Last checked: 10 June 2026. A disclosure before anything else: we are Fortitude Media, and we sit in one of the four camps described below (the hybrid one). Every price on this page comes from public pricing pages and announcements checked on the date above. We say where we sit once, near the end. Corrections welcome by email.
Why this is the decision every buyer faces
Before you compare vendors, you have to choose a category, because the four camps sell different things at very different prices. AI engines such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews now answer buyer questions with a short list of named companies. Whether your company appears on that list is measurable, and whether it starts appearing more often is improvable. The market has split into providers who measure it, providers who improve it, and a small number who do both.
Our UK B2B roundup covers the individual vendors one by one; this page is about the category choice that comes first.
Option 1: pure tracking tools
A pure tracking tool tells you where you stand and leaves the rest to you.
What you pay. Entry-level monitoring starts at $29 a month (Otterly.AI). Mid-market platforms such as Peec AI run from €90 to €499 a month, and Profound's growth plans run $399 to $499 a month, with custom enterprise above that.
What you get. Prompt tracking across the major AI engines, visibility scores, competitor comparisons, citation data, and in some products AI-generated content briefs or articles for your team to ship.
What you still have to do yourself. Everything that changes the number: writing and publishing the content, earning the citations and press coverage, restructuring the site so AI engines can read it, and deciding each month what to do next. The tool diagnoses; it does not treat.
Who it suits. Companies with a capable in-house marketing or content team that simply lacked the data. If you have writers, someone who owns PR, and a developer who can act on technical recommendations, a tool may be all you need. We mean that: a £15M firm with a strong marketing function and an empty dashboard problem should probably buy a tool and get to work.
Option 2: AI visibility inside an SEO suite
If your team already pays for an SEO suite, the cheapest route into AI visibility is usually the module your suite already sells.
What you pay. HubSpot's tracking is $50 a month after a free trial. Semrush sells an AI Visibility Toolkit at $99 a month per domain, with Semrush One bundles from $199 to $549 a month. Ahrefs Brand Radar costs $199 a month per AI platform index, or $699 for all six, on top of a base plan from $129 a month, so roughly $828 a month all-in.
What you get. AI visibility data inside the workflow your SEO team already uses, often bundled with the keyword and backlink data they live in. Coverage and depth vary widely: HubSpot tracks 25 prompts across three engines, while Ahrefs offers a very large prompt index across six engines but no Claude coverage.
What you still have to do yourself. The same homework as Option 1, plus the work of translating SEO-suite reporting into something the board recognises. These modules are built for SEO practitioners, not for founders or MDs.
Who it suits. Companies with an in-house SEO team and an existing suite subscription. If that describes you and your budget for this is under £200 a month, start here. It is the lowest-friction way to get a baseline.
Option 3: a GEO agency retainer
An agency retainer is the right shape when you want the work done rather than described.
What you pay. Credible mid-market GEO retainers in the UK typically run £2,000 to £10,000 a month. The UK GEO services market is reported to be growing at more than 30% a year, so there is no shortage of firms to talk to.
What you get. People who do the work: content, outreach, technical recommendations, monthly reporting.
What you still have to do yourself. Verify the results. The structural issue with the agency camp is not effort or talent, it is measurement. Most GEO agencies have no proprietary platform and no longitudinal first-party data, so reporting is assembled from third-party tools, and the firm grading the homework did not build the ruler. They also start every engagement blind on history: no record of how AI engines answered your category's questions before you signed.
Who it suits. Companies with no marketing function, or one that is fully committed elsewhere, who want execution owned end to end and are comfortable supplying their own independent measurement (or accepting reports built on tools the agency rents). If you go this route, take our ten questions for any GEO agency into the first meeting.
Option 4: hybrid, a platform plus people
The hybrid camp puts the measuring and the doing inside one company, so the score and the work answer to each other.
What you pay. GeekyIQ, the productised arm of the B2B SEO agency Geeky Tech, runs from a free sample tier to £1,499 and £2,499 a month, with strategist time metered at £250 an hour. Our own ladder runs from a free check to managed delivery from £3,950 a month; the full version is below.
What you get. A tracking platform and human delivery from the same provider. The promise of the camp is accountability: the people doing the work are measured by the same chart you see.
What you still have to do yourself. Less, but not nothing. You still own the decisions only you can make: positioning, subject-matter input, sign-off. And check how the two halves connect: a platform bolted onto an agency is not automatically a closed loop.
Who it suits. Companies that want the result owned end to end and want to verify it without buying a second tool. Typically firms between £1M and £50M in revenue where the founder or MD owns the question, not an SEO team.
The four camps side by side
| Pure tool | SEO suite module | GEO agency | Hybrid | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical price | $29 to $499/mo | $50 to ~$828/mo | £2,000 to £10,000/mo | Free tiers to £11,950+/mo |
| Who does the work | You | You | The agency | The provider |
| Who measures it | The tool | The suite | Third-party tools | The same provider's platform |
| Category history at signup | Rarely | No | No | Varies; ours includes up to 12 months |
| Best for | Strong in-house team | In-house SEO team | No marketing function, own measurement | Result owned end to end, one chart |
A simple decision flow
Work through these in order and stop at the first match.
- If you have an in-house SEO team and under £200 a month: buy the module inside the suite you already pay for, starting at $50 (HubSpot) or $99 (Semrush per domain).
- If you have a strong marketing team that can write, pitch press and ship site changes: buy a pure tool, from $29 to around $499 a month depending on depth, and put the savings into their output.
- If you have no one to do the work and you already trust an independent measurement source: hire a GEO agency at £2,000 to £10,000 a month, and ask the ten questions first.
- If you want it owned end to end, measured and done by the same accountable party: buy hybrid, and check that the platform and the delivery team truly share one number.
- If you do not know your current position at all: start with a free check (ours or anyone's) before spending anything. The first data point costs nothing in this market.
Where we sit, stated once
We are in the hybrid camp, and as far as we can establish we are the only structure of our kind in the UK: we have not found another UK provider that combines a tracking platform and a managed delivery service on one continuous ladder from free to full service. The ladder runs: Free AI Visibility Check, Sentinel Free (1 brand, 5 prompts, monthly refresh, category history included), Sentinel Basic at £199 a month, Sentinel Standard at £499, Sentinel Pro at £999, a Discovery engagement at around £1,500 one-off (credited back if you proceed), then Forge Growth at £3,950 a month, Forge Scale at £6,950 and Forge Enterprise from £11,950. Every Forge plan includes Sentinel Pro, so the people doing the work and the chart that judges them are never separated. How we measure is public on our methodology page, and the fuller case is on why Fortitude. If a tool or a suite module fits your team better, buy that; the decision flow above is the advice we would give a friend.
For more depth on evaluating any provider, see how to compare AI optimisation providers and how to track whether AI is recommending your business.
FAQ
Do I need an agency for AI visibility, or is a tool enough? A tool is enough if you have a team that can act on what it finds: writers, someone who owns PR, and developer time. If nobody in the business can do that work, a tool will only document the problem, and you need an agency or a hybrid provider who does the work.
How much does AI visibility cost in 2026? Monitoring starts at $29 a month, SEO suite modules run from $50 to roughly $828 a month, UK GEO agency retainers typically run £2,000 to £10,000 a month, and hybrid platform-plus-delivery services range from free entry tiers to £11,950 and above a month.
What is the difference between a GEO agency and an AI visibility tool? A tool measures how often AI engines mention and recommend your brand; a GEO agency does the content, PR and technical work intended to improve that. Most agencies do not own the measurement and most tools do not do the work, which is why some buyers choose both or a hybrid.
Can my existing SEO agency handle AI visibility? Possibly, and it is worth asking, but ask how they will measure it. Most agencies report from third-party tools rather than their own platform and hold no history of how AI engines answered your category before the engagement began.
What is a hybrid AI visibility provider? A hybrid combines a tracking platform with a human delivery service in one company, so the provider doing the work is measured by its own published chart. In the UK, GeekyIQ approaches this from the agency side and Fortitude Media from the platform side.
See where you stand first. Our free AI Visibility Check shows how the five major AI engines answer your category's buying questions today, with no payment details and no obligation. Whichever camp you end up buying from, it is a useful baseline.