AI assistants have become the new search results page. People ask Alice (Yandex's assistant), ChatGPT and GigaChat which clinic to choose or who to hire for a renovation, and get a ready-made answer naming two or three companies. Getting into that answer is the job of GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). The service is new and the market has no common standards, so prices differ by an order of magnitude: for “visibility in AI assistants” agencies charge anywhere from 15,000 to 400,000 ₽ a month.
We studied the public price lists of Russian agencies and freelance specialists, published market overviews and our own measurements in PromoLab AI Radar. This article covers how much GEO costs in 2026, what makes up the price, what budget your business needs and how to tell an honest estimate from a renamed SEO price list.
GEO in Russia in 2026 costs from 15,000 ₽ for an express diagnostic to 400,000 ₽ a month and more for a full cycle for large brands. Typical agency offers for small and medium-sized businesses are 50,000–150,000 ₽ a month. The first mentions in AI answers appear after 2–3 months, a sustainable result after 4–6 months.
What you pay for in GEO
SEO fights for positions in a list of links. GEO fights to have the AI name your company in its answer and link to your site. The model assembles the answer from sources it trusts: company websites, media, rankings, directories, reviews. So in GEO you pay for four groups of work.
Which questions customers ask AI assistants, whom the assistants name in their answers today, and where you are in those answers.
So that AI bots can read and quote your pages: access, structure, structured data, llms.txt.
Clear answers, comparisons, FAQs, case studies and data — the things models readily cite.
Mentions in rankings, reviews, media, directories and customer reviews that validate your brand.
For more on how it works, see our article on getting visibility in AI with GEO and the GEO service page.
GEO prices in Russia in 2026
Below are benchmarks based on the public price lists of agencies and specialists as of fall 2026. Prices are for the contractor's work. Paid placements on external platforms are sometimes billed separately — clarify this before you start.
One-off work
An express diagnostic answers the question “are we in AI answers at all.” A full audit answers “what to do to get there,” with priorities and a forecast. The cost of technical adaptation depends on the size of the site: a single page from 15,000 ₽, a large catalog with hundreds of pages up to 300,000 ₽.
Monthly ongoing work
In one public comparison of twelve commercial proposals, the median price was about 95,000 ₽ a month. But comparing prices head-on is pointless: for the same amount one contractor will only set up monitoring, while another will produce ten pieces of content and place them on external platforms.
What individual tasks cost
| Task | Price |
|---|---|
| Expert article written for AI answers | 15,000–45,000 ₽ |
| Case study with a client interview | 25,000–60,000 ₽ |
| Rework of a service page | 8,000–20,000 ₽ |
| FAQ block with structured data | 5,000–15,000 ₽ |
| Publication on an external platform | 8,000–80,000 ₽ |
| Extra AI assistant or question pool in monitoring | +10,000–25,000 ₽ a month |
What makes up the cost of GEO
An honest GEO estimate breaks down into clear line items. This is what a typical budget structure for ongoing work looks like according to public market data. The proportions vary between contractors, but the set of items is the same.
Expert articles, comparisons, answers to frequent questions, case studies, reworked service pages. Everything a model can pull into an answer: clear wording, figures, tables and lists. This is the largest expense — 60,000–200,000 ₽ a month depending on volume.
AI assistants trust what several independent sources confirm. So you need publications in industry media, participation in rankings and reviews, up-to-date listings in directories and on maps, and work with customer reviews. Usually 50,000–250,000 ₽ a month.
Measuring baseline visibility across a list of questions, analyzing competitors and the sources AI assistants cite in your niche, a work plan for 3–6 months. Most of this cost falls in the first month.
Open access for AI bots in robots.txt, add llms.txt, structured data for the organization, services and FAQ, tidy up structure and speed. Largely a one-off job: 50,000–150,000 ₽ depending on the site and CMS.
Regular measurements across a fixed list of 30–100 questions in 3–5 assistants: who gets named, in what context, with or without a link. Without monitoring you cannot prove the result.
Authors and experts, documents and licenses, company data in structured markup. Especially important in healthcare, finance and other fields where AI assistants are cautious with sources.
Which questions your customers ask AI assistants, and how they phrase them. This is the keyword research of GEO: it determines what to measure and what to write content for.
Visits from AI assistants in Yandex Metrica, branded demand, enquiries, share of mentions versus competitors and the plan for the next month.
Ask for an itemized estimate with volumes: how many pieces of content, on which platforms, how many questions in monitoring. If a contractor sells “comprehensive GEO” as a single line, you will not be able to tell what you are paying for or what changed after three months.
What affects the price of GEO
The same work costs different amounts for different companies. These are the factors that change the estimate the most.
A company with 25 services needs 2–3 times more work than a company with five: more questions, content and measurements.
Healthcare, finance and law: AI assistants are more careful when choosing sources, so you need verified expertise.
If there are no case studies, data or experts to quote, content has to be created from scratch.
If nobody writes about the company anywhere, the base of mentions has to be built from zero. A recognizable brand starts cheaper.
Every extra AI assistant or group of questions in monitoring increases the monthly budget.
On an outdated CMS the technical part can eat up to a quarter of the budget.
Moscow and nationwide niches cost more: more companies are fighting for a place in the answer.
Weekly measurements and reports cost more than monthly ones.
What GEO costs for different businesses: sample budgets
Benchmarks for three typical situations. An exact estimate is only possible after an audit: everything depends on the niche, the competitors and what AI assistants already know about you.
A clinic, auto repair shop, restaurant or salon in one city.
- Listings on maps and in directories
- Working with reviews
- Service pages with FAQ
- 1–3 pieces of content a month
- Monitoring of 30–50 questions
A catalog with several categories and nationwide delivery across Russia.
- Categories and product comparisons
- Reviews and rankings
- Media mentions
- Product structured data
- Monitoring of 50–100 questions
Manufacturing, IT, consulting, large deals.
- Expert research and case studies
- Industry media and rankings
- Talks and interviews
- Content for a long sales cycle
- Monitoring across several business lines
GEO, SEO or ads: which is cheaper
The channels solve different problems, so comparing them on price alone is not quite fair. But the general benchmarks are as follows.
| GEO | SEO | Search ads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | from 50,000 ₽ a month | from 30,000–50,000 ₽ a month | management fee plus a separate click budget |
| What you pay for | mentions and links in AI answers | rankings and search traffic | clicks and enquiries right now |
| When it kicks in | 2–6 months | 3–12 months | immediately after launch |
| After you stop | holds while the sources stay current | holds for a long time | ends immediately |
| How to measure | share of mentions, position in the answer, AI traffic | rankings, traffic, enquiries | clicks, cost per enquiry |
GEO does not replace SEO. AI assistants with web search rely on sites that rank well, so without an SEO foundation a GEO budget works less effectively. It pays to develop the channels together: technical optimization, content and external publications work for both search and AI assistants. That is how our SEO service is built — with GEO in mind from the first month.
Can you do GEO in-house
You can, if your team has a marketer with SEO experience and time for systematic work. But it will not be free:
- Specialist time. Collecting questions, measurements, content and publications easily take several dozen hours a month.
- Monitoring. Manual checks quickly stop working: AI answers change, and there are dozens of questions. You will need a monitoring service or regular exports of answers.
- Content and platforms. Expert materials and external publications cost money even when an in-house team prepares them.
A sensible compromise is to order an audit and strategy from a contractor and do part of the work yourself following the ready-made plan.
Timeline: when GEO starts delivering results
Audit, baseline visibility measurement, collecting questions, technical preparation of the site. No changes in the answers yet — and that is normal.
AI assistants start naming the brand for narrow and branded questions. New content is usually picked up 2–4 weeks after indexing.
The brand appears in answers to commercial questions, and the first enquiries from AI assistants arrive.
The brand is consistently present in answers, and the growing base of sources keeps working.
There is no point in evaluating GEO earlier than 4–6 months in. If a contractor promises results in two weeks, that is a reason to be wary.
How to tell the price is inflated: 7 warning signs
How to save on GEO without losing quality
- Start with an audit. It will show where you already appear in answers and where spending budget is still premature.
- Combine GEO with SEO. Technical work, content and publications serve both channels, so a combined package costs less than two separate contractors.
- Use what you already have. Case studies, research and your staff's expertise need packaging, not creating from scratch.
- Narrow the question pool. At the start, 30–50 of the most lucrative questions in 3 AI assistants are enough.
- Fix the volumes. An itemized estimate and clear metrics protect you from overpaying.
- Judge by share of mentions. What matters is not the number of articles but how often AI assistants name you instead of your competitors.
How GEO results are measured
The result of GEO is not rankings but the brand's presence in answers. We look at six indicators:
- Share of mentions — in how many answers to your list of questions the AI names your company, compared with competitors.
- Position and context — whether you are recommended first, mentioned in a list or recalled only on a direct question.
- Sentiment — what exactly the AI says about the company.
- Links to the site — whether the assistant cites your pages as a source.
- AI traffic — visits from ChatGPT, Alice, Perplexity and other assistants in Yandex Metrica.
- Branded demand and enquiries — whether the number of people searching for you by name and getting in touch is growing.
We measure brand visibility in AI answers with our own service, PromoLab AI Radar: it shows whether an AI assistant mentions the company, whether it recommends it and which competitors it names more often.
What GEO costs at PromoLab
We have been doing SEO since 2010 and build GEO on the same foundation: first measurement and strategy, then systematic work on the website, content and external sources.
AI audit of brand visibility, analysis of competitors in AI answers, a list of website improvements, a strategy for 3–6 months.
Everything in Start, plus technical preparation of the site, content for AI answers, publications on external platforms, monitoring and a report every month.
An extended pool of questions and AI assistants, PR and industry media, work with reviews and rankings, several business lines or regions.
We will check for free how AI assistants answer your customers' questions, compare you with your competitors and name a realistic budget.
