Citely is a managed service. We do the optimization work; the dashboard is proof of work. All engagements paid via Mercury invoice — ACH or wire. Setup engagements use milestone-based payment (50% on signature, 50% at day 30). Monthly retainers are month-to-month with no long-term commitment.
Citely offers four engagement tiers: a one-time Citation Gap Audit at $497, Foundation Setup at $1,997–$2,500, Monthly Retainer at $1,497–$2,497 per month, and Premium Engagement at $4,997+ setup with $2,997+/month. All payments are processed via Mercury invoice with milestone protection on setup engagements.
Find out where the AI says your name — and where it doesn't.
A complete audit of your brand's current visibility across the six major AI assistants. Delivered as a branded 12-page PDF with action plan within 48 hours of payment.
Deploy the structural foundation that lifts your AI citations.
The complete foundational buildout. We deploy the structural work that moves your citation rates across the AI assistants — and you watch it happen on your dashboard, weekly.
Continuous optimization with weekly dashboard transparency.
Ongoing managed optimization work paired with your live Citely dashboard. We continue the structural work that compounds your AI visibility week over week.
Comparable agency retainers: $2,000–$8,000 / month
Aggressive optimization for brands competing in saturated AI search.
Everything in Foundation Setup and Monthly Retainer, plus active press placement work and quarterly content scale-up. Designed for brands where AI search visibility is competitive.
Comparable agency premium retainers: $5,000–$15,000 / month
Choose monitoring software (Profound, Otterly, AthenaHQ) if you have an internal SEO/content team that can execute the optimization work. You get a dashboard at $29–$2,000/month and your team does the schema deployment, Wikidata submissions, comparison pages, and content production.
Choose a managed service (Citely) if you want the optimization work done for you. The dashboard is included. Pricing reflects a managed-service tier ($1,497–$2,497/month for ongoing, $1,997–$2,500 for setup) — comparable to a mid-tier GEO agency retainer, but with one accountable partner who built the underlying software instead of renting it from a third party.
The two are also frequently used together — enterprise teams run a monitoring product for analytics depth and engage a service partner for execution.
You get a dashboard. You do the work.
They do the work, but rent their dashboard from Profound or Otterly and mark it up.
We built the dashboard ourselves. Lower costs, full optimization service, complete transparency.
| Capability | DIY Software | Generic Agency | Citely |
|---|---|---|---|
| Real-time dashboard | rented from a vendor | ||
| Done-for-you optimization work | |||
| Tracks 6 AI assistants | 1–3 on lower tiers | limited by their vendor | |
| Weekly transparency | monthly decks typical | ||
| Wikidata + schema + comparison page work | |||
| Press placement and content production | varies by agency | ||
| Pricing | $29–$2,000 / mo | $3,000–$10,000+ / mo | $1,497–$2,497 / mo |
ACH or wire transfer. No credit-card processor markup. Net-7 terms on first invoice; net-15 on monthly retainer.
50% on signature, 50% at day 30 once foundational work is complete. Your money is tied to delivered work.
No long-term contract. Pause or end any month with 14 days notice. We earn the renewal every cycle.
Work delivered is work paid for. Milestone structure on setup engagements is the protection mechanism.
Most engagements start with a $497 Citation Gap Audit. The findings tell you which tier you actually need — no upsell pressure.