Should I hire a GEO agency or do it myself?
Hire a GEO agency when you have budget but no hours, need off-site work such as PR and mentions at volume, or want one accountable person. Agencies that publish prices charge about $1,500 to $10,000 a month, often with a 90-day minimum. Doing it yourself takes about 30 to 60 hours in the first month and 4 to 8 a week after (our estimate). Tools cover measuring and fixing; they don’t earn mentions for you.
When an agency is worth it
An agency makes sense when at least two of these are true:
- You have the budget (a few thousand dollars a month for at least three months) and fewer than 4 hours a week.
- The gap is off-site: assistants name competitors because PR, review sites and communities mention them, not you.
- You need volume, such as dozens of pages a month, and won’t write or edit them yourself.
- You want one accountable person who reports weekly.
Doing it yourself makes sense when your site is small, you can edit it (directly or with an AI coding tool), and the main problems are on the site: blocked bots, pages that render empty, no page that answers the question. Check which case you’re in with the manual test in check if ChatGPT recommends your site before spending anything.
What agencies charge: two published examples
Most GEO agencies quote after a call. These two publish numbers, read on their own pages on 15 Oct 2026. We list them as examples of the market, not as recommendations.
| Agency | Price | Term | What’s included |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEO Engine | Growth $1,597 a month; Scale $2,997; Enterprise from $10,000 | 90-day initial term, billed monthly | 30 or 60 articles a month, backlinks, PR campaigns, brand mentions on Reddit, Quora and others, up to 150 or 300 tracked prompts, weekly report |
| Landkit Managed | “Typical engagements: $1,500 to $5,000 / month” | Not stated | Strategist, weekly content, technical SEO fixes done for you, citation campaigns, weekly reports; self-serve plan $79 |
Two cautions apply to any agency, these included. Ask how links and mentions are earned, because Google’s spam policies list “buying or selling links for ranking purposes” as link spam (Google spam policies, read 15 Oct 2026). And read any outcome promise closely: Google says “No third-party tool has access to our internal ranking or AI systems” (Google AI optimization guide, read 15 Oct 2026).
What DIY takes, in hours
Our estimate for a site of 10 to 30 pages, built with code or an AI coding tool. It isn’t a measured average; your numbers depend on the site and on how fast you write.
| Task | Month one | After that |
|---|---|---|
| Research: customer situations, competitors, a 12-question set | 3 to 5 h | 1 h a month |
| Baseline check by hand on 5 assistants | 2 to 3 h | 1 to 2 h every 14 days |
| Technical fixes: rendering, robots.txt and CDN rules, sitemap, 404s, JSON-LD | 4 to 12 h | Small, as you ship |
| Situation pages, 5 to 10 of them | 15 to 35 h | 2 to 4 h a week |
| Off-site: directories, communities, replying where your topic comes up | 4 to 8 h | 1 to 2 h a week |
| Total | about 30 to 60 h | about 4 to 8 h a week |
The order is in the method: research, plan, build, verify, then re-measure every 14 days.
What a tool covers, and what it doesn’t
| Job | Agency | You plus a tool | You by hand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Measure answers on a schedule | Yes | Yes (trackers) | Yes, slowly |
| Find on-site causes | Usually | Yes (audits) | With curl and Search Console |
| Make the code or CMS change | Yes | Your coding tool, your CMS, or a tool that deploys | Yes |
| Write pages | Yes, at volume | Briefs and drafts; you edit | Yes |
| PR, outreach, earned mentions | Yes | No | Yes, slowly |
Tools are cheap where the work is repeatable (measuring, auditing, generating files). Agencies earn their fee where it takes people (pitching, relationships, volume). The comparison of tools by job is in GEO tools that fix vs track.
Example: working out your break-even
An example, with made-up numbers. A founder values an hour at $60. DIY in month one: 45 hours, so $2,700 of time plus $50 to $100 of tools. Month two onward: 6 hours a week, about $1,560 a month of time. An agency at $1,597 a month with a 90-day term costs $4,791 before you can stop.
On cost alone they’re close. The deciding questions are different: does the agency do the off-site work you can’t, and will you still need to review every page it writes? If the problems are mostly on your site, DIY is usually faster, because nobody waits for access to your repo.
Where Katman fits
Katman is the DIY route with help inside your editor. It’s a local MCP server for Cursor, Claude Code, VS Code, Windsurf and similar tools: it reads your code and live pages the way AI crawlers do, gives your coding tool fix prompts with acceptance checks and page briefs, and measures whether ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok name you on your own OpenRouter key. Katman Pro is $99 a month for up to 3 sites, with fix prompts and page briefs uncapped. Or have us do it: Growth writes 30 pages a month for you. Details on the MCP page.
It isn’t an agency. It doesn’t edit your site by itself, write PR pitches, buy links or post on Reddit, and nobody can promise an assistant will recommend you.
Who this is not for
- Enterprise teams running a vendor selection: ask agencies for proposals and references.
- Readers looking for an agency directory: we name only agencies whose prices we could read.
- Anyone expecting a promised result: no agency or tool can make one.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a GEO agency cost?
Of the agencies we found with public prices, AEO Engine lists $1,597 and $2,997 a month with a 90-day initial term, and enterprise work from $10,000; Landkit says its managed engagements typically run $1,500 to $5,000 a month (vendor pages, read 15 Oct 2026).
What does a GEO agency do that I can’t do with a tool?
Mainly off-site work and volume: PR campaigns, outreach for mentions, and writing many pages a month. Tools can tell you what to fix and measure answers, but they don’t pitch journalists or post in communities for you.
Can an agency make ChatGPT recommend my business?
No one can promise that. Google says no third-party tool has access to its internal ranking or AI systems, and assistant answers change from run to run. Ask any agency how it measures progress instead.
How many hours a week does DIY GEO take?
Our estimate for a small site: 30 to 60 hours in the first month for fixes, research and five to ten pages, then 4 to 8 hours a week for new pages, off-site work and a check every 14 days.
Is a hybrid possible?
Yes, and it’s common: you or your coding tool handle the site and the pages, and you pay a freelancer or agency only for PR or outreach you can’t do yourself.