HVAC and home services agencies two assistants named, and the published prices that check out

Asked which marketing agency an HVAC or home services company should hire, ChatGPT and Gemini named seven firms between them and agreed on two. Two of those firms publish a real rate card, and we checked both the next morning. One engine reproduced three monthly package prices exactly, 2,200, 3,500 and 5,000 dollars, and then described that firm's managed ad spend ceiling as a minimum, which inverts the term. The other engine handed the reader a website address for its third pick that does not resolve in DNS at all. The most useful thing either answer revealed by accident is what the trades agencies are now selling: one of them publishes an answer engine optimisation line at 4,000 dollars a month, and the other bundles AI search into its 2,200 dollar programme.

What was asked, and what came back

One question, put to the ChatGPT and Gemini product surfaces through a data provider on 21 October 2026 at 22:19 and 22:37 UTC. It named no agency, no brand and no city.

• ChatGPT ran a live search and returned 78 citations. Four firms supplied 48 of them, twelve each, and ten more came from a single discussion forum. It named four agencies and ranked them for an established contractor.
• Gemini ran a live search and returned three citations, one of which belongs to an agency it named. It named three agencies and, for its fourth slot, two field service software products rather than an agency at all.
• Seven suppliers were named. Hook Agency and RYNO Strategic Solutions appear in both answers.

The seven names and the prices attached to them

Supplier	Named by	Price the engine gave	What we read on the vendor page, 22 October 2026
RS Gonzales	ChatGPT, fourth	Packages at 2,200, 3,500 and 5,000 a month, excluding ad spend, with an advertised minimum managed ad spend of 3,000 a month	The three package prices match exactly: Grow at 2,200 for contractors under 1 million dollars of revenue, Accelerate at 3,500 for 1 to 3 million, Dominate at 5,000 for 3 to 15 million, with programmes from 2,200 stated on the page. The ad spend claim is inverted, see below
Hook Agency	Both	ChatGPT, published pricing varies by service, verify current rates. Gemini, custom monthly retainers, trade agency work generally 2,500 to 5,000 and upwards	It publishes a starting rate card: local SEO from 2,800 a month, PPC from 2,000, a standard website at 1,000 a month or 12,000 across twelve months, a custom website at 2,000 a month or 24,000, Meta ads from 3,000, and answer engine optimisation at 4,000 a month or 2,000 added to an SEO package
RYNO Strategic Solutions	Both	Quote based, ChatGPT. Custom enterprise retainers, Gemini	The address ChatGPT cited, rynoss.com, returned HTTP 403 to our fetch route. The address Gemini printed, rynostrat.com, does not resolve in DNS
Scorpion	ChatGPT, third	HVAC specific pricing not publicly standardised	Not fetched for this page
KickCharge Creative	Gemini, first	Custom project quotes, typically 3,000 to 10,000 and upwards for branding and vehicle wraps	Not fetched for this page
Housecall Pro	Gemini, fourth	Software tiers start around 65 dollars a month	No plan at 65. Basic is 59 a month billed annually and 79 billed monthly, with one user, Essentials 149 and 189 with five users, Max 299 and 329 with eight users, all in US dollars and excluding sales tax
ServiceTitan Marketing Pro	Gemini, fourth	Usage based add ons, typically 200 to 500 and upwards a month on top of the platform	Not fetched. On the other software page we did read, every marketing add on renders a price placeholder reading dollar X X a month rather than a figure

The ceiling reported as a floor

This is the error worth taking away, because it changes a buying decision rather than a budget estimate. ChatGPT reported that the agency with the published packages has an advertised minimum managed ad spend of 3,000 dollars a month. Read on 22 October 2026, that page states no minimum at all. What it publishes is the opposite: a ceiling on managed ad spend at each tier. Google Ads up to 5,000 dollars on the entry package, Google and Meta up to 10,000 on the middle one, and Google, Meta and Yelp up to 25,000 on the top one.

A minimum tells a small contractor they are too small to buy. A ceiling tells a large one they will outgrow the tier. The engine turned the second into the first, and the figure it quoted, 3,000, appears nowhere on that page in either role. A contractor who read that answer and concluded they could not afford the entry package had the wrong end of a real term.

The address that does not resolve

Both engines recommended the same full service firm and gave two different web addresses for it. ChatGPT cited rynoss.com, twelve times, and that host returned HTTP 403 to our fetch route on 22 October 2026, which records what the server did to us and nothing more. Gemini printed rynostrat.com, and that name does not resolve in DNS at all.

The address is part of the recommendation. A reader who clicks through to nothing has been given a dead end, and a reader who copies the wrong domain into a browser may land somewhere that is not the firm. When you take a shortlist from an assistant, search the agency's name separately and confirm the domain from a second source before you send anything to it.

What the trades agencies are now selling, which neither answer flagged

Two of these firms publish what they do with AI answers, and it did not appear in either engine's summary:

• Hook Agency publishes answer engine optimisation as a line item at 4,000 dollars a month, or 2,000 added to an SEO package. That is above its local SEO starting price of 2,800.
• RS Gonzales describes its programme as SEO, Google Ads, Maps, websites and AI search run as one connected system, inside packages that start at 2,200 a month, and says it works exclusively with HVAC contractors.

So in this trade the answer engine work is already priced and sold, at a figure comparable to a full local SEO retainer. If you are comparing proposals, ask what is actually delivered under that line, what is measured, and how often. Published prices make that conversation possible, and four of these seven suppliers publish nothing at all. The strategy question underneath the price, whether an agency has separated the emergency call from the system replacement from the maintenance plan, is worked through in our comparison of HVAC agencies and the three markets a campaign has to separate.

How to compare these proposals

1. Price the fee and the ad spend separately, and ask for the ceiling as well as any minimum. One of the two published cards here caps managed spend by tier, which decides when you have to move up.
2. Match the tier to your revenue, not your ambition. The published packages are banded by company revenue, under 1 million, 1 to 3 million and 3 to 15 million, which is a more honest basis than a feature list.
3. Get the website cost as a total, not a monthly. One card prices a standard site at 1,000 a month and also as 12,000 across twelve months, and a custom site at 2,000 a month or 24,000. Those are purchases, not retainers.
4. Ask for cost per booked job, not per lead. Both answers converged on the same implementation order, Google Business Profile first, then Local Services Ads, then search ads, then service area pages, then call tracking into the CRM, and the only figure that proves any of it is a booked, profitable job.
5. Treat forum evidence as evidence. Ten of the 78 citations behind one answer came from a single discussion forum, which is where contractors actually talk about agencies. Read it, and weigh it as opinion rather than as a rate card.

For the seasonal half of the work, our note on selling the tune up and the maintenance plan before the season covers the campaign structure these retainers are usually asked to deliver.

The measurement none of the seven reported

Every supplier above sells work on Google, on Meta or inside a field service platform. Two of them now sell answer engine work as well. None of the seven arrived with a figure for how often an assistant names the contractor when a homeowner asks a question that never mentions the business. AI Knows Us measures that and sells nothing else: no ads, no websites, no truck wraps, no retainer that competes with the firms above. We put the questions a homeowner would ask to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude and Google AI Overviews, record every business named and every source cited, and report them with the date.

Our own rates, verified on 22 October 2026, so a contractor can price us the way this page prices an agency. In the US and the UK the ladder runs SEO Start at 149 dollars a month, Growth 299, Scale 599, SEO Scale 699, Inbound 1,099, Outbound 1,299, Agency 1,299 and Everything 1,799. Outside the US and the UK the first two tiers are 99 and 199, so the floor is a US and UK floor. SEO Start reads 0 questions on 0 engines, so Growth at 299 is the cheapest plan that reads all five surfaces, and a Claude reading costs 3 credits where the others cost 1.

Where a rival is stronger, by name. tryprofound.com publishes single sign on, SAML and SOC 2 with up to nine answer engines on its enterprise tier. Our own pricing document, 119,203 bytes read the same day, renders no single sign on, no SAML, no SOC 2, no ISO certification, no data processing agreement and no white label, and we read five surfaces rather than nine. It also contradicts itself for a contractor running several brands or locations, listing businesses covered as 1 1 1 1 1 1 10 1 across the plans while the row beneath reads more than one business, no, in every column. Both render, and a multi location operator should settle it in writing first.

The limits of this reading, stated plainly. It is one question per engine on one night, and four supplier pages fetched once the next morning, so three of the seven names carry no verification here. A 403 and a DNS failure record what happened to our requests on that date. A firm that publishes nothing today may publish a full card tomorrow.

Questions contractors ask about agency prices and AI answers

What does HVAC marketing cost a month in the United States

From the two cards we verified on 22 October 2026, packages run 2,200, 3,500 and 5,000 dollars a month by company revenue at one firm, and the other publishes local SEO from 2,800, PPC from 2,000, Meta ads from 3,000 and answer engine work at 4,000, with websites at 12,000 or 24,000 in total. Advertising spend is on top of every one of those figures.

Is there a minimum ad spend to work with a trades agency

On the one page we read that addresses it, no. It publishes managed ad spend ceilings of 5,000, 10,000 and 25,000 a month by tier rather than a floor, and an assistant reported that as a 3,000 dollar minimum. Ask any agency for both numbers in writing.

Why did the two assistants recommend different agencies

Because they read different evidence. One took 48 of its 78 citations from the four firms it ranked and ten from a contractor forum. The other used three sources, one of them an agency it named, and filled its fourth slot with field service software instead of an agency. Two names survived both routes, which is the part of a shortlist worth starting from.

Should I buy marketing from my field service software instead of an agency

It is a real option and it was quoted inaccurately. The platform named starts at 59 dollars a month billed annually or 79 monthly for one user, not the 65 quoted, and its marketing add ons render price placeholders rather than figures, so the add on cost has to come from a quote.

How do I check what assistants tell homeowners in my service area

Ask the question a homeowner would ask, with your trade and your town in it and your company name left out, on each assistant. Write down every business named, every price quoted and every source listed underneath, then check the prices against the firms' own pages. Run it again a week later, because the names move and the forum threads behind them move faster.