What resources/budget does a real GEO program actually require?

I’ve built GEO programs at multiple investment levels. Here’s reality.

Budget Tier Breakdown:

For your situation ($20M ARR B2B SaaS):

I’d recommend $15-20K/month:

• 1 dedicated GEO person (internal or contractor)
• Agency support for content and strategy
• Monitoring and optimization tools
• Digital PR budget

Expected timeline at that investment:

• Month 3: First AI citations
• Month 6: Measurable visibility
• Month 9: Competitive positioning
• Month 12: Market leadership in priority topics

Team structure that works at different stages.

Starter (0.5-1 FTE):

One person wearing multiple hats:

• Strategy and planning (20%)
• Content creation/management (40%)
• Technical optimization (20%)
• Monitoring and reporting (20%)

Mid-tier (1-2 FTE):

Growth (2-3 FTE):

Your existing SEO team of 3:

Can likely absorb 30-40% of GEO work. You need:

• 1 new FTE dedicated to GEO
• OR agency support equivalent

Don’t try to add GEO to existing workload without additional resources. It will fail.

Essential vs nice-to-have tools.

Tier 1 - Essential ($500-1,000/month):

Tier 2 - Recommended ($1,000-2,000/month):

Tier 3 - Nice-to-have ($2,000+/month):

My recommendation for your stage:

Start with Tier 1 ($500-700/month). Add Tier 2 tools at month 6 when you have data to act on.

How to justify the investment to skeptical leadership.

The business case framework:

Real numbers from a similar B2B SaaS:

• Investment: $15K/month ($180K/year)
• Year 1 AI-attributed leads: 127
• Average deal size: $25K
• Close rate: 22%
• Revenue attributed: $698K
• ROI: 288%

Warning:

Year 1 ROI is often unclear. GEO is infrastructure, not campaign.

How to present:

“This is a 12-month program to build sustainable AI visibility. We’ll see initial results by month 3, meaningful visibility by month 6, and competitive leadership by month 12. Clear ROI signals in year 2.”

What leadership needs to hear:

It’s infrastructure investment, not tactical spend.

For those with limited budgets, here’s minimum viable GEO.

Absolute minimum ($2-3K/month):

What you can achieve:

• 2-3 optimized pieces per month
• Basic monitoring and tracking
• Slow but steady progress
• 12-18 months to meaningful visibility

Where to focus limited resources:

1. Fix technical issues (robots.txt, schema) - Free
2. Update existing content - Low cost
3. 2-3 new pieces monthly - Primary spend
4. Monitor progress - Essential

What you sacrifice:

• Speed to results
• Competitive analysis depth
• Digital PR efforts
• Comprehensive coverage

Recommendation:

If you can only do $3K/month, start there. But set expectations that results take 12-18 months vs 6-9 months at proper investment levels.

This is incredibly helpful. Here’s my proposal framework.

Recommended Investment: $15K/month

Resource Allocation:

Team Structure:

• 1 new FTE (GEO Specialist) - Internal
• Existing SEO team (30% time reallocation)
• Agency partner for strategy and content

Tool Stack:

• Am I Cited (AI monitoring)
• Existing Ahrefs subscription
• Content optimization tool

Timeline Expectations:

Success Metrics:

• Citation rate: 25%+ by month 12
• Brand search: +15% by month 12
• AI-attributed leads: Tracking from month 1

Thanks everyone for the budget reality check!