Prominence vs hiring an SEO agency
Small businesses often pay SEO agencies several hundred dollars a month, and many switch providers within a year. The most cited reason is not results, it is opacity: a monthly PDF and a call, with no way to see what you paid for. Here is the honest comparison.
What you pay
an SEO agency
$500 to $3,000 a month, often on a 6 to 12 month contract
Prominence
$49 or $99 a month, cancel any time
Who does the work
an SEO agency
Humans, on their schedule, across all their clients
Prominence
Prominence drafts every fix; you approve with one click
What you can see
an SEO agency
A monthly report and a strategy call
Prominence
A live dashboard, before and after AI answers, and a weekly receipt of exactly what was done
AI search coverage
an SEO agency
A growing add-on, typically $2,000+ a month as an AI-visibility line item
Prominence
The entire product: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, scanned weekly
AI-crawler access
an SEO agency
Audits keywords, links, and rankings, not whether AI can crawl your site
Prominence
Every scan checks if your robots.txt blocks GPTBot/ClaudeBot/PerplexityBot, and hands you the exact fix
Proof it worked
an SEO agency
Rankings reports; many clients are unhappy with first-year ROI
Prominence
Every fix is re-checked by the next scan and marked verified only when AI actually changed
Risk
an SEO agency
Contracts and setup fees
Prominence
On Pro: in 90 days AI states your core facts (name, address, phone, website) more accurately, or we refund every dollar.
Where an SEO agency is the better choice
A good agency gives you things software cannot: custom strategy, content written by humans who know your market, link building, and someone to call. If you have $2,000+ a month and found an agency with real references in your industry, that is a legitimate choice.
If what you want is the AI-visibility line item without the retainer, the contract, or the opacity, that is exactly what Prominence is.
Competitor details from public sources, last checked August 2026. Prices and features change; email support@tryprominence.com if any are out of date and we will correct them.