In the past few months, a number of folks have brought up this old blog post of mine on SEO pricing. The now 4-year-old content there is in dire need of refreshing, but I don't think that my personal opinion and experience are of acceptable quality to make for a compelling, useful update. Thus, I've created the following survey.
If you own, manage or work at a consultancy/agency in the SEO or adjoining+overlapping fields, your participation is tremendously appreciated.
UPDATE: The post with data from the survey originally on this post is now live - SEO Pricing: 600+ Agencies Share the Costs of Services & Pricing Models and includes the infographic below:
The results from this survey will be made available to everyone in a blog post that will replace the old one in the next week. Company names and websites will be removed to help protect the privacy of those who've participated (and we're not asking for any highly sensitive items like revenues or client lists).
It's my hope that this new resource can help agencies and consultants as they compare their prices to the distributions of others as well as helping buyers of SEO and inbound marketing services get a sense for the common cost structures associated with the field.
Thanks for your contribution!
p.s. As you might imagine, changing a survey that's been published and collected results is very hard. However, if you have feedback about the survey format or suggestions to improve it, we'll definitely take those into consideration for our broad industry survey, which we'll be launching again in early 2012.
Very great idea!
When should we expect the results?
Thanks
Hi Rand good idea with this survey, will be great too see the results, but one point I must make is that in the end of the day you get what you pay for. Some people may think $150 an hour is "expensive" for SEO consulting but in the end of the day if you are working with some one who is a industry/ category specialist, who has 7+ years experience and you know they are going to provide ROI it is the businesses choice, they also would probably provide in house training/ face to face consulting ect...
Sure enough you see many of these smaller SEO players with 30 days experience, no experience in niches and have just read a make it rich online guide and decided to go into the market to sell SEO. These guys have decided to market their service at $49.99/ hour.
Funny thing is I have dealt with numerous companies who have taken the "cheaper" method over the years and usually end up been burnt and come looking for some one who has a bit more experience and will offer better serivce for money/ help fix the problems caused.
Thanks Rand for the survey.
My company started providing seo services one year back & we used to handle inhouse projects which consist of large ecommerce sites. Being inhouse also we used to charge them & side by side we used to take outside projects. Due to new in the market we used to charge less than our competitors, one thing I can say that its very tough to find SEO clients. We found several projects for web designing & charging them accordingly but we are still looking for seo projects.
Also, I think its time for you to update the "Salary of SEO Employee" how much they should get. Your last post on this is very old & its time to update the same.
I hope you'll update the same asap.
Thanks.
I cannot believe that the orginal survey is 4 years old! Where has all the time gone, seems like last month!
Many of the questions are based on how much SEO consultants "charge." But doesn't how much they "end up getting" differ vastly, especially when SEO is offered along with associated services such as web development? This is further complicated by the type and awareness of the client, and how much they're willing to spend, particularly if you don't want to let go of business.
Or is it just me?
Rand, think there's a mistake in #9:
Which of the following contract/payment models foes your consultancy/agency employee?
Thanks! Got that sorted :-)
Completed the survey! :)
Done - looking forward to seeing the results on this one.
Hey Rand, If the Person(an experienced guy from seo agency) is involved in the In House SEO activities for a Commercial firm , is he eligible to participate in survey?
Done. saw this late yesterday so didn't want to start (although it was fairly easy). Being in Spain, I hope I'm not the only one to compare with Gianluca - may skew resulats slightly !
Rand,
Be sure to include price differences in different areas to your report. Its good to compare where the SEO is most valued and where its not understood.
As I understand our region is very "Cheap" in terms of Seo pricing.
And done! Hope it helps :)
I choose to not participate in this survey - I felt that a lot of this information was none of anyone's business. The majority of my firms success has been due to our discresion, private pricing model and trade secerets. I am not a big commenter but feel the need to speak up on this.
It's an anonymous survey...
No-one will be able to trace your answers from the published results. The only organisation that will know what you've answered is SEOmoz, and I hardly think their purpose for this is to 'out' your business model.
Do you?
Any news on what people are up to fella ?
Done, though i couldnt be fussed figuring the conversion rate out for GBP to USD etc so I estimated :)
Nice survey, when are the results out?
I filled it out. Can't wait to see the results. Great questionaire.
Awesome Rand! Just want to add one thing that (i think) most of the people missed is that your last post about the SEO salaries (As far as i think) portray the average salary ratio in US and around... but when you come down to Asia and other parts the Salary Structure is somewhat different due many different factors and one of them is currency difference!
As a freelancer who prides himself on offering good value for money and return on investment, find the hardest part is offering a good price to those businesses who genuinely need help during tough economic times and not being take for a ride by those doing well and making large profits of the back of a cheap price from a freelance SEO.
From my point of view online marketing is technically quite easy so stress levels are low, however as pointed out above, if charge 100's an hour, but client then makes millions of back of it, then the 100's charged an hour is actually very cheap!
Completed and looking forward to see the results
Looking forward to seeing the results on this.
It would be really great if the results gave a per country breakdown as well.
Anxiously awaiting the results! Any idea when they'll be posted, Rand?
The last survey was a great help in validating my fees. Thanks for doing this.
Hello Rand,
I am not participating in the survey, but would like to receive the results. Please comment. Thanks,
Peter
Great idea.
I continously read of such a huge variation in fees and hourly rates that reading a survey from such a huge companies client base will be a great gauge for the industry as a whole.
Awesome idea. I'm very interested to see the results, my office manager tells me on a daily basis that we're horribly undercharging for our services. I say we're 'affordable but fair'. Prove me wrong!
Nicely crafted survey. Thanks
Regards,
Hafiz
Very much looking forward to seeing the averages!
Hey Rand,
Really appreciate you collecting numbers and providing an excellent source of information for all of us! I have been checking the old post, but it hasn't been updated.
When should we be on the lookout for the results? Thanks!
Great survey.
When will these results be published?
Thanks
I'm very interested to see these results. As a person who is in transition between jobs at the moment I want to see where this industry is going. I honestly feel that we aren't charging enough to be taken seariously (we land somewhere between the low and medium ranges in Rand's 4 year old chart), but at the same token our SEO services aren't selling.
I don't know if its possible at this point but I'd love to see some correlation data about cost from different states and provinces. A more local look.
Can't wait to see the results. I hope we will be able to see the results by country, too, not just total?
Hi there!
Thanks for this initiative. Will be waitng to see the results and compare with our own benchmark.
Question #9 wording a bit tricky, you may want to look that over.
I'm interested to see what other companies are charging, though I think a great deal of it is a case-by-case basis. Like Neil Patel pointed out in an earlier post of his, you can charge as much as you can justify. If you can make a company an additional $500,000/quarter, you can certainly justify charging $50,000/quarter (around there, you know what I'm saying).
Still, interested to see what comes of it!
Hey Rand - there was no question on keyword positioning/price for keyword postion. Does that mean that it's practiced by just a few agencies and it's not important? Also - it would be great if you could publish the results of the survey by country. :)
I'll definitely break down by country. And question #9 does include a choice for "pay-by-rankings" which I'd view as the same as "pay by keyword position."
Thank you for your answer :)
Completed survey and looking forward to the results.
Thanks Rand - as a consultancy based outside the US and India we're looking forward to seeing the results of this.
This should be interesting to see. I'm not sure if I'm charging the amount I should be charging at the moment. I'm hoping the results will be favourable for my situation as a small SEO company startup.
Thanks for geting this much needed refresh Rand.
It comes down to how much do you value your service... Rather than a comparison to another company offering the same service...
We come across many companies/freelancers that call themselves SEO's when they clearly demonstrate on public forums that they don't know much beyond page titles and metadata, and even then, they get the basic of basics incorrect too.
Fees across the SEO and other web agency based businesses industry differ massively and the only way you can charge more for your time is when you can prove your weight in gold and drill down to the most technical elements of SEO, even to the extent of design, coding and development.
The results of the survey (I don't feel) will really tell you whether your company's pricing structure is correct, you will just be able to gauge what level you're at compared with other companies - some of which may have professional designers/developers, copywriters or someone that even spends all day testing URL canonicalisation aspects and duplicate content but nothing else.
How far can you go? To what level can you implement your services? How much experience have you got? Are you employing juniors or have they been around in the industry for a while? How active are you in the SEO scene? Do you find yourself often in a position to correct others about SEO because you know they are talking nonsense? And then, there is understanding search engines, knowing everything about the latest algorithm updates, looking at a web page and knowing where it fails and where it works - many other things that all come with experience. And often, a lot of aspects a "small SEO company startup" will have yet to extensively test themselves and learn with experience and subsequently the reason, why they are not in a position to be able to charge large monthly retainer fees for their services (for example).
I agree 100% - but 99% of customers won't have a clue about any of this and will lean towards the SEO company which will cost them less per hour. And I don't charge monthly retainers, I charge per hour :)
Totally, most won't have a clue about this but I guess I also see this as being another selling point when pitching to the customer. Go above and beyond in showcasing your knowledge and explanation in the difference between you, your hourly rate and what the client gets (benefits) from your fees vs other companies.
I think if you deal with larger business they will be far more aware of who they are working with they will want weekly WIP's with experience people, who have a proven track record in their chosen niche, they will want around the clock support. Usually people who carge silly prices outsource most of the work in the end of the day and they do not even offer Face to Face hours.
Ultimately there is no right or wrong. It comes down to integrity in what one is offering and results. When I first started out freelancing in July 2010, I had some experience, but certainly not high level. With my first two clients, who I knew personally, I was able to tell them directly what I could and couldn't do.
They have stuck with me and they've consistently increased their budget with me. I have in turn delivered results, and measurable ROI for them both, which I am immensely proud of. This has been achieved with damn hard work of, and ultimately complete transparency in what works, what hasn't and communicating constantly with my clients about what I am up to. It is going to make for a great testimonial from them - which will undoubtedly help me win more clients.
I'm freelance consultant just starting out (with 3 years hands on SEO/marketing experience), so of course I am going to using a different pricing model to that of a consultant with say 7 years experience, or that of an agency. There is no one size fits all with consultancy, and I don't believe the idea that if someone charges low rates, necessarily means the clients gets their fingers burnt. I know of friends, colleagues who've paid out bucket loads of cash, and received zero ROI. I guess I'm trying to say is that is there integrity in what we are charging? That where I would come from. Sorry for the long winded way of explaining myself:-)
I am really against a set hourly rate as it creates opposing interests between consultants and clients. The consultant wants to maximize hrs and the client wants to minimize and is constantly checking for "efficiency"
I have just completed the survey. Now waiting for the result! Thanks Rand for the survey!
Completed survey. We know we are underpriced though. We are told so frequently by our customers. That said I just dont see how agencies justify charging 300-600 an hour. Frankly I see that as unethical funny as that might sound coming from me.
Which agenices charge that sort of money Kris? That does seem a heck of a lot!
Totally 100% agree. Who's charging that much money? It's a robbery.
Depends but if you want to work with a specific high end consultant who is an expert in a niche say "Life Insurance" SEO $300 a hour will be a price many insurance companies will be willing to pay due to the ROI and CPA for the consulting.
Another factor where people may pay this money is if you are a very well known consultant and you simply have too much demand for your services, look at guys like David Mihm he is in that $300/hour price range for large business and I am sure he has business.
The first few years I consulted, we charged $75, then $100, then $150 an hour. After demand became much larger than supply, we moved to $300, then $500 and finally $1,000/hour (for my time in particular). I don't think pricing and ethics have much to do with one another (so long as it's transparent and upfront on both sides). It's much more tied to supply and demand.
I remember at a conference chatting with Mikkel deMib Svendsen who told me that despite charging 700 euros/hour, he knew he was far undervalued. A bank would have a 3 hour meeting with him, get some recommendations, and turnover an additional 1mm euros the next month - clearly the ROI is there for most folks in SEO, especially if the client can implement the changes.
I think you hit the nail on the head Rand. Its not like you just start charging $500/hr out of nowhere. And its supply/demand for what you offer, not compared to other companies. Theoretically if you're offering something so amazing and constantly delevering great results on your services, you'll be able to increase your prices like that over time, no matter what others are charging.
Thank you Rand for the survey. I wonder wether a pricing like yours would be possible in Germany. The highest rate we charged until now (business startet 12 years ago) was $400/hour. But most clients do not understand what SEO means: The agency has to have skills in more than 10 different fields, starting from experimental/theoretical physics, ending up in arts (I think I should write an article about this...).
Good point Rand. We see the same thing with law firms who we work with where they sign up X number of clients knowing the average payday for them will be six figures...per client. We have steadily increased our fees and have not heard a complaint. Obviously, you have to deliver or you will hear the complaint...with the goodbye letter. (Thanks for the survey, looking forward to the results).
Fair enough but bear in mind my company is more direct service than consulting. Which means even though most clients interact with me first during the initialization of the contract.. its still people making far less than me per hour usually conducting the work based on a plan I outline. We still bill this service hourly. So if a client buys a 40 hour block of service it just seems effed up to me to charge them 300 an hour which would represent a gigantic markup over what its costing us to deliver said work. A lot of agencies work like this. Have the big name close the deal then pass the work down to junior employees. The difference is they still charge the big name price for the junior employees work. Thats what I find unethical. If its direct 1 on 1 consulting with me specifically then I could maybe see the logic.
I agree with you that there's a potentially unethical (or at least, non-transparent) element in charging the full price for all aspects of the work, but only if you're working on an hourly rate. If it's by the project or monthly retainer, it's much less of an issue - the work quality is what matters.
I'd also encourage you to charge what you're worth and think more about the ROI you're providing. It will let you scale your consultancy and let you have more freedom to spend money on promoting yourself, investing in R&D, maybe building some backend data or tools to grow your efficiencies, etc.
There's little nobility or ethics involved in undercharging for good service. We contract work all the time, and we'd rather pay more to the best folks (for webdev contractors, financial services, auditing, 401a evals, etc) than have a contractor who's struggling to make ends meet because they feel bad about charging what they're worth. Even from a pure business perspective, those folks tend to go out of business or take an early buyout offer, leaving us without the reliable service we came to love.
Well said.
Rand you're the one who pulled me aside years ago and convinced me to raise my rates from $75 to $150 back in the day. (at the vintage tub party NY 06/07ish?) And told me to stay there for a while then raise two more times till I eventually got it to where it is today... By the way (I thought you were CRAZY at the time) but I wanted to say - Thanks for that! The clients are much easier to work with, higher quality, funner, and the pay is better ;)
If your CLIENTS are telling you you're underpriced, raise your rates until they stop saying that. Just a thought.
CEO @ Targetseo.com - thanks for inviting me for survey...small but covered all questions, very useful survey.
We're 'selling the dream'. Pricing is usually a bit subjective - some can afford more - other projects are just pipeline fillers.
I'd hate to see published rates (like a plumber) that can be used in a race to the lowest pricing....
Rand! Thanks a lot for the initiative! It's about time to update the old post. The only survey comment is: my business is not currently working with clients on retainer, yet question #13 was "a-must" for survey completion. I had to pick a generic number for that. I believe there's a Survey Monkey question setting where you can remove "must answer" check mark. Not a big deal at all, just wanted to point that out for future reference.
For questions 11, 12 and 13, I made sure to have the first response say "we do not offer xyz." Hopefully folks can check that box (I see it in the survey above; maybe you just missed it?).
That's exactly what I did, missed it. My apologies. Thanks again for the survey initiative!!
done, looking out for the results!
Suhweet ... Excited to see how we stack up to everyone else ... I know we have basically doubled prices in the past year for two reasons:
1). We were under charging and found a sweet spot which essentially allowed us to work smarter not harder
2). There is some pretty significant demand for our services especially when tied to a no contract agreement and exclusivity!
Finished the survey :D
I'm really happy that you did this Rand. I've been wondering what other SEOs are charging, and now I can finally see how I compare. Glad to know you use your influence to better the SEO community!
Filled it out. I can't wait to see the results. I know that I am giong to have to hire someone soon.
Will be fascinated to see the results - and for your statistical analysis gurus to assemble the data in your usual excellent manner...and hopefully a comparison of data, then vs now - can't wait for the infographic!
Completed the survey, thanks for offering it. In response to some of the comments above, it may also be interesting to do a survey of how different consultancies/agencies differentiate their services. In other words, what is it about you that makes you think you deserve more than the lowest published rate?
I agree we definitely don't want to commoditize the industry any more than it already has been (what's happening in PPC makes me sick), but it would be interesting to see.
You're welcome!!!!! I hope this helps you guys out
I am very much looking forward to seeing the results of this survey. Many thanks to Rand and the rest of the SEOmoz team.
I think the same survey should come before a year ago, as after every 2-3 years price of everything changes so the service charges as well.
Thanks for the post, waiting for the result.
Nice initiative.As a working CMM of Zebra Techies Solution, the information are given accordingly.