Guide · Pricing

How to get your prices into AI answers

Across 26,385 AI answers about local businesses, assistants described the services fine and could not name a price for 3 in 4 of them. Publishing a starting number is what turns a vague answer into yours.

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9:41

What does it cost to replace a water heater in Boise, and is there a call-out fee for a Saturday visit?

Ridgeline Plumbing publishes both: ai.ridgelineplumbing.com

🔧Water heater: replacement from $1,450 for a 50-gallon gas tank, including permit and haul-away.
🚚Call-out: $89 diagnostic on weekdays, $149 Saturdays, waived if you book the repair that day.
⏱️Labor: $135 an hour after the first hour, quoted flat once a job runs past two hours.
💳Financing: from $60 a month on jobs over $1,000, with no deposit on scheduled work.

Want the full rate card or Saturday availability?

Ask anything

Supporting every major AI assistant

ChatGPT

Claude

Gemini

Perplexity

Copilot

Grok

The gap

Where the answer stops

Ask an assistant what a local business does and it answers. Ask what that business charges and it stalls, on 3 in 4 of the businesses in our 2026 Index run. The reason is ordinary. Your rates sit in a quote tool, a rate card, or your head, and an assistant with nothing current to cite reaches for hedging language instead of a number.

Businesses AI can't quote a price for

Share of businesses in each vertical that AI could not give a specific price for, across 26,385 answers. The pattern holds wherever the price waits for a consult.

Dentists90%

Med spas82%

Gyms75%

Restaurants67%

Where your numbers live

Rate cards, job pricing, and financing terms sit inside tools an assistant cannot open. What it cannot read, it cannot quote.

Rate cardPDF

Job pricingEstimate tool

Financing termsPhone call

What AI says instead

Given no figure to cite, an assistant fills the blank with language that sends your customer off to phone around.

Cost to replaceNot listed

Weekend rateIt may vary

FinancingAsk them directly

Price questions before the call

Buyers get specific long before they dial. These decide who gets the call, and a services page answers none of them.

call-out fee?hourly rate?weekend surcharge?free estimates?financing?deposit required?+ hundreds more

How it works

How to publish a price AI can quote

You can't rewrite the old figures floating around in directories and review threads, but you can give AI one current source of your own to lean on. Courtyard hosts it at a subdomain like ai.yourbusiness.com, with no new website and no change to how you quote.

Publish a starting number, not a quote form

From $89 for a diagnostic visit, or from $1,450 for a water heater, gives AI something specific to say. The detailed quote still happens where it belongs, once you have seen the job.

Price the questions buyers actually ask

Call-out fees, hourly rates, what a package includes, deposits, financing terms. Publish each one and AI can answer that question with your business named rather than hedging.

Keep the number current

Raise a rate and update it in seconds, or forward the email announcing the change and Courtyard drafts the edit for you to approve. What you publish is what AI reads the next time someone asks.

60%

of AI answers about local businesses hedge instead of answering, and cost is the question they hedge on most.

Source: Courtyard, State of AI Visibility 2026

AI Visibility Index

See what AI actually says, market by market

Every week we put 24 real customer questions to ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode (288 answers per market) and publish which local businesses each assistant names, and how accurately it describes them, across 50 US and Canadian markets.

Explore the AI Visibility Index

4assistants, measured weekly

50US & Canadian markets

20,000+businesses evaluated

FAQ

Common questions

Why does ChatGPT say prices vary for my business?

Because it has no current number of its own to cite. Your rates usually live in a quote tool, a rate card, or a phone call, while the old figures sitting in directories and review threads disagree with each other. Faced with sources that clash, an assistant hedges. Publish a starting price somewhere AI can read and the hedge turns into your number.

Should I publish prices if every job is quoted?

A starting price or a range is enough, and it is what buyers ask for first. From $89 for a diagnostic, or $135 an hour after the first hour, lets AI answer with your business named. The full quote still happens after you have seen the work.

Will publishing prices lose me work to cheaper competitors?

Buyers shopping purely on the lowest number were rarely going to call you first. The ones who compare on scope want to know what a visit includes, what a call-out costs, and whether you finance. Silence on those questions hands them to whoever answered.

Where do I publish prices so AI can read them?

Courtyard hosts a knowledge base at a subdomain like ai.yourbusiness.com holding your services, rates, hours, and policies in a format ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, and Claude can read and cite. You publish once, and assistants read the current version rather than a scraped copy of an old price list.

Does publishing prices mean AI will recommend me?

No. AI weighs reputation, meaning the reviews, mentions, and roundups you don't control, alongside what you tell it about yourself. Prices are the half you own, and they win the specific questions reputation can't answer, like what a Saturday call-out costs. Being understood keeps you in the conversation, it doesn't buy you the spot.

How much does Courtyard cost?

Courtyard starts at $20 per month. You can publish your prices and see how AI describes your business before you commit.

Keep exploring

The State of AI Visibility 2026The 26,385-answer run these numbers come from.How AI recommends businessesWhat AI weighs when it picks who to name.Fix wrong AI answersCorrect stale prices, hours, and details.

Become the business AI can quote

Publish your starting prices, call-out fees, and what a job includes, so assistants answer with your numbers instead of hedging. No new website. Starting at $20/month.

Get started free