How much does an AEO agency cost?

Key takeaways

• Three bands: roughly $3–7k boutique, $7–15k mid-tier, $15k+ enterprise.
• Almost nobody publishes a price, so budgeting means booking calls before you can compare.
• A tool subscription is not the alternative to an agency. A tool plus a person is.
• Watch the contract shape as closely as the number. Annual locks are common.
• Cheaper often means junior delivery. Ask who does the work before you compare prices.

What sits inside each band

• $3,000 to $7,000 a month. Boutique and founder-led. Typically a focused remit, one or two disciplines done well, and direct access to the person doing the work. Breaking B2B sits near the bottom of this band and publishes an entry price; Ante sits at $6,000. At this level you are buying depth in a narrow lane, not coverage.
• $7,000 to $15,000 a month. Mid-tier agency. More people, broader scope, a named account manager who is usually not the person executing. Reasonable when you need several disciplines coordinated and have someone internally to steer it.
• $15,000 and up. Enterprise. Large teams, formal process, procurement, quarterly business reviews. Right for large estates and complex stakeholder maps, and considerable overhead if you are a Series A with one marketer.

Why nobody publishes a price

Partly reasonable: scope genuinely varies, and a number without context invites bad comparisons. Partly not: an unpublished price lets the quote adapt to what the buyer looks like they can pay, and it forces a discovery call that doubles as a sales call.

The practical cost lands on you. Comparing five agencies means ten meetings before you have five numbers, and by then you have spent more time on procurement than on the problem.

The comparison that actually matters

Most buyers frame it as agency versus tool, because a tool subscription is visible and cheap. Otterly publishes $189 a month for its Standard plan; AthenaHQ publishes $295 for a starter tier. Against a $6,000 retainer that looks decisive.

It is the wrong comparison. Those tools measure whether you are being cited. None of them earn the citation. The honest version is a tool subscription plus the salaried hours of someone able to act on the readings: to do the outreach, restructure the pages, fix the sources and chase the placements. Loaded, that person costs several times the retainer, and the tool still bills monthly.

The genuine case for the tool-plus-person route is that you already have the person. If you do, buy the tool. If you do not, you are comparing a retainer against a hire.

What to ask before comparing numbers

1. Who does the work? Founder-led and junior-delivered are different products at similar prices, and this is the single biggest hidden variable.
2. What is the minimum term? Annual locks are common. A 90-day minimum that converts to monthly is a materially different risk.
3. What is measured, and how often? If nobody can describe the method, you are buying activity rather than an outcome.
4. What does month three look like? Specifics, not adjectives.
5. What is out of scope? Outreach, technical fixes and reputation work are frequently assumed by the buyer and excluded by the contract.

Is it worth it?

It depends on whether buyers in your category ask engines questions that get answered with brand names. If they do and you are not one of them, the shortlist is forming without you and you will never see it happen. There is no bounce rate for an answer you were left out of.

If your category is mostly branded search, where people already know what they want and type your name, the case is much weaker and paid or lifecycle work will likely return more. An honest agency will tell you that on the first call.

What Ante charges

$6,000 per month, published, plus custom enterprise. 90-day minimum, then month to month with 30 days notice. Founder-led delivery, one point of contact, and the measurement method published in full so you can hold us to it.

If you want to know whether you have a problem worth $6,000 a month before talking to anyone, the free AEO report measures your category across engines and tells you who is being named.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an AEO agency cost in 2026?

Roughly $3,000 to $7,000 per month at the boutique end, $7,000 to $15,000 mid-tier, and $15,000 or more at enterprise. Almost all quote on request. Ante publishes a flat $6,000 per month with a 90-day minimum that then converts to month to month with 30 days notice.

Why do most AEO agencies not publish pricing?

Partly because scope genuinely varies and a bare number invites bad comparisons. Partly because an unpublished price can adapt to what a buyer appears able to pay, and it forces a discovery call that also functions as a sales call. The cost of that lands on the buyer, who needs two meetings per vendor before they can compare anything.

Is an AEO agency cheaper than hiring in house?

Usually, at the boutique end. A capable in-house hire able to do outreach, technical work and content restructuring costs considerably more than a $6,000 retainer once loaded, and takes months to recruit. The in-house case gets stronger at scale, when the volume of work justifies a full-time person and an agency premium stops making sense.

Should I buy an AI visibility tool instead of hiring an agency?

Only if you already have someone with the capacity to act on what the tool shows. Tools such as Profound, Peec AI, Scrunch and Otterly measure whether you are cited; none of them earn the citation. The real comparison is an agency retainer against a subscription plus a salary, not against the subscription alone.

What should be included in an AEO retainer?

At minimum: a stated measurement method across named engines on a fixed cadence, technical work on crawlability and structured data, content engineered for retrieval rather than word count, and third-party placement. Ask explicitly whether outreach and reputation work are included, because buyers routinely assume both and contracts routinely exclude them.

How long should I commit to an AEO engagement?

Long enough to see whether it works, which is about a quarter, and no longer than that before you can leave. A 90-day minimum converting to monthly is a reasonable shape. Be wary of twelve-month locks in a discipline this young, where the surfaces are still changing.

What is a red flag in AEO agency pricing?

A guaranteed citation, since nobody controls the engine. A price that only appears after two meetings. An annual lock with no early exit. And a scope that includes content volume but excludes outreach, which is usually where the actual movement comes from.