AFIKO produces two types of output: structural signals (what your website has or lacks) and cost estimates (what agencies typically charge to fix those gaps). This page explains exactly how both are derived.
We are transparent about the difference between observed data and estimates. Where something is estimated, we say so — and we show our working.
We assess GBP completeness against Google's own criteria for a complete profile: business category, service description, opening hours, service area, photos (minimum 3), posts (at least one in last 30 days), Q&A populated, and products/services listed where applicable.
Agency cost benchmark: UK agencies typically charge £150-250/mo to "manage" a Google Business Profile. In practice, this means maintaining the above criteria and responding to reviews. Every element is manageable by the business owner directly at business.google.com.
Pricing sources consulted:
Search Engine Journal — GBP management pricing survey 2024
BrightLocal — Local SEO Industry Survey 2024 (agency pricing data)
AFIKO beta user audits — 40 UK estate agents, April 2026
Page speed is measured using Google PageSpeed Insights API v5 — the same tool Google uses internally. The mobile score is the primary metric because Google uses mobile-first indexing for ranking. A score below 60/100 is considered poor by Google's own thresholds.
Agency cost benchmark: Agencies typically quote £300-600 for a "page speed optimisation project." The majority of gains (80%+) come from image compression (free via TinyPNG or Squoosh) and a caching plugin (WP Rocket: £49/yr, or free alternatives Litespeed Cache, W3 Total Cache). Our estimate reflects what agents could save by doing this themselves vs paying an agency.
We check for the presence of four schema types relevant to estate agents:
Schema is checked via structured data parsing of the publicly accessible URL. We use Google's own schema.org specification.
Agency cost benchmark: Agencies typically charge £200-400 as a one-off schema implementation. The same outcome is achievable in 20 minutes with RankMath (free WordPress plugin) or by adding 30 lines of JSON-LD to any website. We estimate the monthly equivalent of this one-off charge (amortised over 12 months) in the waste calculation.
AI visibility is scored based on the four primary structural signals that determine whether AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview, Bing Copilot, Claude) include a local business in their recommendations:
This score is based on structural signals, not live AI engine queries. Live query testing (asking ChatGPT "find me an estate agent in [town]" and checking for the business name) is available as a monthly check in the Full Stack plan.
Agency cost benchmark: A number of UK digital agencies now sell "AI SEO packages" at £300-800/mo. The improvements above are content and configuration changes — they require no paid tools and no agency. Our waste estimate reflects the agency cost for this work vs the actual cost (time, no money).
The Google Ads management fee is a fixed benchmark of £250/mo. This is not measured from your account — we have no access to your Google Ads data. It represents the industry-standard 15-20% management fee applied to a typical local estate agent monthly ad spend of £1,200-1,500/mo.
If you do not run Google Ads, this figure overstates your waste. If your agency charges more than 20%, it understates it. This is the one item in the waste calculation that is not specific to your website — treat it as a benchmark prompt to check your own arrangement.
Free tier scores are generated at the time of each scan. The same URL scanned twice within an hour will return the same results (we cache for 60 minutes to avoid unnecessary API calls).
Paid subscribers receive a monthly automated re-scan. Your scores update when you make the changes AFIKO recommends — but only on the next scan, not in real time. If you want to check immediately after making a change, use the "Re-scan now" link in your results.
The "saved by AFIKO agents" figure on our landing page is the sum of agency-charge-equivalent values for tasks marked done across all users. Every time a user clicks "I've done this" on a recommendation, the agency-cost equivalent for that task is added to a public running total.
The baseline figure (£12,000) reflects 30 beta users completing modules between January and April 2026. As more users complete tasks, the figure grows. We publish a "Last verified" timestamp so you can see how recent the count is.
This is not a marketing number. We can show our working: email us and we will share an itemised breakdown of how the current total was reached.
Some estate agent websites use robots.txt directives that disallow automated crawling. We respect these directives — if your robots.txt blocks our user agent (or all agents via User-agent: *), we will not fetch your HTML.
When this happens, scores fall back to public-signal estimates only (PageSpeed Insights API, Google Places API). Schema and on-page E-E-A-T signals are marked as "not assessed" rather than estimated. To enable a full audit, you can: (a) update your robots.txt to allow our user agent, or (b) email us your URL with explicit permission to crawl.
If you believe a specific estimate is materially wrong for your situation — particularly the Google Ads management fee or GBP management charge — email help@afiko.co.uk with your URL and the figure you're disputing. We will review and update the methodology if warranted.