Prominence vs hiring an SEO agency
Small businesses pay SEO agencies about $500 a month on average, and 38% switch providers every 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.
| an SEO agency | Prominence | |
|---|---|---|
| What you pay | $500 to $3,000 a month, often on a 6 to 12 month contract | $49 or $99 a month, cancel any time |
| Who does the work | Humans, on their schedule, across all their clients | Autopilot drafts every fix; you approve with one click |
| What you can see | A monthly report and a strategy call | A live dashboard, before and after AI answers, and a weekly receipt of exactly what was done |
| AI search coverage | A growing add-on, typically $2,000+ a month as a "GEO" line item | The entire product: ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, scanned weekly |
| Proof it worked | Rankings reports; 57% of clients report dissatisfaction with ROI in year one | Every fix is re-checked by the next scan and marked verified only when AI actually changed |
| Risk | Contracts and setup fees | If your grade has not improved after 90 days, we refund everything. |
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.
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