Question

What is the minimum SEO budget you’d work with and what would you do with it?  

Answer 1

I'll do $US500 per month for certain amount of work. Clients are getting "I know how to do that" attitude so I'm only doing half work sort to speak the rest I dun giv a Fook lol and I make them sign a paper in front of a judge any shit happening afterwards ain't my fault and immune myself to their claims etc etc. Fun.  

Comments

@sewer you must be fun to work with.  

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I wasn't honest, always eexagerate for the sake of social media

Answer 2

Me seeing everyone commenting $750-$1000 or lower. Fuck, how many hours do you work for that? I just fired a few that were at $1250. I want at least $3k. Especially smaller businesses that need more work. I'd rather take a bigger small business that can afford the work.  

Comments

@newby5 I was lvl x, i might even still have some services. Havent checked in so long. Pulled my services years ago and created my own site. ericplotz1 was my user.  

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@torque2 I don't charge 700 PM lol. My lowest is about 1k for local SEO only. Most of mine are around the $1500 mark though. That's the average price in my town so I stay somewhat competitive.  

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@torque2 the biggest agency in Perth (my local city) charges about $1500 pm as an entry package. But my model is a bit different, I work primarily with local trade businesses (think fencing, concreters etc). I would love to know what you offer for the 3k pm mark, as that would be something to strive to. It's almost double the current market rate here though.  

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@asthenic99 Agencies ranking at the top of their local results are charging $10k/pm or more. I'm not sure how you're able to rank clients and get quick results for $1500. A lot of my strategy is involves backlinking, and only accepting clients that have established websites but need more traffic. Usually types of businesses that fit this criteria are: Surgeons, lawyers, chiropractors, heating and cooling, plumbing, etc etc

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@torque2 nice. Yeah I do similar just probably less links per month. I have my outreach team in place and average about $45 per link placed. The competition in Perth is probably a little bit less than your target market as well.  

Answer 3

U mean as a client (what's the minimum? ) or me as the SEO (whats the minimum I'd work for)?  

Answer 4

Depends on the market and strategies of the competition. Ultimately it’s down to the client to decide whether it’s worth it. can it give them enough of a return to be worthwhile

Answer 5

It’s great to do 1 pro bono client a year if you are stable and can. Though tire kickers only bring more tire kickers so I barely except clients under 2. 5k anymore

Comments

@centuple we did our first jv/commission based project last year to try it out. Hot tub company - worked okay. Didn’t provide massive return in year but year 2 I anticipate will make the project worthwhile

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@bhili ya definitely a situation that you do once you already have money under belt. If you are just starting out, I would t recommend it

Answer 6

150. 000 indian rupees per month

Comments

So around $2, 000. :)

Answer 7

£680 per month for local low competition SEO, doesn't get them lots of time but generally they dont need it to grow. Would love to transition to one or two bigger clients to replace 5 or 6 small ones

Answer 8

Be careful, this is the type of post where SEO’s living in their moms basements come out and try to say they have much higher retainers than they really do. Not the place to ask a question like this. But that’s just my monthly retainer, ya know, two cents.  

Comments

@vibrio3 there are definitely a few honest replies.  

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@billiards2 are you the voice in my head?  

Answer 9

The right answer as usual. is it depends. it depends upon your skill level. How big is your overhead? How many other people would you be paying to work on the campaign? So many variables here. You'll see people charging anywhere from low hundreds to six figures and hell I'm sure there's some doing bigger than that.  

Answer 10

I wouldn't get out of bed for less than $2K to start

Answer 11

Miinimum is a 90 minute Skype coaching session for £130. I can give really amazing value and actionable insights on a website, running through SEO techniques, content strategy and coding errors with the client live using screen sharing. These clients usually refer me repeatedly, and come back for more work (a monthly retainer). Many are also web developers who use me to train them to build their sites better.  

Answer 12

I only take clients that pay over $49, 997 per month for an 8 year contract. - Every "agency owner" in their mom's basement.  

Comments

@bunkhouse92077 Colbert the giveaway is usually "I won't get out of bed for less than. ". That's probably because they're permanently in bed munching Doritos and have little desire to contribute to improving someone's business.  

Answer 13

I charge $1. 5k/hour on days I’m feeling like giving a hand out. Sometimes I’ll charge just $500 if they’re extra nice

Answer 14

The responses to this post perfectly illustrate what a s***show the seo industry really is :-D

Comments

Yep - and I can 100% see why so many people have trust issued with agencys or SEO's - it's I prefer affiliate SEO< or just take SUPER high end clients that can pay a shit ton and dont want to micro-manage what i"m doing.  

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@sabella No-one agrees what SEO actually is - suffice to say, it's something you achieve, not something you do (though I bet some will argue with that). It's such a vague term that it's become meaningless in any useful way, unless there is a dialogue along the lines of (1) what you'll actually do, or (2) what you'll actually achieve. Clients don't stand a chance. Some think SEO comes in boxes & is sold by the kg. An industry ripe for exploitation and client mistrust.  

Answer 15

Its no wonder business owners are confused about pricing.  

Answer 16

$1/mo with a $18, 000 set up fee.  

Answer 17

1500 minimum

Answer 18

This subjective, It depends upon neee of project, Minimum is $200

Answer 19

We start at $100

Comments

What does that include?  

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@marotta2 a 1 min chat about the issue you need us to fi for you

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@melodymeloid That was convincing  

Answer 20

My minimum SEO budget is around 400 USD and in this budget I do entire onsite technical SEO and Authority building. In case, if niche is competitive then I do ask for extra budget for link building campaign. #hiremenow

Comments

@vibrio3 For authority building competitors analysis is the key to find links that can be easily acquired. Apart from this I do focus on pillowing and outreach activities. All you need to diversify your anchor text to get rank on search engine result page.  

Answer 21

While I get what some are saying, like “this is all over the place, no wonder business owners are confused”. On the other hand, the question is very open ended, like asking “how much does a home cost? ” There’s a wide range of options and amount of work that can be done. It’s not black & white, like there’s this agreed upon one-size-fits-all SEO package that everyone uses.  

Comments

@burress6370 Agreed.  

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Yet, if someone asked a real estate agent how much a house costs, they would never just throw out a number like most are doing here.  

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@inscribe87 if I were a realtor I might throw out a range. “Well, we’ve got everything from $2 to $2, 000, 000 depending on what you’re looking for” lol

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I'll have one of those $2 houses please. Do you have one with a water view :)

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@inscribe87 the $2 home is just a cardboard box. And yes, a water view can be accommodated!  

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@burress6370 sign me up!  

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I see what you're saying; but if you have a specific target industry, niche, size and target audience no reason why you can't have a minimum starting price.  

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@nila17365 in the situation you propose, you sound like you know all the variables. So in that case, I agree that you should have a benchmark of what YOU charge for that. But that said, should all providers charge the same as what you feel is the right rate? Should Burgers Priest charge the same for a burget as Burger King? Or are they allowed to say "well, we do things differently. We've possitioned ourselves differently"? Then add into the mix that this is an international industry. So there's people in India or the Philipines that will charge much different prices than someone in the USA or Australia or something. It's difficult to get everyone to agree on ranges when there's so many variables involved.  

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@burress6370 100% agree. I'm not suggesting everyone offers the same price, I'm just saying individuals and agencies can set their own min prices if they select other variables carefully.  

Answer 22

I see $100 what will a client get for $100 per month

Answer 23

Have you ever try this? You'll come back and thank me later  
http://bit.ly/39jjPKD

Answer 24

1k per month for US for classic SEO and 750 for Local SEO.  

Answer 25

Minimum of £350 per month for 6 hours of work + end of month report. All packages are catered to customers factoring their knowledge and technical limitations. The majority of what we do is consultancy as they don't want to pay us to implement the strategies and wish to save money by doing it themselves in house.  

Answer 26

$1k per month plus content and the link building is a separate budget as depending on the niche you will more or less links.  

Comments

@dagney ditto

Answer 27

I think it depends on what they get, what they're market is, where they are, and what their target is. You can't price it fixed without an analysis. . Never give out a price saying you start at. You just devalued and depositioned yourself at the same time vs competition.  

Answer 28

Depends on a lot of factors most crucial one is the amount of work you yourself are trying to do. Like if you are outsourcing everything costs may dramatically increase (though if you roam around and negotiate your costs may significantly decrease).  

Answer 29

Obviously i didn't read like all 150 comments, someone might have commented something similar but have seen some odd comments so here it goes. To start with, considering all different type and size of websites/businesses, I doubt if there can be a min budget for monthly/retainer projects. For hourly rate, ok that might be possible i mean to set a minimum rate. Even $100/m can be possible but how many hours or what does that include? Is it 2 hours per month or 10 or 30.? And then the other aspect of this is as a newbie freelancer myself (previous full time agency employee so never needed to find clients/projects), I see like $3/h bids on Upwork everyday or business owners posting "i want expert level but for $5". For some of us, it's a "go f. ck yourself" situation and then I see someone actually bid $3! Then, you get business owners bargaining for like $1 less for hourly rates etc. Finally, the ones giving "big" numbers, sorry but we all know how this industry is and how things work or what average fees/salaries are.  

Answer 30

It depends on the setup, requirements and expectations, e. g. do they have an in-house team who get nothing done, or a productive one? Will you be doing SEO or end up doing the work that their team can't be bothered to do? Do they want to be ranked for "leather wallets" for £300 within 2 months?  So many answers, to an unclear question. Would you quote ANY PRICE without even knowing if you can provide the client any benefit (win for them)? Or if you screen the client and decide you don't want to work with them (win for you)?  

Answer 31

Things then proceed to my pricing packages - It all depends on what services you are looking for . For e. g here's how I charge Pricing for Digital Marketing services provided by us. $350 for a detailed, comprehensive Technical SEO and website audit. $350 for Social Media Marketing audit as well as Email Marketing audit. $500 for Keyword Research and Competitor Analysis. Then begins the actual SEO Work (On-page, Off-page, Google Analytics Tracking Code installation, Google Search Console setup). . Google My Business optimization all of these are covered under different packages. There are other services that I provide which includes Content Writing, WordPress management services etc. I charge $2500 monthly which covers most of these services

Answer 32

1 hour off my time, showing them how to get most bang for their money. They mostly come back with wanting more.