How much do SEO services cost? (with examples)

No need for a long intro here, so we’ll cut right to the chase. A ballpark cost for any SEO updates on your website is going to start at $2,500. The scale of your site, the amount of competition, and the type of business all affect the cost depending on which KPIs you’re trying to drive.

Let’s look at a few hypothetical examples of different companies and what they’re trying to achieve.

Example 1

Everyday E-Bike is an electric bicycle dealership in a small city. They have a functional website with no local competition. Their goal is to rank locally for geo-centric keywords like “ebike store near me.” A ballpark cost for them might be $2,500 to $5,000 – as a Strategy Sprint, and minimal technical and on-page optimization would be sufficient to help them along their path. All of that work could also be DIY with some guidance.

Example 2

Crossing Paths is an outdoor adventure retailer with brick-and-mortar locations across North America. They want to ramp up their ecommerce sales, so they need to rank for keywords like “best camping gear” and “waterproof hiking boot.” The scale of their site is national, and they’re dealing with a much more competitive search landscape. They need to work in sprints with a $5.000 to $10,000 SEO budget per quarter for content updates, building new pages, site speed optimization, analysis and reporting. 

Example 3

West Can Industries and Cobra Energy Services are Oil & Gas service businesses that operate across Western Canada, and they’re both looking to expand their reach. West Can Industries has an old page-builder website that’s hard to update and has limited options for customization. Cobra Energy Services recently invested in a new website built with a modern CMS like WordPress. If both companies invested the same $5.000 to $10,000 per sprint on SEO work, Cobra Energy Services would come ahead because they already have a solid digital foundation to build on.

In summary, $2,500 will get the get the ball rolling. $5,000+ per quarter will start scaling results. An outdated website that were never built for search engines will require additional budget to achieve the same results.