What a website and SEO actually cost.
Most agencies won't show you a price without a call. We publish ours, because every tier is just an hour budget at a senior rate, and we Here's the whole picture, against what the market charges.
Every tier is an hour budget at a senior rate.
We bill against a $150/hr senior rate. Price divided by $150 is the hours of senior work in your tier. Revisions and feedback rounds draw down that budget. They aren't billed per round. So the question isn't "how many revisions." It's the hour cap, fixed and stated up front.
You see the hours
A $5,000 Story build is ~33 hours of senior work. A $9,000 Engine is ~60. No mystery package.
Iterate freely
Rounds draw from the budget, not your wallet. We flag it before any work goes over, never after.
No call required
Every number is on this page. You can price the whole thing yourself and only talk to us once you have decided it is worth it.
The build, against the market.
Site
$2,500You need to look credible and get found, without an agency retainer.
Typical market: $5,000-$15,000
Story
$5,000You have content (videos, podcasts, talks) that should be working for you.
Typical market: $8,000-$18,000
Engine
$9,000You cover many services or locations and need a page for every one.
Typical market: $20,000-$40,000
Studio
$15,000+You need software, not just a website: booking, ecommerce, a portal, a dashboard, an agent.
Typical market: $15,000-$50,000
The retainer, against the market.
Local
$300/moLocal and service-area businesses winning "near me" and the map pack.
Typical market: $500-$2,000/mo
Growth
$700/moBusinesses competing on content and authority, not just the map pack.
Typical market: $1,500-$2,500/mo
Authority
$2,000+/moBrands going for category authority: the name AI recommends.
Typical market: $3,000-$8,000/mo
Getting named by AI is in every tier, not a 30% surcharge.
Most agencies sell this as a 20-30% tax on top of an existing retainer, or a standalone $3,000-$8,000/mo programme. We build from it instead. The groundwork and the plainly-written answers that get you quoted by ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google are in every build, and the monthly report on who is finding you is in every plan from $300/mo up.
What this costs elsewhereOn Growth and Authority, you see who's visiting.
Cite-Met Pulse identifies the companies and people behind your traffic, maps their journey, and captures them as booked leads — on a database you own. Bought à la carte, the de-anonymization, session analytics, forms, and booker it replaces run several hundred a month and still don't talk to each other. On Growth and above it's one system, set up and managed for you.
See Cite-Met PulseWhat the market bills separately.
The sticker 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
Every price is published. Floor is $300/mo on hosting and upkeep. Send us your site and the audit comes back with the tier that fits and what it costs.
Pricing questions, answered.
How is Space & Story cheaper than an agency without cutting corners?
Three reasons. We built our own delivery tools (an SEO writer, a voice auditor, and a slop detector, all open-source on GitHub), so work that takes a 2019 agency weeks takes us a fraction of that, and the saving goes to you instead of a strategist's salary. We bundle the things competitors bill separately: copy, the AI-search work, hosting, and traffic tracking.
Why do you publish your prices when most agencies hide them?
Because hiding the price is the thing buyers are afraid of. Every tier is an hour budget at a senior $150/hr rate, so you can see exactly what your money buys. If we quoted by "discovery call" you'd have no way to check whether the number was fair. Publishing it is the honest version.
What does the $150/hr rate actually mean for me?
Price divided by $150 is the hours of senior work in your tier. A $5,000 Story build is about 33 hours. Revisions and feedback rounds draw down that budget instead of being billed per round, so the question isn't "how many revisions." It's the hour cap, and that's fixed and stated up front.
Is there a setup fee or a contract?
No setup fee, and the monthly plan is month-to-month with no annual lock-in. The build is half up front and half on launch. You can step down to the $300 Local plan or leave any time, and the code and content stay yours, domain included.
Do I have to take a monthly plan?
You need at least the floor plan for your build (Local under a Site, Local under a Story or Engine, Authority under a Studio) because a bigger site needs more upkeep. You can run on the floor and step up whenever you want, never down below it.
What if I'm not paying anyone for SEO right now?
Then the math is simpler: the Local plan is $300/mo, prepaid a year is $720, and one extra customer usually covers it. The free audit will show you what you're missing before you spend anything.
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We rebuild small business websites for AI search and keep them ranked monthly. The audit is free, every price is published, and the work is verifiable on four live case studies.