Near the end of December 2011, we ran a survey on this blog asking consultants and agencies of all sizes and geographies to contribute their pricing models and cost structures. I'm pleased to share the results of that survey in the hopes that it will give everyone in the search industry a better idea of the range of fees and the services provided.
Obviously, this data is imperfect - SEOmoz is not a professional data surveying firm and our only tool was a basic list of questions on SurveyMonkey. That said, I'd be surprised if a professional surveyor found dramatically different data - there was enough participation to receive a trustworthy sample size and firms provided their personal/contact information (many of which I recognized while digging through the responses, but obviously will not be sharing identities publicly), which means we likely did not receive intentionally manipulative/misleading information. The data is provided below in three formats - first, some personal, high level takeaways from the survey, next an infographic from the great folks at AYTM Market Research and finally, a dump of the responses in CSV and Excel formats (without any personally identifiable info).
Do note that while 600+ responses were received, we've elected to share data only from those regions with 10+ responses (490 total), which include:
- United States - 287 respondents
- United Kingdom - 76 respondents
- Canada - 34 respondents
- Australia/New Zealand - 28 respondents
- Germany/France/Italy/Netherlands - 34 respondents
- India - 31 respondents
Many countries had 1-3 respondents and while we certainly appreciate those contributions, it's our feeling that sharing this data could actually be misleading/non-productive as a single firm/consultant could dramatically skew the results. All the information in this blog post, the infographic and the Excel data dump are split into those 6 regions.
Top 9 Takeaways
These are my personal takeaways from the data:
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Hourly SEO Costs Vary Across Countries, but $76-$200/hour is Most Common
With the exception of India (the only developing region that was well-represented in our survey), hourly costs of $76-$200 (representing three responses) covered 50%+ of all firms. It was highest in Australia/New Zealand at 62%, followed by 58.1% in the US and 56% in Canada. Granted, this is a wide range, but it provides the answer to a frequently-asked question from those seeking SEO services for the first time.
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By-the-Project Pricing is Popular and Most Commonly $1,000-$7,500
70.1% of respondents said they offer project-based pricing (the most common pricing system selected in the survey). 43% of consultancies were represented by the four price ranges: $1,001-$1,500, $1,501-$2,500, $2501-$5,000 and $5,001-$7,500. Obviously, there's a wide variety of prices here, not surprising given that the types of projects offered may be quite diverse.
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Monthly Retainer Pricing Has the Widest Distribution
While both hourly and by-the-project rates do have a wide range of pricing, monthly retainers are certainly the most distributed of the price questions asked in our survey. The two most common were $251-$500/month (13.8%) and $2,501-$5,000/month (11.3%).
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The Death of Hands-On SEO Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
There's been plenty of hand-wringing over the past few years from both bloggers and SEO clients complaining that consulting firms don't provide enough "hands-on" help. Yet, in the survey, 88.5% of respondents said they offer "hands-on SEO changes to sites" and 79.1% provide "hands-on link building." Clearly, hands-on help is still very popular.
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Inbound/Organic > Pure SEO
Pure "SEO" consultants/agencies may be fading as broader "inbound marketing" services firms (offering SEO, social, content, conversion, analytics, etc) rise. The data showed 150 respondents (25%) saying they were primarily focused on SEO while a slightly greater number, 160 (26.7%), offered a broader range.
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Web Design/Development Agencies do a Lot of SEO
The third most popular type of respondent was a web design/development agency offering SEO services. In the UK, these types of firms were better represented than either SEO-focused providers or broader inbound/organic firms.
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Employees:Clients/Month Ratio is Between 1-2
The screenshot below takes advantage of SurveyMonkey's crosstab feature, which enabled me to look at the number of monthly active clients broken down by the quantity of employees a consulting firm has (you can only choose 5 responses at once, but the data's still revealing).
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Vast Majority of Consultants Service Small-Medium Businesses
This may seem mathematically obvious, but it's not always top of mind at many of the marketing conferences I've attended, nor the blogosphere in general. A disproportionate amount of attention is often focused on top brands, but in the world of consulting, most firms service relatively small businesses. Even those who do serve larger businesses (perhaps aspirationally) often offer services to small and medium businesses. 41% of respondents offer consulting to small, hyperlocal businesses, e.g. the restaurant around the corner.
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Though Project-Based Pricing is Most Popular, the Majority of Consultancies Also Offer Monthly Retainers and Hourly Rates
Early in my SEO career, project-based pricing seemed relatively rare (though quantifying this is hard since no formal surveys I'm aware of collected this info). Today, it was the top response, offered by 70% of the participating firms. Monthly retainer pricing was next, offered by 60%, followed closely by hourly rates (55%).
I'm certain others perusing the data will find other interesting takeaways (hope to read some of those in the comments).
Infographic from AYTM
Many thanks to the team at AYTM for putting together the following graphic representing the data in the survey across the 6 regions with more than 10 respondents. The image below shows a sample of their work and links to a larger version here on Moz:
Use the code below to share this on your site:
<center><a data-cke-saved-href="https://moz.com/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services" href="https://moz.com/blog/seo-pricing-costs-of-services"><img data-cke-saved-src="https://aytm.com/press/IG/SEO-cost_1.png" src="https://aytm.com/press/IG/SEO-cost_1.png" width="500" alt="seo pricing" /></a><br />Infographic by <a data-cke-saved-href="https://moz.com" href="https://moz.com">SEOmoz</a> & <a data-cke-saved-href="https://aytm.com" href="https://aytm.com">AYTM Market Research</a></center>
Feel free to use/embed the larger, linked-to version, but please do provide credit back to AYTM and this post (nofollows are fine - just want to make sure folks are getting the right data source) :-)
Data Dump Files
I've made two files available from the survey data for those interested in looking at the raw figures in more depth:
- Excel file with responses broken out by the 6 regions - download
- Unfiltered summary of responses to all questions - download
The individual results contain personally identifiable information, and even without the emails/company names, the details of location, services, pricing, etc. could be used to determine an individual consulting firm's identity. Given that we promised anonymity when launching the survey, I felt that providing this data, while valuable, wasn't appropriate. If you have specific filters you'd like to see applied, please let us know in the comments and we'll try to make that happen.
Many thanks to everyone who participated in this survey. In the next few months, SEOmoz will be launching a redux of our 2010 Industry Survey, which will hopefully provide even more detailed information across all parts of the search, social and inbound marketing fields. Stay tuned!
I actually have recently thought quite a bit about this very topic - how I charge and how I compare myself with my competiton in terms of "fair market value". This post is not only timely, but incredibly relevant in a saturated market who can really charge anything they want.
Question -
Are most SEO's charging by the hour or project?
I see the survey suggests that the common practice is to charge by the project - but i find myself doing a lot of extra work that way - any feedback?
Good question (and not totally obvious from the above without downloading), thus I've got a screenshot from SurveyMonkey that helps answer: https://min.us/mpdH5JIpa
Ahhh, good point and i should have done the downloading first. However, after looking at the download data, it s still questionable as to if a "by project" quote can ever really suffice and if so, if it really is porfitable?
For me, just like off site marketing, SEO is never really done. Therefore, regardless of your up front costs, isn't an on-going retainer a must?
In my experience, there's a lot of folks who are seeking one-time services. One of my last consulting gigs (back in 2009) was a series of training days for Disney - it was a single, project-based quote that fit the needs quite well. I suspect there's a lot of that type of thing in the market, particularly when an in-house team that already has SEO on-staff hires agencies/consultants for additional assistance.
You're right. I am being short sided here. I guess I am looking for long term engagements and client's who are looking for on-going website marketing help.
P.S. Where is the red underline spell check in this comment opportunity? I must have mis-typed 12 times now... :-/
I think that people who ask for a 1 time assistance generally do have a reasonable experience in SEO and want help in advanced topics only or they are totally unaware of how SEO works.
This has lead to high client dissatisfaction. People who dont know how SEO works think that SEO is a one time effort.
SEO or inbound marketing is a continuous and concentrated effort which evolves with the growth of the website and constantly changing search algorithms.
Making it clear what the goals of the project are and ensuring there's no scope creep are essential Quantifying timescales and results are difficult though.
Setting expectation andsome customer education is also necessary especially when you are up against competition from "get results fast, #1 ranking can be yours now" type operations.
Fixing broken sites and getting the client onto the right track can work well as fixed price projects.
Agreed. Part of what we should do as SEOs is educate the customers. This gives them a better appreciation of what we do, plus the understanding that SEO is an ongoing process.
After a client sees great results from an initial SEO one time 'package' they are much easier to convince to go with a monthly deal.
@Saibose - you touch on something very important. Even when clients think they understand how SEO works, unless the client is expecting to create an in-house SEO team - I've found it nearly impossible for a business owner to run their business as well as manage the growing complexity of good SEO for their business.The high client dissatisfaction out there over SEO is my main irritation. Everywhere there's people pushing SEO services and assurances where clients get taken for on average 4x months of fees before realising that services they are paying for are not actually being delivered!
Educating the client on realistic SEO/SEM goals, with monitoring against set goals has to be the right way to go. I personally offer a money back guarantee if goals are not achieved and enjoy putting my money where my mouth is. Thankfully, only once in 11 years I have had to provide free services due to this guarantee.
I'm sorry I have to ask you sound like upfront honest guy. I'm not questioning your dignity at all sir but what types of services do you offer a guarantee on? Most people make guarantees on ranking and those people are at the mercy of Google so they're essentially making a guarantee that will one day be impossible to for Them to actually know the outcome of which to me is crazy. I do wholeheartedly believe in giving the customer what is right however some customers are harder to educate than others as I am sure you are all aware. And when the customer tries to do it all themselves or something like that to save money it's nothing but a headache That hurt me so badly I have put in every contract that one of my employees must be webmaster (Unless extenuating circumstances)
Please do not think I am insinuating anything against your practices or your way of doing business sir I am just amazed at 11 years and The sheer luck of only one client not having an issue is outstanding never having to return a payment. Are you charging by the hour or are you charging by the job? And if you don't mind me asking what is your Base fee? If that's too personal please just ignore it.
(he's probably going to ignore)
I work with smaller clients in the Uk and find that they initiall have very limited budgets. I always include an option of Half Day Consulting / Training / Hands on SEO in all my proposals.
I started offering that in November last year and I've had 2 clients take it up. One of those has converted to a regular monthly retainer and the other has contracted for an ongoing half day each week.
It's great value for them and a real breat in routine for me :) I charge £200 for each half day (1pm to 5pm) I always do afternoons.
I just have to give you the "big ups" for all your great infographics. They are neat, helpfull and faboulus at the sametime. You deserve all the links you get!
If you are doing a lot of extra work than you should also add such labour cost to the project total amount.
If any one wants to rank for any terms than this will be a task of 4 - 6 months (provided client do not want to rank for poker or viagara or similar very very highly competitive keywords).
Arrange your schedule, calculate your hours and get the figure :)
But however I do not think that you can take SEO as one time project it is on going project because in SEO we need to -
To me SEO, simplistally broken down, is 2 different things: on page and off.
In the past, I thought I could optimize a site and then link build to it on-going - and it reach it's goals. However, I now see that SEO (on-page) is an on-going effort that requires monthly attention (broken links, updating H1 tags, additional kw research, etc) therefore "SEO" requires a monthly retainer. Period.
I agree completely. On-page need to be adjusted depending on analytics reports. Keyword tools and search estimates are not enough long term, even searching habits for a specific niche change over time. SEO is never done and a retainer is what I normally recommend to my clients. I do one offs with trainings like Rand said and always bundle them into a project if I can. I do some Google Analytics training at the very least for the small shops.
I have worked the hourly side as well as projects. I personally prefer projects since I can dig in deep and not worry about going over the hours I quoted. If you set expiations up front and discuss scope creep BEFORE you get started I don’t think it’s extra work. Just make sure all parties know the plan before you start. I have had to start whole new projects before due to extras being added but the clients understood since it was outlined in the original agreement.
Hey Jen
How do you differentiate between monthly retainer and project pricing? I've been doing monthly project based price for over a year with a client -- is that essentially retainer in your mind? And do you attach X number of hours to the retainer based on your hourly rate?
Thanks!
I think it's a good practice to start the SEO project with a fixed budget that covers the first 1-2 months (keyword research, on-site optimisation, strategies, etc), then continue with monthly hours. If the client is satisfied and needs additional products or services, then invoicing is easier because you just add the extra amount of hours.
Sure, I get your point. Mine? I still think that (aside for Rand's example = clients, such as Sea World, looking for one time projects) client's really need on-going SEO. So, for me to provide a quote to fix your site once and for all, I need to quote much higher than I would to fix the basics and then manage your site needs on-going. I guess the perfectionist in me can't see a website as ever complete - from any aspect.
SEO is on-going!
Do clients really and truly need on-going SEO? Not really. I have many sites that I haven't touched in years that have ranked #1 for five, six, seven years now. So it depends on the site. On-page is most important of course, and if a client only has budget for that, then that is where you begin as it is much better than nothing. Sometimes you can get the results you need just by doing that and being done with it (usually on the small business end of things).
And if you get that client a number 1 ranking and they are happy with it, they won't really feel a need to keep paying you every month, nor should they - unless and until they get passed. And if they do, and it impacts their bottom line (and they were happy with your services), then they will call you to get them back to that top spot. I guess my point is that SEO isn't necessarily an on-going project. Sure, it would be great for the site, and your revenue, if you found someone willing to pay you month over month to keep a top ranking. But is it truly necessary? Usually not.
Hey Joe,
In my experience clients do need ongoing SEO to keep up with the competition. With the changes delivered in Panda (on-going) and the possibility of SEO work done by competitors then it's surely doing a disservice to your clients if you let them believe it's a one time fix.
You're also loosing out on your own income.
:)
(Before I say anything, I say "very true, Mr. Counsell)
Mr. Godbey, Mr. Rozsa (el-menterosa), and fellow Colleagues:
First, quickly, to Mr. Rozsa, yes, you did say something to get some thumbs down, but I love your enthusiasm. Way to pump yourself up!
To Mr. Godbey, responding to the
From the direction of some of the previous dialogue to begin the entire page's thread, I would not be surprised if someone can see past the use of terminology which might not be understood and the subsequent discourse about it's related pricing would definitely know where not to go to for SEO and SEO-related services.
The beginning of this thread was quite discouraging for a potential-client. Luckily, the guys in the ties took it in a better direction, and did it without adding insult to injury; self-inflicted injury, I should state, though.
Whoever has no idea what I'm speaking about-great! That's why you gotta respect a Capitalist Society; because, regardless of what negativity is magnified, without turning into a one-minded, made-believe wonderland...of Communists Utopian Theorists, Capitalism still allows something bright to shine, and buries what is not going to shine - because it is not bright.
You got to give your Client what they want! If they want a one-time project, give it to them! Why not? Because this is not a Project-based service? Guess what, though?
That's not what they think!
So, give them what they want, and as you're letting them know how you're going to do that for them, you need to focus alllllllll of what they're saying they want waaaaaaaay down to what you're....willing...to do...for the...price...they want to pay.
Now, while you're doing THAT, you need to also be:
EDUCATING them
on why they really do need to think about a longer term contract of some sort (which they usually do...unless they don't, which, if you know whatyou're doing, you'll be able to identify).
Offering classes, now, that's probably too much. I must admit. I'm not lazy, but that's realllllly, really, really pushing it. The salesperson - be that you and yourself because it's only you, or your sales rep, whoever that is - needs to be educating while engaged with the client during the presentation, pitch, the meeting - wwwwwhatever.
Now, I'm not Tony Robbins, but if a client does ask me for classes, then, what am I going to do? Of course....I'm teaching; getting the projector out and everything. Whatever it takes!
You got to know what you're offering, what you can offer, what you're value is (notice I said "VALUE"), where you're client wants to go, thinks they want to go, is going, and, finally, where it is that you both are able to maximize and capitalize upon your paths' intersection, or convergence, if that be the direction of events.
I disagree if you work with any client who has a semi competitive term you need on going SEO. For example if you work in "Life Insurance" you will have say 40+ competitors all trying to rank for the key terms, every one will be trying to take you down, it would never be a viable strategy to say hey lets put it on hold for 2 years as we are number one.
Sure if you rank for "Brand Terms" or "low competition" then yes you may put things on hold.
Joe,
I agree that for clients with very little competition, this may be true. But eventually, the competitors will start to show up, your no. 1 site will quickly fall and it will take you quite a bit of effort to regain your position.
If, however, you're continually producing at least some quality content and doing even a minimal amount of relevant link-building on a monthly basis - it's much easier to retain that ranking position.
It's better to get the clients in the mindset from the start that they need to continually market their site if they want to maintain/ grow their business.
Funny, all the thumbs down on this one. All I was saying is that MOST small business owners are trying to rank #1 for something related to their business, and for their locale. 95% of the time you can get them to #1 and they are happy with it. Trying to sell them to stay there isn't 100% necessary (except to you for revenue purposes, of course). It's tough to sell degrees of #1, as in "you are number one, but just barely" vs. "you are number one and pretty much set for the next two years".
It's all about making clients happy. Some need SEO on an on-going basis, others (dare I say, most) don't. Did I say something inaccurate to deserve the thumbs down? :)
Hey, I get what you're saying but isn't it down to how you set out your proposal.
A one time "fix it all" can never actually be that.
I tend to give a high level view of the on-page SEO activity based on £75 per hour (~$117). Sensing what their budget is in early conversations is a key point here.
Questions like "What's your current marketing spend" might get you close to what level they think at.
Gyorgy +1
Thannks for explaining in easy words ...
@dayofjen I would say, it's better if you decide the charge as per keywords' competition.
Second thing is ask your client to give you a list of keywords, 15 or 20 keywords. May be you do not agree but max of seo sevices ask their client to give a list of keywords they want to rank on, just because the benefit for those seo sevice provider in this case is, usually clients gives a list of less competitive keywords and easy to rank on, it's a trick to have satisfied customers and additionally you can give their ranking without much efforts.
If keywords are of high competiton then you need to charge some fixed amount on monthly basis.
Hope it will help you...
That would work in 2003. Now: link building for increased organic traffic is dependent on keyword diversity. So, number of target keywords is irrelevant. It’s more about a natural, organic campaign that incorporates a ton of secondary terms.I need to select realistic target goals for my client’s budgets, sure, but I primarily need to focus on what works within their budget. You have $500? Can I help you? Yes. I just have to find that low hanging fruit keyword strategy and start there. If you have a bigger budget I can target more keywords specifically? YES! But, my strategy isn’t about targeting the most keywords; it’s about targeting the best converting keywords for your budget and helping you reach that ROI.
In this case I would say Gyorgy's suggestion suites best for you.
Agreed. Practice in place. Guess just still having difficulty with the larger, one time only projects. It;s hard to say, yes, Mr. Client, you need $10K.
I think most companies would offer the project basis and then also the per hour consulting basis.
Sure many are more focused on projects yet I see most markets moving into month by month contracts in some cases.
In my experience most clients are looking for a one-time project, so typically we charge by project vs. by the hour. I can see where you might find yourself doing a lot of extra work that way if you aren't careful to project the time-estimate for individual projects. And to make sure you provide something in the estimate of services that outlines what is considered as "extra work" and what the additional charge will be.
I think businesses are in the dark when it comes to understanding how much research and detail goes into an SEO project and so we do our best to map out the steps before we start.
Setting clear expectations, and educating the client is key, I think. This also gives them a better appreciation of the SEO process and what is needed AFTER the initial SEO project is complete. They need to understand what needs to be done on an ongoing basis in order to see results (re: Why aren't I number 1!)
So do you lay out how many hours research, etc takes and figure that into the cost of the one time project sum? Like do you say, 5 hours for keyword research, 5 hours for competive analysis, etc so that the client knows how much work you are putting in?
I very much have the same experience as you Gwen - clients completely in the dark, and definitely wanting a fixed price and not wanting to pay ongoing…
Educating clients is very important, but also very challenging…
We see plenty of people who want to to top of Google - but when we ask top for what they look very blank....
I prefer to charge by the hour for all of our services, but I do give good detailed estimates up front so client knows what to expect and what might be additional later on.
Personally I've experimented mostly every kind of paying options since I work as independent consultant. What about now? It depends. Sometimes a client asks for a simple audit, maybe a forensic SEO one (usually if something bad occurred)... in that case I offer a per project payment.
But when it comes to long term consulting (including also the hands-on variation), the option I've found to be the best both for me and the clients is to present a detailed timetable of actions with their corresponding fees.
This is because when you start with a client there is always a first analytical phase, where you need to conduct an SEO audit of the site, do keyword search and competitive analysis and plan the inbound marketing strategy.
That means that I usually mix "project" payments (covering the first analyitical phase) and monthly ones, which will be calculated over the base of many factors:
Optionally I charge eventually asked for/needed CRO action (which maybe be partly included in the first analytical phase).
And, even though I present somehow packages fees in the italian version of my site, I took care to underline how the fees presented are simply indicative, because - finally - every project/campaign is different and different will be the cost of it.
To end, as I am an indipendent consultant, I have the freedom to be elastic when it comes to projects, especially startups, that I consider may have a big success in a near future. In that case I may be able to assume some risks and ask just for covering the "expenses" (I don't know how to define it better in English), but contractually putting clear that if the startup is going to start obtaining also an economical success, therefore I will receive a % of them for a pre-calculated period of time.
Nice post gfiorelli, I agree you need to lay out all the actions and associated costs. You can hook it all up in MS project also would be advisable to have it all in a contract for both partys to agree on.
Hi Gfiiorelli I am right now in Italy why don't we get together to discuss this price chart further? I am willing to travel...
In my experience, project based pricing works best, the important thing here is to write a detailed proposal with the scope of the project and the limitations. If the client requests services that fall out of scope you can then bill by the hour for the extra work
Looking at the raw Excel file - 10% of U.S. firms around longer than 10 years? Is it safe to assume that they're older web design firms or used to offer traditional marketing services?
If there's ever a follow up to this, I'd be curious to see Question 6 (How many active clients does your consultancy/agency manage at a given time?) adjusted to find out how much time is spent per client, or total time per month. It's difficult to distinguish between companies serving 2-5 clients full-time vs. part-time, etc.
Maybe Rand (SEO Moz) should survey everyone who responds to this post (AKA the people doing the real SEO work).
agreed!
everyone who is responding to this post had an opportunity to participate in the survey. Perhaps you should have participated??? It was less than a month ago he was looking for survey participants, see: https://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-much-do-seo-consultants-agencies-charge
FYi - I did participate, and have been anxiously awaiting these results. ;)
Yes... all joking aside. I would have participated had I have seen the post. I try to follow everything, but I'm a busy gal. Missed it.
This was an open survey and Rand posted it along with all the team all over social properities, every one who is doing "real" seo work had the chance for a week to join in.
Yeah, my comment was totally meant to be facetious - but humor doesn't come out too well in text. I actually own and operate a real SEO firm - but I'm generally so busy I must have missed the open survey. I would have been happy to participate though!
I meant - maybe a 2nd round of polls? I'm just sorry I missed it.
Also, has there been a survey on the same topic but specific to social media? I'd be really curious to see that as well.
My company will be celebrating 11 years in a few months - we started doing pure SEO, but realized we needed to branch-out into web design & conversion when a client fired us for sending LOTS of *non-converting* traffic to his awful website.
The hourly pricing information is interesting. I'll like to see the results broken down by geographically areas within the U.S. I would assume that the major cities are skewing the data.
I agree, It would be nice to see it broken down by region and even city. Not complaining though. This information is very useful.
The disparity in prices is quite drepressing from an India perspective :) while it could be quite lucrative from the other. Some experts in India charge less for a whole month than a days' wage of an SEO consultant in USA, UK or Australia. I recall once a prospective client came to me from Europe through a satisfied client's referral. He had full faith in us as the client who referred him was in top three for dozens of highlly competitive keywords within 6 months of hiring us. THIS new fellow wanted us to work for similarly competitive keywords. I quoted him just $800 and he was insisting on even less. I referred to him some well known names. When he asked quote for the same project none of the companies quoted less than $5000. In few days he came back rushing to us. Now he is still with us (more than a year) happy, satisfied and profiting.
What makes me feel bad some times is when despite our professionalism and delivery of great results clients think that Indian SEO community provide low quality services. And when they hire big agencies for big prices just to get the same work done mostly by India experts in backened then they think Ahh, I am going to rule search engines very soon.
I feel proud to have participated in the survey. India SEO community should decide up on a basic minimum price structure, ethics etc to act like an organized industry.
OMG - OH MY GOD!!! lol.... How amazing of a job did you do getting information out there that, without a doubt, every SEO Manager would have loved to see. Whether anyone switches their hourly rates or per project costs is irrelevent. This post, with all the statistical graphs and things of the sort gives us all a stable platform to make considerations over the next few months, whether we should up or down our prices. I just set my 2012 price rate, in the 125-165$ / hr rate ..... but i charge by project anyway, estimating those figures.
Anyway Randfish, I think I can speak for many of us. Thank you for this post. I always ready pricing posts... but they never have any form of statistics to back them up, and you finally provided me with one. I'm asounished (maybe in a goood mood too :) ). But Good job on conducting the research and providing this real time statistics for us to go by, with regards to SEO Pricing.
Best Wishes for Success with this New Year 2012!! Thanks again Rand :)
I agree wholeheartedly with Davidmk's response. Great job Rand! Thank you for your efforts!
I actually published a report on the fees charged by top 50 SEO firms in the world some 2 years ago. I collected the data by visiting their websites, through personal inquiries and via SEOmoz marketplace. Later on i removed that post because many firms requested me to do so. But i can still give you a broad range. It was $500-$150000 per month per project back in 2010. Some firms didn't take any project less than $10000/month.Hourly SEO rates were highest in US. Offcourse this was all back in 2010 and my data set comprised of only small number of top notch well known SEO companies/consultants. But i believe that things have changed now and rates are not as high as they used to be. I personally know many UK firms who will happily do SEO of your website for as low as £300 per month per project. Competition from the East and ever increasing saturation of the search market may force many firms/consultants to reduce their rates further in the coming years.
Would love to know the TOP SEO firms name and their website, if you still know and remember.
Sending you message for my email address.
Interesting insights from the data but how representative is it?
Would be curious to know what SEOMOZ estimate the total market size of SEO companies to be?
Hi Rand! Any chance of seeing the results for just the small hyperlocal business set and the enterprise / fortune 1,000 set? think it would be interesting to see the similarities and contrasts between the smallest and biggest groups.
I think this infographic is a must for anyone just getting started in the area of online marketing. I personally have found that clients are more often expecting us to be able to do it all. It used to be ok to tell clients that you did social media marketing or web design. Now they expect you to do web design, all inbound marketing, and be able to provide analytics provin your projects are successful. I think this post kind of gives a good idea of what services firms are providing and how much they are charging for those services. It really helps when needing to figure out how much to bill for a new services that you are thinking about providing.
Great article!!!! Did anyone respond from South America? I would love to compare our prices with other South American Firms.
Me too, maybe could be extract the info and do other infographic. I'm download and see what can do :)
I participate in the Survey, but it's true, In Peru are not soo much SEO Agencies.
Hello Wadz and attachmedia! I did the same question. I know people from Argentina and Spain that replied the quiz.
Check my comment to Rand, 6 comments above.
Hi Fjsanz, I look the row data, sadly, are not enoguht info to do a infographic, in Peru I'm the only, Argentina and Spain have more responses.
We struggled for a long time (4 years) trying to pinpoint a good pricing strategy that works for us and our clients. It's one of the most challenging things we've done as a company. Here's a sales process we've found works for us.
1st meeting - Conduct a presentation that highlights our audit service. We explain that the audit service helps us accurately pinpoint the proper project for their needs. Lets face it, how accurately can we price SEO projects without diving in for at least 15 hours assessing site structure, on-page elements, competition, keywords, internal/external links, and most importantly analytics.
So we charge an affordable fee for the audit. Then we can accurately put together a good project proposal. We also make sure the client knows up front that the audit costs money, and the audit helps us quote a project that also cost money.
If they are willing to sign us on, we know they are a serious client who can afford REAL SEO. If not, we know its most likely a problem client we don't want in the first place.
Awesome stuff as always Rand+Team!
One segment that would be really neat to see is the distribution of pricing models & rates in each segment of the clients/month vs agency size chart you included form surveymonkey. For example, do smaller agencies rely on monthly retainers while larger agencies utilize hourly pricing to a larger extent? To take it a step further, do smaller agencies that have 1 client tend to offer different pricing models than those with 26-50 clients?
I think this would really help shed some light on how agency size/client load effects pricing!
I agree with you. We are a small agency that has always used monthly retainer pricing and it's worked out great for us and our clients so far, but I'm definitely interested to learn why the majority of other firms (according to the survey) prefer project based pricing. As you said, it may be directly related to the size of the agency so hopefully we'll find out soon.
I am currently building an online travel website and the developpers I am working with gave me an invoice of $50000 for SEO+ 6months promotion. Does it sound reasonable? Am I overpaying?
Thank you for your advices.
My family owns a travel agency in a major city in Canada (Toronto). I've been doing 'seo' since 2004 on the website. I've done professional seo and online promotion on the website since 2009. We're located and aimed for local traffic. Spending $50k should involve a lot of content writing and a very detailed master plan. Suggestion: Work with an SEO expert who has experience in the travel industry because $50k may just be a lot of PPC. Fact: In the 7 years that we have had an online booking engine we received 5 online bookings. 4 were fraud and 1 legal but lots of walk ins and phone calls which generate into revenue. Yes we are on the first page of Google :)
And yes, I think I need to speak to the owner and ask for a raise!
Lots of good insights here. I participated in the survey and I have a few questions/observations -
1. I was not expecting project-based pricing being the most popular model for SEO. We have always done monthly retainers (usually flat rate for x number of hours + hourly rate for extra hours if necessary), so I am intrigued as to how the per-project model works. What does a "project" typically consist of and how long does it last? I can understand doing something like a one-time site audit to fix a website's technical problems, but other than that, I consider SEO to be an on-going process which is why the monthly retainer model works for us. Also, wouldn't the monthly retainer model work better in the long run? If you keep providing results for the client, you'll keep that client happy and they'll keep paying you every month. Plus you don't have to worry about constantly scrambling to find new clients after a project ends. If you do a one-time project, let's say on-site SEO for 3 months, what happens after the project ends? Or if the site gets slapped by Panda six months down the road and all the rankings tank, will the client have to contact you to set up a new project? I'm not criticizing any of the pricing models, I am genuinely interested in how project-based pricing is better/worse than monthly retainers in case it is something we should consider trying.
2. I was also surprised to see the most popular Employee:Clients/month ratio being between 1-2. If each full-time employee works 160 hours/month and works on 2 clients/month, that comes out to 80 hours/month for each client. Can each employee seriously do 80 hours/month of SEO for one client? We've had a couple of big clients where we could easily spend that much time on SEO/PPC/content etc, but as is the case with most of the survey respondents, the majority of our clients are small local companies with limited target markets and more importantly limited budgets that there's no way 80 hours/month would be a viable option. I mean it's highly unlikely that most small local businesses are paying $8,000/month ($100/hour average rate for 80 hours/month) for SEO, right? Or if the average project rate is $2,500-5,000 per project, and each employee is working on 2 projects at a time (assuming a "project" means a "monthly client"), then each employee will theoretically generate $5,000-$10,000/month, which at the high end is not bad at all, but I figured the average revenue-per-employee would need to be higher in order to cover the average SEO's annual salary of $65K+ plus benefits and other overhead and operating expenses and still achieve profitability. I think it would be helpful if there was a breakdown/comparison of the Employee:Clients/month ratio versus pricing models data in order to get a better understanding on all this.
Edit - Fixed the massive wall of text since I didn't realize the comment box needed HTML for paragraphs, sorry!
I have to weigh in on the subject of SEO. I don't want to offend any professionals here who run an honest operation. I am getting the impression that SEO has become the snake oil salesmen of our age.
The company I work for has struggled with search engine ranking without success. Against my advice has even changed doman name, web hosts and designs without improvement. Of course that's why.
We have found a "guru" who was willing to get us to sign a contract for $18,000 to do our SEO. He has done nothing except set us up with a Wordpress site and then turned us loose to populate it ourselves without guidance or help with keywords. I have asked for more hands on help and he says he doesn't have the time to look at our web site, but has time to drop by to pick up checks.
I have become extremely critical of this person and am not afraid to tell him he is doing nothing for his pay. Now he is setting up traps for me on Wordpress. The web site had a sudden "redirect" error on the server and he blamed me for something I may have done in the Wordpress Dashboard. And has suggested that I be locked out of Wordpress.
This all started when I asked for the password to our cPanel so I can add, delete and change email passwords. He refuses to give me access to cPanel and will not explain why. I'm thinking he may be selling our server space as add on domains, or a host of other nefarious activities.
I am not new to this. For the past 10 years I have designed and managed 11 web sites, even WP sites.
People like this are giving SEO a bad name and you guys need to weed them out.
I sure would like to hear back from the professionals about my horror story.
Blessings to all,
Dennis
@Dennis With due respect, i guess you are trapped by a fake SEO master who is trying to earn by telling you fairy tales.. Indeed finding a right person to do SEM is a bet now as sometimes you find legitimate and honest people and sometimes you don't. However, i can suggest one tip: hire someone on a trial basis for 1 month. See what actually he/she's done in the first month. if you get website analysis report, website bugs to be fixed, linking strategies, competitor analysis etc then pay for more months otherwise find someone else.
Just a suggestion from my side to figure out a genuine SEO individual/agency.
Hope this helps :)
Hi Rand! Thanks for this important information for all of us, but it will be great if you might consider to include information about other non-english countries.
I'm from Argentina, and I encouraged other colleagues from here and Spain to participate of the quiz you did weeks ago, and some of them told me that they did the quiz.
Today I came here to read some information of the spanish SEO world, but nop, again.
Besides that, thanks for all your work!
Thanks for being proactive, gathering info, and sharing, Rand and team. I think a majority of service providers would like to "offer" hands-on consultancy (#4) but I'm sure an agreement of what "hands-on" means gets obscured in some situations, with the client left wanting, especially if they're fresh to the industry.
I personally enjoy the wealth of small to mid-sized clients (#8). There's a lot of ways to help them in leveling the "playing field," chasing after the big fish in their respective industries.
Additionally, from a content perpective, number 8 is something to consider. If your agency's target market is mostly small business owners, you have to relay industry information to them at their speed. Otherwise, you may miss the opportunity to secure a client and create positive connotations to our industry.
Rand -
Love the statistics here, and I think this post is going to be one for al of us to refer back to frequently.
One question though (and I apologize if this has already been asked). Are you guys able to show averages of prices charged based on the size of the agency? I would be interested to see how much (hopefully per hour) individuals charge compared to how much larger agencies charge per hour. I think this would be super helpful.
John
Just checked the raw xls file. Seams that in my area there are only 2 members from Finland, 2 from Norway, 1 from Sweden and yours truly solo for all the Baltic states. It just made my day. All the perks of Moz just for me :D
Sweeeeeet.....
Enjoy while you can. I'm soon entering the Baltic market and all your clients are belong to me! (j/k about the clients part, serious about entering the market though) :)
Best of luck ....
Just for heads up - In Baltic you have to work with russian sites and russian searchengines/socialmedia
Nice piece of information. Thanks for sharing!
I have read many articles on such topics. Recently came across & tried this amazing free seo cost calculator tool. This gives a full analysis of your website in pdf format. Readers would find this tool interesting
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t97E-HX86lw (YouTube)
- bit.ly/1nHzYCi (Tool)
I agree with my friend Steve that there are many small & big seo agencies in the market. I would say that one must be aware of ABC's of SEO so that you are not fooled easily.
Thanks Charles, its really works .
Oh wow, I'm not making enough money for the time I put into doing SEO. This is very helpful though and I'm sure it's going to calculate prices a lot easier.
Awesome finding Rand. Some figures fly over my head. Now we know how to price. I was worried whether we were on the higher side. Good job team. Would be nice if you could also do one for PPC Pricing model.
What a cool post. I love it when stuff is properly backed up with hard data rather than guessing what people are doing out there! This is very valuable data, also to measure your own seo charges against. Well done guys. You provide some of the best internet marketing training around.
Could you also do a post like this on how much people charge for social media marketing stuff? Fanpage building/Facebook marketing etc etc... that would be excellent :)
Hi everyone, I am not a professional site designer or SEO expert by trade. With that said, as a small business owner, and a person doing my own website and SEO, simply because I can't afford anything else at this time, I would like to add the following. It seems the importance of being number one on Google for good keywords often blinds people about if it is even worth the effort. A company must eventually answer or be aware of whether or not the Internet brings value or sales to them.
To you the experts here, is it your primary task to find out if a company needs to be devoting more attention to person to person sales, before embarking on the Google ranking challenge? The reason I ask is primarily it seems, my business is driven by b2b sales and I am starting to doubt whether any business or worth while business will come from my site.
I have managed to get ranked on Google for my keywords as #1 on some of them and at least first or second page on a lot of them. Business really isn't increasing, so I am feeling deflated and a bit discouraged. My site design is better than 95% of my local competitors, per surveying a small group of independent designers and clients and still nothing.
This blog article about pricing got me wondering about when is enough, enough, and what would you the experts recommend if the Internet isn't doing much for your client? Is this result a clear sign that either I suck at this, or the internet isn't for my business, or I need to be more patient?
Last question, about patience. If I was #1 on my keywords, is there an average time to wait before expecting action.
Thanks everyone.
Very useful information. I think its telling that a lot of work is done by web designers. Its the same with social media, everybody seems happy to do it. I think with the continued rise of content marketing standards, we may see web designers slowly move away from ínbound marketing' as the public gets more educated on what to expect.
No projects are the same and no one approach will satisfy all circumstances. It depends on where you are starting in the process.
I often see small/medium sized companies who have been told or gone along to some web site building course run by their local business gateway or similar that all they have to do is spend a couple of hours and hey presto they have a web site. Now, off you go and be successful. They very rarely are!
And, when they realise it, someway down the line, with no visitors and no leads they eventually realise and seek out the help they should have thought about in the first instance. It is the fault, sometimes, of business advisors giving the wrong advice who themselves don't understand the process or what's involved. They give the immpression that anyone can be a web designer using online tools or wysiwyg editors. Rarely, do they offer the sort of control needed to properly optimise either code or content.
In cases such as these it is very possible that a two-pronged approach is required 1) a project based contract to properly code and setup the site suitable for further SEO activity and 2) an ongoing SEO retainer to monitor, maintain, add content and analyse site metrics to further target and convert potential customers.
Where you start depends on what issues initially require attention.
I have found that many people providing SEO services tend to undercharge for the hard work they do, but that is a completely different topic! What I find intersting is that many businesses are beginning to understand that just ranking high isn't enough. It means nothing if you get eyeballs on your web site and you can't convert them to do something, (phone call - email submit - get in car and come visit even).
Some firms who haven't focused on helping these small businesses track, convert, hold conversations with potential new customers leaves them wondering why being #1 on search engines means anything and if it doesn't "really" help them get new customers why pay a firm to get them on the first page of the Search engines. Just saying.
The problem I see, having been on the other side when it comes to purchasing SEO, is that there is such a long time between the implementation of SEO changes and the resulting benefit that you become disillusioned by the amount of money it costs.
Consumers (especially small business owners) need a better understanding about the entire process. Is there an infographic that SEO's can provide to clients?
Great article. Congrats on making the top 10 seo articles of 2011...
I dropped off my jaw to see such a high rates a SEO firm/individual can get. Most of my clients are local business holders and all of them are naive. They are even reluctant to pay me half of the amount Rand mentioned. I believe naive people will never understand the importance of SEO and online marketing unless you generate a solid revenue for them in 3,4 months. Then one can ask for raise in the wages and if you fail to show progress then you are gone!
Really great article and have just joined the community. I've been working in SEO since it began over 10 years ago and have watched all the changes. Pricing has always been an issue and I went through a patch of under charging for what I do. This information is timely as I now feel a price increase happening.
Yes, clients are very wary and I do believe ongoing seo work is the way to get real results. Although sometimes just once only work will do the trick. For a while anyway.
It's all about communicating with customers and keeping them informed. I find that has helped me more than anything else to get more clients. Being honest, open and telling them what they need to know. I guess that's educating the client.
WoW! totally awesome!
This would be very helpful input to all of us SEOs. We could see here what's more effective in our market. I'm in the middle of revamping my website and putting some changes on the packages we offer, and this is a great input for me on what services and prices shoud we offer.
It's just sad that you didn't include Philippines in your survey. :)
So, we can say, its more cheaper pricing structure in India!!!
Thanks to SEOMoz and everyone that participated in this survey. This is truly great and valuable information. It helps to keep everything in perspective and make sure pricing isn’t too low or high.
Plenty of commentary on this one Rand....Thanks for sharing the results, it's always handy to see what everyone else is doing (particularly coming from Australia).
We need to educate clients, as for them seo is one time game. They are not aware of the google alogrithium changes and also about competitor, who is always tring to rank ahead of you.
Does SEO helpful for e-reputation work?
Nice to read all of your comments! Being an Indian enterpreneur, I have found that in India there are lots of people providing SEO services at very cheap rates, and lots of them do not know what SEO is actually! Small/Medium business fall in their trap and because of low investment prefer to go with them, without thinking about the future outcome. These days, almost every client gain some knowldge about SEO, before hiring anyone. But they do not know if that knowledge is good for current search engine scenario or not. So, while I work with any client I first educate them what works best now. And client's love that and they retain better. Spreading knowledge is a must, and at the same time, clients should think that SEO is marketing their website to generate business and we, SEO guys, should get our desired share!
For some reason, I can't seem to download the raw data, are there any restrictions on the data?
I am not a seo But I have tried to do my own for my new business wich is a local photo booth business ( www.smileclickgive.com ) . Up to now I have achieved page 2 for 3 keywords and i am on page 3-5 for another 10+ keyword.
I get bombarded on a daily basis by cheap seo sales calls promising me increase in rankings by 75% in 1 month .... now their prices are really low ( $100 for 5 keywords) per month .... FAR from what i see here on this post.
I dont want to do this cheap option because i know they will just do spam links but at the same time the fees i read here are expensive considering I am a small business and have done OK doing my SEO ... I however know a professional would be much more efficient.
So I guess my question is : how much should one pay for local seo if they are already achieving decent results.
Moz is totaly wast of Money.I am pai 149$ but no click or Ranking updated .friend dont wast your money,
Hi! So sorry to hear you're having trouble. Have you contacted our help team at [email protected]?
Rand what do you charge for one hour consultancy? :P
Silly question i know
Thank you. This is still something I often refer back to. I do feel that some of the quotes are a little egotisical - more like a 'if I could I would charge...' . Our Digital agency charges more on a case by case basis dependent on variables in hand. Sometimes we charge hourly, sometimes we do a monthly retainer all purely based on many variables in SEO. One thing I think is important is that any SEO service HAS to work closely with your web dev team.
Any thoughts on doing an update on this issue? I'd love to see the numbers today, after all of the changes in the industry. My hypothesis is the numbers are actual a bit higher today.
Thank you for the chart. I am currently charging a monthly retainer/consultation fees model.
Regards,
Hafiz
I agree this industry is basically on page and off page SEO. The problem I've experienced is some customers hired web designers to design their website and know absolutely nothing about SEO and expect me to do an off page SEO campaign. In this scenario, I have to explain to the customer their site needs to be re-done with on page SEO and there is an associated charge for this in addition to an off page SEO expense.
A lot of customers who are not educated about SEO will not understand this and immediately ask me to waive the charge for on page SEO since they're paying me for off page SEO. At this point, we are engaged in price negotiation because potential customers always want something for close to nothing. I enjoy doing SEO but don't enjoy the nagging back and forth about prices, so at this point I set my prices as being non-negotiable. I tell potential customers if you can get a better price, do it, as basically you get what you pay for.
A lot of SEO so called experts from India send me emails wanting me to outsource my SEO, and get this, $99 per month per site. First of all, I don't know if they use white hat or black hat techniques so I'm not willing to take that risk with my customers. An SEO campaign can take hundreds of hours because one has to write a ton of blogs pertaining to the customer's products or services and push them on social media sites with anchor text backlinks going to pages on the customer's website to improve page authority and link diversity. At $99 per month, I would be luck to get $1 per hour. I also spend a lot of time producing and editing promo videos for the customer as part of the SEO process and some SEO experts I've talked to don't do promo videos. Youtube gets around 1 billion hits per month so I'm definitely taking advantage of this.
Anyway, great article but I was blown away with the large range of SEO prices.
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Rand, Amazing! Great information. We are a startup inbound agency and finding difficult to finalize on the rate card for our SEO packages. Definitely, this SEO agencies survey would help us to tweak our rate card. Thanks Much!
This is an outdated article. Time to run a new cost survey?
Distilled asked for 15,000£ excl. VAT for the initial SEO audit, no additional services included. That is way too much IMO, even for a leader and a reputable company.
This survey is 3.5 years old. Does Moz have an idea to launch a new survey?
I'm a little frustrated with the SEO community. SEO is in essence just one task from which a set of necessary tasks are demanded in the world of online marketing.
Yes, if you are a ONLINE MARKETER, then you can say you do SEO, but calling yourself an "SEO Professional" is just foolish, especially when you aren't Google.
[link removed by editor]
Excellent insight and many good takes on the post.
It's becoming increasing difficult for SEO start-ups (as well as existing firms) to develop a plausible price-model for their clients, especially with the continuing development of SaaS that "supposedly" offers "all-in-one" digital marketing solutions that seem to lure SMB's with limited budget.
And of course, there's elance.com and other freelancer networks that seem to be flooding the digital marketing industry (particularly the SEO field) with outrageously cheap, but unreliable service.
Yikes.
I think project based prices are the best option for any business.
Really nice infographic, I guess the best target is small and medium size companies, bigger are harder to get and much more demanding ...I still think that you can make even more money from the small and medium like the big ones...
Thanks...
Those figures seem about right. I've worked for two SEO companies and the prices for both have been roughly similar to the UK average in the bar chart. However, it would be interesting to look at the correlation between price paid and the achieved results (not promosed results). Such a correlation may indicate that price is not the best indicator for picking a SEO company.
It's all about the results in the end. That is what is going to make or break the deal down the road. This is why clientele service is the top priority that you should go by (which we always focus on as a provider). If your SEO business is based on a wall mart strategy where each customer is just a number to you, the reputation of your services will be at stake because the client will in the end feel that they are not being cared for...this is the big problem in this industry i have seen over and over. Lastly, you gotta know what you are doing. The way the SEO industry is heading is more sophisticated so not all will make it..
Thank you for all of the work and effort invested in this project. This will be useful in working with new clients who question the fees for professional SEO services.
If there could be a Part II it would be to illustrate how to qualify your SEO provider, how to recognize a hack, and give the client an idea of how much time is really required to provide quality SEO services. Perhaps also define the type of tasks that truly fall under the SEO umbrella to educate clients on what is out-of-scope. Our industry needs more objective client education information so that the legit practitioners can be paid a reasonable fee, mitigate unreasonable client expectations, and drive the con-men out of our realm.
Excellent post- some very useful stats. I run a a small boutique SEO agency so this type of info is so refreshing.
I see that I'm underpriced. We charge approximately $650 per month for full organic and social campaign and all clients are incredibly happy with price and more importantly our results- no automation!! I find the majority of people in small business can't afford much more.
Happy Easter to all and enjoy your break.
RegardsTodd
Great post... Really i like this post... Thanks for sharing great work :)
Thanks for the post! I found it just now. Nice to have a benchmark to mess with.
And one more thing: somewhere in the middle of the discussion I read about why the prices in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh are so low. Of course there are a lot of reasons, but for me this factor is almost killing the market! Look at elance, 95% of all posted SEO projects have budget <500$, but still, they get plenty of bids. Guess from where? And most of those clients want their websites get optimized for MANY high competition keywords with top 3 guarantee…
500$ for 20 high competition keywords with top 3 guarantee. Does it make sense? Well, I tried several times to get some assistance from those markets – link building etc. But the links that get from those “SEO companies” can be thrown in garbage… Unluckily mane clients don’t understand it. Good for their competition.
I’m very happy that most of service providers from India and Pakistan can’t SEO for German websites, because of language barrier. But for overall SEO industry this price dumping as a plague…
Cheers
David
Very insightful article, as like many SEO firms our service/pricing model has been an evolving process, sorry it took me a year to read it.
Nice update and comments!
And a great bit about the "hands-on" help.
My question for you, Rand, is that I've read a lot of your articles and recently watched your video about 6 things to not do/get rid of while doing SEO, and I wasn't quite sure if you really did mean link building efforts in forums and blog commenting are considered bad SEO practices, period? Or you meant blasting with SENuke, Scrapebox, Xrumer? When SEO-ing for myself and clients there's plenty of manual labor that I hire to do the "leg work" in the above mentioned activies among other things like guest authoring (myblogguest.com type of stuff... great list of tools by the Distilled guys, by the way) and so on, so we can focus on creating great content for our target audience.
Did I misinterpret what you said?
And for the friends that debated about whether SEO should be a on-going type of service, my personal opinion is a resounding YES in the cases of the clients who want continued and uninterrupted results. The thing about SEO is even the good guys get hit by Google algo changes that it's difficult to imagine a business owner who wants SEO to be part of the marketing game plan to handle all that without professional help. Ongoing SEO can minimize the risk. It's about risk and reward.
I agree completely with the change from SEO to inbound marketing. Most of the top agencies in the SEO space have been doing a variety of inbound marketing along with every campaign anyways so it only makes sense to move to a package that includes these other types of marketing. It's almost impossible anymore to do a quality link building campaing without using other inbound techniques like social, public relations, and so on.
have been waiting to see the results of this survey and I appreciate you making the raw data available. Pretty surprised by the "by the project" numbers. Will be interested in seeing any follow up studies / posts on this topic. Good stuff!
Looks like I need to up my rates :P
Seriously though, in the small business sector I am not sure there are that many out there who could afford $100+ an hour for an Internet Marketing campaign, especially (If like me) you prefer to keep just one or two clients on the books at any one time.
Joining in the choruses of really liking the data, and yes, we participated.
Our methodology has moved to project-based pricing for everyone out of the gate. If the client and we agree that there's a match and ongoing work to be done, we'll offer one of three retainer packages. We kept the existing client base at grandfathered pricing (SEOmoz did it for us so that was good enough for me). We do have a flat hourly rate on our rate card, but almost never use it unless it's a truly bizarrre request we can't price well.
I would be interested in another breakout if possible. How many entities use pricing methodology A&B or A&C or B&C and in what percentage of revenue. All sorts of data comes out of there. For example, are those charging retainers getting most of their revenue from retainers or still from project fees?
I would certainly be happy to contribute in a second round if that makes it easier to compile data.
George
Looks like somebody in India might be inflating their prices somewhat ;). How can most charge <$25 - $40 yet a small percentage (or one respondant) be charging $101-$150?
I suppose by stating you charge that much you don't necessarily have any clients.
Aspirational - I like it!
Sounds like I need to change my pricing! ha ha We handle more clients on average and seem to charge less $$. Thanks for the post.
Very glad SEOmoz takes the time to do these surveys. I believe this is VERY valuable information for us SEO's. Especially with the new year upon us. Its the perfect time to adjust our pricing models, and this is excellent data to support those decisions. We thank you Rand!
-Matt
Randfish you are such a king of search engine optimizer , What a informative infograph about seo agency you share with us with country wise. I never try to missed you post on seomoz. Because of currnecy advantage indian charge low amount to there clients. I can't believe after see this infograph that autralia is also growing indutry in SEO.
Very interesting findings. It's good to see so many people choosing the monthly route. The way my organisation works with clients is on a monthly contract. They give us an inital list of keywords which they want ranking for. Once all of these are ranking the task of keeping them at no1 becomes a bit easier and so we suggest to the client it is a good time to add new keywords to their seo compaign.
We do not sell ourselves as an seo company as such, but rather part of their overall marketing program. We are happy to manage their social media, offer advice on optimising the website, selecting keywords etc.
Personally, I think that unless you are no1 for every possible keyword your customers would use to find you, then there is a good case to employ an ongoing monthly seo/sem contract. I think part of the problem are too many companies who get the client to no1 quickly then tell them it will require a lot of work to keep them there, when infact little is needed
This is great. I'm going to be starting up my own agency, and I have been wondering what most people charge.
I work from home. I find that I prefer to live this lifestyle vs. being an inhouse SEO. So if you want to work from home like me, I recommend getting clients on a monthly retainer so you can have continuous income.
Rand, any chance of filtering the data from Scandinavia? Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark have total of 8 responses if I'm counting correctly.
This is amazing stuff. Good work, Rand and SEOmoz!
My only slight concern would be the honesty of those surveyed. I know of an agency in the UK that tells people (namely their prospective and current clients) that they have 500+ staff, however I've seen their answer to a different survey where they admitted to having less than 100.
I would see no reason to lie when filling in an industry survey, and of course there are those (hopefully in the minority) who beef up and exaggerate their figures (usually when talking to clients or prospects), but it is something to consider, as it could skew some of the data towards the bigger numbers.
really nice infographic.. and as shown there that india is the only country which is having lowest hourly rate!!!
and also, as per my experience.. maximum indian companies provides seo services on project based plans rather then hourly rate.
Regards,
Yogendra Chavda.
Thanks for sharing the data Rand. Regarding point number 4 under "Top 9 Takeaways" I would say that there has been a communication gap between SEO service providers and SEO client, as it is still relatively difficult to figure out the deliverables of SEO in most of the cases. This communcation gap may cause SEO clients to think that they are not being given hands-on help.
you are right Ssan.. just because of communication issues between client and seo service provider they loose their interest and trust in work. many times client doesn't respond to the requirements and changes which makes the optimization work late and due to that the ranking delay! so, at last the client will lose their trust and they switch to another seo service provider!
Yeah. I have also had the same experience that somehow client has a mindset that SEO is not their prime priority of client, wihtout considering that their online business and brand is based on the performance of their website.
There is huge difference between US and India SEO price ranges and this is all because of difference in country's per capita income.
Yeah - the survey data confirms that. India is the only region with dramatically different pricing - Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia/NZ and the UK are are relatively similar.
Here in India a Chartered Accountatnt get the starting salary of $500 - $1000/per month so with this you can understand the fee structure.
That's why US and other developed countries outsource their work to India or China and force Obama to speak against outsourcing :)
Another reason for cheaper rates in India is the abundance of intellectual manpower. Population in economocally developed countries are generally sparce in comparison to countries like India and China. Thats why, the lower rates.
One more point to be noted is that in US the majority of the companies are having either 1 or 2-5 employees and in India the majority of the companies are having either 11-25 employees.
More no. of employees means more no. of projects can be handled at one point of time hence the cost effectiveness and in US if maximum no. of SEOs are working Solo means they take up less no. of projects and charge a higher price.
This is what I observed from the survey results. I work as a solo entrepreneur myself since 2000 now and have always worked project based.
It was a pleasure participating in such a survey. Thanks for all the effort to highlight the economics of the SEO industry.
True Rand,
But if you see the wider areas in Indian SEO, you can come to know that the quality is not as that of other established companies. Ofcourse Indians have a greater advantage in the Link buidling market and they do much better than other countries, but when it comes to ranking the don't have the 100% ranking when they try to target highly competitive keywords. There is a difference in ranking, many indian companies do rank for easy keywords or medium based keywords. And those who rank for highly competitive keywords would take more than 1 or 2 yrs whereas many companies in US or UK get much earlier.
However India is an Advantage still for small business sectors at this moment. But one thing I would like to say is that there is lot of manpower & skill in India which can be excellent if given proper trainning & resources like the US do.
That’s right! I would include Philippines and Pakistan in it as well as they usually get clients from developed countries (out sourcing). Dramatic change in numbers from their countries is fairly possible due to the currency value and over all pay scales!
I think the fact that most agencies and consultants are claiming they still do "hands on" link building is also one reason for the $25 an hour rates in India. Every agency I've dealt with or spoken to outsources at least some of their "hands on" linkbuilding to India or Phillipines.
question, is being listed on top spot of topseos.com good enough to charge a higher rate?
Well, I read somewhere that Quality comes with money. The service providers who have established themselves as best service providers have rights to charge higher rates and you would pay them higher rates just because you know that they are best and they can deliver the desired results. But here the question comes, how would you come to know about the best firm? Well, endorsment from an established network always helps service providers to gain more publicity but you must also check if the endorsement is genuine or a paid one. As far as my knowledge about topseos.com is concerned, one can easily get top poistion there by just spending few more dollars.
Imo... being on the top of topseos.com didn’t actually allow you or justify one to charge more money from the client. I guess what matter is your level of expertise and results you are delivering to your clients in different niches.
I would agree with Manish about the endorsements point but yeah the endorsement should not be paid other than that... this is trend in the industry that the people who are highly expert in their area tend to provide FREE quality data and information that allow others to grow and survive in the market ... there can be several agencies who are active in discussions, participations and give freebies and FREE information from time to time in order to stand in the front line of experts.
Thing is topseo's is not really an accurate way to determine an agencies worth or true value, you can put down what every you like 5 million revenue, 55 staff, 2000 clients. I take one look at the top list for Australian and all these SEO companies who I never have heard of show up.
I know the Australian market very well, I know the main clients, I know big tendours going down, so imo it is not true. Many of the big players do not waste their time with it.
But yes overall to seo's is a very rough guide imo, any one else want to comment on this?
question is do you charge a high enough rate to pay TopSEOs.com to be at the top of their list?
They offer an option to pay $1,000 per month to be top of any category (which quite a few companies on their lists do) - so no, being on top of their lists does not entitle a company to charge more.
You'd be better writing great case studies on the work you've done for previous clients. If a potential customer see's that you have delivered fantastic results for a company, they are more likely to pay a higher rate for your service.
See it is not a real indication of true value if you can pay your way to the top, I prefer the independant awards where people vote for companies and they provide financials.
TopSEOs is primarily pay-to-play. The firm that pays the most gets the top ranking. So I'd say it's the other way around: Those who charge the most and get away with it can grab the top spot on TopSEOs.
In my humble opinion, absolutely not. Being a top-spot on TopSEO's is not earned and is no reflection of skill or talent. It's more of a PR effort than anything - just high priced advertising on a site that self-promotes itself as an authority source. Personally I think, for a consumer, directory sites are a waste of time and have very limited credibility.
I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but why are the counts by region in your list above different to those in the infrographic?
E.g., [United Kingdom - 76 respondents] above, vs. [UK - 34] in the infographic?
You're totally right... I'll ping the AskYTM folks and request they update that - looks like they just flipped the GFIN and UK respondent numbers (as far as I can see, the rest of the data appears correct).
Aha, that makes more sense! :)
Hi Rand, some interesting research, thank you for putting it together =)
Would have been good too see more then 28 SEO's in the Australian market share data, but I guess 28 is better than nothing =)
I wonder who is charing $500+ an hour in the Australian market?
I think we need to consider the client perspective on this
My view is that...
1) clients were hoodwinked into monthly retainers when they first explored SEO, and are wary now because they saw so little delivered tangibly for their £5k per month, every month 2) the audit has become cheapened by everyone offering the free audit route in biz dev. It's viewed with some cynicism now by clients 3) the audit/ongoing "hands on" help has historically been weighted very much to the audit and a willingness to push responsibility to the client if recommended changes to the site don't materialise 4) hourly rates are meaningless if a client gets 1 hours work when 10 have been agreed. If the supplier is opaque about deliverables then it's easy for the client to never actually know. Clients have got wise to this. 5) performance models sound good but whoever sets the benchmarks wins - and can win big. Clients don't like unknowns, like how much your services are going to end up costing. Saying you'll earn nothing unless you drive ROI makes clients nervous.
Now I'm generalising to a degree. And this is based on my European and UK experience. And I've run a Search agency and now I work with clients as a consultant. But I'm no SEO expert and I'm not global, and maybe all my clients are cynics.
The search arena has become to a degree commoditised and you have to go with that in some areas and push back in others
You go with it perhaps in detailed, action based, transparent, proposals
You push back with the requirement from social for the engagement to be longer term.
Fixed or hourly rates are your own individual concern. Every business in every sector tackles the same issue. Generally speaking you can't have as we British say " your cake and eat it"
I find it's Important to remind clients, that SEO is genuenly a WHOLE PROCESS. They will gain practically nothing from any single service such as 10 backlinks and 2 article distributions. It's unfortunate, but lower income companies really arent' the clients for SEO Projects, unless the SEO is a bottom feeder. These companies can't afford the services to get the WHOLE PROCESS SEO out of it. Many Companies, who are aware of the fact that thhey need to put money into their service and they will receive tri-fold back, if they wait. SEO is a WHOLE PROCESS, and clients need to know, 1. There is tons of work that goes into a single account package each month. 2. And even if they get top ranks within the first month, the WHOLE PROCESS SEO will take up to 3, sometimes 4 months of SEO Services under a WHOLE PROCESS SEO Package for them to start seeing maximum effects. At that point, if they can be patient enough to wait and understand the neverending aspects behind SEO, they will be happy with the results and the ever increasing ROI. Also note. whatever happens outside the control of the SEO Management (ie. problems within the business or ineffective sales performances, etc) will totally ruin the increase of ROI after seeing the WHOLE PROCESS SEO through, even if they are on top.
Hope this helped you understand. Not sure if you're a client or an SEO Manager. Take care and Happy New Year though!
I get it.
I'm not a client but I work client side if you like
What my (badly spaced) point was, was you can develop all the models you like for charging and justifying charges but they do not exist in a vacumn. Clients are suspicious of SEO proposals that aren't absolutely specific about what you are doing. And there is a competitive edge in being very specific. And an edge in what has become more commoditised is important
Cheers
Simon
And I'm sorry just one small point that's niggling me.
If I was a client would I respond well to the caps WHOLE PROCESS thing. Or the "hope you understand now I've explained it line"
What I belive is, we need to make a Basic Package which covers Keyword Research, On Page and Off Page for first 3 months which covers All SEO Activities.
Aftetwards just need monthly retainer plan. Retainer Package could be Monthly as well as Hourly which would be easier way to quote your client.
Here Basic package could vary upon the site and industry, but I would like to define the Package as give below.
1. For Newly Launch Site
2. For the site/store just redisigned or revamped.
*Clients moves to you due to Unsatisfy with their current SEO Serivce Provider. (This is important factor where you need to convience your client for better results at your cost.)
*This Apply to above give both package.
Hi Rand,
Been looking at the data that has been generated from the survey you carried out last month. It gives people a good idea what other SEO companies are charging and how they charge so thank you for that.
Just one note I have noticed is that on the agency-pricing-survey.xls it seems 81 agencies have took part in the survey for United Kingdom but on the seo-cost.png it says only 34. G-F-I-N only had 34 responds on excel but 81 on graphic.
Are you able to have a look and let me know if I am reading the data wrong?
Thanks
Great work
Unfortunately with only 34 respondents combined from G-F-I-N :-( Assuming that the markets worldwide don't differ too much this still really good insight. Question: what about all the "one man show" SEO's. Are they somewhere to be found in this data? Or is this phenomenon greatly exagerated?
Great article, I have been racking my brain trying to price our SEO services against the unknown prices of our industry, this article couldn't have come at a better time for us - Thanks.
Great info, this was helpful to me. I have one question, can any one give insight on how to start a career as a seo marketer.
mmm my country (Argentina) was far from being included here... I knowed it before the survey was ready :(
Anyway, thanks a lot for the useful data guys!
Hola Federico!
No entendí qué quisiste decir. Fijate más arriba lo que escribí yo. Conozco varios SEO que completaron la encuesta, tanto de Argentina como España!
Saludos!
Hola Francisco!
Debo admitir que soy uno de los pocos que contestó por Argentina en la encuesta... je
Lo que quería decir en mi comentario es que no esperaba de todas formas que nos incluyeran en los resultados (por una simple cuestión de volumen, somos pocos aqui haciendo esto como para ser estadísticamente significativos).
De todas formas son valores importantes para tener en cuenta, sobretodo porque marcan hacia donde se dirige nuestro mercado :)
Saludos!
Awesome survey! Typical cheeky Aussies charging $500 - $750 per hour :P
So Rand, I must disagree that "(offering 'SEO', social, content, conversion, analytics, etc)" is not "pure SEO". Best in class "pure SEO" companies will provide all of these services. Organic SEO encompasses any best practice Internet marketing tactic or strategy that influences organic search engine rankings and the benefits derived from those rankings. I have nothing against "inbound marketing", but this is a phrase heavily pushed by Dharmesh Shah's organization, Hubspot, for their own market advantage.
We are a pure SEO firm and provide all of those services to some degree. Should the community leaders of our market, such as you, so easily lay down and abandon "SEO" and let the tides of "inbound marketing" take all the credit for what we do and how we evolve as an industry? SEO is in your name too and for years you've been providing thought leadership on "SEO"moz about social, content, conversion, analytics, etc... I think you've helped define what pure SEO is far more than any other entity.
Slingshot SEO, your post prompted me to make an observation that I make to every client. It takes a focused team effort to achieve business success on the Internet. The web design team and client have primary responsibility for making the site relevant, appealing and easy-to-use. The web design team and hosting company own accessibility, scalability and up-time. As a SEO, I open pathways to the "right" prospects. Inbound marketing does that too. And we all contribute, in our own way, to the all-important trust factor.
This is excellent!
It's always good to know what the market is charging.
Thanks for sharing!
I find it helpful to understand what others are doing in my field. Ultimately, we all have different pricing structures, but having an outline or guide is very helpful.
Thanks again for sharing great information,
AJ
Thanks for the information. It confirms what I suspected regarding prices. Also found the infographic enlightening.
Agree with the above comment, which is why this year we are moving away from servicing clients, to larger focus on building our own assets.
It doesn't look like many agencies are making a lot of money. For the amount of work put in, combined with the knowledgebase I can't help but wonder why these SEOs don't just work on internal campaigns and stop having to deal with clients altogether.
The person above me mentioned that they'll put in 40 hours of work for 179 pounds, that's nuts.
Your looking at this all wrong. Your looking at the charge!
1) Most agencies only put in 3 hours work for uncompetitive keywords so you get your result, but you get on return on investment.
2) Most agencies charge £200 per month, but pay their workers £6.50 this happens a lot.
3) There is a lot of "professionalism" and "pricing standards" I know a-lot of people that are content in making £30 a day and working 12 hours a day for it. As long as they have a packet of cigarettes, petrol money and some food they'll work 12 hours a day HARD labour for £30.
There are a lot of new comers to SEO, Affiliate Marketing, Web Hosting thinking that they'll be a millionaire in three months time and they end-up poorer then they were before committing to these industries. I myself I charge £179 through BM&Co Web and I work extremely hard for hours for my clients. I'm intent in working hard for my money. Money is hard to come by and with many small businesses needing marketing advice and search engine optimisation I don't want to charge £100 per hour, I just want to live my life charging £179 and really working hard for my money.
Occasionally I'll do work offline that makes me small amounts of money but it gets me through the day. I also appreciate that small, medium businesses in my area have no marketing budget and to be able to provide a service that they appreciate and I can see that they're impressed is good enough as they occasionally give me drinks for my hard work.
I don't guarantee results I can't, but I'm willing to put in 40 hours work for £179.
Great survey. Thanks for providing the spreadsheets too. I'm so curious to know what percentage of businesses (by size) are actually purchasing SEO services. I suspect it's still a small percentage of the total. I'm still waiting for some of my favorite restaurants to build a website. *sigh*
Thanks for finally putting this survey together, Rand - it's been a long time in coming.
One thing I noticed though, was the exclusion of paid search management. For many of our clients, that's bundled up in a monthly package rate with their SEO services.
Sorry if you've mentioned why it's not included, but I'm curious to know if that would affect the client/employee ratio at all - I find it much easier to manage several SMB PPC accounts than it is to manage the SEO for those same clients (though there is a lot of crossover accounts as well).
Thanks - I've been considering setting up myself so this gives me plenty of information about charging. I've actually started on a bespoke basis with a day rate. I know my prices are good compared to other agencies in London, and since I used to work for one of them, I know how my work compares!
Some really good stats and really interesting reading. Its tells me one thing we need to start charging more money or going for the bigger tickets... :) We as a company work for Small to medium sized companies and this is really helpfull for us gauging the right balance between affordability and realistic rates.
One word - epic. I filled in the survey so it's great to see the outcome... especially since our rates seem to be inline with others in the locality. Thanks Rand :)
I must agree with you ! Bad for me that is no data from Greece and Cyprus.By the way is any greek here? Anyone have idea what they are using?
Thanks for getting this together so quickly! I was looking forward to the results of this survey. One thing I was shocked to see is the most popular answer for size of your SEO Agency was 1. This is probably telling us more about SEOmoz's audeince than anything.
Besides SEMPO, I can only think of SEOMoz who could pull off a survey like this. I know I participated only because I trust the Moz team. Great job!
Will look at the Raw data later, but I have a suggestion for next survey. Get agencies to put in no of projects across their most popular monthly retainer prices. Would be very interesting to see this data. Does the no of projects go down with increase in price? Is there a sweet spot for monthly retainer ?
Awesome data and some great comments. This goes to my permanent bookmarks untill you bring out next version :)
Great stuff, Rand and participants to the study.
Seeing what avg are being spent by clientele, wonder how each of you answers that one other question: "how much should I spend on SEO".
Excellent information for the in-house SEO trying to financially justifiy the cost of outsourcing the service to an external firm.
a good follow up survey might be to find out what are the most popular types of SEO engagements (site architecture, content, links, social media, algorithm research, etc.)
For me the real value of this survey is the way it endorses our approach and fee structures. SEO is still a relatively new industry and fees vary from the $99 scammers through to the "we only service big corp" $50k a month brigade. Like many we service a range of clients and I'm not more comfortable than ever we are on the money......in every sense.
Thanks!
d
A lot of comments above pointed saturation in the market. Although these data are not very representative of how agencies and freelance "sell" seo services around the world (due to the small number of respondents in Europe and in Canada for example) it is clear for me that companies need SEO services all around the world and SEO is easy to penetrate as an industry: this is the reason why we have these wide ranges of prices firstly and outsourcing secondly.
I don't think you can take those conclusions from this dataset which I do agree is slightly too small in some areas. I'd have expected a bigger take up rate in the UK for example.
I get it thats why soooo much of SEO work is always outsourced to India even the SEO companies of UK and USA outsources the work to India and get it done in cheap prices getting a good profit.
I wonder if I could hazard a guess on what might have also correlated... does point Six:
"Web Design/Development Agencies do a Lot of SEO The third most popular type of respondent was a web design/development agency offering SEO services. In the UK, these types of firms were better represented than either SEO-focused providers or broader inbound/organic firms."
Happen to pull down the averages on prices and client size?
It's just that (and I suspect others from the UK will know what I mean here) there are many, many small web des/dev agencies that offer cheap SEO which isn't really even SEO... it's what they "think" is SEO. I come across it loads, tonnes of web agencies (not all of course, I know there are plenty this doesn't equate to) who really only know some very basic stuff and charge existing clients extra for SEO services that aren't comprehensive and are missing nearly everything.
If there were a few UK agencies like that which responded then you'll be seeing low charges for small clients as we are in some cases there... assuming it's still Dollars not GBP when referring to the UK in the results.
So... Are there a bunch of low cost charging web designers pulling the averages down?
great list. thanks for compiling. seems about right though the average is a bit higher than I would have guessed though. thanks
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