Search Engine Optimization

 SEO Billing Models

Project-Based

SEO projects are short-term, finite, and billed in lump sum. The most common projects are on-site and technical audits. Audits are typically used by large companies with technical staff on hand ready to implement the changes suggested in the audit.

Hourly

Hourly consulting is great for companies with a limited budget but plenty of man power. We can create a custom, on-going marketing plan and train your team to carry it out. Our consulting fees are $100/hour.

Retainer-Based

Monthly retainer is the most common billing model because any ongoing SEO project is going to take time. The client agrees to pay the agency a monthly fee for a set list of deliverables and the agency has ample opportunity to prove their worth. Monthly management is especially helpful if SEO is critical to your business because search engines change their algorithms frequently and having a specialist already on retainer will help you adapt to changing standard quickly.

Categories of SEO Packages

We’ll take a look at what you can expect for your money at several different price points.

Low-Cost SEO Packages ($150-$500/mo.)

If you search for “SEO Pricing” or “SEO Packages” on Google, you’re more than likely to come across monthly SEO pricing in the $150-$500/month range. If you’re a small business on a budget, these may be the best option for you. We don’t typically offer services in this price range because a higher monthly investment in digital marketing often more than pays for itself and results in a better value for our clients. Most businesses benefit from more services than $150-$500/month can provide. We recommend services in this price range for clients with modest goals who generate new content for their website consistently and need a specialist to go in and optimize it to make sure the content can reach their audience. If you’re trying to rank for fairly competitive keywords in a city, this level of service would be a waste of your time but if you are one of two Chinese restaurants in a small town, this would be fine.

Most often, these packages include Local SEO management (citation building), reporting, and possibly a limited amount of content generation. Don’t expect to get 4 high-end researched blocks of onsite content or blog content from these entry-level plans. As a point of reference, our 1000-word blog posts cost $450 each. It’s because we stuff them full of quality and each one is optimized by our in-house SEO experts.

Mid-Range SEO Packages ($950-$2,000/mo.)

This is where the magic starts to happen and you’re purchasing enough services to start to see real results. This range of services usually consists of on-site SEO, and content generation. Most of our clients in this range are also utilizing PPC campaigns. Packages at this level include monthly reports, better quality content generation, and a wider variety of available services to fit your needs. We love mid-range packages because they give early-stage small businesses the opportunity to experience the positive outcomes delivered by effective content marketing.

Upper-Range SEO Packages ($2,500-$5,000/mo.)

Now we’re cooking with gas! According to this industry study by Ahrefs, the most frequently reported monthly SEO package with services performed by an agency in the United States costs between $2,500 and $5,000/month. Now, do keep in mind, that’s only the most popular segment of pricing from the list of pricing options provided.

SEO plans that exceed $2,500/month in investment include a good mix of on-site SEO, content development, and link building: the three essential building blocks of a successfully executed SEO strategy. You’re generally not going to find effective link building below this price point because link building is labor intensive and requires skill and professional contacts. Link building is an essential component of SEO and we highly our clients to utilize it whenever possible. This is also the price point where we can create a large volume of high-quality, sometimes industry-leading, content and build our clients audience and reputation in their industry.

High-Investment SEO Packages ($5,000-$25,000+/mo.)

Above $5,000/month, we enter a few new hidden segments of SEO packages. Let’s take a closer look:

Small Business SEO: Typically, small businesses with less than 50 employees engage in SEO plans that cost as much as $10,000/month (occasionally, much more). – While on the more expensive end, many small businesses make considerable investments in SEO which, if done right, will do great things for those small business’s bottom lines.

Enterprise SEO Services: Lots of enterprise companies spend between $10,000/month and $75,000/month on high-end SEO packages. These plans typically require that agencies have specific teams dedicated to enterprise accounts, depending on the monthly SEO pricing.

eCommerce SEO: eCommerce stores are another big spender when it comes to SEO. The primary reason for this being that revenue can be directly attributed to SEO investment. In other words, it’s very easy to retain and convince eCommerce SEO clients to increase monthly investment in SEO services when you can prove that every $1 they spend on their SEO package brings back $6.50 in revenue.

Aside from these three categories, some companies exist in highly-competitive industries and/or markets. For example, a personal injury attorney in New York City could pay $20,000/month to generate as much search engine visibility as a plumber in a suburban town with 25,000 residents paying $2,000/month.

When we talk about retainers that exceed $10,000/month, a few more elements come into play (in addition to the three core pillars of SEO discussed above). Beyond standard onsite SEO, content development, and link building, high-investment packages may involve the following services:

Public Relations (PR): PR-style link building entails acquiring links from household-name websites including Forbes, USA Today, Manta, Github, and many more. These types of links not only contribute to a site’s overall authority as it relates to PageRank (one of the ways Google tracks a web entity’s authority) but also increase a brand’s credibility and social proof when linking site’s logos are used. These types of links can contribute over $2,000-$5,000 each to a package’s cost.

Infographic and Digital Asset Development: Another reason high-investment SEO plans are so effective (warranting the higher-than-normal cost) is the development of linkable content. SEO agencies and infographic agencies may include services like independent research for developing infographics in-house to add to link building efforts and results.

This is, in no way shape or form, an exhaustive list – rather, a sampling of what could contribute to a higher-investment SEO campaign in the $10,000+ range. Check out our recent blog post for a breakdown of the cost one of our most popular SEO packages.