Most small businesses pay $500 to $5,000 a month for SEO. The average bill is$1,557 a month, across 439 providers Ahrefs surveyed. The most common price is$501 to $1,000. This page shows what each kind of seller charges. It shows what moves the number. And it gives you six questions to ask before you sign. Our own price is$297 a month, with no contract. Figures measured July 2026.
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Most small businesses pay $500 to $5,000 a month for SEO. The average bill is $1,557 a month. That is from an Ahrefs survey of 439 providers. A few huge contracts pull that average up. Most shops charge well under it. The most common band is $501 to $1,000 a month. And 68.8% of them charge $2,000 a month or less.
The price tracks two things. Who does the work. And how much of it is done by hand. Here is what each kind of seller charges, and who each one suits.
| Who you hire | Typical monthly cost | Best suited to | The usual catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Freelancer | $250-$800 | One location, a small service area, an owner who can brief and review | One person's calendar. Sick weeks and holidays show up as a month with nothing done |
| Small agency | $800-$2,500 | Local and regional businesses that want a team, not one person | Usually a 6 or 12 month contract, and your account may go to a junior |
| Mid-market agency | $2,500-$7,500 | Businesses with several locations, crowded metros, online stores | The plan is senior. The work often is not. Ask who actually does it |
| Enterprise agency | $10,000+ | National brands with staff in-house to run the relationship | Priced for a company with a marketing department, not for an owner |
| Software-led, done for you | $297 | Owners who want the work handled without managing it | You do not run the work day to day. If you want to steer it yourself, this is the wrong fit |
Those tier bands are widely published US quotes. They are not our measurement. The $1,557 average, the $501 to $1,000 band and the 68.8% figure are Ahrefs survey data. That survey is cited at the bottom of this page.
Run one shop in one town? Small business SEO shows what the work looks like at that size. Drive out to a list of towns nearby? A wider area costs more to cover, and local SEO services walks through why.
SEO gets billed four ways, and the way it is billed matters as much as the number. Two quotes at the same price can mean very different work. So ask which model you are being quoted. Then compare.
| Model | Typical range | Works well for | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | $500-$5,000/mo | Ongoing work, which is what most local businesses need | Ask what ships each month in writing. Retainers can quietly become meetings |
| One-time project | $1,000-$30,000 | A move to a new site, a technical cleanup, a rebuild | Nothing continues after delivery. Search work has to keep going |
| Hourly | $75-$200/hr | Advice when you already have someone doing the work | You are buying opinions, not finished work. The bill is hard to plan for |
| Performance based | Varies | Almost nobody, honestly | The seller writes the rule for what counts. Read what triggers payment |
For one location and a normal service area, a monthly plan is nearly always right. The other three are special tools. Before you hold two prices side by side, read what a package should contain. Two quotes are not comparable until you know that.
Five things move an SEO quote, and none of them is the seller's profit. If a quote sits far outside the bands above, one of these five usually explains it.
Where you want to show up moves the price too. Google picks the three shops on the map a different way. Most of that leans on your Google Business Profile, so sellers price it on its own. We took it apart in how to rank on Google Maps. One thing to be clear about, since owners ask. Google Business Profile management is not part of this plan. We improve the local search signals on the website you already own. If you cannot find yourself at all today, start with the usual reasons a business is missing from Google. A few of them are five minute fixes, and they cost nothing.
Doing the same work yourself runs about $500 a month. Pricing the parts is the fastest way to judge any quote. Here is what one month costs if you buy the pieces one at a time. These are the same rates a seller pays on your behalf.
| The part | Market rate | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Research tools | $250-$280/mo | Most pros run both Semrush and Ahrefs, not one |
| Developer time | $75-$150/hr | Speed, page structure, broken links, titles, every crawl |
| Tracking and reporting | Your hours | Where you sit in search, plus what AI assistants say about you |
| A realistic month, doing it yourself | $500+ | Plus roughly a day a week, every week, indefinitely |
That is the honest floor, and it does not include buying any writing. Add that and the market rate is $50 to $300 an article on top. It is also why a quote under $500 a month deserves one plain question. Tools alone cost $250 to $280. So what is left to pay for the fixes? Sometimes the answer is fine, because software does the parts that repeat. Sometimes the answer is that very little ships. We took that apart in what cheap SEO really buys.
Six questions sort a real plan from an invoice. Ask them before you sign. Ask for the answers in writing. A seller who cannot answer fast is telling you something.
A promised ranking. A free audit that turns out to be a sales call with a price at the end. And a contract longer than six months, signed before you have seen a single fix. None of the three are illegal. All three cost owners real money every year.
SEO is the wrong buy for some businesses, including ones we would be glad to work with. Paying for it at the wrong moment wastes real money. So here is when to spend that money somewhere else.
None of that is a soft no. If one of those six is you today, put the money where it works this month. Then come back.
GrowFasterSEO is $297 a month. A year paid up front is $2,970, which works out to $247.50 a month. That sits under every agency and in-house band in the table above. Only a freelancer quotes less, and that is one person with one calendar. So the fair question is what is missing. The honest answer is that nothing is missing. The work is built a different way.
An agency bills you for hours. People do the crawls, the checks, the fixes and the reports by hand. Every month. For every client. That is what the $1,557 average is really paying for, plus the same $250 to $280 in tools.
We wrote software to do the parts that repeat. It crawls your whole site, runs the audit, and checks your page speed. Then your account manager decides what to fix first and handles the work. Software finds the problems. A person fixes them and holds the bar. Take out either half and the price goes up, or the work gets worse.
One more piece, because buyers ask about it now. Tools like ChatGPT, Google AI, Claude and Perplexity answer questions people used to type into Google. We get your existing pages ready to be read and used that way. Your monthly report covers how you are showing up there, and our AI search page shows what the work is.
Owners ask about the site itself too. The plan works on the website you already own. We do not build websites, and we do not need you to rebuild yours first.
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What other people charge, above and below, comes from widely published market rates. Those are not our measurement. Our own price is.
That is a lot of work for $297 a month. It is meant to be. Software does the repeat work, so we do not bill you for hours the way an agency has to. And with no contract, we have to earn next month.
Your 60-day money-back guarantee. You get 60 days to change your mind, counted from the day of your first purchase. Not happy with the quality of the work? Send one email and we refund it. It is one window on your first purchase. It never renews and it never resets. We guarantee our work. We never guarantee results, because nobody honest can.
Monthly $297/mo · Yearly $2,970, which is $247.50/mo and two months free · Pick your plan
Most small businesses pay $500 to $5,000 a month for SEO. The average bill is $1,557 a month, from an Ahrefs survey of 439 providers. The most common band is $501 to $1,000 a month. About 68.8% of providers charge $2,000 a month or less. We charge $297 a month with no contract, or $2,970 for a year.
The average is $1,557 a month, across 439 providers. A small number of big contracts pull that average up. The middle of the market pays less than it. The single most common band is $501 to $1,000 a month.
A one location business is usually quoted $500 to $1,500 a month by an agency. A freelancer runs $250 to $800. Under about $500 a month, ask exactly what ships. Research tools alone cost the seller $250 to $280 a month.
Local SEO costs about the same as regular SEO, or a little less. The work covers one area instead of a whole country. Expect $500 to $2,500 a month. Scope moves the price far more than the word local does.
Because it is sold as hours. The research, the fixes and the reports are done by hand every month. The fee has to cover those salaries. It also has to cover about $250 to $280 a month in research tools. Software can do the parts that repeat. That is the only honest reason a price can be lower.
A monthly plan suits ongoing work, and that is what most local businesses need. A one time project suits one job, like a move to a new site. Hourly suits advice when someone else does the work. Be careful with pay for results. The seller writes the rule for what counts as a result.
It is worth it when it is cheap because software does the repeat work. It is not worth it when it is cheap because the work is missing. Ask what gets fixed on your site. Ask who checks it. A plan that only sends you a list bills you every month for a list.
The audit and the plan come first, and the plan is in your hands within 14 days. Movement in rankings usually takes three to four months, and it builds from there. Nobody controls Google's clock, so nobody can promise you a date. Google says plainly that no one can promise a top spot.
They do different jobs. Ads buy attention today and stop the day you stop paying. Search work takes longer and then keeps working, and it sits on a site that stays yours. If you need work this week, run ads. If you want to stop paying per click, fix your site. Plenty of owners do both.
You can. Budget $250 to $280 a month for research tools. Budget $75 to $150 an hour for a coder. A real month is about $500, plus a day a week of your own time. If you also buy writing, the market rate is $50 to $300 an article on top.
An audit of your site, and a written plan you can read. The fixes actually made, not just listed. Work on the titles, the descriptions, the page structure, the speed and the broken links. An update you can read. Ask what gets fixed, and ask who does it. Those two answers sort most quotes.
With us, yes. All of it happens on the site you already own, so it stays there. Ask any seller this out loud. Some do the work on a site they own, and it leaves when you do.
No. The plan works on the website you already own, and we do not need you to rebuild it first.
No. Google Business Profile management is not part of this plan. We improve the local search signals on the website you already own.
$297 a month with no contract. Or $2,970 for a year, which is $247.50 a month. You get 60 days to change your mind, counted from the day of your first purchase. It is one window on the initial purchase. It never renews and it never resets. We guarantee our work. We never guarantee results.
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Checkout takes two minutes. Setup takes about fifteen. Then we audit your site, and your plan is in your hands within 14 days. The work runs from there. Every week you see what was finished.
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