Want to know how much SEO costs? You’re not alone.
With so many pricing models and service types out there, finding the right SEO investment for your business can feel overwhelming.
Let’s break down everything you need to know about SEO pricing in 2024 and what to expect in 2025.
Authors note: The costs in this article are meant to help provide a better understanding of why SEO prices vary, and is not meant to provide specifics for your particular campaign.
Why SEO Prices Vary So Much
There’s no single “right” price for SEO. Every business has different needs, goals, and starting points.
Think of it like home renovation – the cost depends on what you’re trying to fix or improve.
Several key factors affect SEO pricing:
- Your business size and industry
- The scope of services you need
- How competitive your market is
- The expertise level of the agency you choose
- Whether you need specialized industry knowledge
- The time allocation for the campaign (on page SEO, off-page SEO, local SEO)
- Any hard costs the firm must cover (backlink opportunities, content curation, content distribution, directory placements, competitive research tools, etc.)
Types of SEO Services and Their Costs
SEO services come in various forms, each tailored to meet different goals, target audiences, and budget ranges.
Whether you’re looking to boost your visibility on a national level or dominate local search results, choosing the right SEO approach is crucial.
The cost of SEO services reflects the depth of the work involved, from the all-encompassing efforts of traditional SEO campaigns to specialized options like programmatic SEO, which is ideal for scaling content across multiple locations or product lines.
Let’s break down the most common types of SEO services, how they work, and the expected costs associated with each.
Traditional SEO Campaigns
Traditional SEO campaigns form the foundation of many SEO strategies, focusing on core elements that help a website rank organically over time. These campaigns typically encompass a mix of technical website optimization, high-quality content creation and optimization, link building, and ongoing keyword research and targeting.
By addressing multiple ranking factors, a traditional SEO campaign builds a strong, enduring online presence and improves overall website performance and lead generation.
Traditional SEO is ideal for businesses looking to establish broad visibility, authority, brand loyalty, and a steady stream of inbound leads.
Traditional SEO campaigns are comprehensive and require consistent, long-term management to achieve sustainable results. They often include monthly reporting and strategy updates to adjust and refine efforts based on search engine changes and performance data.
A traditional SEO campaign typically includes:
- Technical website optimization
- Content creation and optimization
- Link building
- Keyword research and targeting
- Monthly reporting and strategy updates
Average Cost: $2,500-25,000 per month for most businesses.
Programmatic SEO
Programmatic SEO is a modern approach tailored for businesses that need to generate and manage large volumes of content efficiently.
Unlike traditional SEO, which targets a wide range of SEO factors, programmatic SEO focuses specifically on scaling content production. This approach is especially valuable for businesses with extensive product catalogs, multiple locations, or regional and national service area offerings.
By creating customized content at scale, programmatic SEO helps these businesses capture a vast array of long-tail keywords and specific search queries without the manual effort typically involved in content creation.
While programmatic SEO offers a cost-effective way to build out pages quickly, it requires robust planning and ongoing monitoring to ensure the content remains relevant and valuable to users. This scalability makes programmatic SEO an increasingly popular choice for brands aiming to reach diverse audiences with location-specific or variation-rich content.
Average Cost: $50-$400 per page, with most campaigns starting with a $4,000 infrastructure setup.
Local SEO
Local SEO is the go-to choice for businesses focused on a specific geographic area. This approach prioritizes strategies that make it easier for local customers to find your business, such as Google Business Profile optimization, local citation building, review management, and localized content creation.
This type of SEO offers businesses a highly targeted way to connect with nearby audiences, strengthening their presence in relevant local searches.
Local SEO generally includes:
- Google Business Profile optimization
- Local citation building
- Review management
- Local content creation
Average Cost: $1,000-$5,000 per month for a full-service local SEO campaign.
For businesses seeking a more affordable and hands-off approach, local SEO software may be a viable option.
Local SEO tools typically offer a limited range of services, automating ranking factors like citation quantity, reviews, and NAPW (Name, Address, Phone Number, Website) consistency.
While these software solutions are cost-effective, they don’t deliver the comprehensive, managed support of a full-service campaign and often lack the strategic insights that come with a customized approach.
Common SEO Pricing Models
The cost of SEO services can vary significantly depending on the pricing model an agency or consultant offers.
Understanding these models can help businesses choose a structure that best fits their budget and goals. SEO services are generally billed in three ways: hourly rates, monthly retainers, and per-deliverable pricing.
Each model comes with its own benefits and is tailored to different project needs.
- Hourly Rates are ideal for businesses seeking flexible, on-demand expertise, whether it’s for consulting or specific tasks. This model is commonly used by consultants or smaller agencies with varying experience levels.
- Monthly Retainers work well for businesses looking to build a long-term SEO strategy with consistent monitoring, adjustments, and reporting. Agencies often recommend this model for ongoing SEO efforts that require regular updates to keep up with changes in search engine algorithms.
- Per-Deliverable Pricing is perfect for businesses focused on specific SEO needs, such as technical audits or content creation, without the commitment of a long-term contract. This option is commonly used for one-time projects or for businesses testing out SEO services before committing to a more extensive plan.
Each model offers unique advantages, allowing businesses to select the most cost-effective and goal-aligned structure for their SEO investment.
SEO Pricing Break-Down
| Average Hourly SEO Consulting Rates (US) | $100-$500/hr |
| Average Managed Local SEO Campaigns Rates | $1,500-$5,000/month |
| Average Managed Regional SEO Campaign Rates | $3,000-$10,000/month |
| Average Managed National SEO Campaign Rates | $8,000-$100,000/month |
| SEO Strategy & Competitor/Market Research | $3,000-$10,000/month |
Other Factors Contributing to SEO Pricing
The Team Behind Your Success
A full SEO team typically includes:
- SEO Manager ($90,000/year): Leads strategy and implementation
- Content Marketer ($81,000/year): Creates and promotes content
- Web Developer ($75,000/year): Handles technical optimization
- Conversion Specialist ($77,000/year): Improves user experience and results
- Graphic Designer ($49,000/year): Creates visual content
- Digital Marketing Manager ($99,000/year): Oversees campaign coordination
Essential Tools and Software
Professional SEO requires specialized tools:
- SEMrush ($6,000/year): Keyword research and competitor analysis
- Ahrefs ($4,000/year): Backlink analysis and content research
- Moz ($2,000/year): Technical SEO and rank tracking
- Adobe Suite ($1,500/year): Visual content creation
- Project management tools ($1,200/year)
- Additional specialty tools ($5,000+/year)
This explains why quality SEO services start at $2,000/month – just one in-house SEO specialist would cost nearly $5,000/month in salary alone.
To better understand how much you should pay for SEO, it’s important to understand what services you will be receiving in a monthly campaign.
SEO services are not something you can receive for the same low rates they were sold at even just 3 years ago. And SEO is not just about keywords.
SEO is becoming more complex and time-consuming of a job as Google’s algorithm is ever-evolving.
When your website is focused on great user experience, quick answers to questions, providing useful information and more – your website will be favored by Google’s algorithm.
Google wants to provide users with the best answer to their search queries. Because, well, that’s how Google makes money.
The last thing Google wants is for a user to then decide that Bing or Yahoo! may provide a better answer.
The goal is to have search engines select your website as the best answer to respective search queries.
A lot of work goes into properly following search engine guidelines to ensure a website moves toward the top of search results, and it takes a special type of expertise built primarily through experience.
That’s where the benefit of hiring an agency comes into play. So, when selecting an agency, there are four main things to remember here:
- Don’t go cheap (A recent study revealed that clients of SEO agencies who spend over $500+/month are 53.3% more likely to consider themselves as “extremely happy” )
- Get ready to put in work (yes, this will require time on your end as well),
- Know what YOUR KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) will be,
- Ensure your business is ready to take on more work,
- Be patient.
Remember – YOU are responsible for hiring the right agency.
Whether you’re the business owner, an executive, procurement officer, taking the wrong approach could be dangerous to the company.
When vetting an SEO agency, you should discuss the specific tactics used.
Just a few of the most important questions would be:
- Who will be writing the content?
- How do you acquire links?
- What do you take care of in terms of on-site optimization?
- Do you monitor analytics and find new ways to optimize for conversions?
Traditional SEO vs Local SEO
| Service | National/Regional/Global | Local |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword Research | Comprehensive research of high-traffic and relevant keywords for your industry. | Focused research on location-based keywords to target your local audience. |
| On-Page Optimization | Complete optimization of your website’s content, meta tags, and URL structure. | Localized optimization of your website’s content, meta tags, and URL structure with a focus on local keywords. |
| Link Building | Building a diverse and high-quality backlink profile from relevant sources to improve search visibility. | Building local citations and location-specific backlinks to improve visibility in local search results. |
| Technical SEO | Ensuring your website is crawlable, indexable, and optimized for search engine algorithms. | Combining technical SEO practices with localized optimizations for better local search performance. |
| Content Development | Creating and promoting high-quality, informative content to attract organic traffic. | Crafting localized content that resonates with your target audience, addressing their needs and preferences. |
| Competitor Analysis | Analyzing and monitoring the strategies of industry competitors to stay ahead in the market. | Focusing on local competitors to understand their tactics and improve your local search presence. |
| Reporting & Analytics | Detailed reporting on organic traffic growth, keyword rankings, and overall SEO performance. | In-depth analysis of local search performance, including local keyword rankings, map pack visibility, and user engagement. |
| Google Business Profile Management | Basic management of your Google Business Profile listing. | Comprehensive management and optimization of your Google Business Profile listing to improve local search visibility. |
| Reputation Management | Monitoring and managing your online reputation across various channels. | Focused reputation management on local review sites and platforms to maintain a positive local presence. |
When Should I Invest in SEO?
Research and published data shows that SEO is the best marketing solution for building a lasting, continually growing inbound lead generation funnel (which we’ll discuss later in this article).
In terms of timing, it’s always better to get started sooner, rather than later. The longer you wait, the more you allow your competition to grab a foothold in your market.
Lastly, SEO is not an expense. It is an investment. You put money in, you get money out. The longer you stick with it, the more money you start to get out than what you put in.
According to Hubspot, inbound leads cost 61% less than outbound leads.
SEO can take 6-12+ months to pay itself off.
Some say that’s a long time to see an ROI. But, is it really?
According to Quora, Normal ROI for SEO is anywhere between 50% and 5,000% and depends on many factors like competition, current situation, client’s budget, and the SEO skills of who they hire. ROI for PPC is usually anywhere around 40-200%.
According to Forbes, the overall average social media ROI is 95%.
According to NerdWallet, The stock market has historically returned an average of 10% annually, before inflation.
According to the S&P 500 Index, the average return on investment in the US real estate market is 8.6%. The average return on investment differs based on property investment strategies. Residential real estate has an average ROI of 10.6%, commercial real estate has an average return on investment of 9.5%, and REITs have an average return of 11.8%.
SEO is clearly king when we look at “Return on Investment.” The best part? The ROI of SEO can be seen within 12 months.
Now let’s determine how much you should be investing…
How Much Should I Pay for SEO?
If you’ve done a little homework, you’ve likely found that every agency provides you with different pricing structures.
SEO proposals can range from a few hundred dollars per month to thousands per month. Why the drastic differences?
There are hundreds of factors that go into SEO pricing; so it can be pretty difficult to compare what services you get.
The demand for search engine optimization is increasing at a higher rate than almost any other marketing services available.
Just take a look at the job market:
The demand for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) professionals is surging ever faster with each passing year, outpacing the rate of growth of almost all other occupations. With such pressing and widespread need comes a proportional level of expense, as the people that can deliver these services naturally command higher salaries due to their relative scarcity.
Generic vs. Specialized SEO Agencies
Generic SEO Agencies
Pros:
- Often less expensive
- Can handle basic SEO needs
- Might be suitable for simple websites
Cons:
- Limited industry knowledge
- One-size-fits-all approach
- May miss industry-specific opportunities
Industry-Specialized Agencies
Pros:
- Deep understanding of your industry
- Knowledge of industry regulations and requirements
- More effective targeting of your ideal customers
- Better ROI due to focused expertise
Example: Direction.com specializes in healthcare SEO, which means we understand:
- Healthcare regulations and compliance
- Medical content requirements
- Patient search behavior
- Healthcare conversion optimization
SEO Hourly & Retainer Pricing Examples
According to a survey done by SparkToro, 32% of businesses spend $5,000+/month on SEO. Below are pricing structures of a few leading SEO firms in the US:
Example SEO Retainer #1: Direction Inc.
Starts at $5,000+/month
“Focused on results, and ultimately, market domination for every single one of our healthcare clients. We only have top-talent on our team and the resources necessary to ensure our clients meet their goals with an SEO campaign. Therefore, our minimum engagement is $5,000/month.” – Direction.com
Example SEO Retainer #2: From The Future Agency
Starts at $5,000/month (or $223.55/hr)
“For clients eager to partner with us, and get the time, energy, and attention of myself and my team – we require a minimum monthly retainer of $5,000, in exchange for an average of 20 hours” – ftf.coExample SEO Retainer #3: Pure Visibility
$3,000-$5,000/month (or $200/hr)
“Our SEO Upgrade plans are built on more than a decade’s experience helping businesses reach their digital visibility goals. We’ve packed each plan with the elements needed to make significant gains in rankings and traffic, which will subsequently increase your website’s ability to generate qualified leads and increased sales.” – Pure Visibility
Example SEO Retainer #4: WebFX
$975-$2,795/month ($3,750-$7,000 Setup Fees)
“A custom SEO campaign with WebFX targets on-page and off-page SEO, which includes things like keyword research and content implementation, to help your most valuable audience find you online.” – WebFX
Case Studies on SEO Pricing
SEO hourly rate graph
Source: AHREFS.com
SEO Pricing for One-Time SEO fixes, SEO Audits, Local Campaigns, National Campaigns & Hourly Pricing.
8 SEO Scams To Avoid
The “costs” of sub-$2,000/month SEO services sounds tempting, doesn’t it? If the cheapest firm’s services aren’t as effective, no harm, no foul, right?
Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
Proper SEO can serve as a torch held high in the black of the Internet’s night sky. Handing it to an inexperienced torchbearer can set your site’s ranking ablaze…or worse, fizzle ’em out into nothing.
Your presence may burn brightly for a little while… but once Google shows up to put out the flames, only smoldering ruins remain; smoldering ruins, as in pages two and further of Google Search Results.
1. Avoid Keyword-Focused Strategies
Unfortunately, many people end up on websites almost daily that haven’t learned, so, here we go…
There are people out there who will learn a little about Google keywords then start advertising themselves as SEO experts. In reality, they’re only keyword stuffers.
Google looks for useful content that uses keywords in context. Relevancy is key here. Stuffers tell local businesses to include text for every location they want to rank for. Another tactic is repeating the same words or phrases unnaturally.
Like so:
“At Acme Discount Mattresses, we sell the best discount mattresses. Our discount mattresses offer the best value in discount mattresses. We have the best prices on discount mattresses. Call Acme Discount Mattresses and order your discount mattress today!”
Ok maybe that example may be a little overkill, but it’s possible that a paragraph like this could improve your ranking. But only temporarily. In the long run, this kind of paragraph will draw penalties from Google.
Content strategies need to be focused on topics. Yes, the keywords should be there in the text, but the focus is to answer questions and provide the best information out there.
2. Link Schemes
Some SEO “professionals” resort to link schemes to manipulate a site’s ranking. Building spammy links or Private Blog Network (PBN) links in order to attempt improving organic rankings can result in a penalty. Providing excessive link exchanges also results in penalties. Google takes this so seriously that they even have a page set up to report this abuse.
The problem for an SEO client is that this tactic could improve their rankings temporarily and everyone gets excited. Just to find out that it won’t last. Once Google discovers the link exchange network, it all comes crashing down. Google penalizes page after page wrapped up in the scheme.
3. Guaranteed Rankings or Results
Guarantees are good, right? Not when it comes to organic search rankings.
No single company other than Google can actually control Google search rankings.
Many SEO firms promise improvements to your website rankings. That’s normal. If you do what’s right, you’ll earn higher rankings. But a guarantee that you’ll make the first page of results? Or spot #1?
Think twice before hiring that firm.
See what Google has to say about this:
4. Quick Rankings & Results
To achieve that “goal” or “promise” of top rankings, some companies resort to questionable tactics. They meet their goals. You pay. And they disappear.
Shortly thereafter, your pages take a nosedive. What happened?! Google crawlers eventually came across your website, discovering that your site isn’t offering the perceived value it promised.
This could happen for a variety of reasons such as link schemes, over-optimized, unnatural link profiles, poorly written content, poorly structured content, over-optimized pages, under-optimized pages and more. These are all things that have a recurring theme with lower-cost agencies.
Google penalties are messes nobody wants to clean up. We’ve turned down some pretty large opportunities over penalized sites due to the amount of work involved to play clean-up and potential of Google taking their sweet time to decide to forgive you. So, have fun finding an agency to work with you after that.
5. So-Called "Google Partners"
Yes, there are such things as Google Partners. We are one, BUT that has NOTHING TO DO WITH SEO.
Google Partners are agencies who have a certificate for passing the Google Ads test and who manage a number of Google Ad campaigns successfully. This is strictly related to digital advertising and has no relationship to organic rankings. If someone attempts to use their Google Partner status when talking about SEO – they are misleading you. Run.
6. Free Trials
The amount of time and tedious work that goes into search engine optimization is: 7 hours…
Just kidding! believe it or not, SEO never ends. It’s a constant uphill battle against thousands of websites who’ve hired their own SEO agencies fighting for just 1 of the top 10 spots in search results.
No legitimate agency would ever provide that kind of work for free or at heavily discounted rates. Usually, they just want access to your website to use it for their own spammy reasons. Run Forest, run.
7. Email SEO Scams
We’ve all received those unsolicited emails from an “SEO Guru” on the other side of the world, and sometimes even here in the US (so they say).
We receive those emails as an SEO agency. Our clients get those emails too – no matter how great their website is performing.
These scam emails usually say that you have issues or problems with your rankings, your website, or that you aren’t on page one of Google and they can help you fix that. Usually at a very attractive, low rate.
Unfortunately, many business owners fall for these scams. You’ve now been warned. Just mark it as spam.
8. Phone SEO Scams
If you thought the spam emails were bad, just wait to hear some of the phone scams.
(commence overseas accent) “Hi, this is bob from Google. I am calling to help your website get found.”
Ok first of all, Google will never outright call you. There’s a process which you must go through in order to even request a call from Google.
Second of all, Google doesn’t provide personal help if getting your business found or ranked or anything of the sort.
They have tools in your Google My Business account that provide tips and encourages you to do different things to help you get found, but they do not have people dedicated to calling and helping you.
(commence impressive English accent) “Hi, this is Tasha, can I please speak to the business owner? I’m calling to verify your business information on behalf of Google and Yelp.”
DO NOT ENTERTAIN TASHA. IT IS A SCAM.
A Note on Ownership of Content
Did you know that since SEO is a service, content produced and placed on your website is actually owned by the agency doing the work? Well, not unless they specify otherwise in the contract that is.
In every single one of our contracts – we state:
“Everything we create for you is 100% owned by you. Meaning we will never remove any work done to your website. This is an investment in your business, and we respect your decision to choose us as your partner in growth. We do not take a single penny you spend with us lightly, and are very serious about producing results.”
Make sure that when choosing an agency to work with, you ask that very important question of who owns the work.
SEO is Time & Work-Intensive
Because SEO requires a lot of meticulous, detail-oriented labor, many cheap SEO firms do a LOT of outsourcing.
It’s not always bad to use contractors for specific tasks, but only if the work they do is of high quality.
Often, people writing the cheapest content will be freelancers whose first language is not English. This can result in poor grammar, spelling, or confusion due to cultural differences.
Let’s be clear: This is NOT the kind of content you want on your site.
That being said, working with an SEO firm that is not located in your country is a flat-out terrible idea, dare we say, suicidal to your online presence.
Why?
Because over the past few years, Google has given the quality of the content on your website higher priority than ever before.
And content is only becoming more and more relevant in rankings.
If you hire someone who doesn’t speak your language fluently and isn’t well educated in your language, the content will never be what it could be if you hired a content marketing agency in the US.
Not to say that everyone in the US is a great writer, but you’ve got a much better shot at getting better content written for you if you hire a US SEO or content marketing firm vs. an “SEO” company in, say, Mexico, Thailand, India or Pakistan.
Setting Proper Expectations
An SEO firm that knows what they’re doing will set the proper expectations with you up-front. Because they all know that when SEO is done correctly, it takes time.
All right. Your servers are humming along. You’ve optimized your content. You’ve made some great relationships with media outlets online and received powerful backlinks from them. You’re stacked up against your competition.
Now what? How long is this SEO thing going to take? Well, that depends.
Don’t lose heart! We’ll get there and you are off to a great start. There are a lot of factors to consider.
Google takes over 200 factors into account when analyzing and ranking your site.
An experienced SEO firm is familiar with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
The best digital firms focus on the factors that have the most impact. And when the competition is tough, that’s when they’ll also work on the smallest factors. Because it may be that .001% change that will differentiate you from the competitor enough to bump ’em out of their top rankings and place you there instead.
Overall, you want a firm that considers and prioritizes long-term success for your company. Now is the time to explore the factors that will contribute to the long term success of your business online!
How Long Until I See Results?
Any idea at all? Well, you might start seeing improvements in ranking in a few weeks. But competitive topics and search terms could take months, and highly competitive industries, sometimes a year or longer. Think about it – if you’re starting on your SEO now, you’re also competing against competition who has likely been working on their site for years.
You need to be ready to put in several months to a year into this new found Google relationship, I mean come on no one likes easy.
So, give it time and a little love before seeing results from your SEO strategy.
Even then, you probably won’t be on top, but you are headed in the right direction. Tim Soulo found that only 5.7% of new pages make Google’s top 10 within a year.
This is why so many SEO firms prefer and recommend monthly retainers. SEO is a long-term investment. There are times when you need an aggressive campaign. But if you have a site you want to rank high for a long time to come, those tactics won’t keep you on top.
Check out our SEO timeline guide.
Make SEO Work for You
At the end of the day, you want a website that ranks at or at least near the top of Google’s billions of pages for what you offer. I’ve got some good news for you:
It’s possible to get there!
But it’s going to take a considerable investment of funds, hard work, and time to water your website with a tree of knowledge and roots that seep deep into the internet basis of your niche!
Now that you know the factors of how much SEO costs, find a team of SEO experts to get you to the top.
We work on optimizing websites every day for clients in Washington DC and across over a dozen other states in the USA.
Then make the smartest marketing decision a business can make, invest in inbound marketing and organically grow businesses revenue. Contact us for a free initial consultation.
