What “AI SEO agency” means: two different things
Searches for “AI SEO agency” mix two purchases. Check which one a vendor is selling before you compare quotes.
| Meaning | What you are buying | How to judge it |
|---|---|---|
| A. An SEO agency that uses AI tools | Faster keyword clustering, content drafts, audits and reporting. The goal is still Google rankings. | Ask what a human edits and signs off. Judge by rankings and organic traffic, not by “we use AI”. |
| B. An agency that gets you into AI answers | Being named when buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Google AI Overviews who to choose. | Ask for the question list, the engines tested, and before-and-after answers. Judge by whether you are named, how you are described and which sources are cited. |
MaxGrowth sells B. We do not promise Google rankings. Where the work touches both, for example crawlable pages and structured data, it sits inside the agreed GEO scope.
Why community word of mouth comes before page tweaks
AI assistants answer a buyer question by reading what the web already says: reviews, comparison articles, YouTube videos and, very often, Reddit and forum threads. Tuning your own pages helps, but it does not create evidence from people who are not you. That is why our order of work is brand monitoring, then community word of mouth (Reddit first), then social comments, then GEO as the supporting layer.
Our Reddit community marketing runs as disclosed, genuine participation under each community’s own rules, with a link and screenshot logged for every item. Moderator collaboration is checked per community.
What you receive: the deliverables list
| Deliverable | What it is | Evidence you get |
|---|---|---|
| Buyer-question baseline | The questions your buyers ask AI, run on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Qwen, Doubao and DeepSeek | Original answers and screenshots per question |
| Source gap map | Which review sites, threads and videos the engines cite, and where you are missing or misdescribed | Cited-URL list per question |
| Community word-of-mouth plan | Target subreddits and forums, vetted for activity and rules, with content written per community | Posting plan up front, itemized ledger after |
| Social comment upkeep | Answers and follow-ups in relevant YouTube and social comment threads | Link, platform, date and screenshot per item |
| GEO page work | Answer pages, FAQs, entity facts and structured data you approve before publishing | Published URLs and a diff against what you approved |
| Weekly retest and report | Same questions, engines and settings re-run on a schedule | Comparison report: what started or stopped naming you |
How an engagement runs
- Free first look. Run the free AI visibility test on your brand and category, or request a free growth audit for your own questions and markets.
- Scope. Agree the markets, languages, engines and community channels. You review questions, content and target pages before anything is published.
- Execute. Community and page work ship on a weekly plan with a ledger of links and screenshots.
- Retest. Weekly re-runs of the same questions. Missing evidence is marked as unavailable, and a citation on one engine is not counted as a result on another.
What it costs
Monitoring is priced in public. Implementation is scoped after the audit, because the work depends on how many markets, communities and pages are involved.
| Plan | Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Solo | $99/month | 1 site, weekly retest on six engines, weekly report by email |
| Team | $199/month | Up to 5 sites, weekly retest and report for each |
| Growth | $399/month | Up to 20 sites, plus 8 Reddit posts and 12 other community posts every month, with delivery links on your report page |
Billed monthly through Stripe in US dollars; first week free once per email. Details and the delivery guarantee are on the pricing page. For context, one third-party agency guide puts AEO/GEO retainers at roughly $3,000 to $25,000 a month (MarketerHire); that is a single vendor’s estimate, not a market survey.
Evidence from published cases
- Consumer hardware on Reddit: 77% of first-week posts still live at the July 2026 check and 180K+ impressions observed, under each subreddit’s posted rules. The removed posts were the most brand-heavy, which corrected the next week’s mix. Read the case.
- Game launch season: 1.5M+ cumulative impressions observed over ten weeks across Reddit, Discord, Facebook groups and YouTube comments. Read the case.
- B2B SaaS (global eKYC provider): from not being recalled for non-branded buyer questions to being named unprompted in niche ones, after third-party content gaps were filled. The case page states its evidence scope. Read the case.
These are process metrics and observed values from public platform data. They are not a forecast for your brand, and we do not promise rankings, upvotes or a set number of AI mentions.
Comparison: three kinds of agency
| Classic SEO agency | AI-tool SEO agency | MaxGrowth | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main goal | Google rankings | Google rankings, faster | Being named in AI answers |
| Core lever | On-page, links, content | AI-assisted content and audits | Community and third-party sources, then your pages |
| Measures | Rankings, organic traffic | Rankings, content volume | Question-level answers, mentions, cited sources, weekly retest |
| Public pricing | Rarely | Rarely | Monitoring from $99/month |
| Guarantees | Varies | Varies | Delivered quantity and replacement of removed posts; no promise on rankings or mentions |
Ten questions to ask any AI SEO agency
- Which of the two meanings above are you selling, and where does the other begin?
- Which questions will you test, and can I add mine?
- Which engines, and with live web search on or off?
- How do you separate “mentioned”, “recommended” and “cited”?
- Will I see the original answers and screenshots, or only a score?
- Which off-site sources will you work on, and under what disclosure?
- What happens if a community removes a post?
- Who approves content before it is published?
- What is the price, and what is the minimum term?
- Which claims do you refuse to make?
FAQ
What is an AI SEO agency?
The phrase covers two things: an SEO agency that uses AI tools to work faster, and an agency that helps your brand appear in AI answers from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews. MaxGrowth does the second.
How much does an AI SEO agency cost?
MaxGrowth publishes monitoring prices: $99, $199 and $399 per month, with the $399 plan including 8 Reddit and 12 other community posts monthly. Implementation projects are scoped after a free audit. See the pricing page.
Can you guarantee ChatGPT will recommend my brand?
No. AI answers change and depend on what the web says about you. We commit to delivered work, replacement of removed posts and before-and-after answers for the same questions.
Do you also do classic Google SEO?
Google and Bing SEO work can be included inside an agreed GEO scope, and it is measured separately from AI-answer observations. See GEO services.
How do I check my starting point?
Run the free AI visibility test. It asks six engines five buyer questions about your brand and category and shows who is named and which sources are cited.
Start with the free AI visibility test, then tell us your market and we will run your buyer questions.
Request a free growth audit