What AI search optimisation costs for accountants

Ask an AI engine what accountant SEO costs and it already has an answer. In our sweep of the exact questions a firm might type into ChatGPT or Gemini, the price bands come back broadly consistent: roughly £500 to £3,500 a month for UK accountancy SEO on a retainer, with a basic automated AI-visibility snapshot available for under £100 and a human-reviewed audit running £495 to £2,500. What none of them do yet is separate ordinary SEO from AI-visibility work specifically — both are still priced and sold as one thing.

What the engines actually quote

ChatGPT: expect £800–£2,500 + VAT a month for credible SEO, with a small single-location practice starting around £500–£1,000 and competitive cities or multi-office firms needing £1,500–£5,000. Gemini, asked the same question, put the typical retainer at £500–£3,500 a month on average, with the full market spanning £300 to £20,000+ depending on ambition — a wider band, but the same shape: local and small-practice work sits at the bottom, national and competitive-market work at the top.

A specific AI-visibility audit — distinct from ordinary SEO — was quoted separately when asked directly. ChatGPT named three real, currently-priced products: a £79–£99 automated snapshot, a £495–£995 human-reviewed audit with competitor analysis, and a £1,500–£2,500 deeper consultancy audit for a multi-office firm competing nationally.

What none of them price consistently yet

Every SEO quote above is for rankings and organic traffic — the classic metric. Neither engine, asked the exact same question, broke out a distinct figure for being cited and recommended by name inside an AI answer, as opposed to ranking in ordinary search. That gap mirrors what we found sweeping the law firm cost question in the same way: the market is still selling this as SEO with an AI label attached, not as a separately priced, separately measured outcome.

That's useful to know before buying. A quote priced purely against the SEO bands above is buying rankings, not recommendations — and per Avouch's own accountants sweep, those are measurably different outcomes: Gemini named firms 184 times in our sweep and recommended one of them zero times, while ChatGPT and Claude converted real, substantial shares of their mentions. Ask any agency quoting inside these bands one direct question: does the fee include measuring whether AI engines recommend you by name, per engine, or only whether you rank?

What drives the number up or down

• Location and reach. A single-office local practice sits at the bottom of every band quoted; a firm competing across several cities or nationally sits at the top, regardless of specialism.
• Market competitiveness. Both engines flagged the accountancy sector generally as competitive, on a par with finance and law, which pushes costs above the equivalent for a lower-competition local trade.
• Audit depth. The AI-visibility audit market alone spans a 30x range in our sweep — from a £79 automated snapshot to a £2,500 consultancy engagement — and the gap is depth of human review, not just brand.
• Whether AI visibility is measured at all. Neither engine's SEO quote today prices this in as a separate line item, which means most firms buying at these prices have no way of knowing whether the spend moved their AI recommendation rate.

“There's a difference between showing up and being recommended. AI cannot recommend what it doesn't know.”