Notes · July 2026

How much does SEO cost?

SEO runs anywhere from $99 a month to $10,000 a month, and that range is not a typo. It is the difference between automated junk that can get you penalized and real work that earns rankings. Here is what each price point actually buys, and how to tell which one you are being sold.

What the price actually tracks

SEO costs what it costs for two reasons: how much ongoing human work it takes, and how competitive your market is. A dentist in a small town needs far less than a law firm in a major city fighting twenty other firms for the same searches. Anyone quoting you a price before they know your market and your goals is reading from a rate card, not thinking about your business.

The honest price ranges

$50 to $300 a month: automated and usually harmful

At this price a human barely touches your account. It is software spinning out low-quality links and thin pages. In a small market it does nothing. At worst it earns you a Google penalty that costs far more to clean up than you ever saved. Cheap SEO is the most expensive kind, because you pay for it twice.

$500 to $1,500 a month: real local SEO

This is where most small businesses should land. A real person doing real work: optimizing your pages, building legitimate local citations, earning reviews, publishing content that answers what your customers search. It is not glamorous and it is not instant, but it is the work that actually moves rankings. Our monthly plan sits at the bottom of this range, $500, and the scope is published like everything else we do.

$2,000 to $5,000+ a month: agencies and competitive markets

Bigger teams, content produced at volume, and the firepower to compete in crowded or national markets. Legitimate when the competition genuinely demands it. Overkill for a Bentonville dentist who needs to beat four other dentists, not four hundred.

One-time, monthly, or hourly?

SEO is sold a few different ways, and the right one depends on what you need:

One-time audit or tune-up ($500 to $5,000): a single pass that fixes your foundation, the technical problems, the on-page basics, and your local setup. Often all a small site in a light market needs. Ours is a fixed $1,500.
Monthly retainer ($500 and up): ongoing work to keep climbing in a market where standing still means falling behind.
Hourly consultant ($100 to $300 an hour): advice, not execution. Useful if you have someone in-house to do the actual work.

The red flags that should end the conversation

"Guaranteed number one rankings." Nobody controls Google. Anyone who guarantees a position is either lying or about to use tactics that get you penalized. This one line should end the call.
$99 a month with big promises. The math does not work. Real work costs real money, and that price buys automation.
A twelve-month contract. Good SEO earns your renewal every month. A long lock-in protects them, not you.
No reporting. If you cannot see what was done and what moved, assume nothing was done. Vague "strategy" with no deliverables is the oldest trick in the business.

What we charge, and why it is on the page

We do the two things most people need: a one-time SEO Tune-Up at $1,500 that fixes your site once, and ongoing SEO at $500 a month with rank tracking and a plain report you actually read. Month to month, no lock-in. Both prices are published, for the same reason our web design prices are: hiding the number is a sales tactic, and we would rather not run one.

Is it even worth it?

For a business that lives on local customers finding you, yes, but only once the fundamentals are in place. There is no point paying for SEO if your site is slow or you have no Google Business Profile. If you are not sure why you are invisible right now, we wrote the plain version in this note. Fix the foundation first, then decide whether to keep climbing.

The bottom line

For a small business, real SEO work runs $500 to $1,500 a month, or a one-time fix in the low thousands. Below that is usually automated junk that does nothing or does harm. Above it buys firepower you may not need. Guarantees are lies, long contracts protect the wrong person, and whatever you pay, insist on seeing the work every month. That is the whole test.