Building your own GEO system vs OEM white-label
It comes down to whether you have an engineering team and need deep customisation.
This page is for service firms planning to offer GEO: SEO and SEM agencies, digital marketing firms, managed-service operators and business-services companies. The choice usually comes down to two routes: develop a GEO system of your own, or use OEM white-label and offer the platform’s system under your own brand.
We offer the second route, and this page is written to the same honest standard anyway. The answer depends on three things: whether you already have an engineering team, whether you need deep customisation or private deployment, and whether your customer base is large enough to carry long-term development and upkeep. White-label removes the development and maintenance; the trade-off is that features and deployment are decided by the platform.
Where they actually differ.
| Build your own | OEM white-label | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront investment | An engineering team to assemble; integrations with several AI model APIs; question-set runs, answer collection, citation extraction and monitoring to build. The cost is mostly people, and it starts before the product can be sold. | Become a partner first (no entry fee; first prepaid top-up at least ¥3,000), then a setup fee and an annual fee by tier: Silver ¥3,000 + ¥2,000 a year, Gold ¥1,500 + ¥1,000 a year, Platinum free. Both come out of the prepaid balance. |
| Time to launch | Measured in months, from scoping and development to model integration and a version stable enough to deliver. A site on your own domain also needs an ICP filing. | About a week for everything except the ICP access filing. The access filing is reviewed by the authorities and usually takes several weeks; nothing goes live before it is complete. |
| Ongoing maintenance | Model APIs, web-search parameters and citation formats change, and so do the AI platforms’ own rules. Someone has to keep following and fixing them, along with servers, certificates and uptime. | System maintenance and upgrades, hosting, model integration and data collection are run by the platform. Fixes and new features arrive with nothing for you to deploy. |
| Brand | Yours. | Yours: company name, logo, colour, domain, notification emails, the ICP number in the footer and the contracting party on the user agreement. As the technology provider, the platform is disclosed in the privacy policy. |
| Pricing | You set it. | You set it. The platform sets no minimum, maximum or recommended price, and customer payments go straight to your account. |
| Data and customers | All data sits on your own servers, and the customer relationship is entirely yours to manage. | Accounts and data are stored on the platform and used only to serve the customer. Customers who sign up on your white-label domain are attributed to you and locked to you for 12 months; the rules are in the OEM agreement. |
| Control and customisation | Features can be customised in depth, connected to your own systems, and deployed privately if a customer requires it. | Features are the platform’s: you cannot modify them, and private deployment is not available. Customers sign in with email and password; SMS and WeChat sign-in are not offered. |
| Dependence on the platform | None on an outside platform; stability and pace of development depend on your own team. | The service depends on the platform continuing to run it. If the annual fee lapses and the balance is short, the workspace is suspended after a 15-day grace period and restored once topped up. |
| Who it suits | Firms with an engineering team, a need for deep customisation or private deployment, and enough customers to carry long-term development and upkeep. | Service firms without an engineering team that want to get a GEO business running, and whose strength is customer relationships and service. |
When to pick Build your own
- You already have a stable engineering team, including back-end, data collection and operations, and intend to maintain the system for years rather than build it once.
- Your business needs deep customisation: integration with your own CRM, advertising or data products, or customers who require private deployment.
- Your customer base is large enough to carry long-term development and maintenance, or you want the system itself to be a company asset.
When to pick OEM white-label
- You have no engineering team, or do not want your team’s time going into model APIs and collection upkeep.
- You want to get the business running first and test demand with real customers before committing to a larger investment.
- The platform’s existing features cover what you deliver, and your strength is customer relationships, sales and service.
The short version.
Service firms without an engineering team that want to get the business running are better served by OEM white-label: development and maintenance stay with the platform, and your effort goes into customers and delivery.
Firms with an engineering team that need deep customisation or private deployment, and have the customer base to carry it, are better served by building their own: more investment and a longer timeline, in exchange for full control.
Questions teams ask before they start
Can I change or add features after white-labelling?
No. A white-label workspace has the same features as the platform, and fixes and new features arrive for everyone at the same time. If you need features of your own, or a deep integration with your own systems, building your own is the better fit.
Can it be deployed privately or on my own servers?
No. Every white-label workspace is hosted by the platform and your domain points to it through DNS. That is why you do not maintain servers or follow upgrades. If private deployment is a hard requirement, for example in a customer contract, building your own is the route.
Who owns the customers and the data?
Customers who sign up on your white-label domain are attributed to you automatically, locked to you for 12 months, and sign the user agreement with your company. Their accounts and data are stored on the platform and used only to serve them. The attribution rules and the scope of the platform’s data processing are written into the OEM white-label agreement.
Can I start with white-label and build my own later?
It is a workable path: use white-label to test demand and your delivery process, then assess building your own once your customer base and requirements are clear. The point to settle in advance is data. Customer accounts and data are stored on the platform, so how they are handled when the arrangement ends is governed by the OEM agreement; confirm it before signing.
Where to go from here
Decided white-label fits?
Apply as a partner and tick the OEM option; once approved, OEM white-label is opened from the partner portal.