Your position in AI answers, translated into a fix list you can action.

A working session and a written document. One week. Fixed fee. No retainer. The read is what happens between reading the free audit and deciding whether to run a pilot.

Four things, in one written document.

01
Your two numbers benchmarked

Your category-named presence and your problem-first presence, set against every other category in the Hint Co. corpus. 14% means nothing in isolation. Alongside the other categories we’ve audited, it means something.

02
Who’s taking the lane, with verbatims

The actual AI responses where a buyer described the problem your product solves and someone else got named. Not summarized. Quoted. So you can see what the answer actually looks like.

03
A fix list in three tracks

On-site extractability. Structured content on your own domain that answer engines can quote.

Third-party placement. Listing sites, review sites, communities, and editorial coverage that AI cites more than you do.

Answer infrastructure. Turn your product’s usage data, calculators, methodology, and benchmarks into first-party citable sources. Stop thinking like a content publisher. Start thinking like an answer infrastructure provider. This is the track most B2B SaaS companies leave on the table.

Different owners inside your company, different timelines, different budgets.

04
Sequencing

What to do first given your constraints. This is the judgment part. The reason the read exists as a paid product and not just a data pull.

60 to 90 minutes. Live walkthrough. Your questions, not a pitch.

The written document goes to you 48 hours before the session so you can read it once and mark it up. The session is where we go through it together. Your team’s context on top of the operator’s read.

You bring. The constraints we can’t see from the outside. Existing content plans. Budget realities. Team capacity. Anything scheduled that would move the fix list.

The operator brings. The finished document, the benchmarking data behind it, and a shortlist of “here’s the one thing I’d do if I were you.’

You keep. The document, the recording of the session, and the raw data behind the benchmarking. No follow-on lock-in. If you never talk to us again, the read still works on its own.

Founding client rate. First two only.

For the first two clients, the read is $1,500 in exchange for a testimonial and permission to publish an anonymized case study. Standard rate is $3,000 after the first two.

Not a discount. An exchange. The Hint Co. needs public proof before it can charge full rate, and the founding rate is honest about what it’s buying: the testimonial, the case study, and the reference call. If you can’t be one of the first two, you pay the standard rate.

Why this isn’t a “dead zone” price. A dead-zone price is a standing rate that satisfies nobody. A temporary founding rate is buying proof, and the framing preserves the anchor because everyone knows what it’s for. Bounded to two seats. Then $3,000.

Depends on whether your category is already in the library.

Audited
Your category is in the research library.

Check the research archive. If your category is already there, we already have the data. One-week turnaround.

Fresh
Your category has not been audited yet.

We run the audit as part of the engagement. Same protocol. 30 buyer questions x 3 samples x 3 engines = 270 responses. Two-week turnaround. The audit publishes as the next Hint Co. case file, and you get first look 48 hours before it goes public. Same fee either way.

Either way, the deliverable and the session are the same. The fresh-category path just includes the audit as its own artifact, and adds one category to the corpus every read expands.

Different products. When to buy which.

The read
Diagnosis and prescription.

Tells you where you’re invisible, who’s taking those queries, and what to do about it, in what order. Descriptive plus prescriptive. No test involved. Roughly half of reads won’t need a pilot after.

The pilot
One specific treatment.

A 30-day paid ChatGPT Ads test. Test-driven. Verdict-driven. Written recommendation on day 30 that resolves to SCALE, PAUSE, or EXIT.

The natural bridge. When the read’s fix list says “closing this gap organically takes 6 to 12 months,” the pilot becomes the obvious way to be in those conversations next week while the organic work compounds. Not required. Just often the honest next step.

Commercial terms.

Founding rate (first two)
$1,500
Standard rate (after first two)
$3,000
Duration
1 week (audited category), 2 weeks (fresh audit)
Session
60 to 90 minutes, recorded
Retainer
None. One-off engagement.
Ownership
You keep the document, the recording, and the raw benchmarking data.
Deliverable
Written document + live session + recording, within one week of engagement start.

A short intake. Then a call.

Which category, which product URL, and what you’re trying to figure out. If the category is already audited we can schedule the session that week.

Book a read
Or email apply@itshintco.com.