AI SEO agency or a normal SEO agency?
An AI SEO agency runs the research, the writing and the checking on automation and sells you the output, while a traditional agency sells you hours. Grey Manager runs both SEO and GEO on its own systems for one monthly retainer per website, and you approve the brand claims.
On this page
The phrase covers two very different businesses. Some agencies mean they use an assistant to draft copy faster and still bill you for the hours. Others mean the research, the writing, the linking and the checking genuinely run on a system, and what you buy is the published output each month. Only the second one changes the price, and only the second one scales to a restricted business that needs volume.
What does an AI SEO agency actually do?
It runs the repeatable half of search work on automation: finding the questions buyers ask, writing answer first pages, linking them, publishing them, and checking each one is indexed and cited. A person still approves anything the business claims about itself.
That split is the whole product. Research, drafting, internal linking, indexing checks and citation checks are mechanical, and they benefit from running every week rather than every quarter. Positioning, prices, promises and brand claims are not mechanical, and an agency that lets a machine invent those is selling you a liability rather than a service.
| Agency type | What you pay for | Who approves |
|---|---|---|
| AI SEO agency, automation led | the published output each month, at a fixed retainer | you approve the home page and every brand claim |
| Traditional agency, hours led | consultant time, at a day rate or a monthly minimum | you approve a strategy, then a deliverable schedule |
| In house hire | a salary, plus the tools and the management | you approve everything, and you carry the management load |
How much does AI SEO cost?
Published pricing in this market is rare, which is most of why the question keeps being asked. Our own answer is $550 per month per website for SEO and GEO automation, and the first pages are live within 14 days of the booking date.
Compare that honestly. A traditional agency retainer for the same scope usually starts at several times the figure, because it is priced from a consultant’s calendar, and an in house hire carries a salary plus tools plus your own management time. Note also what a search retainer never includes: ad spend and ad account fees are a separate thing entirely, and they stay yours on the advertising retainers as well.
What the automation cannot do is care about your market the way a good strategist does, which is the next question.
When is a traditional agency the better buy?
When the problem is strategy rather than production: a repositioning, a migration, a complicated technical rebuild, or a market where the winning move is human relationships rather than published pages. Those are judgement jobs, and judgement is what an hourly rate is genuinely worth paying.
There is also a strong case for buying both. Take the judgement once, as a project, and buy the production monthly, because paying a consultant rate to publish pages every week is the most expensive way to do the least difficult part of the work. Restricted businesses feel this hardest, since they need constant published reach precisely because so many paid channels refuse them.
If the term itself is new to you, start with what generative engine optimisation is, because the citation half of the job is where the newer money is. The service itself is SEO and GEO automation, and if you want paid reach running beside it, that is ads automation.
To get a written plan for your own website before you pay anything, book a call. Every retainer is listed on pricing, and the rest of these questions sit on the answers hub.
Sources: pricing and the negative claims, the Grey Manager one pager, 2026-09-22; the People Also Ask questions behind this page, the Grey Manager keyword research round two, section five, read 2026-09-21.
Not yet
- An automated system does not replace judgement about your own brand. We do not build or sell custom software or AI agents either, so if you want a tool of your own rather than a service, we are the wrong supplier.