A GEO strategy costs between 950 and 5,000 euros excl. VAT per month for agency support, with an initial audit at 1,500 to 5,000 euros. Across 63 real budgets analysed by La Fabrique du Net, the median engagement comes to 5,000 euros in total, not per month.
That price spread hides a question almost no proposal addresses: who pays for measurement? Without regular tracking of your share of voice, you’re funding optimisations you can never prove work.
I’m Florian Zorgnotti, an SEO and GEO consultant. What follows covers the real ranges by line item, where sources contradict each other on the minimum viable budget, and how to build a budget that includes proof of results.
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Key takeaways (list version)
- Median budget: 5,000 euros per engagement across 63 real projects, with a mean of 12,300 euros pulled up by large accounts.
- Three distinct line items: initial audit, monthly support, continuous measurement. The third is missing from most proposals.
- Consultant day rate: 850 to 950 euros excl. VAT at the median on the French market, with a GEO premium of roughly 35% over SEO rates.
- The minimum threshold is disputed: some players warn against anything under 2,000 euros a month, others document serious work from 950 euros.
What are the real market prices in France?
Three independent sources converge on close ranges, which gives a solid baseline.
La Fabrique du Net analysed 63 real GEO projects across its agency network. The median budget comes to 5,000 euros, the mean to 12,300. The gap between the two indicates a distribution pulled upward by a few large accounts, so the median is the relevant reference for an SME.
On day rates, a directory tracking the public rate cards of 47 French GEO consultants puts the average day rate at 950 euros excl. VAT, with a median of 900. A separate observation of the Paris market gives a median of 850 euros within a 550 to 1,500 range.
| Line item | Observed range | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Initial GEO audit | 1,500 to 5,000 € excl. VAT | Citability diagnosis, prioritised action plan, 5 to 12 days of work |
| SME agency support | 950 to 3,000 € excl. VAT / month | Ongoing optimisation, 2 to 4 pieces of content monthly, monitoring |
| Enterprise support | 3,000 to 8,000 € excl. VAT / month | Dedicated strategist, industrialised production, multi-market scope |
| Freelance consultant | 850 to 950 € excl. VAT / day | One-off engagement, audit, team reinforcement, skills transfer |
| Measurement tool | 29 to 450 € excl. VAT / month | Automated tracking, share of voice, history, competitor monitoring |
These figures reflect French engagements observed between April and July 2026. The market is young, so they move fast.
At what budget does an engagement become serious?
The market openly contradicts itself here, and you’re better off knowing before you sign.
One industry player argues that below 2,000 euros excl. VAT per month, you’re usually buying classic SEO rebadged as “AI”. The argument holds: producing long, sourced, genuinely citable content costs real human hours.
Other sources document serious engagements from 950 euros a month, including audit, two to four monthly pieces, technical optimisation and multi-engine monitoring. One observer notes that above 3,000 euros a month you’re often paying for the agency’s brand and sales structure rather than proportionally superior deliverables.
In my view, both are right about different scopes, and the real criterion isn’t the amount. It’s the volume of actual human production. An engagement at 1,200 euros delivering two sourced in-depth pieces and a monthly measurement beats one at 2,500 euros delivering a dashboard and four generic articles.
The question to ask in the meeting is simple: how many human hours and how many pieces of content per month? If the answer is vague, the price means nothing.
The line item almost no proposal quantifies
Measurement. It’s the recurring hole in GEO proposals, and it’s also what makes ROI impossible to prove.
A typical GEO proposal details the audit, content production and technical optimisation. It sometimes mentions “monthly reporting”. That reporting is often produced by the agency itself, from occasional manual checks, with no consolidated history or reproducible method.
The problem is structural. Generative answers vary from run to run: close to one citation in two changes between two generations of the same AI Overview. An isolated check measures noise. Only share of voice aggregated across many repeated checks produces a usable signal.
Without that history, three things become impossible. Proving the budget produces an effect. Distinguishing a real gain from natural engine variance. Knowing which competitors capture citations in your place.
Questions to ask before signing
- What exactly do you measure, and with which tool? An agency answering “we check ChatGPT now and then” measures nothing.
- How many checks per query per month? Below three, the figure quoted is a random draw.
- Across how many engines? Surfaces cite different sources; an aggregated figure hides two realities.
- Does the history belong to me? If you end the engagement, do you keep your visibility data?
- Who tracks my competitors? Your share of voice only means something against a competitive basket.
Should measurement be separated from the engagement?
Yes, in most cases, for reasons of independence as much as cost.
When the agency doing the optimising is also the one measuring and reporting, it’s judge and jury. That isn’t an accusation of dishonesty: it’s a structurally fragile setup, especially in a discipline where natural engine variance lets a well-chosen check tell many different stories.
The cost gap between the two line items makes separation easy. A tracking tool costs 29 to 450 euros excl. VAT per month depending on depth, while support work runs 950 to 5,000. Measurement therefore typically represents 1 to 5% of the total GEO budget.
On a monthly budget of 1,500 euros, spending 29 on an independent, historised check changes the nature of the commercial relationship. You stop evaluating your provider on their own report.
Where Cockpyt AI sits in that budget
That’s the logic I built Cockpyt AI on with Laurent Séjourné: covering the measurement line item independently, at a flat price, without replacing the human optimisation work.
Concretely, the subscription includes weekly measurement across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, share of voice against competitors, a Google Analytics 4 connection linking visibility to real traffic, and a monthly GEO audit with a prioritised action plan. Flat price at 29 euros a month billed annually, 14-day trial with no credit card.
Let’s be precise about what that means, because the nuance matters. An automated monthly audit at 29 euros doesn’t replace a consultant audit at 3,000, which brings strategic reading, market knowledge and human execution. What it brings is continuity: where a one-off audit gives you an annual snapshot, a monthly audit gives you a trajectory, and above all the data to steer an external engagement.
In other words, it isn’t a replacement, it’s the missing line item in your proposal. The honest comparison isn’t “29 euros versus 2,000”, it’s “a budget with independent measurement versus a budget with no proof”.
In-house or outsourced: the real calculation
Going in-house looks free and never is. The real cost is counted in months of learning, not euros invoiced.
A field observation reported by one industry player puts at four to six months the time a team going in-house without prior training spends reproducing already-documented mistakes. That figure comes from a provider selling support services, so treat it with due caution, but the order of magnitude matches what I see with clients.
The honest calculation weighs three scenarios.
- Fully in-house: no apparent cost, real cost in salaried time and lost months. Sensible if you already have a solid SEO team and available capacity.
- Fully outsourced: 950 to 5,000 euros monthly, fast execution, strong dependency, and measurement often produced by the provider itself.
- Mixed model: external initial audit, partly internal execution, independent continuous measurement. This is the setup I most often recommend to SMEs.
One point deserves stating plainly, whatever you choose. No provider can guarantee a citation in ChatGPT or Gemini. Nobody controls model outputs. You influence, you optimise, you measure. A proposal promising guaranteed citations is a red flag.
How to build your budget by profile
Here are the setups I see working best by type, in euros excl. VAT per month.
| Profile | Monthly budget | Recommended split |
|---|---|---|
| Solo operator, local tradesperson | 50 to 300 € | Continuous measurement, in-house production, external audit once a year |
| Small business with SEO foundation | 500 to 1,500 € | Independent measurement, freelance support a few days a month |
| SME without SEO foundation | 1,500 to 3,000 € | Full initial audit, agency support, separate measurement |
| Enterprise or contested sector | 3,000 to 8,000 € | Dedicated strategist, industrialised production, multi-market measurement |
In all four cases, the measurement line stays marginal in cost and decisive in value. It’s what turns spending into a steerable investment.
The mistakes that inflate the bill
- Paying for GEO with no SEO foundation. SEO remains the base that gets you into the pool of candidate sources.
- Signing with no measurement line. You’re funding unverifiable optimisation.
- Accepting a citation guarantee. Nobody controls model outputs.
- Confusing the 5,000 euro median with a monthly figure. It’s the total engagement across the 63 projects analysed.
- Paying dashboard prices for strategy. A reporting tool resold as strategic support is a frequent drift.
FAQ
How much does a GEO audit cost in 2026?
Between 1,500 and 5,000 euros excl. VAT depending on depth and site size, generally corresponding to five to twelve days of work. A serious audit assesses your citation potential across generative engines and delivers a prioritised action plan, not just a status report. Some full engagements on broad scopes go higher, up to 14,000 euros for seven days at a senior day rate.
What is a GEO consultant’s day rate in France?
The average day rate sits around 950 euros excl. VAT, with a median of 900 according to a directory tracking the public rate cards of 47 French consultants. A separate observation of the Paris market gives a median of 850 within a 550 to 1,500 range. GEO rates run roughly 35% above classic SEO rates, a scarcity premium expected to narrow.
Does GEO cost more than SEO?
Yes, by around 35% at comparable scope, due to skill scarcity and the need for long, sourced content. That gap should narrow as the discipline becomes routine. In practice, many providers now build GEO good practice directly into SEO strategy rather than billing a separate line.
Can you do GEO on a small budget?
Yes, provided you sequence it. A solo operator or tradesperson can start with a measurement tool at 29 to 99 euros a month, produce their own content, and commission an external audit once a year. That setup gives the data needed to prioritise without committing to monthly support. The limit arrives when your sector gets contested and the production volume required exceeds your available time.
Why should measurement be separate from the engagement?
For independence. When the provider optimising is also the one measuring and reporting, they’re assessing their own work. In a discipline where answers vary sharply from run to run, a well-chosen check can tell many stories. The cost of separating is low, with measurement typically representing 1 to 5% of the total GEO budget.
Can an agency guarantee a citation in ChatGPT?
No, and such a promise should alarm you. No provider controls language model outputs. The work consists of influencing the signals that make a citation probable, then measuring how your share of voice evolves. A results guarantee on a model output has no technical basis.
How long before a GEO strategy pays off?
First effects generally appear within four to eight weeks on fast-indexing engines, and over three to six months for surfaces whose models update periodically. Profitability depends mostly on your dependence on search traffic and your average order value. Without measurement established from the start, you won’t be able to say whether the threshold has been reached.
Sources
- “Tarif GEO 2026 : prix réels du référencement IA”, La Fabrique du Net, analysis of 63 GEO engagement budgets, June 2026 — lafabriquedunet.fr
- “Tarifs consultant GEO 2026, grille publique”, Meilleurs Consultants GEO, rate cards of 47 French consultants, May 2026 — meilleurs-consultants-geo.fr
- “Tarifs agence GEO en France : combien ça coûte en 2026 ?”, Developr, May 2026 — developr.fr
- “Outils GEO : comparatif de monitoring pour suivre sa visibilité IA”, Stafe, June 2026 — stafe.fr
