Key Takeaways
- State the number in exactly one place. Every additional page that types it out is a separate thing that can go stale, and the one you forget is always the one that gets quoted.
- Make every other mention point instead of repeat. A sentence that says pricing is on the services page never goes out of date, because it does not contain anything that can be wrong.
- Write the price so it survives a small change. A starting figure with what it includes stays true through a modest increase. An exact number with no context is false the day you move it.
- Say when the page was last checked, in text. A visible date lets a careful reader and a careful assistant weigh the number. An undated price reads as either current or ancient, with no way to tell.
- Re-read one page on a fixed trigger, not on a calendar. Nobody keeps a monthly reminder. Tie the re-read to the event that makes the page wrong, which is the day you change what you charge.
A consultant raised her rate in March. In August a prospect arrived on a call expecting the old number, having asked an assistant what she charged and been told, confidently, a figure she had not used in five months.
Her website was correct. It had been correct since March. The wrong number was living in a downloadable one-pager she had made two years earlier and forgotten was still on the server.
That is the whole shape of this problem. It is almost never the page you updated. It is the copies of the page you did not know you had.
How do I keep one page current so AI quotes it right?
State the number once, on one page, and make every other mention of it point at that page rather than repeat the figure. Then go and delete or correct the old copies you have accumulated.
That is a structural fix rather than a maintenance habit, which is why it works. A habit fails the first busy month. A page that only contains the number in one place cannot silently disagree with itself.
The second half is writing the number so a small change does not make it false. Most businesses adjust prices gradually, and a figure written with what it includes survives that. A bare number does not.
Why the old number survives after you change it
Because there was never only one number. There were six, and you edited one. The other five are still sitting there, each perfectly readable and each perfectly wrong.
There is a second reason on top of that, and it is not your fault. An assistant may be answering from a stored copy of your page taken at some earlier point rather than from the page as it stands right now. OpenAI's own explanation of what ChatGPT is describes a system trained on material gathered up to a point in time, and Google's description of how AI features in Search work describes answers built from retrievable material. Between them you get both failure modes: the stale copy and the leftover one.
You cannot do much about the first. You can do everything about the second, and the second is where most wrong prices actually come from. The broader version of this problem, including the answers that are wrong about things other than price, is in fixing an out of date picture of your business in AI.
Every place the number is written down
Count them before you fix anything. A small site with one price usually has five or six independent statements of it, and the count is the real maintenance cost.
Services page
States it
The one place the number is stated
Homepage
Repeats it
Retyped into a hero line years ago
FAQ answer
Repeats it
"How much does it cost?" answered inline
Footer
Points at it
Links to the services page instead
An old blog post
Repeats it
Written when the number was different
A downloadable PDF
Repeats it
Nobody remembers it is published
An outside listing
Repeats it
Copied once, edited by someone else
Five independent copies of one number. Change the price and you have five chances to leave one behind.
A composite of what a small site typically holds, illustrative rather than measured. Every surface and every state shown here is also named in the section above and in the table below. The fix is not to edit faster: it is to turn the repeats into pointers so there is only ever one number to edit.
The downloadable file is the one that catches people, because it is the only item on that list nobody visits. It sits at a URL, it is perfectly fetchable, and its author has not opened it since the year it was made.
Writing the page so it cannot go stale quietly
Write every dated fact so that a modest change leaves it still true. That is a wording decision, made once, and it is the difference between a page that ages and a page that expires.
The trap is that the most quotable version and the most durable version pull against each other. A precise figure is what gets repeated. A vague one never goes wrong and never gets repeated either. The workable middle is a specific starting figure with the thing it buys attached to it.
| The statement | What silently makes it false | How it reads once stale | The durable version |
|---|---|---|---|
| The price | You raise your rate | A prospect arrives expecting last year's number | A starting figure with what it includes and what moves it |
| Availability | You fill up, or you open up | "Currently taking clients" when you are not, for months | Say how to find out, not what the state is today |
| The package list | You quietly stop selling one of them | Someone asks to buy a thing you retired | Name what you do now, and remove rather than hide the rest |
| A credential | It lapses, or you earn a better one | You are described by an old qualification | Name the body and the year, so age is visible rather than hidden |
| Client examples | Time passes and the work gets older | Your most recent proof appears to be from years ago | Date the example, so a reader knows it is a snapshot |
Two of those rows are worth arguing with. Removing a retired package feels like shrinking your offer, and dating a client example feels like volunteering that it is old. Both are right anyway: an assistant that finds a contradiction hedges, and a hedge costs you more than an honest date does. Google's guidance on creating helpful, reliable content lands in the same place, and the practical version for a services page is in answering common client questions on one page.
The re-read that takes ten minutes
Tie the re-read to the change, not to the calendar. The day you decide on a new rate, before you tell anyone, open the page and the list of places the old one lives, and fix all of them in one sitting.
Keep the list somewhere you will find it. Not in your head: a note with the six URLs on it, written the first time you do this properly. That note is the actual deliverable of this whole exercise, and it takes about ten minutes to make.
Then check the outside copies once a year, because those are the ones you do not control. A listing you filled in three years ago is still being read and may still be repeating a number you have never charged since.
One honest limit. Cleaning this up does not force an assistant to update what it says about you. It removes every reason for it to keep saying the wrong thing, and then you wait, which is the same shape as everything else here. How long that waiting takes is covered in how fresh content needs to be for AI.
If you would rather find out what is being said about you before you start fixing it, the free check asks 25 real buyer questions from your niche through ChatGPT at $0 and emails a plain-English readout within the hour. It runs as soon as you ask for it.
Questions we hear the most
How do I stop AI quoting an old price for my business?
State the price in one place, make every other mention point at that page instead of repeating the figure, and remove the old copies you no longer control the wording of. Most wrong quotes come from a copy you forgot existed.
Why does AI still quote my old price after I updated my site?
Usually because the number is still written somewhere else. An assistant may also be working from a stored copy of a page rather than the live one, so both the leftover copies and the delay are working against you.
How long does it take for a price change to show up in AI answers?
It varies by assistant and by question, from days to considerably longer. Systems that fetch live pages update fastest, and anything answering from stored knowledge can be behind for a long stretch.
Should I put my prices online at all?
If you want to be recommended for questions about cost, yes. An assistant cannot repeat a figure it cannot find, so a business with no published price tends to be described vaguely or skipped in favor of one that publishes.
Is a starting price better than an exact price?
Usually, because it survives small changes without becoming false. Say what the starting figure includes and what moves it, so the number stays useful rather than becoming a hedge.
Does adding a last updated date actually help?
It helps a reader judge the number, and it gives an assistant something to weigh when two sources disagree. Only add it if you are willing to keep it honest, because a stale date is worse than none.
How do I check what AI currently says my prices are?
Ask an assistant directly what your business charges, in a fresh logged out session, and ask twice with different wording. If a number comes back that you have not charged in a year, go and find the page it came from.
Does the AnswerHalo free check catch a wrong price?
Often, yes. It asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions from your niche, several of which touch cost, and the readout records what came back about you. It costs $0 and it runs as soon as you ask for it.
Your buyers are already asking. Find out what AI tells them.
The free check asks ChatGPT 25 real buyer questions about your niche and sends you the report within the hour, at $0. If it shows you are already getting named everywhere, we will say so in plain words.
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