“[FOR HIRE] SEO & AEO Consultant | 12 Years Experience | $120/hr | 2 Spots Available”u/Ok_Veterinarian446 on r/forhire · Mar 30, 2026 · Read the post · A consultant advertising their own rate
Consultants · published rates and audits · read November 8, 2026
AI SEO and GEO consultants: rates, audits and when to hire one
An AI SEO or GEO consultant advises; your team does the work. Where rates are published they run from $15 to $325 an hour, and fixed-price AI search audits from $500 to $10,000. Our pick is supereo, which gives page-by-page advice as software from $149 a month.
Our pick
Want a consultant's advice on every page without paying by the hour? supereo ours is our pick. It writes your buyers' questions, checks them on six AI engines, and tells you exactly what to change on each page, with the evidence and the wording, then measures each change you ship. $149 a month on Copilot, with a free audit first that takes about 2 minutes. Run it.
What an AI SEO consultant does
An AI SEO consultant, also sold as a GEO consultant or AEO expert, diagnoses why AI engines name your competitors instead of you and tells your team what to change. The difference from an agency is who does the work. Rock The Rankings puts it plainly on its consulting tier: "You execute · We run the strategy brain." Luca Tagliaferro, a UK consultant, sells the same model from the other side: "You work directly with me. No agency layer. No juniors."
What consultants and agencies charge by the hour
| Source | Hourly rate | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Upwork, its own hiring page | $15 to $35 | "Hiring an AI SEO specialist generally costs" this, per Upwork |
| A consultant's for-hire post, Reddit | $120 | One SEO and AEO consultant's posted rate, March 2026 |
| First Page Sage's October 2026 study | $125 to $325 | Hourly GEO and AEO consulting, median $205; 6% of agencies sell this way |
| Thrive, its SEO pricing page | $150 to $300 | What it says SEO consulting rates typically run |
| Coalition Technologies, on Clutch | $50 to $99 | The directory's listed agency rate |
| Omniscient Digital and Thrive, on Clutch | $100 to $149 | The directory's listed agency rates |
| Marcel Digital and Percepture, on Clutch | $200 to $300 | The directory's listed agency rates |
Each source as named, read November 8, 2026. Clutch figures are the directory's; First Page Sage's is its own survey of 214 agencies.
At First Page Sage's median of $205 an hour, a ten-hour month of consulting is $2,050, before anyone on your team ships a change. supereo's Copilot is $149 a month and writes the change for each page; the shipping is still your team's, unless you're on Autopilot.
Fixed-price AI search audits and diagnostics
Most consultants and agencies sell a one-time diagnosis before a retainer. These publish the price.
- supereo free audit ours: 20 questions, six engines, every answer shownFree
- Coalition Technologies GEO audit, about 3 business daysFree
- Rock The Rankings Power Hour, 60 minutes, recorded$500
- Tenten GEO Audit, 30-day delivery, credited toward a plan$1,299and up
- Justin McKelvey AI Search Audit, done personally, 5 business days$1,500
- DerivateX diagnostic$3,500
- Discovered Labs Search Visibility Diagnostic, six business days€4,370
- Rock The Rankings AI Search Blueprint, 30-day sprint$10,000and up
Each agency's or consultant's own page, read November 8, 2026. First Page Sage's October 2026 study puts one-time GEO and AEO audits at $1,500 to $12,000, median $4,300.
What an audit should hand you
An AI search audit, line by lineAsk for it
- The question list, written in your buyers' words, not your brand name.Every audit
- Every answer, per engine, with who was named or recommended instead.Every audit
- The pages each engine cited, yours and your competitors'.Every audit
- A ranked fix list, specific enough to hand to a developer or writer.Every audit
- A way to re-measure, so the fixes can be judged later.Often missing
Justin McKelvey's $1,500 audit promises the first four: "a citation map of where you appear today, an analysis of why competitors get cited instead of you, and a prioritized fix list." supereo's free audit hands you the question list and every answer in about 2 minutes, and Copilot adds the fix list and the re-measurement.
Consultant, agency or software
| Consultant | Agency | supereo ours | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | Your team | The agency | Copilot: your team, with the wording written. Autopilot: supereo |
| How it's priced | By the hour or a fixed audit | A monthly retainer, often with a minimum term | $149 a month, or $1,490 a year |
| Best when | You have writers and developers and need direction | You need hands, PR and a team on calls | You need the monthly work done and proven |
| How you'll know it worked | Usually a follow-up audit | A monthly report | A verdict per change, against control questions |
Posted rates, in public
Two public posts show the range of what's asked and offered. They're individual posts, not a survey.
“[Hiring] US-Based Freelance SEO & GEO Consultant ($2,000–$3,000 / quarter retainer)”u/Ops_Consultant_84 on r/seojobs · Aug 13, 2026 · Read the post
“That budget isn’t worth the effort”u/thanos-snaped on r/seojobs · Aug 15, 2026 · Read the post
Worth knowingFor scale: a year of supereo's Copilot is $1,490, with the page-by-page advice written for you.
Consultants and consulting tiers, briefly
Option 01 supereo ours
Consultant-grade advice as software: the questions, the answers on six engines, what to change on each page with the evidence and wording, and a measurement of each change you ship. $149 a month; Autopilot, its higher plan, ships the changes itself.
Best for teams with people to ship changes and no budget for hourly advice.
Option 02 Justin McKelvey
A fractional CTO in Austin who sells a $1,500 flat AI Search Audit, "done personally by me, not a tool," delivered in 5 business days across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI; SuperDupr, his company, implements the fix list for $5,000, with $500 a month re-measurement. AI Search Audit
Best for a one-person, fixed-price diagnosis.
Option 03 Luca Tagliaferro
A UK AI SEO consultant, BrightonSEO speaker and Search Engine Land columnist with 15+ years in SEO, who sells direct work with no agency layer, including monthly citation monitoring across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Copilot. No price published; proposals on request. AI SEO consultant
Best for brands that want one senior person on SEO and AI search.
Option 04 Rock The Rankings
Its Strategy & Consulting tier, from $5,500 a month at the 90-day rate, covers SEO and GEO strategy, prompt mapping, competitor monitoring and QA on your team's content, while you execute. A $500 Power Hour is the smallest way in. Pricing
Best for B2B SaaS teams that write in-house and want a strategist.
Option 05 First Page Sage
Lists "GEO / AEO Consulting" for midsize and enterprise companies "with strong in-house content teams, but need an SEO and GEO expert to help steer." No consulting price published. Services
Best for in-house content teams that need oversight, not output.
Option 06 Discovered Labs and DerivateX
Both sell a paid diagnosis before a retainer: Discovered Labs' €4,370 Search Visibility Diagnostic, a 90-day plan in six business days with a co-founder walkthrough, credited if you sign within 14 days; DerivateX's $3,500 diagnostic, for teams not ready for a retainer. Discovered Labs · DerivateX
Best for teams that want a plan they can run without the agency.
Questions
What does an AI SEO consultant do?
Diagnoses where AI engines skip you and why, then tells your team what to change: page structure, content, technical fixes and off-site sources. The consultant advises; your team ships.
How much does a GEO consultant charge?
Where published, from $15 an hour (Upwork's figure for AI SEO specialists) to $325 (the top of First Page Sage's study), with fixed audits from $500 to $10,000. supereo's Copilot is $149 a month.
Should I hire an AI SEO consultant or an agency?
A consultant if you have writers and developers who need direction; an agency if you need hands. If you need the monthly work done and checked without either, supereo is our pick.
What is an AEO expert?
Another name for an AI SEO or GEO consultant: someone who knows how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google's AI answers choose what to cite and recommend.
Can software replace an AI SEO consultant?
For the recurring diagnosis, yes: supereo keeps checking your buyers' questions, writes the change for each page and measures it. For one-off judgment calls, such as a site migration or a rebrand, a senior consultant is still worth the hours.
More: AI SEO agencies, compared · agency or software? · what agencies cost
How we compiled this
On November 8, 2026 we read the consulting, audit and pricing pages named above, Upwork's AI SEO specialists hiring page and each agency's Clutch profile, and two public Reddit posts. Hourly figures are quoted as each source states them. We didn't buy any audit. Full method.
- Justin McKelvey, AI Search Audit · Luca Tagliaferro, AI SEO consultant · Upwork, AI SEO specialists
- Rock The Rankings · Tenten · DerivateX · Discovered Labs · First Page Sage · Thrive SEO pricing · Coalition GEO audit
- First Page Sage, GEO and AEO pricing statistics, October 7, 2026 · Clutch: Coalition, Omniscient, Thrive, Marcel, Percepture
- supereo: plans and proof method
Compiled November 8, 2026