How Much Does SEO Cost?
Most agencies hide pricing behind a form. This tool gives you a working range in about thirty seconds, based on what actually drives the cost: the size of your site, the kind of business you run, and the work you genuinely need.
What I Charge
I am Micah Albert and I do the work myself, so there is one price list and this is it. You can begin with a one-time SEO Diagnostic at $1,500, or go straight to a monthly program, which starts at $2,500 per month.
Not ready for the Diagnostic? Start with the $99 SEO Checkup
An automated crawl of up to 500 pages, Core Web Vitals, indexing and on-page checks, and a prioritized fix list in plain English, by email within 1 business day. No call. The $99 is credited toward the Diagnostic or your first month.
Get the $99 CheckupStart here: SEO Diagnostic, $1,500 one time
A full crawl, Google Search Console analysis, competitor gap analysis, keyword to page mapping, an indexation and canonical review, and a prioritized fix list. I walk you through all of it on a call so you know what matters and in what order.
The $1,500 is credited toward your first month if you go on to a monthly program. This is a real deliverable, not a sales call. If you never hire me again, the fix list is still yours and your developer can work from it.
Monthly programs
The tier follows how competitive your category is and how large the site is. Every tier includes strategy, implementation, and reporting from me directly. A monthly program is continuing work every month, not a one-time build: the project prices further down this page are for a single defined scope with an end date, and buying a few of those projects is not the same thing as a program that keeps competing for you month after month.
Foundation
$2,500 per monthFor: one location or a single service area, in a category that is not saturated. The site is basically sound and needs to be kept moving.
Includes: technical upkeep, Google Business Profile, on-page fixes, light content, and monthly reporting.
Growth
$4,000 per monthFor: competitive local verticals such as legal, medical, and home services in a major metro. Also a growing ecommerce catalog.
Includes: everything in Foundation, plus content strategy and production, internal linking architecture, structured data and schema, and AI search visibility work. I implement the technical work on the site. I do not hand over a list of recommendations and wait.
Competitive
$5,000 to $6,000 per monthFor: multi-location, multi-practice, or ecommerce at catalog scale. This tier is about how much site there is to work on, not about how much you are willing to spend.
Includes: everything in Growth, plus higher content volume, schema across templates, faceted navigation and indexation control, and migration or replatform support.
Enterprise and multi-site
$8,000 and up per monthFor: multiple brands, large catalogs, and a heavy technical backlog.
Includes: usually scoped as a program of defined projects rather than a flat retainer, so you can see what is being worked on each month.
Add-on: CRO, UX and development, $1,000 per month
Conversion review, UX fixes, and development work implemented on your site alongside the SEO program. Traffic that does not convert is not worth paying for, and waiting on a separate vendor to make the change is how a quarter disappears. This runs in the same month as the SEO work, and it can be added to any tier above.
The add-on is priced on top of your tier, and it does not move you along the tier ladder. Growth plus the add-on is $5,000 per month for Growth SEO and conversion work implemented together. That is a different thing from the Competitive tier, which is $5,000 to $6,000 for a larger site and no conversion work. Which one is right for you is decided by the site, not by the total.
How to pick a tier
The tier follows your category, not the size of your company. A small professional services firm in a major metro, competing against firms that spend real money on search, belongs in Growth at $4,000 per month and not in Foundation. Foundation is for categories where almost nobody is doing the work, so keeping a sound site moving is enough.
If you are not sure which one you are, that is what the $1,500 Diagnostic answers. I would rather place you correctly than sell you a tier you cannot use.
The whole price list, in one paragraph
The entry point is a one-time SEO Diagnostic at $1,500, credited toward your first month if you continue. Monthly programs are $2,500 for Foundation, $4,000 for Growth, $5,000 to $6,000 for Competitive, and $8,000 and up for enterprise and multi-site work. CRO, UX and development is an extra $1,000 per month on top of the tier price and can be added to any tier. There is no monthly program below $2,500.
Every engagement is a fixed project scope or a fixed monthly figure. I do not bill hourly. The calculator below covers one-time project work and gives you a planning range, not a quote. Ask for a fixed quote when you want a real number.
Get a Fixed Quote
Answer these once and you get a real number back instead of a discovery call that goes nowhere. There is no budget question, your calculator selections are attached automatically.
What gets sent
- Estimate
- Your current selections and range are attached automatically.
What Actually Drives the Cost of SEO
Price differences between proposals usually come down to five variables. Everything else is packaging.
Why We Do Not Bill by the Hour
Hourly billing pays for time, not outcomes. It rewards the slowest possible version of the work and punishes the experience that makes a fix take twenty minutes instead of two days. It also gives you no way to budget.
Everything here is scoped as a defined project or a fixed monthly program. You know the number before the work starts, and the number does not move because something took longer than expected.
Project scope
A defined piece of work with a deliverable and an end date. Audits, migrations, architecture rebuilds, schema deployment. Priced once, up front.
Monthly program
Ongoing strategy, implementation, and reporting at a fixed monthly figure. Suited to sites actively competing rather than sites being fixed.
What you never pay for
Account management layers, status meetings that could have been an email, or a junior team learning on your site. Micah Albert leads every engagement.
Typical Ranges by Engagement Type
Real numbers from how this work is actually scoped. Your range depends on the factors above, which is what the tool adjusts for.
Technical SEO audit
$1,500 flat for most sites. Larger sites are quoted before work starts. A prioritized findings register with the evidence attached, not a tool export. See what technical SEO covers.
Migration or replatform
$4,200 to $11,400. Full redirect mapping, template parity, and post-launch monitoring. See migration SEO.
Content strategy
$3,200 to $8,600. Intent mapping, briefs, and production tied to pages that can convert. See content strategy.
Ecommerce category work
$3,500 to $9,500. Collection and category optimization, faceted navigation, indexation control. See ecommerce SEO.
Local SEO
$1,400 to $3,800. Profile, categories, location pages, and citation cleanup. See local SEO.
Monthly program
$2,500 to $8,000 per month. Scaled to site size and how hard the market is. Small roster, so availability is limited.
SEO Pricing Questions
How much does SEO cost per month?
It depends on how competitive your category is, not on how big your company is. My monthly programs are $2,500 for one location in a category that is not saturated, $4,000 for competitive local verticals such as legal, medical, and home services in a major metro or a growing ecommerce catalog, $5,000 to $6,000 for multi-location, multi-practice, or catalog scale ecommerce, and $8,000 and up for multi-brand or enterprise work. CRO, UX and development adds $1,000 per month on top of any of those.
You will see agencies and freelancers advertising $500 to $1,200 per month. That is the low end of the market and it is not what I charge. At that price the work is templated and delegated to someone junior. My lowest monthly program is $2,500 per month, and if you want to spend less than that to start, the one-time $1,500 SEO Diagnostic is the way in.
Why is SEO so expensive?
Because the work that moves rankings is senior judgment applied to a specific site, and that does not scale cheaply. A crawl produces hundreds of issues. Knowing which three are costing you money, and what to ignore, is the part you are paying for. Cheap SEO is usually cheap because it is delegated to someone learning on your site.
Is SEO worth the cost for a small business?
It depends on whether people search for what you sell. If they do, and your competitors rank and you do not, then yes. If your customers come entirely from referrals and nobody searches your category, spend the money elsewhere. That is a question worth answering honestly before anyone quotes you.
The least expensive way to answer it is the one-time $1,500 SEO Diagnostic. It shows you what the opportunity actually is before you commit to $2,500 per month or more, and the $1,500 is credited toward your first month if you decide to continue.
How long before SEO pays for itself?
Technical fixes can show movement in weeks. Content and authority work usually take three to six months to compound, and competitive markets take longer. Anyone promising ranking results on a fixed date is guessing. What can be committed to is the work, the timeline for delivering it, and honest measurement of what changed.
Do you charge hourly?
No. Everything is a defined project scope or a fixed monthly program. Hourly billing pays for time rather than outcomes, and it makes budgeting impossible.
What is included in the price?
Strategy, implementation, and reporting from the person doing the work. There is no account management layer, no junior handoff, and no separate charge for the conversations that make the work correct. Every engagement is documented the same way our case studies are: the challenge, what changed, and the measured result.