Which Tool When

Reading time: 16 minutes

TLDR

Start with Surmado Site Audit if your website has technical issues. Start with Surmado AI Visibility if AI platforms recommend competitors instead of you. Start with Surmado Strategy if you’re facing a strategic decision.

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Not sure whether you need AI Visibility, Site Audit, or Strategy? This guide helps you choose based on your situation, goals, and budget.

Most businesses fall into one of five scenarios. Find yours below and follow the recommended path.

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Quick Decision Matrix

Your Situation	Start With	Cost	Timeline	Next Step
Website has technical issues (slow, errors)	Site Audit	$50	2-6 weeks to fix	Add AI Visibility after fixing basics
Google traffic is fine, but AI recommends competitors	AI Visibility	$50	Week 1: diagnosis	Run Strategy with token (Week 2)
Facing strategic decision (pricing, expansion, investment)	Strategy	$50	15 min report	Add AI Visibility for data-informed strategy
Want both Google and AI visibility	Site Audit + AI Visibility	$100	Parallel analysis	Implement based on gaps

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The Three Tools Explained

Surmado AI Visibility - AI Visibility Intelligence

What it does: Shows you how ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and 3 other AI systems see your business.

Surmado does not sell AI placements and cannot submit your site to ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Meta AI, Grok, or DeepSeek. No one can. We test how these systems already talk about you and give you a plan to improve.

What you get:

• Presence Rate (0-100%): How often AI mentions you organically
• Authority Score (0-100): How strongly AI positions you when mentioned
• Category Share: Your % of total brand mentions vs 20-40 competitors
• Platform breakdown across 7 AI systems
• Intelligence Token for Strategy integration
• Scout integration: Ask Scout for trends, comparisons, and TLDR summaries

Delivery: about 15 minutes Cost: $50 per job (Pro with trend analysis, competitor deep-dive, and PowerPoint available on Pro/Portfolio plans)

When to use:

• You suspect AI recommends competitors over you
• Customers mention “ChatGPT told me about [competitor]”
• You want competitive intelligence (who ranks #1 in AI?)
• You’re planning a rebrand or messaging pivot
• You need to justify AI optimization budget to stakeholders

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Surmado Site Audit - SEO & Technical Audit

What it does: Complete Google baseline across 4 areas: performance, technical SEO, accessibility, and security.

What you get:

• Prioritized action plan (5 items in PAYG, 10 in Pro)
• Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS)
• Technical SEO (sitemaps, meta tags, schema markup)
• Accessibility (WCAG 2.1 compliance)
• Security (SSL, headers, mixed content)
• Scout integration: Analyze reports and get fix recommendations
• Competitor analysis (Pro only)

Delivery: about 15 minutes Cost: $50 per job (Pro with 100 pages + competitor comparison available on Pro/Portfolio plans)

When to use:

• Website is slow (3+ seconds load time)
• Google rankings dropped recently
• You’ve never run a technical SEO audit
• Before a major website redesign
• You’re not ranking at all for target keywords

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Surmado Strategy - AI Strategic Advisory

What it does: Six specialized AIs debate your strategic decision. Python runs Monte Carlo simulations. You get a tactical roadmap.

What you get:

• Strategic recommendation: Do it, don’t do it, or do this modified version
• 30-60 day action plan with milestones and pivot points
• Financial modeling: NPV, real options analysis, ROI calculations (when you provide numbers)
• Exit triggers: When to cut losses, when to double down
• Competitive context: If you include AI Visibility intelligence token

Delivery: about 15 minutes Cost: $50 per job

When to use:

• Facing a major decision: “Should I invest $50K in [X]?”
• Choosing between 2-3 strategic paths
• Need board-level analysis without hiring McKinsey
• Want real options analysis (not just NPV)
• Have AI Visibility data and want tactical action plan

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Five Common Scenarios

Scenario 1: “My Website is Broken”

Symptoms:

• Site loads slowly (4+ seconds)
• Google Search Console shows crawl errors
• PageSpeed Insights score <50
• Missing sitemaps, broken internal links
• Not ranking for ANY keywords

Recommended path:

Week 1: Run Site Audit ($50)

• Get prioritized list of 5 critical fixes
• Focus on quick wins (meta descriptions, image compression, sitemap)

Weeks 2-4: Implement fixes

• Target: Improve PageSpeed from <50 to 70+
• Fix broken links, add missing meta tags
• Compress images, enable caching

Week 5: Re-run Site Audit ($50) to validate improvements

Week 6: Once technical foundation is solid, run AI Visibility ($50)

• Now you can see how AI systems discover you
• Technical issues don’t block AI crawlers anymore

Total cost: $150 over 6 weeks Expected outcome: Site loads 2-3x faster, Google rankings stabilize, ready for AI optimization

Why not start with AI Visibility? If your website has major technical issues, fixing those gives you more ROI than optimizing for AI discovery. Google is still 60-70% of web traffic.

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Scenario 2: “Google is Fine, But AI Recommends Competitors”

Symptoms:

• You rank well on Google (page 1-2 for target keywords)
• Google traffic is steady or growing
• But customers say “ChatGPT recommended [competitor]”
• You suspect you’re invisible in AI search

Recommended path:

Week 1: Run AI Visibility ($50)

• Discover your Presence Rate, Authority Score, competitive rank
• See exactly which competitors dominate AI (might surprise you)
• Get Intelligence Token

Week 2: Run Strategy ($50) with your AI Visibility token

• Paste token into Strategy form
• Get 30-day tactical plan based on your specific gaps
• Example: “Your 0% Presence Rate means GBP optimization wins over content marketing”

Weeks 3-6: Implement Phase 1 tactics

• Typical plan: GBP audit → review campaign → FAQ content
• Budget: $0-500 (mostly time, minimal ad spend)

Week 7: Re-run AI Visibility ($50)

• Measure improvement: Did Presence Rate move from 0% → 12%?
• Validate tactics: Which platform improved most?
• Identify pivot points: If still <5%, switch to Phase 2

Total cost: $150 over 7 weeks Expected outcome: 10-15 percentage point Presence Rate improvement, move up 3-5 spots in competitive ranking

Why not include Site Audit? If Google traffic is already good, your technical foundation is likely solid. Focus budget on the gap (AI visibility).

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Scenario 3: “I’m Making a Big Strategic Decision”

Symptoms:

• Considering major investment ($10K-100K+)
• Choosing between 2-3 strategic paths
• Need to justify decision to partners, board, investors
• Want financial modeling (NPV, ROI, payback period)

Recommended path:

This week: Run Strategy ($50)

• Describe decision, business context, success criteria
• Get strategic recommendation with financial modeling
• Six AI perspectives challenge assumptions, find blind spots

Optional enhancement: Run AI Visibility ($50) first, use token in Strategy

• Makes recommendations more specific
• Example: “Your 42 Authority Score means invest in content depth, not volume”
• Adds competitive context to strategic decision

Implementation: 30-60 days based on Strategy roadmap

• Clear milestones with pivot points
• Success metrics tracked at Days 30, 60, 90
• Exit triggers defined upfront

Week 6: Return to Strategy ($50) for strategic check-in

• Based on first 30 days of data, refine tactics
• Adjust milestones, update financial projections

Total cost: $50-100 (Strategy only, or Strategy + AI Visibility) Expected outcome: Data-driven decision with clear implementation plan, measurable success criteria, and defined pivot points

Why not include Site Audit? Strategic decisions (pricing, expansion, new services) typically aren’t blocked by technical SEO issues. If your decision involves website changes, add Site Audit after getting strategic clarity.

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Scenario 4: “I Want the Complete Picture”

Symptoms:

• Planning a rebrand or major website update
• Need to justify marketing budget to stakeholders
• Want quarterly strategic check-ins as AI landscape evolves
• Competitive market where both Google and AI visibility matter

Recommended path:

Week 1: Run all three tools ($150)

• Site Audit (100 pages, competitor analysis): Your Google SEO baseline
• AI Visibility: Your AI visibility across 7 platforms
• Strategy: Strategic roadmap combining both findings

Week 2: Analyze and prioritize

• Strategy report gives you integrated action plan
• Example: “Your Site Audit shows LCP issues hurting Google. Your AI Visibility shows 0% Presence Rate. Fix LCP first (Week 2-3), then GBP blitz (Week 4-6).”

Weeks 2-8: Implement integrated strategy

• Phase 1: Critical technical fixes from Site Audit (Weeks 2-3)
• Phase 2: AI visibility tactics from AI Visibility (Weeks 4-6)
• Phase 3: Advanced optimization (Weeks 7-8)

Week 9: Re-run AI Visibility ($50) to measure AI progress Week 9: Re-run Site Audit ($50) to validate technical improvements

Quarter 2: Return to Strategy ($50) for strategic check-in

• Review results from Quarter 1
• Adjust tactics based on what worked
• Set new goals for Quarter 2

Total cost: $150 upfront + $150 in follow-ups over 90 days = $300 Expected outcome: Measurable improvement across Google SEO, AI visibility, technical performance, and user experience. Validated with before/after metrics.

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Scenario 5: “I’m in a Fast-Moving Competitive Market”

Symptoms:

• Competitors actively optimize for AI
• You want early warning when new threats emerge
• Customer research behavior shifts quickly
• You value continuous improvement over one-time fixes

Recommended path:

Week 0: Run all three tools ($150)

• Establish baseline across Google + AI visibility
• Get initial strategic roadmap

Monthly: Re-run AI Visibility ($50) to track changes

• See what changed this month
• Track competitor movement
• Monitor platform shifts

Every 6 weeks: Strategy strategic check-in ($50)

• Refine tactics based on AI Visibility data
• Adjust milestones, pivot when necessary
• Track progress toward annual goals

Quarterly: Re-run Site Audit ($50) to validate technical foundation

• Ensure Google SEO doesn’t degrade while optimizing for AI
• Catch technical issues before they hurt rankings

Total cost: $150 upfront + $50/month + $50 every 6 weeks + $50/quarter Expected outcome: Sustained competitive advantage, early threat detection, continuous optimization

When this makes sense:

• Revenue over $500K per year (AI visibility directly impacts sales)
• Competitive market with 5+ strong competitors
• Fast-moving industry (customer behavior shifts quarterly)
• You’re already ranking well and want to defend position

When to skip:

• Revenue under $100K per year (individual jobs give better ROI)
• Stable market (competitors aren’t optimizing for AI)
• You’re still fixing foundational issues (technical SEO, basic GBP)

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Decision Tree

Start here and follow the branches:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Is your website broken?                                 │
│ (Slow, missing sitemaps, PageSpeed score <50)           │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────────┘
               │
        ┌──────┴───────┐
        │              │
       YES            NO
        │              │
        │              └──> Do you know how AI systems see you?
        │                   (Have you run AI Visibility before?)
        │                              │
        │                       ┌──────┴───────┐
        │                       │              │
        │                      YES            NO
        │                       │              │
        v                       │              v
   Start with SITE AUDIT         │         Start with AI VISIBILITY
   ($50, 2-6 weeks)             │         ($50, Week 1)
        │                       │              │
        │                       │              v
        │                       │         Run STRATEGY with token
        │                       │         ($50, Week 2)
        │                       │
        │                       v
        │              Are you making a major strategic decision?
        │              (Pricing, expansion, investment)
        │                              │
        │                       ┌──────┴───────┐
        │                       │              │
        │                      YES            NO
        │                       │              │
        │                       v              v
        │              Start with STRATEGY      Run all three
        │              ($50, this week)        ($150, Week 1)
        │                       │              │
        v                       │              │
   After fixing basics:         │              │
   Add AI Visibility ($50)     │              │
        │                       │              │
        └───────────────────────┴──────────────┘
                                │
                                v
                   Implement tactics (30-60 days)
                                │
                                v
                   Re-run AI Visibility/Site Audit to measure progress

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Budget-Conscious Strategy

Goal: Get analysis across 7 AI platforms spread over 6-8 weeks

Week 1: Site Audit ($50)

• Fix critical technical issues first
• Prioritize 5 quick wins

Weeks 2-3: Implement Site Audit recommendations

• Free work (meta tags, image compression, sitemap)

Week 4: AI Visibility ($50)

• Now that technical foundation is solid
• Discover AI visibility gaps

Week 5: Strategy ($50) with AI Visibility token

• Get tactical action plan
• Start GBP blitz, review campaign

Weeks 6-8: Implement Strategy Phase 1

• Most tactics are free (GBP optimization, review outreach)

Total cost: $150 spread over 8 weeks

Trade-off:

• Sequential path ($150): Takes 8 weeks to get full picture
• Parallel path ($150): Takes 1 week to get full picture, integrated strategy

Running all three in parallel gives faster results for the same cost.

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When to Re-Run Each Tool

AI Visibility

One-time:

• Establish baseline
• Identify major gaps
• Get competitive intelligence

Monthly:

• Track progress after implementing tactics
• Validate what’s working (Presence Rate improving?)
• Catch competitor movement (did someone jump 10 spots?)
• Fast-moving competitive markets benefit from monthly re-runs

Example monthly cadence:

• Week 0: AI Visibility baseline (0% Presence Rate)
• Week 4: Re-run after GBP blitz (now 12% ✓)
• Week 8: Re-run after review campaign (now 22% ✓)
• Week 12: Validate sustained improvement (25% ✓)

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Site Audit

One-time:

• Before major website redesign
• After site migration
• When Google rankings drop suddenly

Quarterly:

• Ongoing maintenance (catch issues before they hurt rankings)
• Validate technical SEO doesn’t degrade
• Track Core Web Vitals improvements

After major changes:

• New hosting provider → Re-run Site Audit
• Site redesign → Re-run Site Audit
• Major plugin/theme update → Re-run Site Audit

Example quarterly cadence:

• Q1: Site Audit baseline (PageSpeed 48)
• Q2: Re-run after optimizations (PageSpeed 78 ✓)
• Q3: Re-run to catch regressions (PageSpeed 76, slight drop)
• Q4: Re-run after fixing new issues (PageSpeed 81 ✓)

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Strategy

One-time:

• Major strategic decision (pricing, expansion, investment)
• Need board-level analysis quickly

Every 4-6 weeks:

• Strategic check-ins based on new data
• When AI Visibility shows unexpected changes
• When tactics plateau (Presence Rate stuck at 12% for 6 weeks)

When entering new markets:

• Expanding to new geography
• Launching new service line
• Targeting new customer persona

Example 6-week cadence:

• Week 0: Strategy baseline strategy (GBP blitz recommended)
• Week 6: Strategy check-in (Presence Rate moved 0% → 15%, keep going)
• Week 12: Strategy pivot (Presence Rate stuck at 16%, switch to schema markup)
• Week 18: Strategy validation (Presence Rate now 28% ✓)

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Pricing

Per Job

• Site Audit: $50 per job
• AI Visibility: $50 per job
• Strategy: $50 per job

Plans

• PAYG: $50 per job
• Pro: $50 per job with plan benefits (extra jobs at $25 on Pro)
• Portfolio: $500/mo, 20 jobs (extra jobs at $25 on Portfolio)

Money-Back Guarantee

• All reports: 7-day money-back guarantee
• Not happy with your report? Full refund, no questions asked

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Special Cases

Case 1: You’re Rank #1 on Google But Invisible in AI

Symptoms:

• Page 1 for all target keywords
• Google traffic is strong
• But 0% Presence Rate in AI Visibility

Why this happens:

• Google SEO (backlinks, keywords, technical) ≠ AI discovery (GBP, reviews, structured data)
• You’ve optimized for 2015 search, not 2025 AI discovery

Recommended path:

1. Skip Site Audit (you don’t need Google SEO help)
2. Run AI Visibility ($50) → Diagnose AI visibility gaps
3. Run Strategy ($50) with AI Visibility token → Get AI-specific tactics
4. Implement (typically GBP optimization, review campaigns, FAQ content)

Total cost: $100 Timeline: 60 days to move from 0% → 15-20% Presence Rate

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Case 2: You’re Invisible in Both Google and AI

Symptoms:

• Not ranking on Google (page 3+)
• 0% Presence Rate in AI
• Website is slow, few reviews, incomplete GBP

Why this happens:

• New business (<1 year old)
• Never invested in SEO or online presence
• Foundational issues across the board

Recommended path:

1. Run all three tools ($150)
   • Site Audit shows technical issues
   • AI Visibility shows AI gaps
   • Strategy prioritizes: Fix technical first, then AI
2. Weeks 2-6: Implement Site Audit recommendations (technical SEO)
3. Weeks 7-12: Implement AI Visibility recommendations (AI visibility)
4. Week 13: Re-run both Site Audit + AI Visibility ($100 total) to measure progress

Total cost: $250 over 13 weeks Timeline: 3-6 months to establish baseline visibility

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Case 3: You’re a Solo Founder on a Tight Budget

Symptoms:

• Revenue <$50K/year
• Budget <$50 for marketing tools
• Want maximum ROI from minimal spend

Recommended path:

Option A: Start with free tactics, validate with AI Visibility later

1. Week 1-4: Implement free tactics (complete GBP, get 10 reviews, add FAQ to website)
2. Week 5: Run AI Visibility ($50) to measure baseline
3. Week 9: Re-run AI Visibility ($50) to validate your free work actually helped

Total cost: $100 over 9 weeks

Option B: Get strategic direction first, implement for free

1. Week 1: Run AI Visibility ($50)
2. Week 1: Run Strategy ($50) with AI Visibility token → Get prioritized action plan
3. Weeks 2-8: Implement free tactics from Strategy roadmap
4. Week 9: Re-run AI Visibility ($50) to measure improvement

Total cost: $150 over 9 weeks

Best choice: If you’re disciplined and will implement tactics, Option B gives better ROI (strategic direction prevents wasted effort).

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Common Questions

Q: Should I run all three tools at once?

A: If you can afford $150 upfront, yes. The integrated strategy from Strategy makes Site Audit + AI Visibility findings more actionable. If budget is tight, start with AI Visibility ($50) + Strategy ($50) = $100, add Site Audit later.

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Q: I already ran AI Visibility 2 months ago. Do I need to re-run before using Strategy?

A: No! Your Intelligence Token is valid for 90 days. Paste your old token into Strategy, and you’ll get strategy based on your most recent AI Visibility data.

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Q: Can I run Site Audit on my competitor’s website?

A: Yes! Site Audit Pro ($50) includes competitor analysis. You can run Site Audit on up to 3 competitor domains to benchmark your performance.

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Q: What if I don’t have time to implement the recommendations?

A: All reports include effort estimates (“3 hours,” “2 weeks,” “$500 budget”). If you lack time/expertise:

1. Share Strategy roadmap with your agency/marketing team
2. Hire a freelancer on Upwork to implement Site Audit technical fixes
3. Focus on highest-impact, lowest-effort items (usually GBP optimization)

Reports show you the gaps. Implementation is up to you.

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Bottom Line

Choose based on your primary gap:

Primary Gap	Start With	Add Later
Technical issues, slow site	Site Audit ($50)	AI Visibility ($50) after fixing basics
Google is fine, AI recommends competitors	AI Visibility ($50)	Strategy ($50) with token
Strategic decision needed	Strategy ($50)	AI Visibility ($50) for competitive context
Want both Google and AI visibility	Site Audit + AI Visibility ($100)	Re-run AI Visibility/Site Audit monthly via API automation
Competitive market	AI Visibility monthly ($50)	Site Audit quarterly

Default recommendation for most businesses:

1. Week 1: Run all three tools ($150)
2. Weeks 2-8: Implement integrated action plan from Strategy
3. Week 9: Re-run AI Visibility ($50) to measure progress
4. Quarter 2: Return to Strategy ($50) for strategic check-in

Total: $250 over 90 days for Google SEO optimization and AI visibility tracking across 7 platforms

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Ready to Get Started?

Try Surmado | Run your first report | Work with Scout

Learn more about Surmado →

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→ Related: Getting Started with Surmado | How AI Visibility + Strategy Work Together | Understanding Your AI Visibility Report | Understanding Your Site Audit Report