The short answer
SEO for a single-location business is ongoing work, so it is almost always a monthly fee rather than a project price. What you are buying each month is a quantity: pages written, profile work done, technical fixes applied, and a report that says what changed.
That is why two quotes can differ by a factor of four and both be honest. One is two pages a month and a profile kept current. The other is eight pages a month across three locations with the site rebuilt first. The hourly cost of the person is rarely the difference. The amount of work is.
So the useful question is not "what does SEO cost". It is "what am I getting each month, and what will exist at the end of it". Ask that and the quotes become comparable.
The four things that move the number
Before anyone quotes you, these four decide roughly where you land. They are also the four you should expect to be asked about, because a provider who quotes without asking them is quoting a package rather than your business.
- How many places you serve. One city is one profile and one set of area pages. Three locations is three profiles, three sets of citations, and three times the review routine. This is the single biggest multiplier on a local plan.
- How many services you sell. Each service that people search for separately needs its own page, and the good ones need sub-pages underneath. A plumber who does drains, water heaters, repiping, and sewer work has four page families to build, not one.
- How hard the competition is. If the businesses above you have twenty years and two thousand reviews, catching them takes more months of more work than outpacing three thin sites. Search your main term and look at who is there before you judge any quote.
- Whether the site can be used at all. This is the hidden one. If the site is slow, unfixable, or built on something nobody can edit, the monthly work has nothing to stand on and a rebuild comes first. That is a one-time cost on top, and it is the thing most quotes leave until after you have signed. Five situations call for a rebuild, and most sites are in none of them.
The five ways you will be charged, and what each does to the work
The model matters as much as the number, because each one rewards something different.
| Model | What it looks like | What it rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | A fixed fee for a stated amount of work each month | Consistency, as long as the work is itemized. Without a list of what the month contains, it rewards doing less. |
| Hourly | An hourly rate against a log | Hours. You are buying time rather than output, so ask what will exist at the end of them. |
| Per project | A fixed price for a defined piece of work | Finishing. It suits a rebuild or a one-time cleanup, and it suits ongoing work badly. |
| Per page or per post | A price per piece of content | Volume. It produces pages whether or not the pages were the right ones to write. |
| Pay on results | A fee tied to rankings or leads | Whatever is easiest to move. Rankings can be gamed with searches nobody makes, and nobody controls the algorithm, so the risk gets priced in anyway. |
What mine costs
I publish the prices because the alternative is a quote that depends on how the conversation goes, and I would rather you could compare before you ever speak to me. All three plans are the same work to the same standard. The tiers differ in how much of it you get each month.
Local SEO is $425 a month: the Google Business Profile managed, five service and area pages built in the first two months, two posts a month, citations cleaned up, the technical and structured data work, and a monthly report. Month to month, with thirty days notice.
Growth SEO is $995 a month: everything in Local, four posts a month, up to three locations, a page for every service you offer, a quarterly conversion review, and a Starter Website included and built first as the foundation. Six months minimum, then month to month.
Superior SEO is $1,995 a month: everything in Growth, eight posts a month, regional or national targeting, every service covered in depth, a monthly report on the AI prompts that name you, and a Growth Website included and built first. Six months minimum, then month to month.
There are no setup fees on any of them. If the site is sound and only the work is missing, a build is not needed and Local is the plan. Every price is on the pricing page, and that page is the source if these ever change.
What a website costs on its own
The rebuild question is where most of the surprise in an SEO quote lives, so it is worth having the numbers next to each other.
A build here is one-time and you own the code, the domain, and the hosting at the end of it. Starter is $1,950 for five to eight pages, Growth is $4,500 for fifteen to twenty-five pages with a full redirect map on migration, and Superior is $7,500 for thirty or more pages with multi-location or catalog structure. Days, not months, and no setup fees.
The reason the Growth and Superior monthly plans include a build is that ongoing work on a site that cannot rank is money spent on the wrong thing. If you are being quoted monthly SEO and nobody has said anything about the state of the site, that is the question to ask before you sign.
What cheap SEO actually buys
There is a floor under this, and it is worth naming because a hundred and fifty dollars a month is a real offer you will receive.
At that price, after software and overhead, nobody is writing you a page or calling your suppliers. What you usually get is an automated rankings report, a few directory submissions, and one generic post a month assembled without anyone reading your business. Some of it is harmless and none of it compounds.
The version that is worse than harmless is cheap link building, where your site gets listed on a network of pages built to sell links. That can do damage that takes longer to undo than it took to buy.
The honest alternative at that budget is to do the free part yourself. Fix the profile, ask every finished job for a review, and write the three pages your best services deserve. What ongoing SEO actually means lists what the work is, and most of the profile half of it is doable by an owner who stays on it.
What it costs to buy the same position instead
One comparison makes the monthly figure easier to judge: what the same customer costs through ads.
In Portland, a plumber pays about twenty-five dollars for a single click on "plumber portland", and a click is a visit rather than a job. At that rate, a month of Local SEO is roughly seventeen clicks. The businesses in the map pack above that ad are getting those visits without paying per click, which is the whole argument for the work. I went through that search, and who holds it, in GEO vs SEO vs AEO.
The honest difference is timing. Ads start today and stop the day you stop paying. The search work takes three to six months before it shows and keeps earning after it does. I do not run ads, so take that for what it is worth, but the arithmetic is checkable and it is why I would rather build the pages.
How to compare two quotes
When you have two proposals that look nothing alike, these five questions make them the same shape.
- What exists at the end of month one. A specific list. Pages, fixes, profile changes. If the answer is research and strategy, ask what month two produces and whether you will be able to click on it.
- How many pages a month, and who writes them. Volume and authorship. A page written by someone who has never spoken to you reads like it, and so does a page assembled by a tool.
- Who actually does the work. The answer changes what your fee buys. Layers between you and the work are paid for out of the same number.
- What happens if I leave. Notice period, and whether the pages, the site, and the profile stay yours. They should.
- What is not included. The most useful question on the list, and the one that finds the setup fee, the content that turns out to be extra, and the rebuild nobody mentioned.
When it is not worth paying anyone yet
Three situations where I would tell you to keep the money, and I have told people this.
You have no way to answer the phone. More calls are worthless if they go to voicemail at two in the afternoon. Fix that first, and it costs nothing.
Your margins cannot carry it. If a job is worth eighty dollars and you need thirty new ones a month to notice, the arithmetic does not work yet, and paid search or a different offer is the better conversation.
You have not done the free half. A profile with the wrong category, no hours, and nine reviews is a free afternoon of work that will move more than the first month of anything paid. Five things decide the map pack, and four of them cost nothing but time.
Frequently asked questions
- How much does SEO cost for a small business?
- It is usually a monthly fee, and the number moves with how many places you serve, how many services you sell, how strong the competition is, and whether the site has to be rebuilt first. My own plans start at $425 a month, month to month, with every price published on the pricing page.
- Why do SEO quotes vary so much?
- Because they are quoting different amounts of work, not different hourly rates. Two posts a month and a profile kept current is a different product from eight posts across three locations with a rebuild first. Compare what exists at the end of each month rather than the headline figure.
- Is cheap SEO worth it?
- At the lowest prices nobody is writing you pages or working your profile, so you generally get an automated report and generic content. Cheap link building can actively set you back. At that budget, doing the free profile and review work yourself will move more.
- Should I pay monthly or per project?
- Per project suits a rebuild or a one-time cleanup. Ongoing visibility is ongoing work, so it suits a monthly arrangement, provided the month has an itemized list of what it contains. A retainer with no stated output rewards doing less.
- How long before SEO pays for itself?
- Profile and map changes can show in weeks. Pages usually take three to six months to do real work, and they keep earning after that. Work out what one job is worth to you, and how many a month covers the fee, and the break-even is usually a smaller number than owners expect. [How long SEO takes](/blog/how-long-does-seo-take) has the order things move in, so you can tell a slow start from a wasted year.
- Do I need a new website before SEO?
- Only if the current one cannot be used: slow, unfixable, or built on something nobody can edit. If it is sound, monthly work applies to it as it is. Ask any provider this before signing, because a rebuild is the cost most often left out of the first conversation.
Get a number for your business, not a package.
The consultation looks at how many services and areas you have, who you are up against, and whether the site can carry the work, then says which plan fits and what the first month would do. The consultation is free, and the pricing is published.