Common questions, direct answers.

Authority is a productized service that gets B2B SaaS companies cited inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Two products: a $1,490 one-time audit and three monthly retainer tiers from $2,490 to $6,490. Operated solo by Ivar from Arendal, Norway.

Ivar — solo founder. Marketing-led background: head of marketing at 8 companies, founder of his own marketing consultancy, founder of his own AI consultancy. Operates Authority alone with AI tooling. Bootstrapped, no investors.

Neither. Authority is a single founder + AI tooling. We don't pretend to be a team. The pitch isn't 'we have 20 people' — it's that productization removes overhead the buyer was paying for anyway, so you get senior-level work without the agency markup.

Arendal, Norway. Selling primarily to English-speaking markets (US, UK, Canada, Australia) and the Nordics + DACH-EN. Norwegian-registered AS company.

GEO is the practice of getting your brand cited inside AI engines — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Overviews — when buyers ask software-research questions. The signals overlap with SEO but the targets, scoring, and tactics differ. Where SEO targets blue-link rankings, GEO targets being named, summarized, and linked inside generated answers.

73% of B2B buyers use AI engines during software research (Gartner, 2025). ChatGPT outbound referral traffic grew 206% year-over-year (Similarweb). AI-referred traffic converts ~2× better than Google organic. If your buyers research software inside ChatGPT and you're not cited, you're invisible during the shortlisting phase — the most pivotal moment in the funnel.

No — and any 'GEO' offer that's a checkbox on an SEO retainer is doing it wrong. Schema markup, content depth, third-party listicle placement, entity disambiguation, and prompt-driven measurement are GEO-specific. The keyword research, link-building, technical-SEO playbook does not move the needle on AI citation rate.

ChatGPT (gpt-4o + web_search), Perplexity (Sonar), Gemini (3-pro + google_search), Anthropic Claude (Sonnet 4.6), and Google AI Overviews (via SerpApi). Same five engines on the audit, retainer, and Shortlist Index.

Audit: $1,490 one-time, delivered in 5 business days. Retainer: three tiers — Launch $2,490/mo, Growth $3,990/mo, Authority $6,490/mo. 50% of audit credits to first retainer month if signed within 14 days. Full pricing detail at /pricing.

About 70% of clients start with the audit. It's a one-time spend that gives you a 90-day roadmap you can run yourself or hand to your team. Retainer-direct makes sense if you already know AI search is a priority and you don't have internal capacity to ship — skip the audit, save the lead time.

Yes — the free Shortlist Score at /score. ~2 minutes, no credit card, no commitment. Returns a 5-page PDF with your AI citation rate on ChatGPT (with live web search), your top cited competitors, and 5 specific things you can do this week. The paid audit adds Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Limited to 5 runs per email per day.

No. Productized service means same scope, same price, every time. The only structured discount is the 50% audit-to-retainer credit. Negotiation creates 'who got the best deal' anxiety; flat pricing creates trust.

Audit: 14-day refund if fewer than 5 actionable issues are surfaced. Retainer: 3-month minimum (or 6-month for the Authority tier), then month-to-month — cancel anytime with 30 days notice. Month 4 is free if citation rate hasn't moved by end of month 3.

A Notion doc with: (1) executive summary, (2) citation scorecard for 200+ buyer-intent prompts × 5 engines, (3) top-20 prioritized fixes ranked by impact × effort, (4) schema and content audit on top 10 pages, (5) competitor analysis on the top 5 brands cited above you, (6) 90-day execution roadmap. Plus a 30-min Loom walkthrough. Sample available on request.

5 business days from kickoff to delivery. Days 1–2 are prompt runs across the 5 engines. Days 3–4 are analysis, schema audit, and competitor breakdown. Day 5 is roadmap assembly + Loom recording. You answer one ICP/positioning intake form at the start; otherwise the work is done independently.

Schema fixes and on-page changes can reflect in some engines within 2–4 weeks. Content + earned mentions take 3–6 months to compound — that's what the retainer is structured around. We track citation rate weekly per engine and per priority prompt so you see the movement (or lack of it) as it happens.

Public proof: The Shortlist Index at /shortlist-index runs the same methodology used on paying clients. Anyone can read it, verify scores by running the same prompts, and inspect the methodology page. For confidential client work, redacted samples available under NDA on request.

I've evaluated all three. They're great monitoring tools and we sometimes layer them in for retainer clients. But Authority's own measurement layer (built into the audit and retainer) is deep enough on its own — and the work is in moving the score, not just watching it. Most clients save the $8–10k/year platform spend.

20 buyer-intent prompts × ChatGPT (with web_search). Citation rate = % of runs where your brand appears. Normalized 0–100. Same methodology powers The Shortlist Index. The paid audit adds Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Full breakdown at /shortlist-index/methodology.

Yes — 27 markets supported with proper geo + language signals to the engines (e.g. UK, DE-EN, NO, SE, AU, CA-EN). Pick your market in the dropdown. Default is US-EN.

Run the free Shortlist Score first — it tells you whether the audit is the right next step before you spend. Then book the audit at /audit, or email ivar@authority.as to talk about retainer fit.

Yes. Standard mutual NDA, no redlines required. For the Authority retainer tier I sign your custom MSA with reasonable redlines.

Authority does not publish client logos without explicit written consent. Most clients prefer to stay anonymous so competitors don't replicate the playbook. The Shortlist Index covers public benchmarks, not client work.

Direct email to ivar@authority.as. Same-day response. No support tier, no SDR layer, no scheduling tool.