Most small teams can do the first round of AEO themselves. The real question is which parts are worth paying someone else to do. This is our view, and where a number is an estimate, we say so.
Side by side
| Do it yourself | Hire an agency | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to start | A few focused days (our estimate; yours will vary) | Set by the agency. Ask for a timeline in writing |
| Time after that | About an hour a week (the routine we use) | You approve and answer questions. They do the work |
| Skills needed | Clear writing, access to your site, patience | Knowing how to brief and judge an agency |
| Tools | A spreadsheet, the free grader, your site admin | Their tools, plus your access to your site and listings |
| Main risk | Fixing the wrong thing, or stopping after a month | Paying for reports without changes |
| Best when | One site, one location, someone has the time | Many pages or locations, many outside sources to fix, no time |
A rule of thumb by size
- Solo or very small team: do it yourself. Run the weekly routine for a month before you spend anything.
- 10 to 50 people: a hybrid often fits. Pay for the first round of setup and fixes, then run the weekly routine in-house.
- Many locations, or regulated claims: an agency usually earns its fee, because the facts are many and the cost of a wrong one is higher.
That is a judgment, not a measurement. Your own test results should outrank it.
What you can do yourself first
You can finish most of the first round in a few weeks, and none of it needs a tool you do not already have:
- Test what AI says about you: Five questions to test your brand in ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity
- Make sure crawlers can reach your site: Can AI crawlers read your site?
- Rewrite your key pages so the answer comes first: Write pages AI can quote
- Keep it going: A 60-minute weekly AEO routine for small teams
Where doing it yourself gets hard
- The fixes are spread out. Wrong facts often live on listings, review sites and old articles, not only on your own pages.
- Consistency across many pages or locations. One page is easy. Fifty is a project.
- Nobody owns the weekly work. The routine only works if someone does it every week.
- You cannot ship the change. Some fixes need developer time you do not have.
Do it yourself or bring in a partner?
Start on your own for 30 days. Keep the log. If the same errors keep coming back, or the fixes sit in places you cannot reach, that is the signal to pay for help. If you are unsure, Who should not hire an AEO agency gives you a filter before you spend anything.
Want a scored baseline before you decide? The free AI Visibility Score rates your brand out of 100.