What local SEO costs, and what each price gets you.

Local SEO gets sold three ways, and the price tags are all over the map. Here is what each offer is, what it can and can’t do, and what to ask before you hand anyone your card. Our own two prices are at the bottom, with what they include.

The three offers you’ll see

1. A one-page site on a monthly plan. Cheap and quick. It holds your name, your number, a few photos and a list of what you do. It is one page trying to match every search, so it can only ever be the best answer to one of them. If people mostly look you up by name, it can be enough for now.
2. A website plan. A real site with a page for each service and each town you work, built and hosted for a monthly price. This is the kind we build. The thing to check is what happens after launch. If nobody touches the site again, it stays a picture of your business on the day it went live.
3. An SEO retainer. An agency works your site, your Google Business Profile, your listings and your reviews every month, and bills a monthly fee, often on a contract of six months or a year. The scope can be anything from a few hours a month to a whole team. Ask exactly what is in it, because two retainers at the same price can be very different jobs.

What people actually charge

Two published surveys put numbers on it. Both are linked so you can read them yourself. I checked them on September 25, 2026.

• Ahrefs (opens in a new tab) surveyed 439 SEO providers (updated August 15, 2024). Local SEO averaged $1,557 a month, and SEO overall averaged $2,917 a month. The single most common monthly retainer was $501 to $1,000.
• SE Ranking (opens in a new tab) surveyed 260 agencies in 2024 (published December 13, 2024). 64% offer monthly retainers below $1,000, and 30% charge less than $500 a month. 94% of them serve small or local businesses.

So the honest answer to “what does local SEO cost” is anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month to a few thousand. The price alone tells you almost nothing. What is in it does.

What the monthly work actually is

A one-time build is a snapshot. Your business keeps changing after it. You add a service, drop one, pick up a new town, get busier in another. Your competitors keep posting. Google keeps looking.

Monthly work is the part that keeps up. On a plan that earns its fee, it looks like this.

• A new page when you add a service or a town, and a fix when you drop one.
• Posts and photos on your Google Business Profile, so it does not go quiet.
• Replies to your reviews, good and bad.
• Your name, address and phone kept matching everywhere they appear online.
• The technical side kept working. Hosting, speed, broken links, the structured data behind the page.
• A look at what people actually searched to find you, so the next page is the right one.

If a plan cannot tell you what gets done each month, you are paying a hosting bill with a bigger name.

What to ask before you sign

1. Is there a setup fee, and what does it buy? Some plans charge a few hundred up front for the build and a smaller monthly after. That is fine if it is written down before you pay.
2. How long is the contract, and what does leaving cost? Six and twelve month terms are common on retainers. Know the exit before the entrance.
3. Is ad spend on top? Ads are a fine thing to buy. They just are not SEO, and the clicks stop the day the spending stops. Make sure the fee you are quoted is not mostly an ads budget with a management charge on it.
4. Who does the work, and what will I see? A name, and a monthly note that says what changed. Not a dashboard full of numbers you did not ask for.
5. What do I keep if I leave? The most important one. Next section.

What you should keep if you leave

Four things belong to your business no matter who you hire. If a contract says otherwise, walk.

• Your domain name. Registered to you, in an account you can log in to.
• Your Google Business Profile. In your own Google account. A marketing company can be a manager on it. It should never be the owner.
• Every review you earned. They live on your profile, so if the profile is yours, the reviews are too.
• Your phone number. If they set up a business line for you, it should be portable.

Here is our own term, in plain words. On the SEO + Website plan the site is built and hosted as part of the plan, so it stays with us if you go. Your domain, your Google profile, your reviews and your phone number go with you, and we help with the handover either way. The full wording is in the Terms and the FAQ.

Our two prices

We charge two prices and nothing else. No setup fees, no contract, month to month, cancel anytime.

• Automation System, $97 a month. The phone side, handled. A missed-call text-back on the number you already give out, review requests after every job with bad-review alerts to your cell, the legal texting registration with the carriers (A2P) done for you, and all your leads and customers in one inbox. See the Automation System
• SEO + Website, $297 a month. Everything in Automation, plus a website built to rank, with a page for every service you sell and every town you have actually worked. Your Google Business Profile verified and optimized, local SEO every month (the schema, the listings, the technical work), a lead form wired straight to your phone, and hosting and updates included. See the SEO + Website plan

The larger plan contains the smaller one, so nothing gets bought twice. Start with the one that fits and move up whenever. The pricing page has the details and the questions people ask most.

The one promise nobody can make

Google decides what ranks, and it does not take instructions from us or from anyone else. Nobody can promise you the first spot, or a spot by a certain date. Anyone who does is selling something they do not control, and that is the red flag to watch for on any quote, at any price.

What a fair price buys is the work that gives you a real chance. A site built around your actual services and towns, a complete and verified profile, your name, address and phone matching everywhere, and someone keeping at it every month.

The price is the easy part to compare. Compare what is in it, what you keep, and how you leave.