Book a 30-minute growth review. Engagements start at $5,000/month.
Learn / AEO Pricing and Budget
Book a 30-minute growth review. Engagements start at $5,000/month.
AEO pricing is confusing because market ranges and real retainers do not match. Public guides quote broad bands. On this site, engagements start at $5,000/month with a 3-month minimum. Local AEO add-on is $3,000/month. White-label AEO is offered for agencies that want the work delivered under their brand.
Use this hub to compare market ranges with the floor on /pricing, estimate ROI with the calculator, and see what a 90-day pilot should deliver before you sign. Cost posts belong here. Hire-intent service pages belong on the money pages, not in the blog.
If you need a number for a 2027 budget, start with /pricing, then the consultant cost and 90-day pilot posts. Bring your company stage, engines that matter, and current content capacity to the call so the quote is specific.
Engagements start at $5,000/month with a 3-month minimum. Local AEO add-on is $3,000/month. White-label AEO is offered for agencies. Full detail: /pricing.
Engagements start at $5,000/month with a 3-month minimum. Local AEO add-on is $3,000/month. White-label AEO is offered.
Clear citation baselines, money-page priorities, engine coverage, and measurable changes in mentions or citations. See the pilot post.
Use /pricing and book a 30-minute review with your stage, engines, and content capacity.
Last reviewed September 29, 2026 by Austin Heaton.
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In-house is the right call in some companies. Fractional is the right call in others. Here is the comparison a marketing or growth lead actually has to make.
Senior work without a full-time seat. No salary number invented here - we scope on the call.
Hiring a senior SEO or AEO leader often costs $150,000 - $250,000+ annually after salary, benefits, software, contractors, and content production.
Starts on the live site. Money pages, entity work, and citations can move in the first month.
Recruiting, offer, notice period, then ramp. You wait before the first commercial page ships.
You work with Austin. Strategy and execution sit with one senior owner. See the AEO + SEO strategist page.
You hire a leader. That person still has to prove the AEO skill set and still has to staff the work.
Austin owns strategy and the work: money pages, technical SEO, mentions, MOFU/BOFU, citations.
A SEO lead still needs writers, PR, and tech. The hire is a manager seat unless you also fund the bench.
Built for ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews - plus Google. Citations, entities, commercial pages.
Most SEO lead job specs are still classic SEO: rankings, content calendar, reporting. AEO is a different skill set.
The work starts on the pages buyers already ask AI about. Faster path to a citable commercial page.
First citation waits on hiring, then on the production team the hire still has to assemble.
Do not hire a consultant when you need a people manager. Do not hire a SEO lead when you need senior AEO shipped this quarter.
This is not a strategy deck handed to a junior team. Austin owns the commercial pages, the entity signals, and the technical foundation that get you cited.
These are the live case studies. Same numbers as the portfolio.
We review where your site loses visibility across technical, on-site, and off-site - then send the exact fixes.
Get My Free Report Card →You are choosing who owns Google and AI search, and whether that person also does the work.
An AEO + SEO strategist or fractional search lead is a senior owner who ships money pages, entity work, technical SEO, and citations. An SEO-only team is a full-time seat. That hire still needs writers, PR, and tech unless you fund those too.
The homepage FAQ already states it: hiring a senior SEO or AEO leader often costs $150,000 - $250,000+ annually after salary, benefits, software, contractors, and content production expenses.
That is the fully loaded seat - not just base salary. If the consultant model fits, we scope it on a call.
Hire SEO-only when you need a full-time people manager, a large team already in the building, and someone inside every internal political loop.
Hire the consultant model when you need senior AEO now and one person who owns strategy and execution. Adjacent: AEO for B2B, AEO for FinTech, AEO for Crypto.
Yes, in most companies. The title is leadership. The citations still come from commercial pages, entity mentions, and technical access. Austin's consultant seat covers strategy and that work.
Documented on this site. Lumanu: 656 AI-sourced clicks and 101 conversions in 60 days. Riseworks: 288% organic growth and 575% AI search expansion. Pactvera: 6,000%+ impression growth and placement next to DocuSign in 11 days. iSpeedToLead: 310.8% AI search growth and the #1 citation share at 7.79%. See the case studies.
Book a call. We look at whether you need a full-time SEO lead or a consultant / fractional owner. Book a call with Austin or use the contact page.
If you need senior AEO ownership - and you are deciding consultant vs a full-time SEO lead - book the call. We will tell you which model fits.