SEO Pricing

SEO Pricing: What It Costs, and Why Nobody Will Tell You

Almost every SEO company hides its prices behind a contact form. Ours are on this page. Here is what we charge, what the rest of the industry charges, and how to tell which end of that range you actually need.

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Try to find out what SEO costs and you will run into the same wall about six times in a row. Every site says custom pricing or request a quote, which means the number depends on what they think you will pay. Then the quotes arrive and they are $400, $1,500 and $4,000 a month for work described in the same vague sentences, with nothing in any of them you can compare. You are being asked to choose a service you cannot evaluate at a price you cannot benchmark, and the only lever you are given is your own nerve.

How It Works

A simple system, run consistently.

1

Work out which problem you actually have

If you are invisible on Google Maps, that is a profile and citations problem and it is the cheap one to fix — $99 to $200 a month, with movement often visible in weeks. If your website does not come up for the things you sell, that is a content and structure problem, slower and more involved. If the site is so slow or so locked down that nothing can be fixed on it, the build is the real cost and no amount of monthly SEO gets around it. Most people are quoted for all three and need one.

2

Start with the audit if you are unsure

At $149 it is the cheapest way to find out whether you need ongoing help at all. You get the ranking report, the competitor comparison and a prioritized fix list — and a fair number of people take that list and do it themselves, which is a legitimate outcome we are fine with. It also comes off the build price later if you decide to go that way.

3

Judge the price against the work, not against other quotes

A $300 plan that does nothing is more expensive than a $2,000 plan that works. The only way to tell them apart before you pay is to make them describe month one in specifics and tell you what lands in your inbox every month. Ask both questions of everyone you are considering, including us.

We publish our prices because hiding them only benefits us, and because after enough sales calls it becomes obvious that the businesses most likely to be overcharged are the ones with the least ability to check. So here is the whole list, the same numbers a client sees.

Monthly SEO work starts at $99 a month for Google Business Profile posting, and $200 a month for profile posting plus local SEO — keyword research, weekly rank tracking, content driven by what the data says, and a monthly scoreboard. There is no contract and no setup fee on either. If you want the work done once rather than ongoing, a full SEO audit and report is $149, which includes the ranking report, competitor comparison, a prioritized fix list you can work through yourself, and a call to walk you through it. A strategy session is $99. Ongoing monthly reporting on its own, with no service attached, is $49.

If the site itself is the problem, builds start at $2,500 for a five-page custom site with SEO fundamentals and Google Business Profile setup, run $3,500 to $6,000 when you need booking, payments or custom functionality, and go above $6,000 for genuinely complex systems. Website care plans that bundle hosting, maintenance and monthly SEO health checks are $99, $149 and $199 a month depending on how much ongoing work you want.

Now the honest context. Across the industry, monthly local SEO runs roughly $300 to $2,000, national or competitive campaigns run $2,500 to $10,000 and up, and one-off audits range from free to about $5,000. Those ranges are real and the high end is not automatically a ripoff — a business fighting for a national term in a market with deep-pocketed competitors genuinely needs more hours than a plumber who wants to own one county. The problem is not that prices vary. It is that you are rarely told which situation you are in.

So here is the test that actually works, and it has nothing to do with price. Ask what specifically happens in the first thirty days. If the answer is a list of things — these categories corrected, these four directories fixed, this page rewritten, this many reviews requested — the quote is attached to work. If the answer is content strategy and ongoing optimization, there is nothing underneath it, and it does not matter whether they are asking $300 or $3,000.

Our prices, in full

Every price above is what a client pays — no setup fees, no onboarding fees, no annual minimum
No contracts on any monthly plan. You can stop at the end of any month
Your starting numbers before you are asked for money — where you rank now, and who holds the spots you want
A written scope before the first invoice, listing what happens and in what order
A monthly report you can read without a translator, whether the month went well or badly
If an audit turns into a build, the audit fee comes off the build price — the research is already done
If the honest answer is that you do not need us yet, we say that instead of selling you a plan

Proof

The numbers we point to are ones we are accountable for. One profile we manage sits at 130 five-star reviews, another at 215 reviews and 4.8 stars, and a single shop pulled 13,216 Google views in one month on zero ad spend — from keeping a profile complete and active, not from a budget. We run our own businesses on this same work, which is the main reason the pricing is not built around what a nervous buyer will tolerate.

Related Guides

SEO Audit & ReportLocal SEO ServicesGoogle Business Profile ManagementWebsite Care PlansSEO Near Me

FAQ

How much does SEO cost per month?

Ours starts at $99 a month for Google Business Profile posting and $200 a month for profile posting plus local SEO, with no contract and no setup fee. Across the industry, monthly local SEO typically runs $300 to $2,000, and national or highly competitive campaigns run $2,500 to $10,000 and up. The range is wide because the work genuinely differs — what should not vary is whether they will tell you specifically what you are buying.

Why do SEO companies hide their pricing?

Two reasons, one defensible and one not. The defensible one is that scope really does vary, and a single number can be wrong in either direction. The other is that a hidden price can be set to whatever the buyer seems able to pay, which is why identical work gets quoted at $400 to one business and $2,500 to another. We publish ours because the second reason is more common than the first.

How much does local SEO cost?

Local SEO is usually the cheaper end, because you are competing for the map pack in a defined area rather than for national terms. Ours is $200 a month and includes keyword research, weekly rank tracking, content, and a monthly scoreboard. Industry-wide, expect roughly $300 to $1,500 a month. If someone quotes national-campaign money to rank a single-location business in one town, ask them to justify it in hours.

Is cheap SEO worth it?

It depends entirely on what the cheap plan does. A $99 plan that keeps your profile complete, posted and reviewed is genuinely worth it, because those signals move map rankings and most businesses never touch them. A $99 plan that sends an automated report and builds spam links is worse than nothing — it can actively damage you. Price is not the tell. Ask what happens in month one.

How much does an SEO audit cost?

Ours is $149 and includes a full site analysis, your keyword ranking report, a competitor comparison, a prioritized fix list, and a 30-minute walkthrough. Industry-wide, audits run from free to about $5,000. Be careful at both ends: a free audit is usually an automated scan built to generate a sales call, and a $5,000 audit should come with a person who has actually read your site.

Do you require a contract?

No. No contracts, no setup fees, no annual minimums on any monthly plan. You can stop at the end of any month. A service that survives on lock-in rather than results is telling you something, and we would rather have to earn it every month.

What is a fair price for SEO for a local business?

For a single-location business competing in one town or county, somewhere between $200 and $800 a month buys real, consistent work from someone who is genuinely doing it. Below that, the economics only work if the plan is largely automated. Far above that, you should be able to see the extra hours in the scope — more locations, more competitive terms, or content production at volume.

Can I do SEO myself instead of paying for it?

A meaningful amount of it, yes, and we publish free guides for exactly that. Fill your Google Business Profile in completely, add real photos, ask every happy customer for a review, reply to all of them, and make sure your site has a page for each thing you sell. Most owners do not stop because it is too hard. They stop because it never becomes anyone's actual job — and that consistency is most of what you are paying for.

Does SEO pricing include the website?

No, they are separate. Monthly SEO works on whatever site you already have. If the site itself is the bottleneck — too slow to load on a phone, or built so you cannot change anything — a build starts at $2,500 and we will tell you plainly if we think you need one. We would rather do SEO on the site you own than sell you a rebuild you do not need.

How long before SEO pays for itself?

Map pack and profile work often shows movement in a few weeks, so the $99 to $200 tier can pay back quickly for a business that gets customers by phone or by walk-in. Organic page rankings take three to six months, so budget for at least six before judging it. Anyone quoting a payback period with confidence is guessing — what they can honestly promise is that you will see the numbers every month.

What does SEO cost compared to Google Ads?

Ads are faster and stop the moment you stop paying. SEO is slower and compounds. For most local businesses the sensible answer is not either-or: fix the profile and citations first because that is cheap and quick, then decide whether ads are worth running while the organic work matures. If you need customers this month, we will tell you to spend on ads rather than take a retainer.

Do your prices change based on my business size?

The published prices are the prices. Scope changes if you have multiple locations, a large site, or unusually competitive terms — and if it does, we show you what changed and why before anything is invoiced. What we do not do is set the number based on what your business looks like it can afford.

Want a number for your specific situation? Ask, and we will give you one.

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