Pricing & Packaging: How to Structure GEO Retainers

Introduction: Selling Assets, Not Hours

The biggest mistake agencies make with Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is pricing it like traditional SEO—selling hours or word counts. GEO is about building digital assets (Knowledge Graph entries, structured data, authoritative citations) that AI models consume.

To command premium fees, agencies must shift the conversation from "labor" to "digital real estate."

The Pricing Psychology: "Insurance" vs. "Growth"

Position your GEO packages using two psychological levers:

1. Defensive (Insurance): "Protect your brand from AI hallucinations and competitor displacement." (Lower Tiers)

2. Offensive (Growth): "Dominate the answer box and become the primary source for AI answers." (Higher Tiers)

The 3-Tier GEO Retainer Model

Tier 1: Brand Defense (The "Foundation" Package)

Target: Small businesses or brands protecting their name. Price Point: $2,000 - $3,500 / month Focus: Ensuring AI models know who you are and what you do.

• Core Deliverables:

  • Entity Home Optimization: About Us page & Schema markup audit.

  • Knowledge Graph Verification: Claiming Google Knowledge Panel & Wikidata updates.

  • Review Management: Monitoring sentiment on top review sites (Trustpilot, G2).

  • Basic "Data Gap" Content: 1-2 FAQ pages addressing common hallucinations.

Tier 2: Answer Authority (The "Growth" Package)

Target: Growth-stage companies competing for non-branded queries. Price Point: $4,500 - $8,000 / month Focus: Winning "Best [Product]" and "How to [Action]" queries in AI.

• Core Deliverables:

  • All Tier 1 features.

  • Strategic Content Clusters: 2-4 "Answer-First" articles per month targeting specific AI queries.

  • Citation Building: Digital PR outreach to get cited in "Seed Set" sources (authoritative news/niche sites).

  • SGE/SearchGPT Tracking: Monthly report on visibility in AI overviews.

Tier 3: Market Dominance (The "Enterprise" Package)

Target: Market leaders wanting to shape the narrative. Price Point: $10,000+ / month Focus: Controlling the entire information ecosystem around a vertical.

• Core Deliverables:

  • All Tier 2 features.

  • Proprietary Data Studies: Publishing original research/stats to become a primary source for other articles (and AIs).

  • Influencer/Expert Collaboration: Co-authored content to boost E-E-A-T.

  • Crisis Monitoring: Real-time alerts for negative AI mentions or hallucinations.

  • Custom LLM Fine-tuning Support: (Optional) Preparing data for client's internal AI apps.

The "Upsell" Script: Converting SEO Clients

Don't replace SEO; position GEO as the necessary evolution.

The Pitch:

"We've done a great job ranking your links on Page 1. But 40% of searches are now happening on platforms that don't show links—they give answers.

Our current SEO retainer covers Google Search. To cover ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews, we need to add a 'GEO Layer' to ensure you're the answer, not just a link."

Deliverables vs. Value Matrix

Feature	SEO Retainer (Old)	GEO Retainer (New)	Value Perception
Unit of Work	Hours / Word Count	Assets / Answers	Higher
Reporting	Rankings / Traffic	Share of Citation / Sentiment	Strategic
Content	Blog Posts (Long-form)	FAQ / Data Tables (Concise)	Utility
Technical	Core Web Vitals	Schema / Knowledge Graph	Future-Proof

FAQ: Common Client Objections

Q: Can't we just do this with our current SEO budget?A: "SEO is about optimizing for a crawler. GEO is about optimizing for a reasoning engine. They require different technical skills (Schema vs. HTML) and different content structures. We can reallocate some budget, but to win on both fronts, we need dedicated resources."

Q: How long until we see results?A: "Unlike SEO which can take 6-12 months, GEO changes can sometimes be seen faster in AI responses once the 'Entity' is understood, but building 'Authority' for competitive terms is a 6-month+ play. We structure our retainers for 6-month minimums to guarantee data density."