts them where an assistant can check them: on your own pages, in your Google listing and in the other listings that repeat them.

Which reasons the work can reach

Before this research, we read assistant conversations from late July to August 23, 2026, and recorded each reason a business was named or left out. Below, the first number is the conversations where a reason came up. The second is how many times it cost a business its place. The counts overlap, so don't add them.

These depend on how you run the business, so no website or listing work creates them:

• How fast the business can come out: 657 and 185.
• How many reviews it has: 569 and 139.
• How close it is to the customer: 456 and 92.

These depend on facts being published and checkable, which is the part an agency or website service can work on:

• Whether it serves the area asked about: 554 and 350.
• Whether it clearly does the specific job: 440 and 184.
• A direct local phone number that a person answers: 290 and 147.
• Published prices or a stated diagnostic fee: 366 and 49.
• A license the assistant looked up in an official state record: 142 and 103.
• The same name, phone and address across independent listings: 79 and 37.
• Claims found only on the business's own site, treated as unconfirmed: 186 and 67.

The last two matter for a quote. Your own website can't fix them alone. They need your other listings and public records to agree with it, which is separate work from writing pages.

One check proves little, so monitoring has to repeat

We asked many identical questions more than once, typically 14 days apart. On average, only 43% of the businesses ChatGPT named the first time were named again the next time. For Claude it was 26%. Some of that is chance, and the assistants were also updated during these weeks. Either way, one answer is a poor measure.

That is why a monitoring report needs many answers per question. Say a business is named in half of the answers. Measured over 10 answers, that share can be off by about 26 points either way. Over 30 answers it is about 17 points, and over 100 answers about 10 points. A report built on one screenshot per question can't show whether paid work moved anything.

Our own price, read the same way

Merchant Context publishes this guide and sells a website service for $2,000 a month, month to month, with no build fee and no contract ¹⁰. A free homepage preview comes first, and you pay only if you accept it ¹⁰. Here is how that offer reads against the questions above, from its published page and terms.

• Included: a website rebuild, ongoing checks of ChatGPT, Claude and Google, competitor analysis, ongoing changes to the site, and blog and page content ¹¹. Also reporting with Google Analytics, a Google Business Profile audit with recommendations, public-record consistency work and custom integrations ¹¹.
• Not included: buying links, outreach, advertising, editing your Google Business Profile for you, or content anywhere but your own website ¹².
• Existing pages: every page of the current site is carried over or redirected ¹². Rankings and traffic can still move after a rebuild ¹⁰.
• Cancelling: any time, taking effect at the end of the month you've paid for, with no refunds for partial months. If no finished site is shown within 30 days of the first payment, that payment can be refunded in full ¹².
• Ownership: your content is always yours, and so are your domain and registrar account. The site's design, code and the copy written for it stay Merchant Context's for the first 18 consecutive paid months; cancel sooner and the site comes down ¹².
• No guarantee of rankings, AI recommendations, traffic or leads ¹⁰.

Ask every provider you're comparing, including us, for the same list in writing.

How to compare AEO and local SEO quotes

Work through these steps before you sign anything. They turn a monthly number into a list of work you can check.

1. Write down what you already have

List the pages that bring you calls, your phone numbers, who controls your domain and who can manage your Google Business Profile. Whatever you hire should keep all of it, and your domain should stay in your own name.

2. Get the scope in writing, line by line

Ask each provider to answer the same questions, so the quotes line up:

• Which pages will you write or change, and will you add a page for each job I do and each area I serve?
• Will you manage my Google Business Profile, or only recommend changes I make myself?
• Will you fix my name, phone and address on other listings and directories?
• Which assistants will you check, with which questions, and how many times each?
• What will each report show: what changed, on which date, and what happened after?
• Who approves changes before they go live?

3. Ask how they will measure

Ask for the share of answers that name you over many runs of the same questions, with the number of answers behind it. A single screenshot, or your place in one list, tells you little. Google suggests asking any SEO what results they expect, in what time, and how they measure success ³.

4. Read the terms, not just the price

Check the contract length, how to cancel, what is refunded, whether the price can change and with how much notice. If the price includes your website, check who owns it and what happens to it if you leave.

5. Walk away from guarantees and shortcuts

Google tells owners to beware of anyone who guarantees rankings or claims a special relationship with Google ³. Add to that anyone who promises a spot in ChatGPT, or offers to buy reviews, which the FTC's rule forbids ⁸.

6. Compare cost against the work list

Once each quote is a list, compare the lists. A cheaper quote that only reports will cost less than one that also fixes your pages and listings, but it isn't the same purchase. Decide which work you'll do yourself, and pay only for the rest.

Questions owners ask

How much does local SEO cost per month?

A survey of 260 agencies, most serving small or local businesses, was published in December 2024. The most common monthly fee was $500 to $1,000, and almost two in three charged under $1,000 a month. About one in five in the US and Canada charged over $2,000. What is included varies so much that the scope matters more than the number.

How much does AI search optimization or AEO cost?

It is usually sold inside an SEO or website package rather than on its own. Agencies in a December 2024 survey that had priced AI search work averaged about $937 a month for it. Ask what that money changes: your pages, your Google listing, your other listings, or only a report.

Can I pay ChatGPT or Google to recommend my business?

No. Google says it never accepts money to include or rank sites in its search results, and advertising doesn't affect them. OpenAI says ads don't influence ChatGPT's answers, and Anthropic says Claude stays ad-free. What you can pay for is work that makes true facts about your business easy for assistants to find and check.

Is AEO different from local SEO?

Mostly not. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode have no extra requirements beyond ordinary SEO, and need no special AI files or markup. Google's guidance doesn't cover ChatGPT or Claude, so checking them separately is reasonable. A separate AI charge should explain what it does that ordinary local SEO doesn't.

Can anyone guarantee my business shows up in ChatGPT?

No. Google says no one can guarantee a top ranking in its results, and the same holds for AI answers, which change from one run to the next. Treat any guaranteed spot as a reason to walk away, and ask instead how often you are named across many runs of the same questions.

Do I own my website if I cancel an SEO or website service?

It depends on the terms, so read them before you sign. Some services keep the design and code while you subscribe and hand it over only after a set time. Your content, your domain name and your registrar account should stay yours either way.

See it on your own website

Send us your website address and we’ll make a free preview of your homepage, rewritten from this research. You pay only if you accept it: $2,000 a month, month to month, with no build fee.

Get your free homepage preview

Source: Merchant Context: the current website offer · checked 2026-10-14.

Keep reading

• AI search optimization for home service businesses.