Alphaa vs SEO Agencies: What $2,000 a Month Buys

Short answer: A typical local SEO agency retainer of around $2,000 a month buys human time aimed mostly at Google's blue links: technical fixes, content, links and a monthly report. Alphaa costs $99 to $299 a month and focuses on getting you named by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. Many owners need one, not both. Which one depends on where your customers now ask.

If you run a dental practice, a plumbing company, a law firm or a med spa, you have probably paid an agency for a year or more and still can't say exactly what changed. That doesn't mean the agency is bad. It means the question has shifted. More of your customers now type "who's the best emergency plumber near me" into an AI assistant and get back a short list of names. Being on that list is a different job from ranking on page one, and it is worth pricing the two honestly.

What does a $2,000-a-month SEO agency retainer actually pay for?

A $2,000 retainer mostly pays for a few hours of specialist time each month: an account manager, some technical fixes, a handful of blog posts or page edits, outreach for backlinks, and a monthly report. The exact mix varies a lot by agency. The common thread is that you are buying people's hours, and most of those hours go toward Google search rankings.

For context on what the market charges, an Ahrefs survey of 439 SEO providers found $501 to $1,000 a month was the most common retainer, while agencies averaged around $3,209 a month, well above freelancers at around $1,348. So "around $2,000" sits comfortably in the normal range for a local business working with an agency.

• Strategy and keyword research for the searches you want to rank for.
• Technical SEO: site speed, broken links, indexing problems.
• Content: service pages, blog posts, location pages.
• Link building: getting other sites to link to yours.
• Reporting: a monthly deck of rankings and traffic charts.

What doesn't a traditional SEO retainer cover in 2026?

Most traditional retainers don't check whether ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity actually name your business when customers ask for a recommendation. Rankings reports show where you sit on Google's results page, not whether an AI assistant says your name. Those are related, but they are not the same thing.

AI assistants read your site differently. They care whether their crawlers are allowed in, whether your pages work without JavaScript, whether your phone, address and hours are stated plainly, and whether your reviews can be read as text. An agency can do all of this, but unless it's written into the scope, it usually isn't. We cover the gap in more detail in AEO vs. SEO: why agencies miss AI search.

• Weekly checks of what the four main AI assistants say about you and your competitors.
• Making sure AI crawlers aren't blocked in robots.txt.
• An llms.txt file and structured facts written for machines, not just people.
• FAQ pages that match the exact questions people ask AI.

What does Alphaa do instead, and who does the work?

Alphaa is an AI agent that works to get your business recommended by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, and it does most of the work itself. Each week it asks those four AIs the questions your customers ask, reports who got named, and fixes what it finds on your site. You approve anything public with one tap.

It checks 23 things AI reads on your site, including crawler access, robots.txt, JavaScript-only pages, canonical tags, LocalBusiness schema, your phone, address and hours, whether reviews are readable as text, profile links, service pages and llms.txt. Then it writes what's missing. You can see the full process on how it works.

• Writes FAQ pages, structured facts and an llms.txt file.
• Drafts Google Business Profile posts and review replies for you to approve.
• Sends a short, plain-English note every week instead of a 30-slide report.
• On Full Service ($299/month), a human does the website work for you.

How do Alphaa and an SEO agency compare side by side?

Side by side, an agency sells human hours aimed at Google rankings on a longer commitment, while Alphaa sells an always-on agent aimed at AI answers, month to month. The table below keeps the agency column general, because agencies vary widely. Check your own contract for the details.

What do good SEO agencies still do better than Alphaa?

Good agencies are still better at work that needs human judgment and relationships: building links from real publications, designing and building a new website, running Google Ads, and shaping a broader marketing strategy. Alphaa doesn't build websites from scratch, manage ad spend or pitch journalists. If you need those things, an agency is the right hire.

It is also fair to say that a strong agency with real technical skill will fix many of the same site problems Alphaa flags, because good SEO and good AI visibility overlap. The difference is mostly focus, price and how you see the results.

• Keep or hire an agency if you are rebuilding your site, running paid ads, or competing in a crowded metro where link building genuinely moves the needle.
• Keep an agency if yours can show specific, dated work each month and you can see the results. Our 10-minute agency audit helps you check.
• Consider switching if you pay mostly for reports, can't point to what changed, and your customers increasingly ask AI rather than scroll Google.

How fast will I see results with each option?

Neither an agency nor Alphaa can honestly promise a timeline, and you should be wary of anyone who does. Google itself states that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, and the same honesty applies to AI answers.

With Alphaa, changes to your Google Business Profile can show within days. Changes in what AI assistants say usually take weeks, because they re-read the web on their own schedule. Alphaa does not guarantee rankings or timelines. What it does give you is a weekly record of who got named, so you can see the trend instead of taking it on faith. For more on realistic expectations, read how long AEO takes.

Is it cheaper to switch from an SEO agency to Alphaa?

Yes, on price alone: at around $2,000 a month, an agency costs roughly seven to twenty times more than Alphaa's $99 to $299 plans. But cheaper only matters if it does the job you need, so compare the work, not just the invoice.

The key takeaway is that you are not choosing between "SEO" and "no SEO." You are choosing what to pay for. If your agency's main output is a monthly ranking report, a few blog posts and some links, ask whether that money would work harder aimed at the place your customers now ask first. If your agency is building your site or running ads that bring in patients and jobs, that work has real value that Alphaa doesn't replace.

• Agency only: makes sense for heavy site builds, ads and link work.
• Alphaa only: makes sense if your site is fine and you mainly want to be named in AI answers.
• Both: some owners keep a smaller agency scope for ads or links and use Alphaa for AI visibility.

For a full breakdown of what AI visibility work costs across options, see how much AEO costs, or compare plans on the pricing page.

What else do owners ask about replacing an SEO agency?

Is a cheaper tool really comparable to a human strategist?

Not for strategy. A tool executes defined work continuously and cheaply; an agency brings judgement, negotiation and bespoke campaigns. The question is which you are actually paying for.

What should I ask an agency before renewing?

Ask what shipped last month, which number moved because of it, and whether they measure what AI assistants say about you. Vague answers to all three are the signal.

Can I use both an agency and Alphaa?

Yes, and it is common. Agencies tend to focus on content and links while Alphaa handles the monitoring and the mechanical fixes, so the overlap is smaller than it looks.

Does switching risk losing existing rankings?

Not inherently, as long as nobody removes existing pages or redirects. Rankings respond to the signals on your site, not to who is paying the invoice.

How should I decide between my SEO agency and Alphaa?

Decide by checking one thing first: when a customer asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Perplexity for a business like yours in your town, are you named? If you are, and your agency is delivering visible work, you may not need to change anything. If you aren't, that is the gap to close.

1. Ask your agency, in writing, what it changed on your site in the last 90 days.
2. Ask whether its scope includes AI assistants, and how it measures that.
3. Check what the four AIs say about you today.
4. Compare the cost of closing that gap against what you pay now.

The quickest way to do step three is the free 60-second AI visibility check. It needs no credit card, and it shows you whether AI names your business before you spend another month on either option.