Guide

AEO service: what it includes, and when a platform is enough

Last updated 14 October 2026Prices checked 10 October 2026

What people mean by an AEO service

Someone searching for an AEO service is usually looking for a vendor who will do four jobs:

1. Audit. Ask the engines the questions buyers ask, and record whether the brand is mentioned and whether the site is cited.
2. Answer-first content. Pages an assistant can quote: a direct answer, sources, and a format that matches the question (a list, a comparison, or a how-to).
3. Schema and entity work. Organization markup, sameAs profile links, a named author, and HTML that AI crawlers can fetch.
4. Ongoing citation tracking. The same questions, on a schedule, so a new page can be judged by whether it starts getting cited.

That bundle is what a proposal usually calls an AEO service, or a GEO service. AEO usually refers to answer surfaces such as Google AI Overviews. GEO is the broader term for generative search. The tracking and the content work are the same. The AEO tracker guide covers how the measurement itself works.

What is the difference between AEO and SEO?

SEO gets a page into a list of links. AEO gets a brand into a generated answer.

The two share a site. Crawlers, a canonical, and a sitemap still matter. An audit that ignores the HTML is measuring a page the engines may never read. Most AI crawlers do not run JavaScript. The free AI crawler checker checks robots.txt, llms.txt, and whether a page is server-rendered, with no account.

What does an AEO service include?

A typical engagement, whether an agency sells it or a team runs it in-house, covers the same four jobs in more detail.

Audit and prompt set

The questions closest to a purchase, grouped by topic and worded the way a buyer asks an assistant:

• Category questions, such as "best AEO service for a small team".
• Comparison questions, such as "agency retainer vs an AEO platform".
• Problem questions, such as "how do I get cited in AI Overviews".

Start with the unbranded questions closest to a purchase. A branded question scores high only because the brand is already in it. Fifteen well-chosen questions, tracked the same way each cycle, beat a long list of generic ones.

Answer-first content

Drafts aimed at the gaps: prompts where you never appear, appear but are not cited, or a competitor is the cited source. The format follows the question. A listicle for "best X", a comparison with a real table for "X vs Y", a how-to with ordered steps for "how do I".

Schema, entity, and crawler access

Organization name, logo, sameAs profiles, and a default author. On Terradium these fill the JSON-LD graph on every published post. Discoverability files (robots.txt, sitemap.xml, llms.txt) tell crawlers what they may fetch. GEO Readiness grades that on a project you already track.

Ongoing tracking

The same prompts, on a cadence, across the engines your customers use. The common set is ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, and Gemini. Google AI Overviews are geographic: the same question returns different sources in different countries. Chat engines answer in the language of the question.

Daily sampling settles a trend faster. Weekly sampling costs less and is usually enough to see whether a new page is getting cited, because citations move on the scale of weeks, not hours. Compare answers sampled per month (prompts × runs × engines), not the prompt count on a pricing page. A daily plan samples roughly seven times as many answers as a weekly one for the same prompt count.

How is an AEO service priced?

Two different purchases get called an AEO service.

An agency engagement. The scope is a project, a monthly retainer, or both: the audit, a content quota, schema and entity implementation, and a report. Fees are quoted per client. This page does not list agency dollar amounts, because there is no standard public price. Ask for a written scope before you compare quotes: how many questions, which engines, how often they are sampled, how many pages will be published, and who implements schema on your site.

A product subscription. The prices below are entry plans for tools that do the tracking. Terradium also drafts and publishes. Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked on the date at the top of this page. A wider set of tools is on the best AI visibility tools page.

Terradium Starter is $29 a month for 15 questions, sampled weekly, one run per question, on 3 of ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Gemini, with 30 article generations per billing period. Publishing goes to a built-in CMS, served by the content API, or to a signed webhook. The trial is 7 days. See Pricing.

Peec AI Starter is $95 a month for 50 prompts tracked daily on 3 engines of your choice ($80 billed annually). Otterly.AI Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts tracked daily on ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. Profound publishes no paid price. Its Enterprise plan is custom, and the free trial is 7 days, 50 prompts, run daily.

A product subscription does not include an account team, interviews with your customers, or someone logging into your CMS to implement markup. That is the part an agency still sells.

Daily sampling and 50 questions on Terradium are a higher plan that is not publicly listed. Email company@kugie.app.

When a platform replaces part of the agency stack

Terradium covers the parts of an AEO service that are software:

• Tracking. It asks the engines on a schedule and reports appearance rate, citation share, share of voice, and average position. Mentions and citations are separate numbers. A brand can be named in an answer while a competitor's page is the cited source.
• The work list. Actions is derived from the latest scan each time you open it: prompts where you never appear, appear but are not cited, or are cited low, plus the competitor URLs stored with that sample. Terradium does not crawl the competitor's site.
• Drafts. Generating an article counts against 30 generations per billing period. The article stays linked to the prompt, so later scans show whether the citation rate moved. An editorial plan stays a draft until you approve it. Nothing is generated or published before that.
• Publishing. To the built-in CMS or a signed webhook. Auto-publish waits for a review window, 24 hours by default. See Publishing.

That replaces a tracker subscription and a drafting queue. It leaves strategy, original research, and implementation on a site Terradium does not host with you or with an agency.

When a platform sits beside an agency

Keep an agency when you want people in the loop for work the product does not do:

• Choosing the offer, the audience, and which questions are worth tracking.
• Interviews, original research, and claims a model should not invent.
• Implementing JSON-LD, sameAs, and templates inside your existing CMS.
• Off-site work: digital PR, partnerships, and updates to profiles the engines already trust.
• A named person who reports to your team each month.

In that setup the agency uses the platform as the measurement and the draft pipeline, and keeps the judgment. Terradium's $29 plan includes MCP and a REST API, so an operator can add prompts and read the gaps without living in the dashboard. The MCP setup guide walks that path and stops at a drafted plan.

What Terradium is

Terradium is a GEO/AEO platform. It tracks AI answers, generates cite-ready articles, and publishes them to a built-in CMS or a signed webhook. PT Semesta Solusi Digital operates it. Support is company@kugie.app. Company details are on Contact.

The $29 plan is the published one: 15 tracked questions, weekly, 3 engines, 30 article generations per billing period, 7 days free. Treating that plan as daily sampling, 50 questions, or 4 engines is outside what the API accepts.

Questions

What is an AEO service?

An AEO service is the work of getting a brand named and cited in AI answers. It usually covers an audit of current answers, pages written so an assistant can quote them, schema and entity work, and the same questions tracked on a schedule. Agencies sell that as a project or a monthly retainer. A platform sells the tracking, drafting, and publishing as software.

What is the difference between AEO and SEO?

SEO measures a page's position in a list of links. AEO measures whether a brand is named or cited inside a generated answer. That answer changes from run to run, so the useful output is a rate across samples, not a single rank. The site work overlaps: crawlers still have to be able to fetch the HTML.

What does an AEO service include?

Four jobs: an audit of the questions buyers ask AI assistants, answer-first content aimed at the gaps, schema and entity markup plus crawler access, and ongoing citation tracking on a set cadence. The AEO tracker guide covers the measurement. This page covers the service around it.

How much does an AEO service cost?

Agency fees are quoted per engagement. There is no standard public price, so this page does not list one. Product subscriptions are published. Terradium Starter is $29 a month for 15 questions tracked weekly on 3 engines, with 30 article generations per billing period and 7 days free. Otterly.AI Lite is $29 a month for 15 prompts tracked daily. Peec AI Starter is $95 a month for 50 prompts tracked daily. Profound does not publish a paid price.

Can a platform replace an AEO agency?

Terradium covers the tracker, the draft pipeline, and publishing to a built-in CMS or a signed webhook. Strategy, original research, implementation inside your own CMS, and a human account team stay with you or with an agency. Many teams run the platform beside an agency. Terradium is a GEO/AEO platform operated by PT Semesta Solusi Digital. The subscription is software, not a retainer.

Is there a free way to check AI answers?

Yes, for one question. Terradium's free AI visibility checker asks ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews one question and reports whether each answer mentions your brand and cites your domain. No sign-up for one question. An email unlocks up to 10 questions and a weekly re-check. The product trial is 7 days at app.terradium.io.

Check one answer, then try the platform

Run a free AI visibility check. It asks ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews one question and reports whether each answer mentions your brand and cites your domain. No sign-up for one question. An email unlocks up to 10 questions and a weekly re-check.

Or start free for 7 days. After the trial, Starter is $29 a month.