Billing-on-citation guarantee

Free until ChatGPT recommends your business. We don’t charge until AI names you.

Card required to start, but you’re not charged then. We monitor up to five Core Keyword Clusters on real consumer devices. When your business is named in an eligible search, we verify the result, complete a human evidence review, and send you the proof. Billing starts only after you affirmatively confirm that you want to continue. If no verified result is delivered within 45 days, your trial closes and your card is never charged.

Available on the Signal AEO plan — $497/mo after reviewed proof and your confirmation
What the evidence looks like

The guarantee runs on screenshots, not promises.

ABCey Events went from #12 to #1 on ChatGPT in exactly 28 days — the median timeline this guarantee is built around, captured live. When your citation lands, you get the same artifact: the Citation Receipt.

before capture: ABCey Events at #12 for “executive retreat” on ChatGPTbefore#12Apr 17, 2026
after capture: ABCey Events at #1 for “executive retreat” on ChatGPTafter#1May 15, 2026
Untouched device captures · ChatGPT · “executive retreat” · originals on file
The promise, end-to-end

What happens, in writing.

No support ticket or negotiation is required. We verify the evidence and send it to you; you decide whether to confirm and begin the paid subscription.

1 · Signup — card saved, not charged

You provide your business name, category, city, website, and up to five Core Keyword Clusters we lock with you during onboarding. We collect your card via Stripe at signup and save it — you are not charged. Your account is created in a trial-without-billing state in our subscription system; the card stays on file, untouched, until you confirm after receiving verified proof or your 45-day trial window closes.

2 · Daily monitoring — selected keyword clusters on real devices

Our 10,000-device farm monitors the buyer-intent searches in your selected clusters on ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini. We log every answer with a timestamp, the engine, the metro the query was run from, and the full response text. You get read-only access to this log in your dashboard from day 1.

3 · Citation detected — review begins

When your business is named in an eligible search, the result enters proof review. We inspect the engine, exact query, response, screenshot, business match, location context, and timestamp before anything is sent to you.

4 · Verification — reproducible, not a one-off

A detection by itself never triggers a charge. The evidence must match the correct business, eligible search, and location context and survive our reproducibility and visual-quality checks. If it does not, we hold it and no billing request is sent.

5 · Verified win — your confirmation

After our human review, we send the verified evidence to you. Billing does not begin merely because a citation was detected. Reply with affirmative written confirmation if you want to continue; that confirmation authorizes the first $497 charge on the saved card and starts the month-to-month subscription. You receive a receipt by email.

6 · Normal monthly billing begins

From the first charge forward, billing is month-to-month at $497/mo on the calendar day of the first charge. Cancel any time from your dashboard. No cancellation forms, no retention calls, no fees. If no citation is confirmed within 45 days of signup, your trial closes automatically and your card is never charged.

The fine print, in plain English

What “ChatGPT recommends your business” means — exactly.

  • Up to five Core Keyword Clusters are selected at signup. During onboarding we generate eligible buyer-intent searches from your category, location, and business. The selected clusters form the consistent baseline used before and after billing begins.
  • “Named” = your exact business name appears in the AI’s answer. Not in a footnote, not as a reference link, not paraphrased — the legal name of your business, the way a customer would read it. If your business goes by a trademarked alternate name, both are accepted; this is fixed at onboarding.
  • Any one of the three engines counts. If you’re named in ChatGPT but not Perplexity or Gemini, the billing trigger fires. Most customers see lift in one engine first; signal propagates from there. We continue running all three engines after billing begins to provide ongoing measurement.
  • The detection has to be reproducible. The first detection only triggers the evidence email. The billing trigger requires the citation to also appear in at least 2 additional daily measurements before it’s confirmed. This filters out one-off hallucinations the model self-corrects. A reproducible result is still reviewed by a person and sent to you before any billing confirmation request.
  • The measurement runs on real consumer devices. Same fleet that powers our ranking work — iPhones, Pixels, and Galaxies signed into real consumer accounts in your buyers’ cities, on residential ISP connections. Not API queries. Not headless browsers. The signal your customers actually see.
  • You can audit the evidence at any time. Every query run, every response, every screenshot, every device fingerprint is in your dashboard from day 1, exportable as a JSON archive. You can independently verify any finding before or after billing begins.
Eligibility & restricted categories

Who this guarantee covers — and who it doesn’t.

The promise is real, which means we have to be honest about what we can’t do. Onboarding includes an eligibility check; if your business or keyword isn’t a fit, we tell you within 48 hours and close the account with no charge.

The guarantee covers you if…

  • You’re a legal commercial business in the United States.
  • Your business name is reasonably unique in your service area.
  • Your selected Core Keyword Clusters have not been changed after onboarding.
  • You accepted the guarantee terms checkbox at signup.
  • You operate in a category our device fleet supports (see Acceptable Use Policy).
  • You provide accurate business information during onboarding.

The guarantee does not apply if…

  • Your business operates in a restricted category (adult content, gambling, firearms, cannabis, regulated finance, MLM, illegal goods or services).
  • Your business name is shared by 50+ other businesses nationally (generic name conflict).
  • Your keyword targets a competitor brand name directly, or includes defamatory comparison language.
  • Your business has an active reputation crisis, fraud allegation, regulatory action, or court order that AI engines may have flagged.
  • You block our access to public schema, structured data, or basic on-site content updates required for citation work.
  • You’re on Signal Scale (enterprise) — that SLA is set in your strategy call and written into the annual contract separately.
  • The query set is changed mid-engagement at your request — locked queries protect both sides.
  • An act of God, AI engine outage > 7 days, or platform-wide policy change blocks measurement — in which case we extend the monitoring period rather than triggering billing.

SignalAEO reserves the right to refuse service or terminate an account at any time with full refund of any charges made, with or without cause, and without triggering any guarantee obligation. This protects us against fraud, abuse, and material misrepresentation during onboarding. See Terms of Service § 6 for the full clause.

Time limit on free service

How long “free” can go.

The promise is “free until AI names you,” not “free forever.” Across our published, verified stories the median time to first citation is 14 days. We continue ranking work at no charge for up to 45 days from signup, with one hard cap:

If 45 days pass without AI naming your business in any of the three engines, your trial closes automatically and your card is never charged — no action required on your end. You keep every asset we built (schemas, FAQ packs, content briefs, audit reports) and we send you a written record of what was produced. Total exposure on our side: 45 days of free ranking work per signup.

Last updated: 2026-07-07 · v4.0 (Card required to start / instant billing-on-citation / 45-day cap) · Governed by SignalAEO’s Terms of Service, Refund Policy, and Acceptable Use Policy. Disputes governed by the arbitration clause in the ToS.

Ready to be the answer?

Start free with $0 charged today.

The Signal AEO plan is $497/month only after verified proof is reviewed, delivered to you, and you confirm that you want to continue. No verified result by day 45 means no charge.