What is an AI visibility audit (or GEO audit), and what does it cost?

What is an AI visibility audit?

An AI visibility audit, sometimes sold as an AI search audit, an AEO audit or a GEO (generative engine optimization) audit, measures how AI assistants treat your business today. The names differ; the job is the same. It asks the questions your customers ask, in their words, on the assistants they use, and reads every answer. For each one it records whether you were named, in what position, who was named instead, and which websites the assistant leaned on to decide. The output is a baseline and a plan, not a dashboard.

It is different from an SEO audit, which checks how your pages rank in Google's list of links. An assistant does not show a list of ten links; it writes a short answer with two or three names in it. You can rank well in Google and still be missing from that answer, which is why the audit reads the answers themselves rather than your rankings.

It is also different from a tracker. A tracker runs a fixed set of prompts on a schedule and plots the result over time. An audit is done once, goes deeper on the why, and is meant to be acted on. Some providers pair the two: an audit first, optional tracking after.

What does an AI visibility audit include?

In September 2026 we read 21 pages that describe what an AI visibility audit contains, from self-serve reports to agency diagnostics. The same core appears on nearly all of them. The table shows how many of the 21 mention each part, so you can see what is standard and what is extra. The part most often missing is the one that matters most for a reliable result: only about 9 of the 21 ask each question more than once, although answers change from one run to the next.

Why the method matters: what our own tests show

Two audits can test the same business and disagree, because the answers they read are unstable. We measured how much in October 2026, and each result is a reason to ask a provider how its audit is run.

• Ask each question more than once. Asked the identical question 10 times, ChatGPT named 12 to 20 different businesses and Gemini 13 to 30, and only 2 to 8 of them came back in at least half of the answers (our repeat test). A single run is a snapshot.
• Cover more than one assistant. Asked the same three local questions 10 times each, ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude named 122 businesses between them, and only 8 were named by all three (our three-assistant test). One assistant tells you little about the others.
• Make sure the assistant searched the web. Without search, Gemini gave a phone number that was not the business's in 59 of 80 answers; with search, it was right in 71 of 80 (our accuracy test). An audit that reads answers without search measures what the model remembers, not what a customer sees.
• Check what the assistants say about you, not only whether they name you. Even with search, the opening hours matched the business's Google listing in only about half of the answers in the same test.

How much does an AI visibility audit cost?

Published one-time audits cost from $49 to $3,500, and the median of the 13 entry prices in the chart below, not counting ours, was $300. The price follows the labour: self-serve tools automate the questions and the report, analysts read the answers themselves, and agencies add strategy, calls and a longer engagement.

The table lists the offers with a public price, as shown on each provider's page on 13 October 2026. It is not a ranking; it shows what each price buys. Two offers from our September list are gone: PromptVisible now sells a monthly plan, and Veza Digital no longer publishes a price.

What the three price bands buy

Self-serve reports, $49 to $300. Software writes or takes your questions, puts them to the assistants and builds the report. Fast, often within the hour, and cheap because nobody reads the answers by hand. Check how many assistants and how many runs you actually get: at this price some check one assistant once.

Analyst-run audits, about $400 to $1,500. A person reads the answers, checks your site and writes the plan, usually with a short call. Turnaround is one to ten working days.

Agency diagnostics, $3,500 and up. Larger question sets, several weeks of tracking, strategy and a longer report, often credited against a monthly retainer if you hire the agency afterwards. Sparkle Technologies publishes a band of $8,000 to $25,000 for this kind of engagement, as shown on its site on 13 October 2026. Several agencies also offer a free audit as a first step; expect a short snapshot and a sales call. For monthly agency retainers and how to vet an agency, see AI search optimization services.

Who offers an AI visibility audit for a small business?

Three kinds of provider sell AI visibility audits to small businesses: self-serve tools, independent analysts and marketing agencies. Self-serve reports from AI SEO Tracker, Webteqno, Halogen, Peekl, Jason Hunter Design, BizWhiz and AI Find My Business cost $49 to $300, and BizWhiz and Jason Hunter Design are aimed at local businesses. Analyst-read audits from Arobis, Frank Masotti and Ranketize cost $399 to $699, and Top of Search Marketing sells a $1,500 audit aimed at owner-run local businesses. Local marketing agencies sell them too, often free as a first step before a retainer.

For a single location, choose by method rather than by name: local customer questions, at least two assistants, each question asked more than once, and a plan you can act on without an agency. The checklist further down covers what to ask before you pay.

Is there a one-time AI search audit instead of a monthly subscription?

Yes. Most AI visibility audits are sold once, with no subscription: every offer in the price table above is a single payment, from $49 to $3,500. An audit suits an owner who wants to know where they stand and what to fix, once, and then do the work. A tracker suits a team that will read a trend line every week and act on it. The cost difference is real. Tracking tools run from $20 to $3,000 a month, with a median of $99 according to a survey by Rankability, itself a tool vendor (October 2026). The cheapest annual plan we found, Rankscale at $17 a month billed yearly, comes to $204 a year, against a one-time audit from $49.

The two are not substitutes. An audit does not tell you next month whether your fixes worked; a tracker rarely tells you why a competitor is named instead of you. A sensible order for a single location is an audit first, the fixes second, and a re-check a few months later to see what moved. The comparison in tracker or audit and the twelve-month cost chart go further.

How to run an AI visibility audit (or GEO audit) yourself

You can run a basic audit by hand in an afternoon. It will not have the scale of a paid one, but it shows the method and often the first fix. The steps below are the ones the published guides agree on.

• Write 10 to 20 questions your customers really ask, in their words, with your town or area in the local ones: the best option near you, a specific job, a price or availability question.
• Put each question to at least two assistants, ChatGPT and Gemini, and Claude if you can, with web search on and in a logged-out or temporary chat so your own history does not help you.
• Ask each question at least three times, on different days. Answers change from run to run: in our test, even 10 runs of one question produced 12 to 30 different names, so one answer is not a result.
• For every answer, note whether you were named, who was named instead, and which websites the assistant cited. The cited websites are where most fixes are.
• Check the facts as well as the mentions: ask each assistant for your phone number, hours and address, and compare the answers with your Google listing.
• Count your mention rate, list the competitors named most, and pick the two or three fixes that appear most often: a missing directory listing, an out-of-date profile, a page that does not say what you do.

What to check before you pay for an audit

Most audit pages describe their method, and the method is what separates a useful audit from a screenshot. Before you pay, check four things.

• How many questions, and how many runs of each. One run of a handful of questions is a snapshot; the same questions asked at least three times is the start of a measurement.
• Which assistants. Check the ones your customers use are covered, and whether the cheaper tier drops some of them.
• Whether every recommendation is traced to a source. A score without the websites behind it gives you a number but not the fix.
• Whether you get a plan in plain language, in order, and what is not included, such as implementation or re-checks later.

Where Peekl's audit fits

Peekl's full audit costs $99, once, with no subscription. It puts fifteen of your customers' questions to ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, three times each, and reads all 135 answers. It names every competitor that appears instead of you and every website the answers cite, then ranks up to 12 fixes in plain English, each with the competitor to beat and the question you are losing. It also reads your own website and your Google Business Profile and reviews.

What it does not do: it does not check Perplexity, Copilot or Google AI Overviews, it does not make the fixes for you, and it is not a daily tracker. Before paying anything, you can run the free check: twelve questions, once, on ChatGPT or Gemini, your pick. To see what a check reports on one assistant, see the ChatGPT visibility checker.