SEO for a small or mid-sized business usually costs somewhere between $500 and a few thousand dollars a month on a retainer, or roughly $50 to $150 per hour for hourly work. In two separate surveys of SEO providers, the single most common monthly retainer was in the $500 to $1,000 range, though plenty of agencies charge more. A one-off project, like an audit or a site cleanup, often runs from a few hundred to several thousand dollars. What you get for the money varies even more than the price.
Here's how SEO is priced, what drives the number up or down, what in-house SEO costs by comparison, and how to tell a fair quote from a bad one.
What the surveys found
Two SEO software companies have surveyed providers directly about their prices. Their samples and methods differ, so treat the figures as a range, not a rate card.
Ahrefs polled 439 SEO providers and found that 78.2% charge a monthly retainer. The most popular retainer band was $501 to $1,000 a month, chosen by 20.4% of respondents. The average hourly rate was $111, and the most popular project fee was $2,501 to $5,000. Agencies charged 138% more than freelancers on average.
SE Ranking's survey of 260 agencies landed lower. Its most common ranges were $500 to $1,000 a month, $50 to $100 per hour, and $500 to $2,000 per project, with 64% of agencies charging under $1,000 a month. Location mattered: 40% of agencies in the US and Canada charged over $125 per hour.
The four ways SEO is priced
| Model | How it works | Good fit when |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | A set fee for ongoing work: content, technical fixes, listings, reporting | You want SEO handled continuously by one provider |
| Hourly | You pay for time, usually a consultant or freelancer | You have someone in-house and need expert help on specific problems |
| Project | A fixed price for a defined job, like an audit, a migration or a cleanup | You have one clear problem with a beginning and an end |
| Performance-based | Payment tied to rankings or traffic targets | Rarely a good fit; it rewards gaming easy terms nobody searches for |
What pushes the price up or down
Scope
This is the big one. A $500 retainer and a $3,000 retainer are usually buying different things. Ask what's included, line by line: how many pages or posts a month, whether technical fixes are covered, whether local listings are handled, and who writes the content.
Your market
Ranking a commercial cleaning company in a small city takes less work than ranking an IT provider against national firms in a large metro. More competition means more content and more time.
The state of your website
If your site is slow, thin on service pages or built on an outdated platform, some of your budget will go to fixing it before SEO work can pay off. Some providers quote a rebuild separately. Others fold it in.
Who does the work
Freelancers cost less and suit a narrow job. Agencies cost more and bring more hands. Both can be excellent or poor.
What in-house SEO costs
The alternative to paying a provider is hiring someone. The median pay for market research analysts and marketing specialists was $78,760 a year in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, before you add benefits, software or training. One person also has to be good at writing, technical fixes, local listings and reporting all at once, which is a rare mix.
For most small B2B and trades companies, that makes an outside provider cheaper than a full-time hire. A larger company with a steady marketing team may find the opposite.
How to read an SEO quote
A fair quote tells you exactly what you'll get each month and how you'll see it. Watch for these warning signs:
- A guaranteed ranking. Google's own advice to business owners is that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking, and that if someone promises first place, you should find someone else.
- "Hundreds of backlinks." Bought links break Google's spam rules and can hurt you.
- No list of deliverables. If they can't tell you what they'll produce, you can't tell if they did it.
- You don't own the work. Make sure the website, content and listings stay yours if you leave.
Before you collect quotes, it helps to know where you stand. Our Free AI Visibility Check looks at your website, your mobile speed, whether you come up in a local search, and what an AI assistant says when a buyer asks who to call. No email needed. Bring the results to every provider you talk to.
What Inbound SDR costs, and what's in it
Inbound SDR is our SEO and AI search program. Packages start at $1,000 per month on a 12-month term, which puts it near the middle of the survey ranges above. Here's what that covers:
- A website of up to 100 pages, built in the first month around every service you sell and every area you serve, with hosting, site health maintenance and ongoing monitoring
- Google Business Profile and Bing Places optimization, plus consistent listings across 65+ directories
- A new blog every business day, posted to up to 3 social platforms
- Technical SEO, including speed, mobile, structured data and access for AI search crawlers
- 2 to 3 expert hours a month, a dedicated strategist and a monthly report
It doesn't include paid ads, email marketing, video production, review management or posting to your Business Profile. It also isn't the right fit for everyone. If you need a one-time audit or have a marketer who just needs expert backup, an hourly consultant will cost you less.
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