Google and ChatGPT Visibility: Five Providers Ranked by Who Does the Work

Most companies selling a way into ChatGPT will tell you where your business is missing, then leave you to write the pages that might get it named. If you want enquiries from Google and AI answers without hiring two firms or becoming a part-time SEO, my pick is one managed service that does both jobs.

I rank the five options from worst to best on a less glamorous question than How many prompts do you track?: Who does the work that gets you named? Who publishes the pages, ships the technical fixes and earns the citations? Two options fail that test outright for an owner buying them instead of execution.

The test: who publishes, fixes and earns the mention?

A citation in ChatGPT or an AI Overview is not a vote. It comes from a chain of work: the engine has to fetch your page, pull a clear answer from it and have reason to name you. I used to tell clients rankings would take care of citations. I was wrong. A page can rank and still go uncited if the answer is buried, the schema is missing or no trusted site backs the claim.

Someone has to research the prompts buyers type, write pages with extractable answers, publish them, remove technical blocks and build mentions on sites the engines trust. Ignore the neat columns labelled SEO, AEO and GEO in a proposal. One pricing guide puts it plainly: the work usually overlaps, so be cautious when a provider charges separately for each label without showing what changes. Ask who publishes, who ships fixes and who earns citations. If the answer is you, you bought homework.

Here is the ranking at a glance. The prices below describe the cited examples and ranges, not a promise that every provider in a category charges the same fee.

5. AI visibility software: a useful score, not a service

For a team already doing the work, monitoring is useful. For an owner expecting the tool to do it, this option fails outright. Tools such as Otterly, Peec, Scrunch and AthenaHQ track whether ChatGPT, Perplexity or AI Overviews mention you for selected prompts. A September price check lists Otterly at $29 a month for 15 prompts, Peec at $95 for 50 prompts across three models, Scrunch at $250 for 125 prompts and AthenaHQ at $295. Profound lists a free 10-prompt trial and custom enterprise pricing rather than a self-serve brand price.

What does a tracker do better than the other options? It gives you a repeatable prompt list and a before-and-after count. That is a sensible instrument if someone on your team can act on it. But the instrument stops at the score. A comparison of visibility tools makes the distinction: trackers measure gaps; a full service researches, writes, publishes, tracks and refreshes the work.

If no one publishes a page, ships a fix or earns a mention after reading the dashboard, the dashboard has done its job and your business is still missing. Buy a tracker to check work you already fund. Do not buy it instead of that work.

4. DIY: cheap in cash, expensive in evenings

DIY is for a pre-revenue or sub-$5k-per-month business with more time than budget and someone who can publish to the site without waiting on a developer. It does one thing better than every paid option: you control the work without paying a retainer. That is real. So is the second shift.

One DIY-versus-agency breakdown puts tools at $50 to $300 a month, plus 5 to 20 hours a week for three to six months before rankings arrive. The AI-answer version still needs regular prompt checks, a new or rewritten answer page, technical fixes and citation work. Say you can spare eight hours a week. That is roughly 100 hours before you know whether your approach is working.

What rules DIY out is not a lack of software. It is a lack of hours. The same guide gives a blunt rule: under five hours a week, hire help; over ten, DIY can work. If you have a full client load and fewer than five hours, this is the second option that fails the execution test. The person assigned to do the work is you, and you have already said you cannot.

If you can make the time, run the DIY checks that change what AI retrieves for 90 days. Then decide whether the hours still make sense. Do not mistake buying a checklist for completing it.

3. Traditional SEO agency with AEO added: check the work, not the label

A traditional SEO agency suits a business that needs help with Google’s fundamentals: technical health, internal links and pages that rank. That foundation is its advantage. Rankings still matter for AI Overviews, and a good agency can do substantial work on the site instead of merely reporting what a chatbot says about it.

The trap is the add-on. One comparison of agency models puts SMB SEO retainers at $1,500 to $5,000 or more a month. An agency-side price card lists an AI audit at $500 to $1,500 one time, an AEO/GEO add-on at $1,300 to $2,000 a month, foundations at $2,400 to $3,000 and growth at $4,500 to $6,000. The same guide advises leading with an audit because Google says AI Overviews do not require special optimization beyond SEO fundamentals. Fair enough. Then tell me what the extra line item buys.

What rules this option out is an add-on that changes nothing. Ask what will be different in week three, not on slide three. Which prompts will the agency research? Which pages will it publish? Which structured data will it ship? Which third-party mentions will it pursue? If the answer is the same blog posts and rank report, you are paying extra for a label.

Hire this type only if Google work and AI-answer work sit in one scope with one accountable owner. Otherwise, keep the shortlist moving.

2. GEO/AEO boutique: good at citations, but check the Google foundation

A GEO or AEO specialist can be the right hire for a company that already has a healthy site and a specific gap in AI answers. Citation work is the boutique’s advantage. A good one maps prompts that precede a purchase, tightens entities and structured data, and pursues mentions on relevant review sites, directories and publishers. If your pages already rank and can be fetched, that focus addresses a defined problem.

It does not make a thin Google foundation disappear. If the site needs pages, technical repairs and internal links, someone still has to own them. Nor is specialization automatically cheap. A managed-GEO pricing guide puts entry plans at $1,000 to $3,000 a month, growth at $3,000 to $8,000, advanced B2B at $8,000 to $15,000 and enterprise at $10,000 to $25,000. It names 009 Agency from $3,000 and TripleDart from $5,000.

At those fees, ask exactly who publishes pages and ships technical fixes alongside citation work. What rules a boutique out for most buyers is split ownership: one firm works on AI mentions while another owns the site those mentions depend on. When enquiries stall, each can point at the other’s half of the job. If you have an in-house SEO team already shipping, a boutique may fill a clear gap. Otherwise, make Google rankings an explicit deliverable, not an assumption.

1. One managed Google and AI service: my pick for owners who want enquiries

For most owners reading this, I would buy one managed service covering Google SEO and AI answers. Its advantage is ownership of the whole loop. The same provider researches the question, publishes the answer page, fixes what prevents it from being fetched and works to earn relevant mentions. There is no handoff between the firm responsible for rankings and the firm responsible for citations.

A small-business comparison of Google AI Overviews and chatbot search makes the budget case: Google and chatbot answers draw on overlapping work. Splitting that work across vendors adds meetings and makes accountability harder to pin down. One scope should make it easier to ask the question that matters: what shipped, and did enquiries follow?

This is the groas SEO and AI Search offer at $1,499 a month: Google plus ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and more in one scope, live in under 24 hours after onboarding, with a dedicated manager, month-to-month terms and a seven-day money-back guarantee. I recommend this model for the same reason I stopped treating hours billed as proof of progress. You are paying for work shipped and its effect, not a report explaining what someone should ship next.

What rules out a provider claiming to be this type? An inability to show the pages published, fixes shipped and citation work done, then connect that activity to enquiries. One owner is only an advantage if that owner does the work. A combined label without a work log is just a better-organized deck.

Do you need two companies? Usually not

For most local, ecommerce and B2B services businesses, splitting Google and ChatGPT across two vendors means two retainers, two reports and no clear owner when enquiries stall. Clear pages, sound technical health and trusted mentions serve both surfaces. Keep the work together unless you have a specific gap that justifies separating it.

The exception is a large site with an in-house SEO team already shipping. If, say, you run a 500-page site in a regulated category, a boutique focused on citations could plug a defined gap for a quarter. That is not the same as buying two overlapping retainers because one proposal says SEO and the other says GEO. If nobody owns the handoff, you own it.

On a small budget, cut the scorecard before the work

Cut the tracker first if it leaves you with a to-do list you cannot complete. A $29 to $295 monthly monitor is an expensive cheap tool when the list sits untouched. Cut the second vendor next if both firms charge you to discover and report on overlapping problems.

Do not cut publishing and proof. The working loop is straightforward:

1. Publish a clear answer page buyers can find and engines can extract.
2. Remove a technical block that makes the site harder to fetch or understand.
3. Pursue a real mention on a site your buyers trust.
4. Check whether visibility turns into enquiries, then adjust the work.

If you can give this ten hours a week for 90 days, DIY it and keep tool spending lean. If you have under five hours, stop pretending you will catch up at night. Buy one done-for-you scope that includes Google and AI answers. AI-assisted drafts can cost 30 to 60% less than fully human production, but that same breakdown warns that strategy and silent failures still need human oversight. Pay for shipping with oversight, not for words by volume.

Three questions to ask before you sign

1. What content, fixes and citations shipped last week?

Any provider can show a roadmap. Ask for a recent work log instead: pages that went live, technical fixes completed and third-party mentions earned. A combined service should be able to answer across all three. A tracker may show a chart without pages attached; a traditional shop may show rankings without AI prompts; a boutique may show prompts without Google movement. No log, no deal.

2. Are you reporting enquiries or only mentions and rankings?

Mentions do not pay rent. Ask for call and form tracking tied to enquiries, not a 40-page PDF of rankings and prompt counts. The local SEO vetting test applies here too: good reporting connects work to tracked calls and forms instead of hiding behind rankings.

Ask how the provider reports a ChatGPT citation alongside a booked job, and what changes when mentions rise but enquiries do not. If the only answer is more content, you may have hired a publisher. You want someone willing to revisit the pages, offers and proof as well. Visibility is a signal; enquiries are the test.

3. What happens when I leave?

Ask about the contract term, exit notice and ownership of your domain, content, business profile and analytics. Local SEO vetting advice favours short exits and keeping those assets; it warns against long lock-ins, early-leaving penalties and hosted pages that vanish when you cancel. Apply the same test to AI search. Keep the assets the work creates. A firm asking for a year to prove citations while holding your content hostage is asking you to take the risk for its output.

Verdict: buy the engine, not the speedometer

If you skipped to the end, here is my pick: hire one managed service that owns Google and AI answers together, then judge it on pages shipped, fixes completed and enquiries booked. Monitoring software measures the gap. DIY can close it if you have the hours. A traditional agency or a GEO boutique can cover part of it, but make the missing work and its owner explicit before you sign.

I left pure AI writers and one-off PR blasts off the ranking on purpose. Words alone do not own publishing and technical fixes; a burst of mentions does not own the page they should point to. They fail the same loop. That is also how I read a visibility tool that only reports: useful as a speedometer, useless as an engine.