What the First 90 Days Cost, Floor by Floor

Most people read a pricing page the way they read an elevator panel: find the floor, press the button. The monthly number is the big one, so it is the one that gets compared. Then the first invoice arrives with a setup fee on it, the ad platform bills separately, and the owner realizes the monthly price was only one of several numbers that decide what the first quarter costs.

So here is the first 90 days on each floor of our pricing page, worked out from the terms printed on it. I would rather you do this arithmetic before the free trial than after it. None of it is hidden, but it is spread across a few places, and a monthly price in large type pulls the eye away from the rest.

The terms that apply on every floor

• A 30-day free trial. No card is needed during the trial, according to the pricing page, and where a plan has a setup fee it is billed when the trial ends, if you continue.
• A 90-day minimum. After that, every plan runs month to month and you cancel by email.
• Prices in US dollars, before tax. The payment gateway adds any applicable sales tax, VAT or GST at checkout, depending on where you are.
• Ad spend is separate. On the plans that manage ads, you pay the ad platforms directly at cost, and a management fee is charged on top.

One thing I would confirm in writing before starting, with us or with anyone: whether the 90 days count from the first day of the trial or from the first paid day. The AEO Starter page describes the minimum as applying to the monthly subscription once the trial ends, and that is how I have worked out the numbers below.

Floor 1: AEO Starter

$249 a month plus a $249 setup fee, billed when the trial ends. After the trial, three paid months plus setup come to $996. The plan does not manage ads, so there is no ad fee to add. This is the one floor where the monthly number really is the whole story, because the work is yours. Details on the AEO Starter page.

Floor 2: CMO Growth

$999 a month plus a $999 setup fee, billed when the trial ends. Three paid months plus the setup fee come to $3,996 before any advertising. If you run paid ads through the plan, add a 12% management fee on your ad spend, with a $300 monthly minimum, as the CMO Growth page explains. The minimum sets a floor: at $2,500 of monthly ad spend the fee is $300, and at $5,000 it is $600. A quarter at the minimum fee adds $900, which takes the first 90 days to $4,896 plus the ad spend itself.

Floor 3: CMO Premium

$2,490 a month plus a $2,499 setup fee, and a 20-minute fit call before you are accepted. Three paid months plus setup come to $9,969 before advertising. The ad management fee on Premium is 10% of spend with a $400 monthly minimum, so a quarter of running ads adds at least $1,200, for a total of $11,169 plus the spend. The CMO Premium page lists what that buys.

Floor 4: Custom

Custom is scoped after a strategy call and is meant for multi-brand portfolios and agencies. There is no number to work out until that call, which is exactly why you should ask afterwards for the setup fee, the minimum term and the ad fee in writing, on one page, before you agree to anything.

The annual button

Every plan also has an annual option, and it changes the arithmetic. The pricing page lists 12 months prepaid at $2,540 for Starter, $10,200 for Growth and $25,398 for Premium, and the setup fee is waived on annual plans. Paid monthly, twelve months would be $2,988, $11,988 and $29,880 before setup fees.

The catch is printed on the same page: annual prepay is non-refundable mid-term unless the contracted scope is not delivered. Annual is a good deal once you know a plan fits your business. It is a poor way to find out whether it does. My advice is to run the first quarter monthly, then decide.

What the refund policy covers

Two lines on the pricing page deserve a slow read. Setup fees are non-refundable once work begins. And if the contracted scope is not delivered, you receive a pro-rated refund for the undelivered portion. In plain terms, the setup fee pays for onboarding work and is spent once that work starts, while the monthly fee is tied to delivering what the written scope says. That is one more reason to have the scope on paper before you press any button.

Costs that are not on any floor

A few costs sit outside the pricing page entirely. They belong in your first quarter all the same.

• Overlap. If the plan replaces a CRM, a tool or an agency you already pay for, you will usually carry both for a while as data moves across. Check the notice period on your current contracts before the trial starts, not after.
• Your own time. Even a done-for-you plan needs logins, approvals and answers from you in the first weeks. Put those hours in the calendar and in the budget.
• Currency. Monthly plans are billed through Flow in Chile or Mercado Pago, which converts to your local currency at checkout. Ask your bank what it charges on a foreign-currency card payment.
• The ad spend itself. No plan includes it. Budget it by month, and decide in advance what you will do if the first month's results are unclear.

Which floor to press

The arithmetic above tells you what each floor costs. It does not tell you which one to choose, and the honest answer depends less on budget than on who does the work. Starter is for businesses with someone who can edit the website and act on an audit. Growth is for businesses that want that work done for them across search, content, ads and the CRM. Premium adds video, voice, TikTok and a dedicated strategist, and only pays off if you would use several of those. If you cannot say which of those describes you, the free trial is the cheapest way to find out, and it costs nothing for 30 days.

A quick way to compare

Take the floor you are considering and write four numbers on one line: the setup fee, three months of the monthly price, three months of the minimum ad fee if you will run ads, and your planned ad spend. Add them up. That total, rather than the monthly price, is what the first quarter costs, and it is the figure to compare against hiring someone or leaving things as they are.

Then open the pricing page and check every number in this post against the source before you decide. Prices change, and the page is the one place that is always current.

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