The short answer
For a local contractor, ongoing SEO is usually a monthly fee. Our plans are $999, $1,999, $2,999 or $4,999 and up per month. What you should pay depends on how competitive your trade is in your towns, how much work your website and Google Business Profile need, and how much new content and outreach it takes to compete.
Prices vary a lot from one provider to the next, so the useful question isn't just "how much," but "what exactly do I get each month, and who owns it?"
How SEO is usually priced
- Monthly plans. The most common setup for local businesses. You pay each month for a defined set of work: profile updates, page improvements, new content, technical fixes and reporting.
- One-time projects. An audit, a cleanup or a new website, priced once. Useful for fixing a specific problem, but rankings need ongoing attention after the project ends.
- Hourly consulting. You pay for advice and your team does the work. It can work if you have someone in-house with time to do it.
What drives the price for a contractor
- Competition. A roofer in Little Rock competes with more companies, and more marketing budgets, than a septic company in a smaller town.
- How many services and towns. Each main service and each town you want to win usually needs its own page and attention.
- The shape of your website. A slow site with no service pages needs more work up front than a solid one.
- Content and outreach. New pages every month, links from real local sources and a content plan all take hours, and hours are most of the cost.
- Ads. Managing Google Ads alongside SEO adds work and is usually priced into a higher tier.
What our plans include
| Plan | Price | Built for |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | $999/mo | Smaller local businesses that need the foundation done right: keyword research, on-page SEO for up to 5 core pages, Google Business Profile, technical cleanup and a monthly report. |
| Accelerate | $1,999/mo | Growing businesses that want new content every month, ongoing profile work, speed improvements and reports every two weeks. |
| Dominate | $2,999/mo | Competitive markets that need a full strategy, link building, a content plan and a monthly strategy call. |
| Empire | $4,999+/mo | Companies that want SEO, Google Ads, content, tracking and reporting coordinated across a broader market. |
Every plan includes a new website if yours needs replacing, at no extra cost. See the full comparison on our pricing page.
Terms that matter as much as the price
- Agreement length. SEO takes months to show results, so most agencies ask for a minimum term. Ours is six months. Whoever you hire, know the term and what happens if you leave early before you sign.
- Who owns your accounts. Your Google Business Profile, domain, hosting and analytics should be in your name, with the agency working through manager access. If an agency owns them, leaving gets complicated.
- What the report shows. You should be able to see what was done each month and what changed, in plain English.
- Who does the work. Ask whether the person you talk to is the person doing your work, or whether it's handed off.
Is SEO worth it for a contractor?
Do the math with your own numbers. Start with the profit on a typical job, then ask how many extra jobs a month would cover the plan. For many trades, that's a small number of jobs. SEO also builds over time: pages, reviews and links keep working after the month they were added, which is different from ads that stop the day you stop paying.
It's not the right fit for everyone. If you're already booked out for months, or you can't answer more calls, fix that first.
Red flags when you're comparing quotes
- Guaranteed rankings. No one controls Google's results. Google itself says "there's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."
- Paid or incentivized reviews. Google's policies prohibit reviews influenced by a payment, discount or free service, and pressuring customers for a particular rating. Anyone offering to "get you reviews" that way is putting your profile at risk.
- Accounts in the agency's name. Ask before you sign.
- No clear list of work. "Ongoing optimization" isn't a deliverable. You should know what gets done each month.
Where to start
Run the free website audit for a quick automated look, or call (501) 476-1138 and ask for a hand-checked Local Growth Snapshot. We'll tell you what's worth fixing and recommend a plan on a 20-minute call.