# What AI citation services cost and where prices jump > Source: CitedIndex — https://citedindex.com/blog/what-ai-citation-services-cost-and-where-prices-jump/ (sourced research) > By CitedIndex Editorial · Published 2026-10-21 _GetCito alone has a free plan; the rest are managed agencies that start at a monthly retainer or a sales call, far above self-serve monitors._ ## The short answer The cheapest paid way in is [GetCito](/getcito)'s Growth plan at $599 a month, which bundles a human team with 50 prompts of tracking. [AEO Engine](/aeoengine)'s Growth plan sits at the median, $1,597 a month on a 90-day initial term, and [Percepture](/percepture)'s Launch tier at $3,500 a month is the dearest entry plan. [Siege Media](/siege-media), [Go Fish Digital](/go-fish-digital) and [iPullRank](/ipullrank) publish no prices and quote after a sales conversation or a proposal request. We checked the published prices of 5 of these 8 tools and answered 32 questions about what they do, each on the vendor's own pages, between 2 September 2026 and 20 October 2026. - GetCito is the one pick with a free plan, which you host yourself, and its paid plans start at $599 a month. - AEO Engine's Growth plan costs $1,597 a month and its Scale plan $2,997 a month, each with a 90-day initial term. - Percepture publishes its whole rate card, from Launch at $3,500 a month through Growth at $6,000 a month and Authority at $8,500 a month. - Siege Media, Go Fish Digital and iPullRank publish no pricing, so every engagement starts with a sales conversation or a proposal request. ## The 8 tools compared **Table 1. Price, free plan and the questions that separate them, checked 20 October 2026** | Product | From | Free plan | Prompt or credit allowance | Claude | Coverage in the vendor’s words | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | [AEO Engine](/aeoengine) | $1,597 a month | – | Yes | Partly | Yes | | [Percepture](/percepture) | $3,500 a month | No | Partly | Yes | Partly | | [GetCito](/getcito) | $599 a month | Yes | Yes | – | Partly | | [Siege Media](/siege-media) | On request | – | Partly | – | – | | [Go Fish Digital](/go-fish-digital) | On request | – | Partly | Partly | Partly | | [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator) | – | – | Yes | Yes | Yes | | [Minuttia](/minuttia) | $1,075 per audit | – | Partly | No | Partly | | [iPullRank](/ipullrank) | $30,000 per engagement | No | Partly | Partly | Partly | ## What the prices show - Free entry exists at GetCito alone, whose free plan is self-hosted with a separate AI-provider API bill, and GetCito also has the cheapest paid entry plan at $599 a month. - Managed agency retainers start far above self-serve tools, at $1,597 a month for AEO Engine and $3,500 a month for Percepture, whose Authority tier reaches $8,500 a month, while most self-serve tools start under $100 a month. - Unpublished pricing is the rule at Siege Media, Go Fish Digital and iPullRank, and iPullRank scopes every engagement as a custom retainer with no self-serve tiers. - Prices jump at the tier above entry, with GetCito going from $599 a month to $999 a month, AEO Engine from $1,597 a month to $2,997 a month and Percepture from $3,500 a month to $6,000 a month, while [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator) lets buyers buy single sprints with no retainer lock-in. - Free audits offer a way in before paying, from AEO Engine's email-gated checker with its 0-100 score to Digital Elevator's free AI Visibility Report for qualified teams and iPullRank's free AI Search Readiness quiz. ## What each one costs ### [AEO Engine](/aeoengine) **Best for a managed program under $2,000 monthly:** AEO Engine runs a managed answer engine optimization (AEO) program from $1,597 a month, with the same four tracked engines on every tier. - **Price:** $1,597 a month - **Who it's for:** An ecommerce or business software brand that wants an agency to build content, schema, public relations and links under a fixed monthly retainer. - **Skip it if:** Teams that want to run their own monitoring should pick GetCito, whose open-source tracker is free to self-host. Scale costs $2,997 a month and includes 60 articles a month. The prompt ceiling climbs to 1,000 on the most expensive tier. Both plans carry a 90-day initial term and bill monthly. Enterprise starts from $10,000 a month and is scoped on a call. The free audit asks for a verified work email instead of payment details. **What it does well** - A published rate card, with Growth at $1,597 a month and Scale at $2,997 a month, lets a buyer budget before any call. - Queries ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews with the client's own prompts on every plan. - Content volume is fixed per plan: 30 articles a month on Growth and 60 on Scale. - A free AI Overviews checker reports which sources are cited for each query. **Where it falls short** - Claude is absent from the paid dashboard, and Grok, Microsoft Copilot and DeepSeek are tracked on no plan. - Each plan starts with a 90-day initial term. - There is no public API, so tracking data stays inside its own platform. ### [Percepture](/percepture) **Best for mid-market budgets near $3,500 monthly:** Percepture suits mid-market brands with a budget of $3,500 a month that want a managed generative engine optimization (GEO) program covering five named engines. - **Price:** $3,500 a month - **Free plan:** no - **Who it's for:** Mid-market and enterprise brands that want one agency to run the audit, content, digital public relations and monthly reporting as a single retainer. - **Skip it if:** Startups on small budgets should pick GetCito, which has the cheapest paid entry plan at $599 a month. Launch costs $3,500 a month and covers audits, schema work and monthly reports on mentions and sentiment in AI answers. Growth costs $6,000 a month and Authority $8,500 a month, and Enterprise is a custom scope at $10,000+/month. AI Link and Mention Building adds $1,000 to $1,600 a month per tier, and the digital public relations add-on starts at $4,500 a month. Every package button books a strategy call instead of a checkout. **What it does well** - Four published tiers from $3,500 a month to $10,000+/month let a buyer price a program before the first call. - Names Grok as a target engine, alongside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. - Reports sentiment in AI answers every month alongside mention counts. - Google AI Overviews gets its own workstream, with appearance counts tracked in reporting. **Where it falls short** - There is no free plan, and every purchase starts with a strategy call. - Claude is a target of the optimization work but is missing from the monthly reporting list. - There is no public API, so results arrive as agency reports. ### [GetCito](/getcito) **Best for a free self-hosted start:** GetCito suits developer-led teams that want to start free: its open-source tracker costs nothing to self-host and covers ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews. - **Price:** $599 a month - **Free plan:** yes - **Who it's for:** A developer-led team that can host its own tool and pay its own AI-provider bill, or a team that wants tracking bundled with a staffed GEO team. - **Skip it if:** Buyers who need Microsoft Copilot covered without an Enterprise quote should pick Go Fish Digital, whose GEO service page names Bing Copilot as a target. The self-hosted plan is free under an open-source license, running on your own AI-provider API keys. Growth costs $599 a month for 50 prompts plus a bundled human GEO team, and Scale costs $999 a month for 100 prompts. Both paid plans track four engines in one region, and Growth and Scale are bought directly through Stripe checkout. Enterprise is custom-quoted for the full engine list and unlimited tracking. **What it does well** - The self-hosted plan is free under an open-source license and installs from GitHub. - It has the cheapest paid entry plan, at $599 a month. - Growth and Scale bundle a strategist, content writer, developer, backlink specialist and community manager. - Prompts are both tracked and optimized: Growth tracks 50 and optimizes 10, and Scale tracks 100 and optimizes 20. **Where it falls short** - The free plan tracks ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews alone and needs self-managed hosting plus a separate AI-provider bill. - Claude and Microsoft Copilot require the custom-quoted Enterprise plan. - Paid plans are capped at one region and carry no time-limited free trial. ### [Siege Media](/siege-media) **Best for six-month programs quoted by sales:** Siege Media suits brands that can commit to a program built for 6+ month horizons, with one agency running research, public relations, content, affiliate and Reddit work. - **Price:** On request - **Who it's for:** Brands that want a single agency working toward AI citations through research, public relations, content, affiliate and community work for 6+ months. - **Skip it if:** Teams that want a published rate card or a self-serve start should pick GetCito or AEO Engine, which both publish their plan prices. Every call to action is a proposal or assessment request, and Siege Media asks for a twelve-month contract. The retainer is metered in time-based content units bought each month, with no prompt allowance. Each engagement includes monthly tracking of the brand's share of voice in category prompts, delivered as agency reporting instead of a dashboard. Roadmaps are reviewed quarterly. **What it does well** - Every engagement tracks the brand's share of voice in AI answers each month. - Affiliate partnerships place the brand on the editorial roundups AI cites most, with commission revenue on top. - Original research and data stories are built to earn links and AI citations. **Where it falls short** - A twelve-month contract and a 6+ month horizon rule out buyers who need results in weeks. - Siege Media publishes no engine coverage list; ChatGPT results appear in case studies. - The program is sold whole, so brands wanting search engine optimization (SEO) or public relations alone still buy the six-pillar model. ### [Go Fish Digital](/go-fish-digital) **Best for GEO inside a full-service SEO program:** Go Fish Digital suits established brands that want GEO run inside a broader SEO, digital public relations and paid media program, backed by its own Barracuda platform. - **Price:** On request - **Who it's for:** Established brands that want a 20-year multi-office agency to run GEO alongside technical SEO and digital public relations. - **Skip it if:** Buyers who want a GEO specialist with a published starting price should pick AEO Engine, whose Growth plan costs $1,597 a month. Every route is a proposal request, demo booking or custom quote, and platform access normally comes inside an engagement. The free AI Visibility Audit form asks for work email, name, company, phone and a monthly marketing budget band, with no card. The service is built around Google AI Overviews, with an AI Overview Analyzer that scores how often a page is referenced in those answers. Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Bing Copilot are also named targets. **What it does well** - Treats Google AI Mode as a first-class target, using query fan-out and passage-level optimization. - Rewrites pages and passages using similarity scoring against real AI-generated answers. - Names Bing Copilot as an answer surface its optimization work targets. - Fixes schema markup, IndexNow pings, sitemap coverage and internal linking for AI crawlers. **Where it falls short** - Case studies show broad SEO and marketing results; none report audited AI-citation share. - Gemini appears on no GEO service page engine list, and no page covers Claude specifically. - There is no public API, and no export for Barracuda's own data is documented. ### [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator) **Best for buying one scoped sprint at a time:** Digital Elevator suits brands that want to buy AI visibility work in scoped sprints, running one or sequencing all three. - **Who it's for:** Brands that want a productized AI visibility engagement with named, scoped sprints instead of an open-ended program. - **Skip it if:** Teams that need a monitoring tool they run themselves should pick GetCito, whose open-source tracker is free to self-host. The sprints run in order: Foundation and Measurement, then Content, then Off-Page. A buyer can run one, sequence all three, or keep Content and Off-Page running as ongoing layers. Tracking starts from a Peec AI baseline and continues across ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews and Gemini. The mentions programs track from fifteen prompts on the entry plan to fifty on the top one. **What it does well** - A buyer can stop after one sprint, such as Foundation and Measurement, before committing to the rest. - Builds definition, comparison and category pages plus off-site placements on Reddit, editorial sites and best-of roundups. - A free AI Visibility Report runs five priority queries before any paid sprint. **Where it falls short** - Microsoft Copilot, Grok, Meta AI and DeepSeek are tracked on no Managed tier. - There is no API, data feed or dashboard login, so tracking data cannot be pulled into other software. ### [Minuttia](/minuttia) **Best for B2B software teams with content budgets:** Minuttia suits established B2B software teams with content budgets, offering a one-off audit at $1,075 per audit bought without a contract. - **Price:** $1,075 per audit - **Who it's for:** Established business software teams that want one agency for AI search strategy, editorial content and digital public relations. - **Skip it if:** Ecommerce and other non-software brands should pick AEO Engine, which works with ecommerce brands from $1,597 a month. The audit costs $1,075 per audit as a one-time purchase, with audit plans banded by page count. Ongoing work runs on custom, value-based retainers and starts with a 30-minute intro call and a budget qualification form. Clutch reports a $5,000 minimum project size and a $5,000 monthly fee in client-submitted deal data, with a $100-149/hr blended rate. **What it does well** - The one-time audit at $1,075 per audit is bought from the page with no contract. - Every content piece goes through a triple-layer review. - Digital public relations work is aimed at earning the brand mentions AI engines pick up. **Where it falls short** - Citation tracking currently covers Perplexity alone, and Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Mode are not tracked. - Retainers are custom, and the Clutch figures are client-submitted deal data rather than an official price list. - The B2B software focus makes it less relevant outside software. ### [iPullRank](/ipullrank) **Best for enterprise teams funding $30,000 engagements:** iPullRank suits enterprise brands that want expert AI search strategy and can fund $30,000 per engagement. - **Price:** $30,000 per engagement - **Free plan:** no - **Who it's for:** Enterprise and mid-market brands that want AI search strategy, content, technical work and measurement from a specialist agency. - **Skip it if:** Small businesses that want software with instant signup should pick GetCito, whose Growth and Scale plans are bought through Stripe checkout. Each engagement is a custom, scoped retainer that starts from a sales conversation, with no self-serve tiers. Scope is sized in keywords: 1,000 at Emerging, 2,500-3,000 at Growth and 5,000+ at Elite. A free readiness scan asks for a domain, brand name, first name, work email and business size, with no card. iPullRank reports a client's ChatGPT visibility moving from 32% to 67% inside a year. **What it does well** - Counts Google AI Overviews inclusions year on year as a measured client result. - Engineers brand visibility in Google AI Mode alongside ChatGPT and AI Overviews. - Measurement Engineering builds the client's own tracking, data pipelines and dashboards. - Technical assessments cover crawler access, structured data, templates and passage-level retrieval. **Where it falls short** - There is no free plan, and no engagement starts without a discovery call. - There is no direct content management system (CMS) publishing, so client teams must implement the content and technical work themselves. - Case-study revenue figures are reported by iPullRank and not independently audited. ## Prices compared **Figure 1. Entry prices in US dollars run from $599 a month to $3,500 a month; the median is $1,597 a month** | Product | Entry price, a month | |---|---| | GetCito | $599 a month | | AEO Engine | $1,597 a month | | Percepture | $3,500 a month | Source: Each vendor's pricing page, read between 25 September 2026 and 18 October 2026. A buyer can start with GetCito at $599 a month, while AEO Engine's managed retainer costs $1,597 a month, the median entry price. Percepture's Launch tier at $3,500 a month is the dearest entry plan, so a managed agency budget starts in the thousands each month. > "Too busy to implement a new strategy? Our team can manage everything from content optimization to PR outreach on your behalf." > > From [GetCito's own page](https://getcito.com), read on 25 September 2026 ## What it means for a buyer A buyer who can run software and pay an API bill can start with GetCito's free plan, and its Growth plan at $599 a month is the lowest paid step. A managed agency costs $1,597 a month at AEO Engine and commits the buyer to a 90-day initial term. Budgets for Siege Media, Go Fish Digital or iPullRank start with a sales call, since none publishes a price. Siege Media's model is built for 6+ month horizons, so a buyer who wants to test an agency first can buy Digital Elevator's single sprints with no retainer lock-in. ## Which one to pick - **If you need to start at no cost and can host the software yourself:** pick [GetCito](/getcito). GetCito has a free plan that runs on your own hosting with your own AI-provider API keys and a separate API bill, and its Growth plan at $599 a month adds a human team. - **If you need a managed agency at the lowest published monthly price:** pick [AEO Engine](/aeoengine). AEO Engine's Growth plan costs $1,597 a month, billed monthly with a 90-day initial term. - **If you need to avoid a retainer and buy one piece of work at a time:** pick [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator). Digital Elevator sells single sprints and an ongoing off-site cycle with no retainer lock-in required. - **If you need PR-led work that also targets Claude and Grok:** pick [Percepture](/percepture). Percepture's work targets Claude and Grok for citations, with its Launch tier at $3,500 a month. - **If you need an enterprise team for a scoped, expert-led engagement:** pick [iPullRank](/ipullrank). iPullRank is built for enterprise and mid-market brands that want expert AI Search strategy, and each engagement is a custom, scoped retainer that starts with a sales conversation. - **Skip all of these if you want a self-serve monitoring dashboard under $100 a month:** Self-serve AI visibility tools mostly start under $100 a month, while AEO Engine's cheapest paid tier is $1,597 a month. ## How we compared We compared 8 tools on price, free plan and 3 questions a buyer asks, reading each vendor's pricing page and product pages between 2 September 2026 and 20 October 2026. We did not sign up for or run any of them. The median, the cheapest and the dearest plan are taken over the 3 picks priced in US dollars a month, so their prices compare directly. ## Questions buyers ask ### Do any AI citation services have a free plan? [GetCito](/getcito) is the one pick with a free plan. You host it yourself and pay a separate AI-provider API bill, so it takes real setup work. For [AEO Engine](/aeoengine), [Siege Media](/siege-media), [Go Fish Digital](/go-fish-digital), [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator) and [Minuttia](/minuttia), a free plan is unconfirmed. ### What does the cheapest paid citation service cost? [GetCito](/getcito) has the cheapest paid entry plan, at $599 a month for Growth. Growth covers 50 prompts with a bundled human team, and Scale costs $999 a month for 100 prompts. ### Why do citation agencies cost more than AI visibility software? Citation agencies sell managed work, so [AEO Engine](/aeoengine)'s cheapest tier is $1,597 a month while most self-serve AI visibility tools start under $100 a month. CiteLens, a self-serve monitor, starts at $79 a month. ### Do AI citation agencies require a long contract? Some do. [AEO Engine](/aeoengine)'s Growth plan at $1,597 a month carries a 90-day initial term, and its higher Dominate tiers run on 90-day rolling contracts. [Siege Media](/siege-media) builds its model for 6+ month horizons, while [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator) requires no retainer lock-in. ### Which citation services publish their prices? [Percepture](/percepture) publishes a rate card that starts with Launch at $3,500 a month, and [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator) publishes tiered sprint pricing. [Siege Media](/siege-media), [Go Fish Digital](/go-fish-digital) and [iPullRank](/ipullrank) publish none and quote after a sales conversation or a proposal request. ### Can I get a free AI visibility audit before paying? Yes. [AEO Engine](/aeoengine)'s free checker returns a 0-100 score with per-engine breakdowns across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, but it asks for a work email and a competitor's web address before it emails the report. [Digital Elevator](/digital-elevator) gives qualified teams a free AI Visibility Report before any paid sprint, and [iPullRank](/ipullrank) has a free AI Search Readiness quiz. ### Which AI engines does the entry plan cover? [GetCito](/getcito)'s free Self-Host plan covers 2 engines and its Growth and Scale plans cover 4: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. Claude and Microsoft Copilot are not among them, and the full engine list comes with the custom-quoted Enterprise plan. [AEO Engine](/aeoengine) covers four engines on every tier, and its prompt ceiling rises with price from 150 up to 1,000. ## Sources - [AEO Engine, aeoengine.ai](https://aeoengine.ai), read on 10 September 2026 - [AEO Engine, aeoengine.ai/aeo-report](https://aeoengine.ai/aeo-report), read on 10 September 2026 - [AEO Engine, aeoengine.ai/ai-overview-checker](https://aeoengine.ai/ai-overview-checker), read on 10 September 2026 - [AEO Engine, aeoengine.ai/platform/ai-blog-writer](https://aeoengine.ai/platform/ai-blog-writer), read on 10 September 2026 - [AEO Engine, aeoengine.ai/platform/ai-search-tracking](https://aeoengine.ai/platform/ai-search-tracking), read on 10 September 2026 - [AEO Engine, aeoengine.ai/platform/seo-reporting](https://aeoengine.ai/platform/seo-reporting), read on 10 September 2026 - [AEO Engine pricing page](https://aeoengine.ai/pricing), read on 18 October 2026 - [AEO Engine, aeoengine.ai/services/ai-search-analytics](https://aeoengine.ai/services/ai-search-analytics), read on 10 September 2026 - 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[Siege Media, siegemedia.com/services/content-localization](https://www.siegemedia.com/services/content-localization), read on 2 September 2026 - [Siege Media pricing page](https://www.siegemedia.com/services/content-marketing), read on 20 October 2026 - [Siege Media, siegemedia.com/services/dataflywheel](https://www.siegemedia.com/services/dataflywheel), read on 20 October 2026 - [Siege Media, siegemedia.com/services/geo](https://www.siegemedia.com/services/geo), read on 20 October 2026 - [Siege Media, siegemedia.com/work/mentimeter-content-marketing](https://www.siegemedia.com/work/mentimeter-content-marketing), read on 2 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com](https://gofishdigital.com/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/ai-commerce-consultation](https://gofishdigital.com/ai-commerce-consultation/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/audit/ai-review](https://gofishdigital.com/audit/ai-review/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital pricing page](https://gofishdigital.com/blog/saas-generative-engine-optimization-agencies/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com](https://gofishdigital.com/blog/why-ai-gets-your-brand-wrong-and-how-to-fix-it/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/marketing-intelligence](https://gofishdigital.com/marketing-intelligence/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/searchgpt-baseline-audit](https://gofishdigital.com/searchgpt-baseline-audit/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/seo-ai-search](https://gofishdigital.com/seo-ai-search/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com](https://gofishdigital.com/services/creative/website-design-development/wordpress-development/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/services/owned/content-creation](https://gofishdigital.com/services/owned/content-creation/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com](https://gofishdigital.com/services/owned/generative-engine-optimization/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/services/owned/orm](https://gofishdigital.com/services/owned/orm/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/services/owned/technical-seo](https://gofishdigital.com/services/owned/technical-seo/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/services/paid/international-ppc](https://gofishdigital.com/services/paid/international-ppc/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/services/strategy/analytics](https://gofishdigital.com/services/strategy/analytics/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Go Fish Digital, gofishdigital.com/technology/tools](https://gofishdigital.com/technology/tools/), read on 14 September 2026 - [Digital Elevator, thedigitalelevator.com/ai-visibility-report](https://thedigitalelevator.com/ai-visibility-report/), read on 23 September 2026 --- Tags: buyer-guide, pricing