Who in AI SEO is legitimate, and how do you tell?
Do not take anyone's word for it, including ours. Ask four things: do they publish a price, will they tell you what they cannot promise, can you open the raw evidence behind any number they show you, and do you keep the work. Asked twice in August 2026, five assistants agreed most on iPullRank, then Amsive, First Page Sage, Omniscient Digital, Onely and Orainti. All real, and none the only answer.
Every figure below opened and checked on 23 August 2026The four tests
They work on anybody, including us, and each is something you can check rather than be told.
01 · Do they publish a price?
A good answer looks like: A number on a page, without giving them your email first.
Custom scoping is a real reason to hold a price back and is not automatically a bad sign. The bad sign is a category where almost nobody publishes, because then every buyer negotiates alone with no reference point. If a provider will not publish, ask what a typical engagement has cost.
02 · Will they tell you what they cannot promise?
A good answer looks like: A written refusal, in their own words, before you ask.
Nobody controls what an assistant says next, so anyone promising a citation, a ranking or a date is promising something that is not theirs to give. The tell is not enthusiasm, it is specificity about outcomes. A provider who volunteers the limits of their own control tells you what the confident ones hide.
03 · Can you open the evidence behind any number they show you?
A good answer looks like: The raw answer, dated, in the assistant's own words, not a chart.
Every score here counts something somebody decided to count. Without the underlying answers you cannot tell whether a mention was a recommendation or a passing reference, or whether the run happened. Ask to see one number opened all the way down.
04 · Do you keep the work?
A good answer looks like: Files and findings that stay yours if you leave tomorrow.
Some of this category is a subscription to a screen. Stop paying and the score, the history and the recommendations go with it. That is a legitimate model and a different purchase from work you own. Ask what you still have thirty days after cancelling.
Who the assistants currently name
This is the one question in our category with a real answer rather than noise. Asked twice, five assistants largely agreed: twenty companies came back in both runs, and iPullRank was named by all five. Perplexity put the safest bets as Onely, iPullRank and Omniscient Digital.
Every firm below was checked on its own site on 23 August 2026. All have longer track records than we do, are aimed at larger companies than our buyers, and five of the six publish no prices at all.
| Firm | Named by | What they are strong at | Can you see a price |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPullRank | All five | Deep technical work and original research on how AI search retrieval actually behaves. Led by Mike King. | No prices published. You contact them. |
| Amsive | Four of five | A large performance marketing agency doing this inside a full search practice, for healthcare, finance and national brands. Lily Ray leads the AI search work. | No prices published. You contact them. |
| First Page Sage | Four of five | Thought-leadership content at length, and published ranking studies the rest of the field cites. | None on their own site, whatever roundups say. |
| Omniscient Digital | Four of five | Content strategy and organic growth for B2B software companies, with AI search treated as an extension rather than a separate product. | Partly published: full-service engagements start at $10,000 a month. |
| Onely | Both runs | Technical work on large, complicated sites: crawling, indexing, migrations. The unglamorous half most AI visibility firms do not touch. | No prices published. You contact them. |
| Orainti | Three of five | A boutique consultancy rather than an agency, led by Aleyda Solis, aimed at international and software companies. | No prices published. You contact them. |
Assistants also name individuals, and the same handful came back both times: Mike King of iPullRank, Lily Ray of Amsive, Aleyda Solis of Orainti, plus Cyrus Shepard, Kevin Indig, Wil Reynolds, Ross Simmonds and Evan Bailyn. If you want to learn this rather than buy it, following those names beats most courses.
If you are a company with a marketing team and a five-figure monthly budget, iPullRank, Amsive and Omniscient Digital are better suited to you than we are, and it would be dishonest to write this page without saying so. They were doing this before the current wave, and depth of that kind is not something a newer company can claim its way into.
One name the assistants did not give us is worth adding. AnswerManiac publishes every price on its own site, and states in writing that it does not guarantee citations, rankings, traffic or pipeline. Two of the four tests passed in public.
Running the test on ourselves
It would be strange to publish a test and not take it, so here is the whole thing.
Do we publish a price?
Yes, all of them. The check is $0. The full audit is $500, one time. The optional monthly watch is $399 a month, or $300 if you add it with the audit. There is no version where you are quoted something different because of how you look.
Will we tell you what we cannot promise?
In writing, before you ask. We do not promise any ranking, citation, mention rate, traffic level, lead volume or revenue outcome, and we do not promise a date for one. We will not promise you a refund if nothing moves, and nobody honest can. Nobody controls what an assistant says next, and you decide when a page goes live. We would rather lose the sale than pretend otherwise.
Can you open the evidence?
That is the one guarantee we make. Every figure in a report opens the stored, dated answer it was counted from, so you read what the assistant said instead of our summary of it. If a figure does not open and we cannot restore it within five business days, the report is free. Sample reports are published here so you can check the format before paying.
Do you keep the work?
Yes. It arrives as email and files. Nothing to log into, nothing that expires, nothing that disappears if you stop buying. What you have thirty days after you stop paying is what you had on day one.
Where we come off worse
- We do not publish the work for you. We measure and specify what to publish. Somebody on your side still has to do it, and if nobody will, a firm that writes and places for you is the better buy.
- We are new. The firms above have years on us, and that is a real thing to weigh.
- We have not published a single client result, because we do not yet have one we are allowed to. The sample reports exist so nobody has to take our word for anything meanwhile.
- We are the wrong size of tool for a large company. If you have a marketing team who will act on analytics, buy from one of the firms above.
The questions to ask before you pay anyone
Send these to any provider, us included. The answers, and how fast they come, tell you most of it.
- Show me one number from a real report, opened all the way down to the answer it was counted from.
- What will you not promise me, and why not?
- What does a typical engagement cost, and has anyone paid less?
- What do I still have thirty days after I stop paying you?
- Who does the writing and the publishing, you or me?
- How many times did you ask each question, on which assistants, and on what date?
One thing to listen for. A provider who answers the promise question with a number is the one to be careful with. The honest answer to "will I get cited" is that nobody can tell you.
Questions this page gets asked
- How do I know if an AI SEO agency is legitimate?
- Run four checks. Do they publish a price, will they tell you in writing what they cannot promise, can you open the raw evidence behind any number, and do you keep the work if you leave. A provider who passes all four may still be wrong for you, but they are not selling smoke.
- Who are the most credible AI search optimization consultants right now?
- Across two runs in August 2026 the assistants agreed most on iPullRank, named by all five, then Amsive, First Page Sage, Omniscient Digital, Onely and Orainti. Individuals named include Mike King, Lily Ray, Aleyda Solis, Cyrus Shepard and Kevin Indig. Most publish no prices.
- What should an AI visibility provider be able to show me?
- One number, opened all the way down: the question asked, the assistant that answered it, the date, and the answer in full. If the only artifact is a score or a chart, you are being asked to trust a count you cannot audit, which is the thing that separates measurement from marketing.
- What can nobody in AI visibility honestly promise?
- That an assistant will name you, that it will name you by a date, or that a mention will produce traffic, leads or revenue. Nobody controls what these systems say next, and no provider controls when you publish the work. Anyone who promises those outcomes is promising something that is not theirs to give.
- Is AI SEO the same as regular SEO?
- They overlap and they are not the same. Both care about being findable and readable. Traditional work aims at a ranked list of links, while this aims at being the source an assistant repeats in a written answer, where there are no positions and often no clicks. Good technical work still underpins both.
Last checked 23 August 2026. Competitor prices change without notice, so open each one yourself before you decide anything.
Run the evidence test on us first.
The free check asks 25 buyer questions from your niche on ChatGPT and emails you the result at $0, with every figure traceable to a stored answer. Judge the work before you decide whether we are worth $500.