PR and communications firms own the earned-authority side: coverage in outlets that AI engines cite, entity records on Wikipedia and Wikidata, original research and Citation Share measurement. SEO and content firms extend technical search work, content production and digital PR into GEO, and the credible ones can show earned placements, not only on-page changes. Boutique firms combine PR, technical GEO and measurement in a small team, usually for one vertical, so they suit focused programs more than an enterprise rollout across many markets.
How are AEO services different from GEO agency services?
AEO services work on pages, and GEO agency services work on the brand across a category. An AEO engagement rewrites and structures the pages that answer buyer questions so a search feature or AI assistant can quote them. A GEO engagement earns the independent coverage and entity records that get the brand named across a whole category of answers. EPR treats them as two separate disciplines, described in What Is AEO? and AEO vs GEO vs SEO.
| Factor | AEO services | GEO agency services |
|---|
| Unit of work | A passage on a page | The brand and its independent coverage |
| Typical deliverables | Question-shaped page rewrites, sourced answers, technical access fixes | Earned placements, entity record fixes, original research, a Citation Share benchmark |
| Measured by | Per-question citations, impressions, position and AI-assistant referral sessions | Citation Share across a fixed prompt set, and mention frequency |
| Typical owner | The search or web team | The communications or PR team |
| Published price points | HubSpot lists its AEO tool at $50 a month, and Lean Labs reports managed AEO programs at $3,000 to $10,000 a month | Everything-PR estimates $10,000 to $100,000+ a month at agencies |
The AEO price points come from provider pricing checked November 5, 2026, and both providers sell AEO, so treat them as claims. Many agencies sell one package and call it AEO, GEO or both, so the name on a quote says little. The six firms ranked above are ranked on GEO evidence only, and this ranking does not score AEO-specific work. Ask any provider that sells AEO four questions.
- How many pages will you rewrite each month, and who chooses them?
- Which questions will you track, on which engines, and how often will you run them?
- How will you show that a rewritten page is cited, beyond its ranking?
- Which facts across our site and other profiles will you reconcile, and who keeps the fact sheet?
AI visibility tools measure how brands appear in AI answers, and some also recommend or deliver content changes, but none of them places earned coverage or builds authority. Profound, AthenaHQ, Otterly.AI, Peec AI, Scrunch AI, Bluefish, Evertune, Goodie and Promptwatch are software platforms, so a subscription gives a dashboard and the work that moves the number still has to come from an agency or an in-house team.
Everything-PR profiles the category in Best AI Visibility Tools: 10 Platforms Compared, in company profiles of Profound, Peec AI, Brandlight, Scrunch, AthenaHQ and AirOps, and in the AI Visibility Directory, which lists the companies, players and leaders behind them.
Two AI visibility startups and one SEO platform were acquired between October 2025 and June 2026, so the software behind an agency's reports can change hands during a contract. The table uses Dealroom's September 18, 2026 analysis of the category, with the acquisitions confirmed against the buyers' own announcements.
| Tool | Job | Status as of September 2026 |
|---|
| Profound | Tracks and improves how brands appear in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity answers | Raised a $180 million Series D at a company-announced $1.8 billion valuation on September 15, 2026 |
| Bluefish | Marketing agents that manage how AI models describe a brand | $43 million Series B in April 2026 |
| Peec AI | Measures how often and how a brand is cited across models and prompts | Series A in November 2025 |
| Evertune | Runs prompts at scale to see how models describe, rank and recommend a brand | $15 million Series A in August 2025 |
| Promptwatch | Tracks brand visibility across ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity | Seed round in July 2026 |
| Scrunch | Delivers brand content to AI agents and flags gaps and errors in what they read | Acquired by Sitecore, announced June 3, 2026. Sitecore did not disclose the price, and Bloomberg reported about $225 million |
| XFunnel | Answer engine optimization, now part of HubSpot Marketing Hub | Acquired by HubSpot in October 2025 for about $30 million in cash, per HubSpot's quarterly filing as cited by Dealroom |
| Semrush | SEO platform that added GEO features | Acquired by Adobe, completed April 28, 2026 |
When a tool vendor is acquired, its pricing, data export terms and roadmap can change. Ask each agency which tool it licenses, where the prompt history is stored, and whether the client keeps that history if the agency or the tool changes.
What should an AI visibility audit service deliver?
An AI visibility audit service should deliver a written baseline of how often AI answers name, cite or recommend a brand on a fixed set of prompts, compared with named competitors. Some vendors call the headline number share of model, meaning the share of AI answers across a prompt set that mention the brand. EPR measures the same idea as Citation Share, so the two terms describe similar counts and the method behind each number matters more than its name.
Software tools can run the prompts, and an agency audit adds the reading of which sources the answers used and what to change. The table lists what to expect in the deliverable and what to question if it is missing.
| Audit element | What it should include | What to question if missing |
|---|
| Prompt set | The full list of prompts, grouped by buyer question, with who chose them | A score with no prompt list cannot be checked |
| Engines and runs | Which of ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews were queried, and how many times per prompt | One run per prompt shows one possible answer, not visibility |
| Competitor set | Five to seven named competitors measured on the same prompts | A brand score with no comparison has no baseline |
| Source analysis | Which pages the answers cited, grouped as owned, earned or third-party | Without sources there is no list of what to fix |
| Fix list | Specific pages, placements and entity records to change, in priority order | A dashboard alone is a measurement, not an audit |
Everything-PR estimates one-time audits at $10,000 to $50,000 (see the cost table below). EPR's own method is in The AI Visibility Audit: Measure Citation Share in 5 Steps, and 5W describes its own offering on its AI citation source audit page. 5W's share of model guide gives the formula and a five-step measurement method.
Which GEO agencies recur across 2026 rankings?
Four SEO and content agencies recur across 2026 rankings published by Thrive Agency, Saffron Edge, SEOProfy, Cloro and Xpand Digital: iPullRank, Siege Media, Go Fish Digital and Omniscient Digital. First Page Sage and Thrive Internet Marketing Agency also appear on several of the same lists. Many of these lists are published by agencies that rank themselves, so treat recurrence as a starting point for research, not an audit.
Thrive Agency's own guide to AI Overviews agencies places Thrive first with a score of 98 out of 100, and Xpand Digital's July 2026 list says openly that it ranks its own agency first. Percepture and Grizzle also rank themselves first on guides published on their own sites. Disclosed self-ranking is normal in this category, which is why the questions below matter more than any position on a list.
| Firm | Group | What 2026 lists say it is known for |
|---|
| Omniscient Digital | B2B content | B2B SaaS content authority tied to pipeline |
| First Page Sage | SEO and GEO | List placement, database inclusion, review strength, public proof points and social sentiment monitoring |
| Thrive Internet Marketing Agency | Full-service digital marketing | GEO alongside SEO, paid media, social and content, with month-to-month terms according to its own guides |
| Zen Media | PR | Named first among PR agencies for generative search in a late 2025 Hackernoon roundup |
What are the alternatives to the top-ranked GEO agencies?
The alternatives depend on what a buyer needs: a PR-led program, a technical SEO-led program, a boutique for startups, or software with an in-house team. The table pairs each need with firms already covered on this page.
| If you need | Alternative to consider | Why, on the evidence above |
|---|
| PR-led GEO with published Citation Share research | 5W | Studies across four engines, the October 2026 chatbox report, The GEO Reckoning and the EPR GEO Scorecard, with a full-service PR practice |
| Technical retrieval and enterprise search work | iPullRank, Go Fish Digital, Siege Media | All three recur across independently published 2026 guides, and iPullRank publishes its Relevance Engineering framework |
| Earned media for B2B tech and SaaS | Corporate Ink, Crackle PR | Corporate Ink published a May 27, 2026 survey, and Crackle PR is built around GEO for venture-backed B2B tech, with firm-reported results |
| B2B SaaS content authority | Omniscient Digital | Recurs across 2026 lists for B2B SaaS content |
| Measurement without an agency | Profound, Peec AI, Evertune | Software that tracks visibility but does not place earned coverage |
A tool shows where a brand stands, and the coverage, entity work and research that move the number come from people, so most buyers end up pairing software with an agency or an in-house team.
What does a GEO agency actually do?
A GEO agency grows a brand's Citation Share, which is the percentage of AI-generated answers across a defined prompt set in which the brand appears, is cited or is recommended. How Citation Share compares across categories is tracked in the Citation Share Index 2026, and which domains each engine reads is ranked in the AI Platform Citation Source Index 2026 and the ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Gemini citation source indexes. For a weekly view of the domains AI platforms cite for public relations, see the PR Citation Index.
Ninety-four percent of AI citations trace back to non-paid, non-brand-owned sources, according to Everything-PR's analysis of Muck Rack's citation data. That is why an agency's earned-media distribution matters as much as its technical schema work, since an agency that only fixes robots.txt and schema markup is running a partial program. Clients are also asking for it: Conductor's 2026 CMO Investment Report found that 94% of digital marketing leaders plan to increase AEO and GEO investment this year.
| # | Capability | What it does |
|---|
| 1 | Measurement | Audits visibility across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews with a tracking tool or bespoke prompt tracking. The KPI is Citation Share. |
| 2 | Editorial sourcing | Secures authoritative coverage, expert quotes and category citations in the publications and forums engines read, increasingly Reddit, YouTube and industry newsletters alongside trade and business press. |
| 3 | Owned-asset structuring | Makes client websites, executive profiles and long-form assets parseable by AI crawlers and accurate about entities, relationships and category positioning. |
| 4 | Reporting | Shows clients what share of AI answers describes their brand, how sentiment moved and which earned placements drove citation gains. |
What should B2B tech companies look for in a GEO agency?
B2B tech companies should look for a GEO agency that pairs earned media in trade and analyst outlets with measured citation results, because software buyers now begin vendor research inside AI engines. The table matches common B2B tech needs to firms on this page, using only the evidence above.
| B2B tech need | Firms to shortlist | What the evidence says |
|---|
| Earned media and GEO for B2B tech and SaaS | Corporate Ink | Boston B2B tech and SaaS PR firm that published a May 27, 2026 survey on AI visibility |
| GEO and LLM optimization for venture-backed startups | Crackle PR | Remote-first, all-senior agency built around GEO, with firm-reported client results |
| Enterprise retrieval and search engineering | iPullRank | Enterprise SEO and AI search agency with a published Relevance Engineering framework |
| Cross-engine Citation Share research with a PR bench | 5W | Published studies across four engines and a full-service PR practice |
| B2B SaaS content authority tied to pipeline | Omniscient Digital | Recurs across 2026 lists for B2B SaaS content |
For the PR firms that serve technology clients, see the technology PR agency ranking and the B2B PR agency ranking.
How visible is Crackle PR in AI answers?
Crackle PR's own website, cracklepr.com, was the 7th most-cited source on tracked PR-agency prompts for the 30 days to October 26, 2026, with 14,181 citations and a 1.45% citation share, according to 5W's analysis using Profound's tools. That placed it ahead of O'Dwyer's at 1.18% and PRovoke Media at 0.61% in the same data.
The figure shows that AI answers use Crackle's site as a source for PR questions. It does not measure results for Crackle's clients, which the firm reports itself, and 5W selected the prompts, so read it as one data point. The full profile is on the Crackle PR agency profile, and 5W's report is How to Get Into the Chatbox: 5W Leads at 28.8% AI Visibility.
How much does a GEO agency cost?
Everything-PR estimates one-time AI visibility audits at roughly $10,000 to $50,000 and ongoing GEO retainers at roughly $10,000 to $100,000 or more per month. The range is wide because a retainer can cover measurement alone or bundle measurement, earned media, content, research and creative. These are estimates, not published rate cards, and pricing varies widely with scope.
| Service | Estimate | What it covers |
|---|
| AI visibility audit | $10,000 to $50,000, one time | A baseline of where a brand sits inside the AI engines, by query, competitor and Citation Share |
| GEO retainer | $10,000 to $100,000+ per month | Structured content, retrieval anchors, third-party citations, schema and measurement across the five engines, plus earned media, research and creative at the top of the range |
| PR-led AI visibility program | From about $20,000 per month | GEO, Citation Share measurement, AI visibility research, earned media and digital together |
5W publishes its own price points in its GEO services cost guide: GEO retainers of $15,000 to $75,000 per month and AI visibility programs from $20,000 per month. See the PR firm cost guide for the full tiers by firm type. Ask each agency for a written quote and compare what is included.
What questions should a buyer ask a GEO agency?
Ask every GEO agency the same five questions on a first call, because vague answers show the discipline has not been built. Write down the answers and compare them across firms.
| Question | A strong answer | A weak answer |
|---|
| 1. What do you measure, and how? | Names the metric, lists its components, and describes the prompt set, the engines and the run dates. See Citation Share as a KPI for one definition. | Quotes an opaque proprietary score, because a number with no method cannot be checked. |
| 2. Which placements did you earn for clients in the last twelve months? | Names outlets and shows recent examples in the domains AI engines cite for the client's category. | Reports placement counts with no outlet names. |
| 3. What original research do you publish? | Points to a research program AI engines can cite, such as the Citation Share Index franchise on this site. | Answers "our blog," which means the firm has no research capability. |
| 4. Which measurement tools do you license, and why? | Names the tool, explains the choice and shows how it feeds the monthly report. | Names no tool, so it cannot show what changed. |
| 5. Who is on the team? | Lists an earned-media bench, an entity records manager, a technical practitioner, a research lead and a measurement lead. | Misses several of these roles and is likely selling SEO or content marketing under a new name. |
A written measurement plan should also state the baseline, how prompts were chosen, the engines and settings, how many times each prompt was run, how cited sources are grouped as owned, earned or third-party, what arrives each month, and who owns the prompt set, raw answers and dashboards if you leave. An agency that cannot answer these has not defined its method.
| Measure | What it shows | What to ask |
|---|
| Brand mention | The brand name appears in an answer | In what context did it appear, and was it favorable, neutral or unfavorable? |
| Recommendation | The answer presents the brand as a choice for the user's need | Which prompts produced a recommendation, and against which competitors? |
| Source citation | The answer links to or names a page as a source | Which pages were cited, and were they owned, earned or third-party pages? |
| Composite score | One number that combines measures | What is the formula, the weighting and the underlying counts? |
How should a buyer test a GEO agency in 90 days?
A buyer should test a GEO agency by agreeing on a baseline in the first month, checking delivered work in the second, and re-running the same prompts in the third. The table is Everything-PR's suggested structure, not an industry standard.
| Phase | Actions | Output |
|---|
| Days 1 to 30 | Agree the prompt set, the engines and the run dates. Record how often the brand and three competitors are cited or mentioned. | Baseline report with raw answers |
| Days 31 to 60 | The agency delivers named placements, entity record fixes and any research assets it promised. | Placement list with outlet names, URLs and dates |
| Days 61 to 90 | Re-run the same prompts on the same engines and compare with the baseline. | Change report that names which prompts moved and which did not |
Agree on the success measure before signing, and ask each firm about minimum contract terms. Thrive Agency says in its own guides that it works month to month, and other firms may require longer commitments.
What should GEO buyers avoid?
GEO buyers should avoid four mistakes: hiring a tool when they need an agency, trusting a GEO page without checking delivery, accepting claims of long AI experience without dated proof, and allowing undisclosed paid editing of Wikipedia entity records.
A Profound subscription shows where a brand stands, much as Google Analytics shows traffic, and the coverage, entity work and research that move the number come from people. An SEO firm's GEO page is not proof either, so ask for three recent client placements in outlets AI engines cite, since a firm that cannot name them has added a service page, not a capability. GEO is a recent billable category, so ask for named clients, dates and outcomes from the first year a firm says it practiced it.
The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use require paid editors to disclose their employer, client and affiliation, as its Board letter on paid contributions explains. Ask how the agency handles entity records on Wikipedia and Wikidata before it touches them.
How can a PR firm improve its own AI search visibility?
A PR firm improves its own AI search visibility the way it improves a client's: it earns named coverage in sources AI engines cite, keeps its entity records consistent, publishes original research, and measures its own Citation Share on a fixed prompt set. No firm controls what the engines say, so the work shapes the sources they retrieve from. The steps are Everything-PR editorial guidance, not an industry standard.
- Run 20 to 40 prompts such as "best PR firm for [sector]" across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews, and record whether the firm is named, cited or recommended.
- Earn mentions in trade press, awards lists and independent rankings, because most AI citations trace to earned sources.
- Keep the firm's name, founding year, leadership, offices and specialties identical across its site, directory profiles and social profiles.
- Publish dated studies with a stated method that other outlets can cite.
- Give each specialty a page that opens with a direct answer and names real clients and results the firm can verify.
- Re-run the same prompts every quarter and compare with the baseline, since answers change between runs.
Independent directories are one of the third-party sources engines read, and EPR's PR firms directory and PR firm rankings list firms by specialty and city.
Where is the GEO agency market consolidating?
Holding-company consolidation is already under way: Omnicom announced on November 26, 2025 that it completed its acquisition of Interpublic Group. On the software side, the Sitecore, HubSpot and Adobe deals in the table above show platforms buying AI visibility tools, and Profound's $1.8 billion valuation shows investor demand.
Those deals involve software vendors and a holding-company merger. This page has not confirmed a holding company buying a GEO-specialist agency, so treat claims of imminent GEO agency acquisitions as speculation until a deal is announced.
Sibling rankings in the Everything-PR PR Firm Rankings Series: Best Healthcare PR Agencies 2026, Top CPG PR Agencies 2026, Top Cannabis PR Firms 2026, Top Financial Services PR Agencies 2026, Top Investor Relations Firms 2026, Best Beauty PR Agencies 2026, Top Fintech PR Agencies 2026, Top Technology PR Agencies 2026, and Best B2B PR Agencies 2026.
