How much does a GEO audit cost in the UK?

A GEO audit in the UK has no standard price, because it's priced by scope: how many AI tools you want checked, how many buyer questions, how many competitors and how many services or areas you sell in. At DLR Media, we agree the scope and confirm the price before we start, with no ongoing contract. What matters more than the number is what you get for it, and that's what this guide sets out.

If you've been asked for a fee and can't tell whether it's fair, start with what the audit is actually measuring.

What is a GEO audit actually checking?

A GEO audit (generative engine optimisation audit) checks how often and how accurately your business appears when people ask AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Overviews for a supplier, compares you with competitors and sets out the changes that help those tools recommend you.

That last part is the reason to buy one. A list of prompts with "named" or "not named" next to them tells you where you stand. It doesn't tell you why, or what to fix first.

The reason businesses are asking for these now is simple. Ofcom's December 2025 report on how the UK goes online found that "About 30% of searches now show AI overviews", and that ChatGPT had 1.8 billion UK visits in the first eight months of 2025, up from 368 million in the same period of 2024. That puts an AI answer in front of your customers before any website, so you need to know what those answers say about you.

What decides the price of a GEO audit?

Four things set the scope, and the scope sets the price.

The number of AI tools. Checking ChatGPT alone is a smaller job than checking ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot and Google AI Overviews. Each finds and cites businesses in its own way, so each needs its own tests and its own findings.

The number of buyer questions. A plumber covering one town has a short list of questions worth testing. A firm with ten services across the UK has a long one. The questions have to be the ones your buyers actually type, not a generic list, so building that list is part of the work.

The number of competitors. Comparing yourself with two rivals is quick. Benchmarking a crowded market, and working out what the businesses that get named have that you don't, takes longer.

The technical depth. Some audits stop at visibility. Others go into crawler access, indexing, structured data, llms.txt and how consistent your details are across listings and reviews. The deeper the technical review, the more it costs, and the more it tells you.

Online shops have their own version: our ecommerce GEO and AI search audit is scoped around your store and its product catalogue.

What should a GEO audit include for the money?

Whatever you pay, you should come away with these:

• The buyer questions tested, and the answers each AI tool gave
• Where you're named, how you're described and who appears instead
• What the businesses that get named have that you lack
• A technical check of crawler access, indexing and structured data
• Fixes ranked by impact and effort, so you know what to do first

The technical check is the part to look for in any quote. According to OpenAI's documentation on its crawlers, a site that opts out of OAI-SearchBot isn't shown in ChatGPT search answers. A business can spend months on content and still be left out of those answers because of one line in its robots.txt file, so any audit worth paying for checks access first.

Ours ends with a report of findings, evidence and prioritised recommendations, plus a walkthrough call to agree what you'll fix first. Strategy audits and action plans include a timed roadmap, such as a 90-day, 6-month or 12-month plan.

What should a GEO audit scope document say?

Before you sign, ask for the scope in writing. It should list the AI tools, the buyer questions and the competitors, and it should be free of the three things below. For the wider picture of agency pricing, see our guide to what a GEO agency does and costs.

A guarantee. No one can promise that ChatGPT or Google will recommend your business, because each AI tool decides its own answers. An agency that guarantees a mention is selling something it doesn't control.

A magic file. Some quotes lead with an llms.txt file or special AI markup as the key to AI search. Google's guidance on AI features and your website says you don't need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files or markup to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and that there's no special schema.org structured data you need to add. An llms.txt file is a sensible small extra once the basics work. It's not the main event.

No named questions. If the quote doesn't say which buyer questions will be tested, you can't judge the work or repeat the test later. Ask for the list before you sign.

Can you check your own AI visibility for free first?

Yes. Ask the main AI tools the questions your customers ask and note who gets named, using our step-by-step guide on how to check whether AI assistants recommend your business. If you're named and described accurately, you don't need an audit yet; if a competitor is named for questions you should own, an audit tells you why.

Is an audit or ongoing GEO the better buy?

They do different jobs. An audit is a one-off picture with a ranked list of fixes. It suits a business with its own team or developer to carry those fixes out, or one that wants evidence before committing to an agency.

Ongoing GEO suits a business that wants the fixes made and the results tracked. With us, GEO runs every day inside the DLR Growth Engine, at £1,499 a month + VAT on a 12-month term, alongside SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads and a free custom website worth £4,500. You get a monthly report on where you're named, how you're described and who appears instead.

The cheapest route is the one that matches what you'll actually do with the findings. An audit nobody acts on is money spent on a document.

Frequently asked questions

How much does a GEO audit cost in the UK?

There's no fixed market rate, because each audit is priced by scope: the AI tools checked, the buyer questions tested, the competitors compared and the depth of the technical review. DLR Media confirms the scope and price before we start, with no ongoing contract.

Do I need an ongoing contract to get a GEO audit?

No. Our GEO audits are standalone pieces of work. If you want help carrying out the recommendations afterwards, we can talk about that once you've seen the report.

What's the difference between a GEO audit and an SEO audit?

An SEO audit looks at why you rank where you do in Google's results. A GEO audit looks at whether AI tools name you when buyers ask for a supplier, and why. We also offer a combined SEO and GEO audit, because the two share a lot of the same technical ground.

Can a GEO audit guarantee my business gets recommended?

No. It shows where you stand and what to fix. Each AI tool decides its own answers, so nobody can promise a recommendation.

Want to know what a GEO audit would cover for your business? Call us on +44 1382 699595 or see our audits.