Every question answered.

DerivateX is a B2B SaaS SEO and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) agency based in Bengaluru, India, working with SaaS companies across the US, UK, Canada, Australia, India, and Europe. We build measurable visibility in two places simultaneously: Google, through content strategy, technical SEO, and link building; and AI search tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, through our proprietary Citation Engineering methodology. Every engagement connects both channels directly to pipeline.

We run end-to-end SEO and GEO for B2B SaaS companies that want to grow organic revenue from both Google and AI search tools. That includes technical SEO, content production, link building, entity optimization, AI citation building, and full pipeline attribution through GA4. We write the content, build the links, manage the outreach, track your citations bi-weekly, and report back in a format that a CMO can take to a board meeting. Nothing is handed off to a third party. The team you engage is the team that ships the work.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) targets Google and traditional search engines, which rank pages based on relevance, backlinks, and on-page signals. GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) targets AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, which synthesize answers and cite sources rather than ranking pages. AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) focuses specifically on getting a brand surfaced in direct answer results, including AI Overviews, featured snippets, and conversational AI responses. LLM SEO is the practice of structuring content and entity signals so large language models reliably cite a brand. DerivateX builds all four as one unified program because the signals that power them overlap significantly.

Citation Engineering is DerivateX's proprietary methodology for making a brand reliably cited by large language models. DerivateX coined this term. It operates across five levers: entity clarity (LLMs need to know unambiguously who you are and what you do), authoritative coverage (publishing extensively across the questions your buyers ask AI tools), third-party corroboration (independent mentions across guest posts, reviews, and communities), result documentation (specific, attributed numbers that LLMs prefer over vague claims), and structured parsability (formatting content so AI tools can cleanly extract and reproduce it). Learn more at the Citation Engineering framework page.

The AI Visibility Score (AVS) is a 0 to 100 scoring methodology developed by DerivateX that measures how frequently and prominently a brand is cited across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. It is the closest equivalent to domain authority, but for AI search. DerivateX tracks AVS for every client bi-weekly using a defined set of buyer prompts, scoring brand mentions, links, and contextual references. Unlike other agencies, DerivateX gives clients a trackable, reportable metric for AI search performance over time, not just a vague sense that "GEO is working." You can check your brand's current AI visibility using the AI Visibility Checker.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the practice of structuring content, brand signals, and entity data so AI-powered tools reliably surface and recommend a brand when users ask relevant questions. GEO is different from traditional SEO because search engines rank pages while LLMs synthesize answers from sources they trust. Getting cited by a large language model requires a different content architecture than getting ranked by Google, though the two reinforce each other when built together. DerivateX's GEO agency services cover all major AI platforms.

LLM SEO is the practice of optimizing a brand's content, entity signals, and third-party presence so large language models reliably cite and recommend the brand in their answers. The term is used interchangeably with GEO. DerivateX builds LLM SEO as a structured, measurable program with defined prompt tracking, citation measurement, and GA4 attribution so clients know which AI tool sent which sessions and whether those sessions converted. Read the complete LLM SEO guide on the DerivateX blog.

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring content so AI-powered answer engines extract and surface it as a direct response to user queries. AEO focuses on question-and-answer formatting, FAQ schema, clear definitional sentences, and structured data. DerivateX builds AEO into every engagement as part of the broader GEO and LLM SEO program. See the full AEO service page for what this looks like in practice.

No. GEO and SEO target different systems with different logic. Google ranks pages based on relevance signals including backlinks, on-page factors, and user behavior. LLMs generate answers by synthesizing content from sources they trust. They don't rank pages; they cite sources. The two disciplines overlap in content quality and entity consistency, but diverge significantly in execution. A brand can rank on page one of Google and still be invisible in ChatGPT. DerivateX builds for both simultaneously because that is the only way to future-proof a SaaS company's organic pipeline.

DerivateX works with B2B SaaS companies at $5M to $50M ARR that have product-market fit and are ready to treat organic search and AI visibility as a primary revenue channel. Engagements span four tiers: Rank & Get Found ($5M–$10M ARR), Own Your Category ($10M–$20M ARR), Market Leader ($20M–$30M ARR), and Enterprise ($30M+ ARR). The primary contacts we work with are CMOs, Marketing VPs, Marketing Directors, Heads of Growth, and founders who are directly responsible for pipeline. We are not a fit for B2C companies, ecommerce brands, agencies, or pre-revenue startups. If you have a product that buyers research before purchasing and you want to own that research journey across both Google and AI tools, this is the engagement.

Both. DerivateX works with whoever owns the organic growth mandate at a B2B SaaS company. That is typically a CMO, VP of Marketing, Marketing Director, or Head of Growth at companies in the $5M to $50M ARR range, or the founder directly at earlier-stage companies where those roles haven't yet been separated. The reporting, pipeline attribution format, and communication cadence are all designed to be board-ready and leadership-facing. If you need to take a monthly AI search and SEO report to your CFO or CEO and defend the investment with data, the format DerivateX delivers is built for exactly that. See the solutions for marketing leaders and solutions for SaaS founders pages for more.

Yes. The entry-tier engagement is specifically built for B2B SaaS companies investing seriously in organic for the first time. It starts with a technical SEO audit, builds the content and entity foundation, and simultaneously begins AI citation architecture. By day 90, clients have ranking movement on 15 to 20 target keywords, the brand cited in 25 or more tracked AI queries, GA4 configured to identify AI-sourced sessions, and 30 or more content assets published and indexed. Companies without legacy SEO baggage often see faster early momentum because there's no mis-structured content to work around.

Yes. DerivateX works with SaaS companies across the US, UK, Canada, Australia, India, and Europe. The work itself is geography-agnostic; content production, technical SEO, and AI citation building perform the same regardless of where the company is headquartered. DerivateX is based in Bengaluru, India, and operates at flexible hours that align with US time zones for calls, reviews, sprint updates, and Slack communication. Time zone has never been a constraint on delivery quality for any active client.

DerivateX works across the full B2B SaaS landscape. Our documented client work spans video infrastructure and hosting (Gumlet), real estate proptech and CRM (REsimpli), legal technology (Verito), fintech and financial services SaaS, sales enablement and productivity tools (Kroto), developer tools, cybersecurity (Prophet Security), edtech and workforce development (Futurense), reputation management SaaS (Rannkly), agile project management (Planning Poker), document automation (Docustream), restaurant and food tech SaaS (Peppo), and accessibility and testing platforms (Fable). The common thread is not the vertical; it is the buyer behavior. B2B SaaS buyers research vendors using Google and AI tools, and DerivateX builds visibility in both places. See the industries overview and the full case studies library for the range of verticals we've worked in.

Yes, and it is a use case we see often enough to have built a dedicated page around it. The most common failure mode is an agency tracking citation volume without connecting it to the specific query clusters your buyers actually use. A brand can accumulate hundreds of AI mentions and still see zero demo movement if those citations are not happening in the conversations that matter. DerivateX starts every engagement with a prompt audit that maps which specific queries your buyers are asking AI tools, where you are currently cited, and where the displacement opportunities are. See the GEO agency not working use case for more.

Here are the results we can name with specific numbers.

Gumlet, a B2B video hosting and infrastructure platform, now attributes approximately 20% of monthly inbound revenue to ChatGPT and Perplexity, with 9,847+ AI citations tracked across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude in a single quarter. The ChatGPT session-to-signup rate for Gumlet reached 3.9%, compared to 0.39% from standard blog traffic. Read the Gumlet case study.

REsimpli, a CRM platform for real estate investors, went from absent in AI answers to the number one CRM recommended in ChatGPT for real estate investors within 90 days, while simultaneously pushing Google rankings to position one for core CRM terms. Read the REsimpli case study.

Kroto, a sales enablement SaaS tool, grew from 3,500 to 326,000 Google impressions without a single paid backlink. Read the Kroto case study.

Verito moved from average Google position 40 to position 12 in 10 months, while becoming the #1 ChatGPT pick for 12 high-intent buyer prompts in their legal technology category. Read the Verito case study.

An Indian Fintech client grew organic traffic 86% year over year. Read the Indian Fintech case study.

Fable's website was migrated to a new domain without losing a single ranking of significance. Read the Fable SEO migration case study.

Clicky Signature went from invisible to indexed and ranking within one week. Read the Clicky Signature case study.

See the full case studies library for every engagement.

Results compound in three stages. By day 90, early citation signals appear in AI answers where the brand previously wasn't, and Google ranking movement on target keywords becomes visible. REsimpli went from absent to number one in ChatGPT in 90 days; this is the benchmark we hold every engagement against. By month 3 to 6, pipeline attribution becomes readable: AI-sourced sessions traced to demos and signups in GA4, with measurable conversion data. Gumlet's revenue attribution became defensible in this window. By month 6 to 9, compounding revenue impact takes hold, with AI citations, Google rankings, and entity signals reinforcing each other so inbound becomes predictable. Gumlet reached 20% of inbound revenue from AI discovery at approximately the eight-month mark.

AI-sourced traffic converts significantly better than standard organic traffic because the buyer has already been pre-qualified by an AI recommendation before clicking through. The research phase happened inside the AI tool. They arrive at a site knowing what the product is and why it was recommended. For Gumlet, AI-discovered users converted at 2.3 times the rate of standard organic visitors, contributing approximately 20% of inbound revenue. You can check your own SEO and GEO revenue potential using the SaaS SEO Revenue Projection Calculator.

Yes. DerivateX manages end-to-end PR and authority placement for clients, including securing editorial placements in publications such as Forbes and TechCrunch, alongside distribution partners like technology.org. These placements serve a dual purpose: they build domain authority that improves Google rankings and they create the high-authority third-party citations that LLMs use as corroboration signals when deciding which brands to recommend. Every placement is written by DerivateX's in-house team and the spend is pre-approved by the client before anything goes live.

Yes. DerivateX published the 2026 AI Visibility Benchmark Report, the first study of its kind scoring 50 B2B SaaS companies on their AI search presence across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. The study ran 1,400 buyer-intent prompts across all four platforms. The average AI Presence Score across all 50 companies was 56.9 out of 100. 44% of companies scored below 50, meaning nearly half of the B2B SaaS companies studied were effectively invisible to AI-assisted buyers. The highest scorer was Clio at 89. The lowest was LeadSquared at 2. The report is free and publicly available.

DerivateX has worked with B2B SaaS companies across a wide range of categories. Named clients include Gumlet (video hosting and infrastructure), REsimpli (real estate investor CRM), Verito (legal technology), Kroto (sales enablement), Fable (accessibility and testing), Sharefable (demo and sales tools), Prophet Security (cybersecurity), Futurense (edtech and workforce development), Rannkly (reputation management SaaS), Planning Poker (agile project management), Docustream (document automation), Peppo (restaurant and food tech SaaS), Clicky Signature (email signature management), Re-engage (customer re-engagement), Techpacker (fashion tech and product development), and Dinadi (ecommerce migration). See the full case studies library for documented results.

Yes. DerivateX and its co-founder Apoorv Sharma have been featured in BW Businessworld, YourStory, Times of India, Deccan Herald, Mid-Day, Inshorts, StartupTalky, and Indian Business Times. DerivateX's 2026 AI Visibility Benchmark Report has been cited and referenced on DemandGrowth, Mixpanel, and in industry discussions across LinkedIn. The agency has been named in multiple independent roundups as one of the best B2B SaaS SEO agencies focused on pipeline and revenue attribution.

The founders lead every engagement. Apoorv Sharma, co-founder, leads SEO strategy, GEO methodology, content direction, and client growth. Shivanshi Bhatia, co-founder, leads operations, delivery, and client communication. DerivateX currently has a team of 11 people, all in-house. There are no account managers between you and the work. There is no outsourcing. The people on your discovery call are the people doing your technical SEO, building your citation architecture, and writing your content sprints. This is a structural choice, not a talking point.

Apoorv Sharma is the co-founder of DerivateX and one of the earliest practitioners of LLM SEO in the B2B SaaS space globally. He has been working in SEO since 2018, starting with a book blog where he taught himself technical SEO, content architecture, and organic growth from scratch. He built and sold Stagbite, a content brand he grew to 210,000 monthly visitors before exiting, which gave him operator-level understanding of how content compounds into revenue. That experience is the foundation DerivateX is built on. Apoorv is active on X at @apoorvshrm and publishes Found On AI, a Substack newsletter on how brands get discovered in the age of AI search. DerivateX has been featured in BW Businessworld, Deccan Herald, Mid-Day, StartupTalky, and Indian Business Times, among others.

Shivanshi Bhatia is the co-founder of DerivateX and leads all operations, delivery systems, and client communication. Before DerivateX, she founded ViaSuccess, a customer success SaaS tool. She launched it after her experience as a Customer Success Manager at LimeChat, where she identified a gap in how SaaS companies manage retention and churn. Her background shapes how DerivateX runs its client engagements: structured client portals, clear communication cadences, defined sprint ownership, and the kind of operational transparency that most agencies treat as optional. She shares her thinking on GEO and SaaS ops on LinkedIn and on X @shivanshibhatia. DerivateX's 5.0 Clutch rating across all published client feedback reflects how the client-side systems are built and run.

No. DerivateX has an in-house team of writers. Content is not given to external freelancers. Every piece produced under a DerivateX engagement is written, edited, and reviewed internally by people who understand the client's product, buyer, and competitive positioning. This is a deliberate structural choice. Outsourced writing is the most common source of quality degradation at content agencies, and it is the thing clients most often mention when they describe a previous agency experience that didn't work. DerivateX does not do it.

AI tools are used in research, planning, prompt testing, and content structuring. All final content is written and reviewed by the in-house writing team. No AI-generated content is published unreviewed. The reason is practical, not philosophical: AI-generated content that hasn't been validated against what a real SaaS buyer finds credible is the fastest way to build content that might rank on Google but never gets cited by an LLM. DerivateX builds for both audiences, and that requires human judgment at the final stage.

Every DerivateX client gets a dedicated Notion client portal with live sprint tracking, so there is always visibility into what was shipped, what is in progress, and what is coming next. Communication runs through a dedicated Slack channel with direct access to the team. Weekly sprint updates are shared inside the portal. Bi-weekly calls are scheduled throughout the engagement. AI citation prompt mapping is run bi-weekly across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, manually, in incognito sessions. Monthly citation mapping shows how citation share is moving versus competitors. Monthly and quarterly performance reports cover Google Search Console data, GA4 pipeline attribution, LLM citation counts, ranking movement, and PR and backlink placements. There are no 40-page PDFs full of traffic graphs.

DerivateX tracks a defined set of buyer prompts across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, manually and in incognito mode, bi-weekly. Each session is scored using the AI Visibility Score methodology, tracking whether the brand is named, linked, or mentioned in context. GA4 is configured to identify AI-sourced sessions as distinct referral sources and trace them through conversion events. Monthly citation mapping shows how citation share is moving relative to named competitors. The AI Visibility Checker tool gives a free baseline read on where a brand currently stands.

Technical SEO at DerivateX covers site architecture, crawl budget optimization, Core Web Vitals, JavaScript rendering, schema and structured data, internal linking, and indexation. Audits run on onboarding and on a quarterly or monthly basis depending on the plan. Internal linking is fully mapped and implemented by DerivateX directly in the client's CMS. There are no "recommendation documents" that get handed off and ignored. If a technical issue is identified, the team fixes it or works directly with the client's dev team to ship the fix within the sprint cycle.

DerivateX offers four engagement tiers built for B2B SaaS companies at different stages. Rank & Get Found ($5M–$10M ARR) starts at $3,500 per month and covers foundational SEO, GEO setup, and initial AI citation architecture. Own Your Category ($10M–$20M ARR) starts at $7,000 per month and adds competitive displacement, expanded content production, and deeper citation tracking. Market Leader ($20M–$30M ARR) starts at $12,000 per month with full-scope SEO, GEO, PR, and pipeline attribution. Enterprise ($30M+ ARR) is scoped individually based on the complexity of the engagement. See the pricing page for the full breakdown.

Rank & Get Found and Own Your Category start as 90-day pilots with no long-term lock-in after the pilot. At day 90, results are reviewed together and the client decides whether to continue. There is no auto-renewal and no exit penalty. Market Leader requires a 6-month minimum given the scale of execution involved.

No. DerivateX does not add invisible markups, vague "platform fees," or charges that don't correspond to deliverable work. Every line item in a DerivateX engagement maps to a specific output: content assets, backlinks, citation reports, technical fixes, or PR placements. The pricing is transparent and the scope is defined before the engagement starts. If something changes mid-sprint, the client is told before the work ships, not after. The starting price of $3,500 per month reflects what it actually costs to run a serious SEO and GEO engagement with an in-house team. There is no hidden layer on top.

Every engagement includes technical SEO auditing and implementation, keyword and topic strategy, content production (written in-house), on-page optimization, internal linking, backlink acquisition, AI citation architecture, bi-weekly prompt tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude, GA4 pipeline attribution setup, monthly and quarterly reporting, and a dedicated Notion client portal with live sprint tracking. Higher-tier plans add PR and authority placements, expanded content volume, competitive displacement campaigns, and deeper entity optimization. The full scope is defined at the start and reviewed at every sprint cycle.

DerivateX is built for ongoing engagements, not one-off audits. The reason is structural: AI visibility and SEO results compound over time, and a single audit without sustained execution rarely moves pipeline. That said, the 90-day pilot on the Rank & Get Found and Own Your Category tiers functions as a low-commitment entry point. If a company wants to test the methodology before committing to a longer engagement, the pilot is the right starting point. There is no obligation to continue after the 90-day window.

Three structural differences. First, DerivateX builds for both Google and AI search simultaneously, not as separate programs. The signals that drive Google rankings and the signals that drive LLM citations overlap significantly, and building them together is more efficient than running two separate workstreams. Second, DerivateX measures AI visibility with a defined scoring methodology (the AI Visibility Score) and tracks it bi-weekly with real prompt data, not estimates. Third, every engagement connects directly to pipeline through GA4 attribution. The reporting format is built for CMOs and founders who need to justify spend, not for SEO managers who want to see keyword charts.

The first answer is: look at the named case studies. DerivateX publishes specific client names, specific numbers, and specific timelines. Most agencies don't do this because they can't. The second answer is: the 90-day pilot exists specifically for this reason. There is no long-term lock-in on the Rank & Get Found or Own Your Category tiers. If the results don't show up, you leave. The third answer is: DerivateX holds a 5.0 rating across all published Clutch reviews, which for an agency with documented results across more than 15 named clients is not common. The fourth answer is: the founders are on every engagement. There is no sales team handing you off to a junior account manager. The people you speak to during the discovery call are the people doing the work.

It depends on your stage and your existing team. If you have a Head of Content or SEO lead in-house who can own strategy but needs execution capacity, DerivateX works alongside them. If you don't have anyone in-house yet and you're trying to decide between hiring and outsourcing, the math usually favors starting with DerivateX: you get a full team (strategist, writers, link builders, technical SEO, GEO specialist) for less than the fully loaded cost of one senior SEO hire, and you start shipping in week one instead of month three. Many clients start with DerivateX, prove the channel, and then build in-house over time while keeping DerivateX for GEO and citation architecture.

AI search is growing as a discovery channel for B2B buyers. The brands that build citation authority now will be the ones LLMs recommend by default as the channel matures. If your competitors are building AI visibility and you are not, the gap compounds over time because LLMs learn from the corpus of content that exists today. Waiting six months means six months of competitor content, competitor citations, and competitor entity signals training the models. The cost of inaction is not zero. It is the compounding advantage your competitors are building while you wait.

Entity optimization is the practice of making sure LLMs understand unambiguously what your brand is, what it does, who it serves, and how it differs from competitors. LLMs don't rank pages; they synthesize answers from entities they recognize. If your brand's entity signals are weak, inconsistent, or fragmented across the web, LLMs will either ignore you or misrepresent you. DerivateX builds entity clarity through structured content, consistent third-party mentions, schema markup, and knowledge panel optimization. This is the foundational layer that makes all other GEO work effective. See the entity optimization service page for more.

An AI mention is when a brand is named in an AI-generated answer. An AI citation is when a brand is named, linked, and contextually recommended as a solution. Citations carry significantly more weight because they indicate the LLM is not just aware of the brand but actively recommending it. DerivateX tracks both, but optimizes for citations because citations are what drive clicks, sessions, and pipeline. A brand can have hundreds of mentions and still see no pipeline impact if those mentions are contextually irrelevant or buried in a list of ten competitors.

DerivateX configures GA4 to identify sessions originating from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude, and other AI referral sources. These sessions are tracked through conversion events including demo requests, signups, and contact form submissions. Monthly reports show exactly how many sessions came from each AI source and what those sessions did on the site. This is the same attribution methodology used for any other channel, applied to AI search. The goal is to make AI search a reportable, defensible line item in the marketing budget, not a vague category of "we think it's working."

The AI Visibility Score (AVS) is a 0 to 100 metric that measures how visible a brand is across the four major AI search platforms: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude. It is scored based on a defined set of buyer-intent prompts, tracking whether the brand is named, linked, or contextually referenced. DerivateX developed the methodology and uses it to track every client's AI presence bi-weekly. The AI Visibility Checker provides a free baseline score for any brand. The 2026 AI Visibility Benchmark Report scored 50 B2B SaaS companies using this methodology.