Pricing
Four ways to work with us
Start with a free 30-minute call, move to a scoped audit, then choose between ongoing advisory or full implementation. Fixed fee for defined work, monthly fee for ongoing work, and never a percentage of your media spend.
Four ways to work with us
Most clients start with the first and move into the second or third once they know what they need. The first is free and the last is the fastest.
2. Focused audit
A scoped review of one area — technical SEO, tracking, paid media structure, or a full site review. Written report, prioritized roadmap, recorded walkthrough. Yous keep it and can act on it internally.3. Monthly advisory
Ongoing strategy, prioritisation and review. We specify, your team executes. The model most clients choose, because it builds internal capability rather than dependency on an agency.4. Advisory and implementation
We diagnose, specify and execute. Fastest route to change, and the right choice where there is no in-house marketing capacity or where speed matters more than capability transfer.Why cheap SEO is usually expensive
SEO is priced by the market, not by the labour. What a competent strategy costs and what agencies charge for SEO are only loosely connected, because the gap is where the margin lives — and that gap is also where the risk lives.
The specific failure mode is a technique that works for six months and then triggers a manual action. Private blog networks, guest posts on expired domains, PBNs spun up for a campaign and abandoned, cloaking, doorway pages. These do produce movement, which is exactly why clients who bought them report a good first six months.
| Signal | What it looks like | What is actually happening |
|---|---|---|
| "We can get you #1 in 30 days" | A fixed timeline quoted before anyone has looked at your site | Nobody can promise this. The only levers are time and penalty risk |
| "Secret techniques" | Deliberately vague about method | If it were defensible, it would be describable |
| Rankings without impressions | Positions reported on low-volume terms | Being #1 for a term nobody searches is worth nothing |
| Traffic without conversions | Sessions reported, no revenue | Wasted spend is still wasted spend |
| No access to your accounts | Reporting via screenshots | They cannot see the data you would act on, so they are not acting on it |
| Link volume as the KPI | Referring domains reported as the headline metric | Volume is not quality, and it is frequently how a network gets detected |
The market range for competent SEO retainers is broad and varies with market competitiveness and scope. More useful than the number is knowing what the fee buys — which is covered in how much SEO costs in 2026.
What every engagement includes
- A written diagnosis you keep, whether or not you continue with us.
- Access to your analytics, Search Console, ad accounts and server logs. A consultant who cannot read your server logs is working from estimates.
- A prioritized roadmap with effort, cost and expected impact stated for each item.
- A clear statement of what is out of scope. Ambiguity here is where invoices grow.
- Written reporting that leads with what changed, not with what we did.
- A named person who does the work, not a rotating account team.
- No lock-in beyond an initial term. Clients stay because it works.
How we price, and why
The commercial model is deliberately simple, and it is the same on every engagement: a fixed fee for a defined deliverable, or a monthly fee for ongoing work.
How do you charge for work where the outcome is unclear?
Fixed price where the deliverable is a document — an audit, a strategy, a tracking implementation. Time and materials where scope genuinely cannot be defined in advance, with a written cap and a check-in before that cap is reached. We never use pure percentage-of-spend pricing, because it rewards spending rather than results.
Do you offer performance-based pricing?
Only where we can cleanly isolate the outcome, and rarely. Payment linked to rankings is a misaligned incentive: it rewards short-term manipulation over the durable work that survives. Payment linked to a genuinely measurable commercial outcome, with attribution agreed in advance, is sometimes reasonable. We will tell you if we think it is wrong for your situation.
What drives the cost of an engagement?
Scope of analysis, size of the site or ad account, number of channels, how competitive your market is, how much content volume is genuinely required, and how quickly you need results. Two businesses with identical websites can justify very different fees because their economics differ.
Is there a minimum engagement?
Yes, and it exists for a practical reason: a competent review takes days of analysis regardless of how small the site is. There is a floor below which the work cannot be done properly, and we would rather say so at the start than discover it halfway through.
What is the notice period?
Monthly engagements run on 30 days' notice from either side. Project work terminates on completion. We do not use twelve-month lock-ins with new clients — we would rather earn the renewal.
Do you work with our existing in-house team?
Often, and it is frequently the better outcome. We diagnose and specify; your team executes against a specification detailed enough to implement without escalating every decision. That builds capability rather than dependency, and it is cheaper for both sides.
Will you work alongside our existing agency?
Yes. It works well when the agency handles execution and we handle strategy or independent review. It is less comfortable when both parties claim to own strategy, because that usually means nobody does. We would rather say so than compete for a scope that cannot be split.