What SEO should cost a month.
The averages you see quoted for SEO are misleading, because a handful of enterprise retainers drag the mean up past $2,900. The distribution tells the real story, and most of the market is cheaper than people expect. Here's what a month of SEO costs in 2026, and what you should actually get for it.
About 64% of SEO agencies charge under $1,000/mo, and the most common retainer is $500-$1,000. Bigger programs run $2,500-$5,000, and only ~2% charge over $5,000. Local SEO is $500-$2,000/mo. Space & Story plans run $60-$2,000+/mo with content, AI-traffic tracking, and AEO included, no setup fee, and month-to-month, and we quote below your current spend.
What actually drives the price.
What's actually shipped each month
A $300 plan and a $3,000 plan can both be called "SEO." The difference is volume: how many pages get optimized, how many keywords are tracked, how many posts go out, and whether anyone's doing off-page work or just sending you a dashboard.
Content, billed by the post
Most agencies treat blog posts as à-la-carte: $100-$350 each, or about $1,500/mo for four. We fold the posts into the plan (one a month on Local, four on Growth), written and run through our anti-slop audit.
Links and digital PR
This is the expensive part of SEO. Dedicated link retainers run $3,000-$12,000/mo and digital PR averages around $5,000/mo on its own. Growth includes lighter-touch link building; Authority includes the full digital-PR and citation engine.
Setup fees, contracts, and tools
Six- to twelve-month minimums are the norm, setup fees run $500-$10,400, and the Ahrefs or Semrush seat often gets passed to you at $130-$500/mo. We don't do any of that: month-to-month, no setup fee, tools and reporting included.
Tier by tier, against the market.
Same scope, honest numbers. Here's what each rung costs elsewhere, and what we put in the box that they charge for.
Care
$60/moA site that's live and healthy, not yet chasing growth.
Managed hosting and maintenance alone runs $50-$300/mo. AI-traffic tracking is a separate $29-$499/mo tool on top of that.
- Managed hosting + upkeep$50-$300/moManaged WordPress hosting alone starts around $250/mo.
- AI-visibility tool (separate)$29-$499/moOtterly $29, AthenaHQ $295, Profound $399-$499. Monitoring only, with no one acting on it.
- Hosting, uptime, daily backups, SSL on cite-met
- AEO upkeep: llms.txt and schema kept valid
- A monthly AI-traffic report (Human / SEO / AI), the thing others charge $29-$499/mo to see
Below the cheapest maintenance plan on the market, and the AI-traffic report (a $29-$499/mo tool elsewhere) is included.
Local
$300/moLocal and service-area businesses winning "near me" and the map pack.
Local SEO packages typically run $500-$2,000/mo. The budget ones at $300 are usually thin, offshore, and skip content.
- Standard local SEO package$500-$2,000/moGBP, citations, on-page; a blog post is usually a $100+ add-on.
- Budget / GBP-only$125-$500/moOften offshore and thin, and content is rarely in it.
- Google Business Profile management + local citations
- A blog post every month (most budget packages bill this separately at $100+)
- AEO upkeep and the monthly AI-traffic report, never an add-on
Priced at the budget end of local SEO, scoped like the standard package, with a monthly post and AEO that the budget shops leave out.
Growth
$700/moBusinesses competing on content and authority, not just the map pack.
Four posts, link building, competitor intel and a strategist usually means a $1,500-$2,500/mo agency retainer. Four posts alone run about $1,500.
- Mid-tier agency retainer$1,500-$2,500/moThe band where you actually get content + links + a strategy call.
- Content alone (4 posts)~$1,500/moMost content shops price four posts here, before any links or strategy.
- Link building (standalone)$3,000-$12,000/moDedicated link retainers; ours is lighter-touch but inside the plan.
- 4 SEO posts a month, written and audited by us
- Off-page link building plus competitor share-of-voice tracking
- A monthly strategy call with a real strategist
- Everything in Local underneath it
The $1,500-$2,500/mo agency bundle (four posts, links, competitor intel, a strategist) at $700, month-to-month.
Authority
$2,000+/moBrands going for category authority: the name AI recommends.
Digital PR alone averages about $5,000/mo. Dedicated AEO/GEO programs run $3,000-$8,000/mo, and enterprise pushes past $10,000.
- AEO / GEO program$3,000-$8,000/moMid-market AI-search retainers; enterprise $10,000-$30,000+.
- Digital PR (standalone)~$5,000/moAverage digital-PR contract; we fold it into the plan.
- AEO sold as an add-on+20-30% on your SEOMost agencies tax AEO on top of an existing retainer. We start from it.
- AEO citation-building across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI
- Digital PR, Reddit/Quora seeding, Wikipedia entity work
- A quarterly original-research or data piece
- Bi-weekly strategy and a dedicated lead
Digital PR and AEO citation-building that run $3,000-$8,000/mo on their own, starting at $2,000 and quoted below your current spend.
What the market bills separately.
The sticker price is rarely the real price. These are the add-ons that show up later on someone else's invoice, and don't on ours.
The rule of the house
Whatever the market charges, we quote below what you're paying now. Tell us your current spend, we'll send back our number. The math works in your favour.
Questions, answered straight.
How much does SEO cost per month in 2026?
Most of the market is cheaper than people expect: about 64% of agencies charge under $1,000/mo, and the most common retainer is $500-$1,000. Bigger programs run $2,500-$5,000, and only about 2% charge over $5,000. The averages you see quoted are pulled up by a handful of enterprise retainers.
How much does local SEO cost?
Local SEO packages typically run $500-$2,000/mo, with budget GBP-only offers at $125-$500. Our Local plan is $300/mo and includes a monthly blog post and AEO upkeep that most budget packages charge extra for or skip.
Why is your retainer so much lower than other agencies?
We bundle what they bill separately (content, AI-traffic tracking, hosting, and the tools), and we built our own delivery system, so the cost to ship is lower. We also quote below whatever you're paying now, on purpose.
Do you require a long-term contract?
No. Six- to twelve-month minimums are the norm in SEO, but ours is month-to-month with no setup fee. You own the code and content, and you can cancel or step down any time.
Is content and link building included or extra?
Included. Most agencies bill blog posts à la carte ($100-$350 each) and treat links as a separate $3,000+/mo retainer. Our Growth plan folds four posts, link building, and a strategist into $700/mo.
Do I have to pay for the SEO tools too?
No. Agencies often pass Ahrefs, Semrush, or rank trackers through to you at $130-$500/mo, and AI-visibility tools on top of that. Your reporting, including the monthly AI-traffic report, is included from the $60 Care plan up.
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