- Most growing businesses spend $700–$3,200 a month on SEO with an agency.
- Price depends on competition, site size, content volume and how many locations you target.
- Expect a monthly report on rankings, traffic and leads, not just a list of tasks.
- Be wary of anything under $300 a month or any promise of guaranteed rankings.
The quick answer
SEO with an agency usually costs between $700 and $3,200 a month for a small or growing business. Enterprise and large ecommerce sites often pay more. One-off audits typically cost $700 to $2,500, and freelancers charge less but rarely cover technical, content and links together.
The right budget depends less on the size of your business and more on how competitive your search results are and how much content you need to win them.
What you’re actually paying for
Good SEO is three jobs done together. Skip one and the other two stop working.
- Technical SEO: site speed, indexing, structured data and fixing errors that stop Google from reading your pages.
- Content: pages and articles that answer what your buyers search, written to rank and to be cited in AI answers.
- Authority: links and mentions from relevant sites, plus reviews and profiles that build trust.
Cheap SEO usually means one of these three is missing. That’s why it so often stops working after a few months.
How agencies price SEO
Most agencies use one of three models. Monthly retainers are the most common because SEO compounds over time.
| Model | Typical price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | $700–$3,200+ / month | Ongoing growth in rankings and leads |
| One-off project | $700–$2,500 | Audits, migrations, technical clean-ups |
| Hourly consulting | $60–$200 / hour | Teams with in-house writers who need direction |
Want a fixed SEO quote for your site?Free 20-minute audit call. Plans from $700 a month.What changes the price
Two businesses of the same size can get very different quotes. These are the factors that move the number.
- Competition: ranking for “personal injury lawyer” costs far more than a niche B2B term.
- Site size: a 5,000-product store needs more technical work than a 10-page service site.
- Starting point: a new domain or a site with penalties needs more groundwork.
- Content volume: four articles a month and twelve articles a month are very different budgets.
- Locations: each extra city or region adds pages, citations and reviews to manage.
What you should get every month
Whatever you pay, you should be able to see the work and the results. A solid monthly retainer usually includes:
- A technical health check and fixes
- New or refreshed content, planned around keywords
- Link building and digital PR
- Google Business Profile and review work for local businesses
- A report on rankings, traffic, leads and revenue
- A monthly call on what worked and what changes next
Red flags to watch for
- Guaranteed number-one rankings. No one controls Google’s results.
- Very low prices with vague deliverables.
- Reports that show only rankings for terms nobody searches.
- Long contracts with no right to leave.
- Links bought from networks or unrelated sites.
At Seoily, every SEO plan has a fixed monthly price, a list of deliverables and a 30-day notice period. You own all content and accounts.
Example budgets
Here’s roughly what three different businesses would budget for a year of SEO with an agency.
| Business | Monthly budget | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Local service business, 1 location | $550–$1,200 | Google Maps, reviews, local pages, 2–4 articles |
| Growing ecommerce store | $1,600–$3,200 | Technical SEO, category pages, 6–10 articles, links |
| B2B or SaaS company | $1,600–$3,200+ | Content strategy, comparison pages, digital PR |
Frequently asked questions
Most sites see early movement in 2–3 months and meaningful lead growth in 4–6 months. Competitive industries can take longer.
Over time, usually yes. Ads stop the day you stop paying, while rankings keep bringing visits. Many businesses run both: ads for leads now, SEO to lower cost over time.
You can handle basics like your Google Business Profile and simple content. Technical fixes, content at scale and link building are where an agency saves time.
Answer engine optimization: making your content easy for AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Google’s AI answers to cite. It builds on good SEO with clear, factual, well-structured answers.
Plans start from $700 a month. You get a fixed quote after a free 20-minute call.
Written bySandeep · Performance Marketing LeadRuns SEO and paid ads for clients across ecommerce, SaaS and local services.
