Key Takeaways
- Before the first invoice, an AI search agency should hand you one page: six outputs, a due date on each, and a check you can run yourself.
- The one promise on that page is a lead log by day 30. Every call, form and booking gets a source, including the ones your current vendor produced.
- The scope sits beside your existing SEO or ads contract. It names what the incumbent keeps and what the AI search work adds. Nobody gets fired in month one.
- Anything only the agency can measure, like a visibility score, stays off the page. If you can't check it yourself, it isn't an output.
- Eleven of the 42 owners I spoke with this year asked for this document. An agency that won't sign it has answered your question.
Why one page, not a proposal
Thirty-five growth calls this year. Eleven owners asked the same thing in different words. Can you put that in a PDF? Is there an engagement letter? Just send me a one-pager.
None of them asked for a proposal. Nobody ever has.
What they wanted was something to hold me to. Most had paid an SEO company for a year and still couldn't say whether the phone rang because of it. That's the real problem in this market. Not price. Price came up on one call out of 35. They can't check the work, so they can't fire the old vendor and can't confidently hire a new one.
A one-page scope fixes that. It says what you get, when, and how you check it without asking anyone. Here's the template. Copy it, send it to whoever you're talking to, and watch what comes back.
The one-page scope, line by line
Six lines. Each has an output, a due date, and a check you can run yourself. If a line can't pass that third test, it doesn't go on the page.
| Output | Due | How you check it |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline capture. Twenty questions your buyers actually ask, typed into ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity. Dated screenshots of who gets named. | Day 3 | Type the same twenty questions yourself. |
| Entity cleanup. Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Foursquare and site schema all say the same name, address, phone and services. | Day 14 | Search your business name on each platform. |
| Lead log live. A tracking number, a form source field, a booking source field. Every call, form and booking gets a channel. | Day 30 | Open the sheet. Pick any lead. Ask where it came from. |
| Answer pages. Two pages a month that answer a real buyer question in plain words. | Monthly | Read one. Does it answer the question in the first 100 words? |
| Three-number report. Calls, jobs won, money collected. One paragraph. | Every Monday | It arrives. It fits on your phone screen. |
| Exit terms. Month to month, 30 days notice. You keep every login, page and tracking number. | Standing | Read the contract. Find the sentence. |
That's the whole page. No visibility score. No share of voice chart. No AI readiness index. Those are numbers the agency made up and only the agency can check. Hand an owner a dashboard instead of a lead log and you've swapped the one thing they can verify for five things they can't.
The baseline matters more than it looks. Say a dental practice in Phoenix is named in 3 of 20 ChatGPT answers on day 3 and 11 of 20 on day 90. With the dated screenshots, that's a before and after the owner can reproduce themselves. Without them, it's a claim.
The day-30 promise: a lead log that names the source
One promise. By day 30, you get a lead log. Not a ranking report. A sheet with a row for every call, form and booking that came into the business, and a column that says where it came from.
Five columns. Date. Channel, meaning Google, ChatGPT, AI Overviews, referral, paid ads or direct. What they asked for. What happened next. Ticket value if it closed. An owner reads it in under a minute.
Most agencies skip this part: the log includes the leads your existing vendor produced. If your Google Ads company sends 14 calls a month and AI search sends 2, the log says so. You need that number to decide whether to keep paying either of us.
This is why the log comes before any results promise. I can't guarantee ChatGPT names you by day 30. Nobody can, and anyone who does is guessing. I can guarantee that by day 30 you'll know what each channel is doing. That's what the eleven owners were asking for. They didn't want a promise about rankings. They wanted to stop being in the dark.
It sits beside your current vendor, not on top of them
Don't cancel anyone to sign this. The scope should say, in writing, what your current SEO or ads vendor keeps doing and what the AI search work adds. If two companies both think they own your Google Business Profile, you get two sets of edits and a suspended listing.
So the agency should ask for the incumbent's scope before drafting theirs. If they won't, or if they open with why the other company is useless, that's a pitch, not a scope. Fifty-six percent of the owners I spoke with already had a vendor. The ones who signed didn't fire anyone in month one. They added the lead log, watched it for 60 days, and made the call with numbers in front of them.
If you're past that point and weighing a switch, the guide on switching AI search agencies covers when it's worth restarting the clock. Short version: switch when the log shows the old channel flat and the new one moving. Not before.
Sign it, walk, or wait: three buckets
Send the template. Then read what comes back against these three buckets.
Choose to sign if
- They return the page with all six lines dated and the lead log promise intact.
- They ask for your current vendor's scope before quoting.
- The contract is month to month and you keep every asset.
- They can show you a lead log from another client with the names blacked out.
Choose to walk if
- The lead log becomes a visibility dashboard or a citation score in their version.
- They need 6 to 12 months before anything gets measured.
- Logins, tracking numbers or pages stay in their name.
- Their proof is screenshots you can't reproduce by typing the question yourself.
Choose neither yet if
- You get fewer than 20 inbound calls a month in total. The log will be too thin to read for months. Fix the phone first.
- You can't list ten questions a buyer asks before hiring you. Write those down, then send the template.
- You're not sure AI search matters for your trade yet. The post on which local businesses should invest in AI search first answers that before you spend anything.
What the scope should cost
The template doesn't change the price much. It changes what you're paying for. For a single-location local service business, the six lines run $800 to $3,000 a month depending on content volume and platform count. Setup, meaning the baseline capture and entity cleanup, is either folded into month one or billed once at $500 to $1,500. A standalone citation audit runs $497 to $2,500 if you want the baseline before committing to anything.
Two things to watch. Under $500 a month, ask which of the six lines is missing, because one is. Over $3,500 for one location, ask what the extra buys, because it's usually reporting theatre. The AI search optimization cost guide and the hidden costs post go line by line on the ranges, and the monitoring cost breakdown covers what the tracking itself should run.
Get the page
If you want the template filled in for your business, book a 20-minute call. You'll leave with the six lines, the dates, and a straight answer on whether AI search is worth your money yet. Book the call here.
If you're talking to someone else, send them this page. An agency that signs it is worth a conversation. One that won't has told you what you needed to know. Bring their version to the call and I'll read it with you.
Frequently asked questions
What should an AI search agency put in writing before I pay the first invoice?
Six lines on one page. A baseline capture by day 3: dated screenshots of what ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity say when your buyers ask their questions. Entity cleanup across Google Business Profile, Bing Places, Apple Maps, Foursquare and site schema by day 14. A lead log live by day 30 that gives every call, form and booking a source. Two answer pages a month. A weekly three-number report: calls, jobs won, money collected. Month-to-month terms where you keep every login and asset. If one of the six is missing, ask why before you sign.
What is a lead log, and why is day 30 the deadline?
A lead log is a sheet with one row per inbound call, form or booking and a column that says which channel it came from: Google, ChatGPT, AI Overviews, referral, paid ads or direct. Day 30 is the deadline because the tracking that feeds it, a call tracking number plus source fields on the form and the booking page, takes two to three weeks to set up and a week to prove it catches everything. Later than 30 days means the agency is measuring results before it built the thing that measures them.
How much should an AI search scope like this cost per month?
For one location, $800 to $3,000 a month covers all six lines. The low end is one answer page a month and monitoring on two platforms. The high end is two to four pages, four platforms and weekly reporting with call listening. Multi-location businesses run $2,500 to $6,000 a month. A quote under $500 a month is almost always missing the lead log or the content line. A quote above $3,500 for a single location is usually paying for reporting you can't verify. Ask which line the extra money buys before you agree.
Should this scope replace my current SEO or ads contract?
No. It sits beside it. The page should name what your existing vendor keeps, usually Google Ads, the website and sometimes the Google Business Profile. The AI search scope adds the baseline capture, the entity work on the other platforms, the answer pages and the lead log. The log tracks both vendors' channels, which is the point. After 60 to 90 days you'll know what each one produces and can decide with numbers instead of a feeling. Cancelling the incumbent in month one throws away the comparison you're paying to get.
What if the agency wants a 6 or 12 month commitment?
Walk, unless they can show you why in writing. The usual reason is that AI search takes time. Some of it does. The baseline capture, the entity cleanup and the lead log don't. Those are done inside 30 days or they aren't being done. A 12-month lock before any of that exists means paying for a year to find out whether month one happened. Month to month with 30 days notice is standard for anyone who expects the lead log to make their case. If the log shows movement, you'll stay. If it doesn't, you shouldn't have to.
What does the weekly report look like under this scope?
Three numbers and one paragraph. Calls that came in, jobs won, money collected, each split by channel from the lead log. Then a paragraph on what changed this week and what's due next week. It fits on a phone screen and takes under a minute to read. No PDF, no 30 pages of rankings, no share-of-voice charts. If a weekly report needs a meeting to explain it, the report is hiding something. The monthly version adds the before-and-after on the 20 baseline questions so you can see which platforms have started naming you.
Is a setup fee or audit fee reasonable, and how much should it be?
Reasonable, if it pays for something you can hold. A standalone citation audit, meaning the 20-question baseline across three platforms with dated screenshots plus an entity check, runs $497 to $2,500 depending on platforms and locations. Many agencies fold it into month one instead. A setup fee of $500 to $1,500 for tracking numbers, form tagging and booking source fields is fair because those take real hours. What isn't fair is a $3,000 to $5,000 onboarding fee for a strategy deck. A deck is not one of the six outputs on the page.
What happens if I get zero AI search leads after 90 days?
Then the lead log tells you that, and you act on it. At 90 days you'll have the day-3 baseline, a day-90 recheck on the same 20 questions, and 60 days of leads with a source on each. If ChatGPT and AI Overviews still aren't naming you and the log shows nothing from those channels, you cancel with 30 days notice and keep every page, listing and tracking number that was built. You've lost three months of fees, not a year. An agency that resists that clause is telling you what it expects.
About the author
Matthew Johnson is the founder of Pleiades Consultancy. He previously scaled his own marketing agency to multiple six figures before serving as CMO of an Amazon agency, where the client base tripled from 15 to 45 active clients during his tenure. He worked with some of the largest names in e-commerce, including Ridge Wallet, HexClad, BK Beauty, The Woobles, Walkize, Lonely Planet, and Obvi. He now works with local businesses to maximize their client acquisition and visibility through AI search with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Bing Copilot.