# [AI SEO services: what belongs in the scope](https://rebilder.com/solutions/ai-seo-services)

> An itemised list of what AI SEO services usually cover, what each item is worth, and which ones you can do yourself for nothing before anyone quotes you.

- **Updated:** 2026-08-17

AI SEO services is a phrase, not a scope. Here is the itemised version, so you can price each line, keep the ones worth paying for, and stop paying for the ones that take an afternoon.



## What you get

- Every line item these engagements usually contain
- Which are one-time technical work and which are ongoing
- What each is genuinely worth, stated plainly
- The free tooling that covers the technical half completely

## The scope, itemised

Proposals vary in wording far more than in content. Nearly all of them are some subset of the following, and separating them is what lets you tell a fair price from a padded one.

| Line item | Shape | Worth paying for? |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Readability or agent audit | One-time | The scan is free; pay only for interpretation |
| Bot and CDN rule review | One-time, an hour | Rarely. It is a config review |
| Content negotiation setup | One-time, middleware | No. The SDK is free and self-hostable |
| Structured data corrections | One-time, then maintenance | Sometimes, if your templates are messy |
| Fact-position restructuring | Per template | Yes, if you lack front-end time |
| Content that answers real questions | Ongoing | Yes. This is the durable half |
| Answer or mention monitoring | Ongoing subscription | Only after the technical half is done |
| Monthly reporting | Ongoing | Only if it reads your server logs, not analytics |

Three of those eight are one-time technical changes that the free tooling covers end to end. If a monthly retainer is mostly those, you are renting something you already own.

## The part that costs nothing

The scan needs no account. The gateway SDK is free, unmetered and self-hostable, and the command-line scanner ships zero telemetry, so an audit can run entirely on your own machine without a URL leaving it.

middleware.ts

```ts
import { gateway } from '@rebilder/gateway'

export default gateway({
  source: { kind: 'document', resolve: myPages },
})
```

> **Capability is not what is sold** The paid tier covers managed hosting and history. It does not unlock behaviour: the serving path has no concept of a plan, so nothing about your traffic changes what the middleware does.

## Insist on a baseline before anything starts

The most common way one of these engagements ends badly is that nobody measured the start, so nobody can prove the finish. Two numbers taken beforehand fix it, and both are free.

1. **A readability score per template**, from a published deterministic spec, so the same page scores the same unless it changed.
2. **The raw response an agent receives**, saved. Bytes and first-fact offset are the two figures that move first when the work is real.
3. **Then agree what reporting will read.** If the answer is a page-view tool, change it now: agent fetches fire no beacon and will never appear there.

## What this does not do

- We sell software, not services. There is nothing to engage us for, and this page recommends no provider.
- It cannot make an assistant mention you. Assistants are not deterministic and no vendor controls their output, so a guaranteed citation is not a thing anyone can sell.
- It does not change what Google sees. Content negotiation returns the same substance in another format, and search crawlers keep receiving canonical HTML.
- We do not review or rank service providers. Publication about a named third party requires that domain owner’s verified opt-in.

## What are AI SEO services?

A bundle covering how your site is served to AI agents and what content it offers them. In practice it is some subset of eight line items, three of which are one-time technical changes that free tooling covers completely.

## How much do AI SEO services cost?

It varies far more than the work does, which is why the itemised list matters. Price each line separately: the technical items should be close to free, and the content items should cost what good writing costs.

## What should I do before getting quotes?

Scan a page of each template and save the numbers. Walking into the conversation with your own baseline changes it completely, and it costs nothing.

## Can I do AI SEO myself?

The technical half, almost certainly: it is middleware plus a config review. The content half depends on whether you have people who can write answers to the questions your customers actually ask.

## Related

- [AI SEO agency: what they do](https://rebilder.com/solutions/ai-seo-agency)
- [AI SEO](https://rebilder.com/solutions/ai-seo)
- [AEO services](https://rebilder.com/solutions/aeo-services)
- [Generative engine optimization services](https://rebilder.com/solutions/generative-engine-optimization-services)
- [Gateway quickstart](https://rebilder.com/docs/quickstart)