What SEO costs, by who does it
The best public numbers come from Ahrefs’ survey of 439 SEO providers. Most of them charge a monthly retainer, and the price depends a lot on who you hire:
| Who does the work | Average per month | Average per hour |
|---|---|---|
| Freelancer | About $1,350 | About $72 |
| Agency | About $3,200 | About $99 |
| Consultant | About $3,250 | About $171 |
The single most common price was $501 to $1,000 a month. Here’s what you usually get at each level:
- Freelancer: one person. Quality varies a lot. A good one is a bargain.
- Agency: a team. You may talk to an account manager more than the person doing the work.
- Consultant: strategy and audits. Often you or your staff do the work.
- Cheap “packages” under $500: the survey doesn’t cover these. From what clients have shown me, you get automated reports, a few directory listings and maybe a blog post. Rarely anything you’d notice.
Where you land depends on four things:
- Your market. A roofer in Daytona Beach competes with more businesses than a pool service in DeLand.
- How much you sell. More services and more cities mean more pages to build and keep up.
- The state of your website. A slow, broken site needs fixing before anything else works.
- Whether content is included. Writing pages that answer real questions takes real hours.
What $200 a month buys
The cheapest SEO I’ve seen a business pay for was $200 a month. The promise was first page of Google for their niche.
Do the math. At the average agency rate in that survey, $200 buys about two hours of work a month. Two hours won’t fix a website, write a page worth reading and earn a single real link. Something gets automated or skipped.
The promise is the bigger problem. Google’s own guide to hiring an SEO says it plainly: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” It tells you to beware of anyone who claims to. If someone guarantees page one for $200, ask what they plan to do in those two hours.
What $33,000 a month bought
At the other end, I’ve seen a business pay $33,000 a month for SEO. The agency used old, spammy tactics. They got some traction at first. Then the rankings cratered.
A high price doesn’t mean safe work. Google treats tactics like bought links and hidden pages as spam, and its hiring guide warns that an SEO who uses them can get your site pushed down in the results or removed from Google entirely. I’ve cleaned up after this before. One law firm came to me after their previous agency had hidden pages for other businesses inside the firm’s own website to build links. The site had to be rebuilt.
The lesson from both stories is the same. The price tells you very little. What matters is what’s being done to your site, and whether the person doing it will show you.
What $1,500 a month gets you with me
My SEO starts at $1,500 a month. Below that, I can’t do enough work to move your leads, and I’d be taking your money for a report. Here’s what’s included:
- Technical fixes so Google can read your site and trust it: speed, structure and errors.
- Content that answers real questions your customers ask and your competitors don’t answer.
- Your Google Business Profile, reviews and service areas, so you show up in the map results nearby.
- AI search, so ChatGPT and Google’s AI understand what you do and can recommend you.
- Links from real, relevant sites. No link schemes.
- A monthly report and a call where I walk you through what moved, in plain English.
- Hosting and maintenance for your website (Essential Care, a $249/month value).
I personally handle every account, and I never take on more than 15 clients at a time. Plans are month-to-month with 60 days’ written notice to cancel. Ad budgets, if you run ads, are separate. See all my prices on the pricing page.
Not ready for a monthly plan? An SEO audit is $150 and shows you where you stand and what to fix first.
Run the math before you sign
Here’s a made-up example to show how I’d think about it.
Say you run a pest control company in Port Orange. A new customer on a quarterly plan is worth about $500 a year to you. SEO at $1,500 a month costs $18,000 a year. To pay for itself in year one, it needs to bring you about 36 new customers, or three a month.
SEO doesn’t deliver that evenly. Here’s how a typical first year goes:
- Months 1 to 3: audit, technical fixes, Google Business Profile, and the first service pages. Few new calls yet.
- Months 4 to 6: the first leads from the map results and from new pages that answer customer questions.
- Months 9 to 12: bigger gains in traffic and calls as the work adds up.
The customers you win in year one keep paying in year two, and the pages keep working without a cost per click. That’s where SEO earns its money.
Now do this with your own numbers. If three extra customers a month is out of reach in your market, SEO at this price isn’t the right move yet. I’ll tell you that on the first call.
Do you need to pay extra for AI search?
No. More people now ask ChatGPT or Google’s AI for a recommendation instead of scrolling through results, and some agencies sell “AI optimization” as a pricey add-on. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode have no extra requirements beyond normal SEO. Its guide to AI search also says you don’t need special files like llms.txt or AI-only versions of your pages.
What does get you named in AI answers is the same work that gets you found on Google: clear answers to real questions, good reviews, and being listed and mentioned on other trusted sites. That should be part of any SEO plan you pay for, not an extra line on the invoice.
Red flags when you hire
- A guaranteed ranking or a date. “Page one in 30 days” is a guess or a shortcut.
- A price too low to pay for real work. Ask how many hours you’re buying.
- They won’t say what they changed. You should see every change made to your site.
- Secret methods or a “special relationship” with Google. Google says no such thing exists.
- Reports with no leads in them. Rankings for terms nobody searches don’t pay your bills.
- You don’t own your accounts. Your website, Google Business Profile and analytics should be in your name.
Questions to ask before you sign
Google suggests some of these in its hiring guide. I’d ask all six:
- Do you follow Google’s Search Essentials?
- What results do you expect, and in what timeframe?
- How do you measure success?
- Will you show me every change you make to my site?
- Who will actually do the work?
- If we stop working together, what do I keep?
Is SEO worth it for a small business?
It’s worth it when three things are true. People search for what you sell in your area. You can give it 6 to 12 months. And your website can turn a visitor into a call.
It’s not the right first move when you need leads this month. Google Ads can bring calls next week while SEO builds. It’s also not the first move when your site is broken. Fix the site first, or the traffic SEO brings in won’t turn into customers.
The best result I’ve had followed that order. For a personal injury firm, I rebuilt the website first, then ran their SEO, then added Google Ads. While I ran their marketing for 9 years, signed cases went from 20 to 30 a month to about 100. That’s what steady work over years can do. It didn’t come from a $200 package.
FAQ
Is $500 a month SEO worth it?
It can be, from a good freelancer in a small market who’s clear about what fits in the hours. At the average freelance rate in the Ahrefs survey, $500 buys about 7 hours a month. Ask exactly where those hours go.
Can I do SEO myself?
Some of it. Fill out your Google Business Profile, ask every happy customer for a review, and answer your customers’ common questions on your website. That costs time, not money. Technical fixes and earning links are where most owners need help.
How long does SEO take to pay off?
Technical fixes and new content usually start showing results in 3 to 6 months. Bigger gains in traffic and leads typically come at 9 to 12 months of steady work. Anyone promising faster is guessing.
Is SEO a one-time cost?
Mostly no. Your competitors keep working, and Google keeps changing, so SEO is usually a monthly service. A one-time audit is a good place to start. Mine is $150.
Do you guarantee rankings?
No. Nobody controls Google. I set measurable goals and report on them every month.