How to grow your agency's recurring revenue by productising AI visibility
There are two kinds of agency: the one that starts from zero every January -chasing projects, bespoke quotes, peaks and troughs- and the one that begins the year with most of its billing already committed in retainers. The difference between them usually isn't talent: it's how much of their service they've managed to productise.
Productising means turning a bespoke service into a fixed package: same deliverables, same process, same price for every client. It sells faster (the client knows what they're buying), it runs cheaper (the process repeats) and it generates MRR -monthly recurring revenue- instead of one-off projects. The problem is that classic agency services resist it: every SEO job is its own world, every campaign is bespoke.
AI visibility -GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): working to get ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Claude to mention and recommend your clients- is, probably, the most productisable service to come through agencies in a decade. Let's look at why, how to package it and, above all, the maths.
Why this service lends itself to productising
The process is identical for every client. Define the sector's prompts, measure the 4 AIs every week, correct sources, publish citable content, report every month. The sector changes; the flow doesn't. Compare it to technical SEO, where each site is a different pathology.
The deliverables can be fixed in advance. "Weekly tracking of 40 questions across 3 AIs, monthly PDF report, X source corrections, X pieces of content a month." No "it depends", no bespoke quote.
The tool does the repetitive work. The part that doesn't scale -asking 4 AIs dozens of things every week and noting the results- is automated. What's left is the hours of judgement: interpreting, correcting, telling the story.
And there's new demand with no owner. 76% of Spanish SMEs already use AI daily (II Hiscox Report, Dec 2025) and yet, in our study across 9,865 SMEs, 91% appear in only 1 of the 4 AIs (full study). In other words: the client already understands the problem and almost no one is selling them the solution.
The package: what you put in and what you leave out
A typical "AI Visibility" package for an SME:
- Month 1 (onboarding): initial audit (where they appear, where they don't, what the AIs say about them and their 2 competitors), a map of 40-75 questions for their sector, a source-correction plan. Exactly what to deliver when there are no results yet is detailed in what to deliver in the first month.
- Every month: weekly tracking across the AIs, a monthly PDF report (coverage, mentions, competitors, progression), 2-4 source corrections carried out, citable content published.
- Outside the package: website redesigns, deep technical SEO, campaigns. All of that is sold separately; the package dies if it becomes a catch-all.
Golden rule: if a client asks for something outside the package, you don't slip it in "just this once"; you quote it separately. Productisation dies by exceptions.
The MRR maths, no tricks
Price: SEO is charged in Spain at between 600 and 4,000 €/month (pacoruben.com). For an AI visibility package aimed at SMEs, a price of 500 €/month sits in the defensible range (300-900 € by size and sector; the full ranges, here).
Tool costs, with Surfeo's agency plan: 20 €/month for the agency base account, plus 35 €/month per client on the Starter tier (40 questions, 3 AIs, 6 pieces of content a month) or 79 €/month on the Growth tier (75 questions, 4 AIs, 16 pieces of content a month). Up to 10 clients per account.
The maths with 10 clients, in the most expensive scenario (all on Growth):
| Item | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Revenue: 10 clients × 500 € | 5,000 € |
| Tool: 20 € + 10 × 79 € | −810 € |
| Margin before hours | 4,190 € |
If the smaller clients go on Starter (35 €), the tool cost drops to 370 €/month and the margin before hours rises to 4,630 €.
Now the part that the "build your GEO agency" articles always leave out: the hours. A well-productised package takes 3-5 hours per client per month (interpreting data, carrying out corrections, reviewing content, preparing the report; the measurement is done by the tool). At an internal cost of 30-40 €/hour, that's 90-200 € per client: between 900 and 2,000 € a month for the ten. The real margin works out at around 2,200-3,300 €/month for 10 clients, 45-65%. It's an excellent margin for agency services, and the honest figure. Anyone who shows you the maths without the hours is selling you something else.
And an important nuance of MRR versus the project: those 5,000 € repeat every month while the service adds value, and the fixed package reduces churn because the client knows exactly what they get for their fee.
How to reach those 10 clients
Don't start by selling to strangers. The order that works:
- Your current portfolio (clients 1-5). Your SEO clients already trust you and are already getting the ChatGPT question. An upsell email with their real visibility data -not with theory- converts surprisingly well.
- The audit as a hook (clients 6-10). To win clients outside the portfolio, audit a potential client's AI visibility for free and show them where they (don't) appear. Surfeo includes 3 pitch workspaces precisely for this: spaces to audit a prospect and show them their situation before signing, without taking up a client slot. The full flow is in the audit as a sales hook.
- Say no to clients outside your profile. The package works for SMEs and local businesses; a multinational with 14 countries needs something else. Accepting it breaks the productisation.
Frequently asked questions
What happens when I go past 10 clients?
Ten clients per agency account is the cap on Surfeo's current plan. At that level you're billing ~5,000 €/month with the service and the problem is a good one: talk to the tool's provider about expanding, or prioritise the higher-ticket clients.
And if a client wants "just the report" for less?
It's the classic package erosion. You can have a monitoring-only tier (monthly report without execution, e.g. 150-250 €/month), but as a separate product with its own name, not as a discount on the full package. Two fixed products are still productisation; a negotiable package is not.
How do I stop the client cancelling once they "already appear" in the AIs?
By telling them from day one that AI answers are volatile: what appears today may not be there tomorrow, and continuous monitoring is precisely the insurance. The monthly report must show movement (entries, exits, new competitors) so the fee justifies itself. Never sell the service as "we get you in and you're done".
Do I need to hire someone to launch this?
No. The 3-5 hours per client per month come from your current SEO team: 60-70% of the work is the quality SEO they already know how to do, as we explain in GEO vs SEO. Hire when the MRR pays for it, not before.
The maths are done; what's missing is your first productised client. Start where the package starts: run the free AI visibility test on your three best SEO clients and use the result as the first page of your proposal. And when you want to see the agency plan numbers, they're on the pricing page.
