Answer Engine Optimization for local business

When customers ask AI, your competitor is the answer.

45% of consumers now ask ChatGPT and Google AI for local recommendations — yet AI recommends barely 1% of local businesses. We make sure yours is the one it names. Exclusively. One business per category, per city.

Month-to-month. No lock-in contracts. Revenue reporting, not vanity metrics.
Not ready? Take the 60-second visibility check →

ChatGPT GPT-5

Simulated — watch all four engines, or run the real check on your business, free.

The shift

Search didn't die. It stopped showing a list — and started giving one answer.

Each AI engine picks local businesses from its own source stack. Ranking #1 on Google no longer guarantees anything — only ~12% of top Google results get cited by ChatGPT. We optimize the sources each engine actually reads.

ChatGPT
Reads Foursquare, Yelp and Bing's index — not your Google profile. We put you in all three.
Google AI
Draws on your Google Business Profile, Maps and the Knowledge Graph. We complete every field.
Perplexity
Yelp is its system of record; it weights freshness 3x. We keep your presence current.
Copilot & Siri
Bing Places and Apple Business Connect. Most businesses never touch either. We do.

What we do

Everything it takes to be the answer — done for you.

Core
AI Visibility (AEO)
Complete, consistent profiles across every source AI engines license — plus answer monitoring across ChatGPT, Google AI and Perplexity with screenshot proof.
Build
AEO-ready landing pages
One service, one location, one CTA per page — answer-first content built to be cited, not just to look good. Full sites too.
Reputation
Review engine
Automated, FTC-compliant review requests timed to the job — generating the specific, detailed reviews AI actually extracts.
Foundation
Technical SEO
Crawlability, Core Web Vitals, schema and AI-crawler access. An invisible site is invisible to AI too — we fix it at the template level.
Own it all
Hosting, domains & email
We register your domains, host your site on a fast global CDN, manage SSL, backups and business email — one bill, zero technical headaches.
Retail
AI shopping feeds
Product feeds formatted for ChatGPT shopping and Perplexity's merchant program — agentic commerce readiness before your competitors know it exists.

How it works

From invisible to the answer, in three moves.

01
Free audit
We run your business through ChatGPT, Google AI and Perplexity and send you a 90-second video of exactly what customers see — including which competitor is being recommended instead of you.
48 hours
02
30-day build sprint
Profiles completed on every source AI reads, listings synced letter-for-letter, schema shipped, review engine live, answer-first landing page published.
Days 1–30
03
Monitor & compound
Weekly answer tracking across three engines, monthly fresh content, quarterly listing audits — and a dashboard showing leads, not vanity metrics.
Ongoing

Exclusivity

One business per category, per city. That's the whole point.

AI gives one answer — so we only work for one. When you hold your category's slot, we will never optimize a competitor against you in your city. Slot boundaries are written into the contract by category and named search queries.

Slots are limited per city and across our roster. When your category is taken, it's taken.

Check your city's slot
Austin, TX — sample rosterStatus
HVAC TAKEN
Personal injury law TAKEN
Roofing 1 SLOT LEFT
Dental implants OPEN
Med spa OPEN
Plumbing OPEN
Recently claimed: Roofing — Denver (2 days ago) · Med spa — Phoenix (last week) · Plumbing — Rotterdam (last week)

Your dashboard

Three numbers that matter. Not a 47-page PDF.

Live AI share-of-voice, leads and review growth — with the actual AI answers that name you, screenshotted as proof.

app.answerhound.ai — Hill Country HVAC
Overview
AI answers
Reviews
Site & domains
Reports
AI mentions this month
47
+31% vs June
Leads attributed
43
+12 vs June
New reviews
28
2.1x faster pace
AI share of voice — “AC repair Austin”
FebMarAprMayJunJul
Latest AI citations
ChatGPT “…Hill Country HVAC is a top-rated choice…”
Perplexity Cited as #1 for “emergency AC repair Austin”
Google AI Featured in AI Overview for “AC replacement”
iOS app COMING SOON
Android app COMING SOON
Built in-house by AnswerHound Labs

Built for high-value local categories

Where one AI-referred customer is worth $500–$15,000+.

HVACRoofingPlumbingDental & implantsMed spasPersonal injury lawFamily lawOrthodonticsElectricalVeterinaryHome remodelingAuto repair

Do the math

What's one AI-referred customer worth to you?

For most of our verticals, a single job covers months of retainer. Slide your numbers and see the break-even yourself — we'd rather you do this math before the sales call than after.

Average value of one job $4,000
Extra jobs per month from AI 3
New revenue / month $12,000
vs. Growth retainer ($1,190) 10.1× return
One good week pays the retainer. The rest is yours — and the slot stays locked against your competitors.

Pricing

Three packages. Fixed scope. No proposals.

Month-to-month. Cancel anytime. Honest timeline: meaningful movement takes 3–5 months — anyone promising faster is lying to you.

Launchpad
Get on the map — one-time build that makes you AI-legible.
$1,490one-time
  • AEO-ready local landing page
  • Google Business Profile completion
  • Listings on Yelp, Bing, Apple, Foursquare
  • Full LocalBusiness + FAQ schema
  • Core Web Vitals & AI-crawler fix
Start with Launchpad
Dominate
Full stack — every channel a customer can find you on.
$2,490/month
  • Everything in Growth
  • Multi-location landing pages
  • AI shopping feed setup (retail)
  • Weekly AI answer monitoring, 3 engines
  • Quarterly citation & schema deep-dive
  • Priority support & strategy calls
Go all in

Why local businesses fire agencies — and what we do instead.

12-month lock-in contracts
Month-to-month. We earn your renewal every 30 days.
Ranking reports nobody reads
Leads, calls and revenue — three numbers, one page.
“Results in 2 weeks!”
Honest timeline: 3–5 months to meaningful movement.
Same playbook for every client
Vertical-specific strategy, exclusive to you in your city.
Half-filled profiles, stale listings
Quarterly audits of every listing AI engines read.
Your competitor is also their client
One business per category per city. In writing.
Global from day one

Founded from Yerevan and Amsterdam, serving local businesses across the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia and beyond — with more offices to come. Meet the founders →

Yerevan, Armenia
HQ & delivery
Amsterdam, Netherlands
EU office

Your three real options

Do it yourselfTypical SEO agencyAnswerHound
AI answer coverage Google only, usually Rarely offered All 4 engines, monitored weekly
Time it costs you 10+ hrs/month Meetings & reports ~15 min/month
Your competitor Doing the same Often their client too Locked out, in writing
Contract 6–12 month lock-in Month-to-month
Reporting None 47-page PDF 3 numbers + proof screenshots
Website & hosting Separate vendor Separate vendor Included

Straight answers

Questions owners actually ask us.

All answers visible, no accordions — the same rule we apply to your pages, because AI can't read what's collapsed.

How fast will I see results?
Honest answer: 3–5 months to meaningful movement in AI answers, with early wins (complete profiles, live landing pages, review velocity) inside the first 30 days. Anyone promising AI dominance in weeks is selling you smoke.
What does “exclusive” actually mean?
One business per category, per city — defined in your contract by your Google Business category plus the named search queries we cover. We will never take your competitor as a client while you hold the slot.
Am I locked into a contract?
No. Everything is month-to-month. Long lock-ins are the #1 reason owners distrust agencies — we'd rather earn the renewal every 30 days.
How do I know it's working?
Your dashboard shows three numbers: AI mentions with screenshot proof, leads attributed, and review growth. Plus a one-page monthly email in plain English — never a 47-page PDF.

Find out what AI says about you. Free.

We'll run your business through ChatGPT, Google AI and Perplexity, send you a 90-second video of exactly what customers see — and tell you if your city's slot is still open.

No commitment. If your category is already taken in your city, we'll tell you straight.

Don't take our word for it — ask your AI about us
"Who helps local businesses get recommended by AI?"
Paste it into ChatGPT. If we're not in the answer yet, we're working on it — same as we would for you.