How much does an SEO consultant cost in 2026? Real rates in the US and Canada

On the afternoon of October 17, 2026, we typed a plain question into Google from a desktop in the United States: "how much does an SEO consultant cost". Google did not answer with a list of websites first. It answered with a paragraph of its own, written by its AI, and the paragraph was confident.

"An independent SEO consultant typically costs between $75 and $250 per hour," it said, "or $1,500 to $5,000 per month on a retainer for ongoing management." Under the paragraph sat a neat little table and three small buttons naming the websites Google had read to write it: qoulomb.com, webfx.com and carsondigitalseo.com.

Those ranges are not wrong. They are also not much use on their own. A range that runs from $75 to $250 an hour covers a beginner and a veteran. A monthly range from $1,500 to $5,000 covers a one-location dentist and a national online store. And every one of those figures traces back, one or two steps later, to a small number of industry surveys, some of them years old, most of them collected in the US, and almost none of them written for the business owner who has to sign the cheque.

So we went back to the surveys themselves. We read each one from its own page, checked who answered it and when, and set them side by side with the published prices of agencies in Canada and with Google's own advertising prices. This guide is what we found: what an SEO consultant really costs in the United States and Canada in 2026, why the quotes you get are so far apart, and how to tell whether a price is fair for your business.

One thing first, so you can read the rest with it in mind. We are an SEO agency, and we sell SEO consulting. Our own prices are near the end of this guide, in the same detail as everyone else's.

The short answer: what an SEO consultant costs in 2026

Here are the ranges that the best available data supports, in US dollars and, for Canadian readers, converted to Canadian dollars at the Bank of Canada's rate of 1.4154 for October 16, 2026.

How you pay	Typical range (US$)	About (C$)	What the money usually buys
By the hour	$75 to $200 an hour; consultants most often $100 to $150	C$106 to C$283; most often C$142 to C$212	Advice, a second opinion, a review of someone else's work, training your team
Monthly retainer	$1,500 to $5,000 a month for most established businesses	C$2,123 to C$7,077	Ongoing work: fixing the site, writing pages, earning links, the Google Business Profile, reporting
One-off project	Often $2,500 to $10,000 for a consultant; more for big sites	C$3,540 to C$14,154	An audit, a plan, a website move, a recovery after a drop

Those are not our prices. They are what the surveys below say most of the market charges, and where each number comes from is set out in the next sections. If you only remember one thing from this guide, make it this: the price of an hour tells you very little. What you need to know is what the money is tied to. A consultant who bills hours is paid for time. A team on a monthly plan should be paid for moving you up Google. Those are different deals, even at the same price.

What an SEO consultant is, in plain words

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the work of getting your business shown, without paying for each click, when people search on Google, on Google Maps and, more and more, in AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google's own AI answers. An SEO consultant is a specialist you hire to tell you how to do that work for your business, and sometimes to do it.

In practice the word "consultant" covers three kinds of people, and they price themselves differently.

The freelancer

One person, usually doing the hands-on work: writing pages, fixing things on the website, building listings. Often the cheapest by the hour.

The independent consultant

One senior person, usually selling advice and a plan rather than labour. Often the most expensive by the hour, because you are paying for judgement, not time at a keyboard.

The agency

A team: a strategist who works out the plan, plus writers, technical people and people who earn links from other websites. Agencies usually price by the month, because the work runs month after month.

The lines blur. Many agencies sell consulting hours, and many consultants run small teams. What matters to you is a simpler question: when the advice is finished, who does the work? If the answer is "you", the consultant's fee is only part of what SEO will cost you. The rest is your time, or the time of whoever builds your website.

Our own SEO consulting service is built around that question, and we come back to it later. First, the numbers.

Freelancer, consultant or agency: what each one charges

The largest poll that splits prices by who you hire is Ahrefs', with 439 SEO providers. Here are its figures side by side. Two warnings before you read them. The averages count every respondent at the top of the price band they picked, so they lean high; the "most common" rows are the plainer guide. And the poll is worldwide, so US and Canadian prices sit higher than its typical figures.

	Freelancer	Independent consultant	Agency
Most common hourly rate	$75 to $100	$100 to $150	$75 to $100
Average hourly rate	$71.59	$171.18	$98.90
Most common monthly fee	$251 to $500	$2,501 to $5,000	$500 to $1,000
Average monthly fee	$1,349	$3,250	$3,209
Most common project fee	$101 to $250	$5,001 to $10,000	$2,501 to $5,000
What you usually get	Hands-on tasks you direct: pages, fixes, listings	Senior advice and a plan; the work is often yours to do	A team that plans and does the work: strategy, writing, technical fixes, links
When it fits	You know what needs doing and want it done cheaply	You have someone in-house who needs direction	You want the work done and one firm answerable for the result

Source for every figure in the table: Ahrefs SEO pricing poll, updated August 15, 2024. The last two rows are our summary, not survey data.

The pattern is clear. A consultant is the dearest hour but not the dearest month, because a consultant sells fewer hours. An agency month costs about the same as a consultant month and usually buys more hands. A freelancer is the cheapest on every line, and the right choice when you already know exactly what you want done. If you want the full-service version, with Google, Maps and AI answers handled by one team, that is what our SEO service is.

Where the numbers come from, and why they disagree

Almost every price you will see quoted for SEO consultants comes from one of four surveys. Each asked a different group of people, at a different time, a slightly different question. Here they are, read from their own pages on October 17, 2026.

Survey	Who answered, and when	Headline figures
Ahrefs SEO pricing poll	439 SEO providers worldwide; first published December 2023, last updated August 15, 2024	Consultants average $171.18 an hour and $3,250 a month. Their most common hourly band is $100 to $150. In the US and Canada, 66.7% of providers charge $75 to $200 an hour.
GoodFirms SEO pricing survey	300+ SEO agencies in 35 countries, collected April to May 2026	48% of agencies charge $1,500 to $5,000 a month; 43.3% charge less; 5.5% charge more. 29.9% no longer bill by the hour at all. 54.3% raised prices in 2025 to 2026.
SE Ranking agency survey	260 agencies, published December 13, 2024	40% of agencies in the US and Canada charge over $125 an hour; in Europe, 6% do.
Credo digital marketing pricing survey	383 respondents who do SEO for clients; SEO page updated July 25, 2022, consultant page March 15, 2023	Digital marketing consultants average $141.67 an hour. US SEO agencies average $147.93 an hour.

Read side by side, they tell a consistent story about the middle of the market. Read closely, each one also comes with a catch worth knowing before you quote it to anybody.

The average that is built from the top of each band

The most quoted figure in the whole field is Ahrefs' "$171.18 an hour" for consultants. Ahrefs is open about how it got there: it asked people to pick a price band, then, in its own words, assumed "all surveyed SEOs charge the upper end of their pricing tier". Someone who ticked $100 to $150 was counted as charging $150. That is a reasonable shortcut for a survey, and Ahrefs says so plainly. But it means the famous average leans high. The more useful line in the same poll is the plainer one: the most common band for consultants was $100 to $150 an hour, and 90% of all respondents charged $150 an hour or less.

The worldwide sample

The newest survey, GoodFirms' from spring 2026, asked agencies in 35 countries. Half of them bill under $100 an hour. That is a true picture of the world, but not of Toronto or Dallas: GoodFirms itself says agencies in India, South Asia, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe typically charge under $100 an hour, while firms in the US, the UK and Western Europe charge $100 to $200 or more.

Canada is barely in the data

This is the catch that matters most to Canadian owners. SE Ranking grouped the US and Canada together, and then wrote, to its credit, that "out of 113 agencies representing North America, only 7 originate from Canada." The other surveys do not break Canada out at all. When a Canadian article quotes "North American" rates, it is almost always quoting American ones. We look at what Canadian firms publish in their own prices further down.

The echo

Finally, the numbers travel. GoodFirms' 2026 summary table lists the monthly retainer as the most popular model at "78.2%", which is the exact figure Ahrefs published for its own 2023 poll, while GoodFirms' own survey puts retainers at 60.6%. Google's AI answer then reads the agency blogs that quote both. None of this is a scandal. It is simply how a handful of surveys becomes "what everyone knows". When someone gives you a number, it is fair to ask where it came from.

Hourly rates: what an hour of an SEO consultant buys

Across the surveys, the most common hourly band for SEO consultants is $100 to $150, and a wider band of $75 to $200 covers about two thirds of providers in the US and Canada. Experience moves the rate, as the section on what drives the price shows below.

What a good hour looks like

An hour is worth paying for when you leave it with something you could not have worked out yourself. In a good hour, the consultant has looked at your website and your market before you arrive. They search for what your customers search for, in the towns you serve, and show you who comes up above you and why. You leave with a short list: what to fix first, what to build next, and what to stop doing. If your nephew built the website, the list is written so he can act on it without a second meeting.

When paying by the hour makes sense

• You have people who can do the work. An in-house marketer or a web developer who needs direction, not hands.
• You want a second opinion. You already pay someone for SEO and want an outside expert to check whether it is working.
• Something specific has gone wrong. Your calls dropped after a Google update, or a new website is about to launch and you want to keep the rankings you have. (Moving to a new website without a plan is one of the fastest ways to lose them. We explain why on our website migration page.)

When it does not

If nobody on your side has the time to carry out the advice, hours become expensive in a quiet way. You pay for a plan, then pay again in your own evenings, or the plan sits in a drawer. The SEO work that moves rankings is not one task. It is a run of them: fixing what Google cannot read on your site, writing a page for each search that brings customers, earning links from other trusted websites, keeping your Google listing complete. That run is why most of the market has moved away from hours. In GoodFirms' 2026 survey, 60.6% of agencies use a monthly retainer as their main way of charging.

Monthly retainers: what $500, $1,500 and $5,000 a month usually buy

A retainer is a fixed monthly fee for ongoing work. It is how most SEO is sold, and it is where the gap between quotes is widest. GoodFirms' spring 2026 survey gives the clearest current picture.

Under $1,500 a month

43.3% of agencies charge under $1,500 a month. GoodFirms describes this as mostly freelancers, offshore teams and very small agencies doing the basics: simple page changes, the Google Business Profile, local directory listings and a report. GoodFirms' own verdict is that this level "only makes sense for local businesses with limited competition."

$1,500 to $5,000 a month

48% of agencies charge $1,500 to $5,000 a month. This is the core of the professional market: technical fixes, content, links, competitor research, reporting and, increasingly, work aimed at AI answers. GoodFirms puts growing businesses, regional companies and online stores in this band.

Over $5,000 a month

5.5% of agencies charge more than $5,000 a month, mostly for large brands, regulated industries and multinationals. GoodFirms says enterprise programmes can reach $15,000 a month or more.

Ahrefs' older poll lands in the same place for consultants specifically: an average of $3,250 a month, with the most common band at $2,501 to $5,000. In the US and Canada, 79.1% of the providers it polled charged at least $1,001 a month.

Cheap SEO: can $300 a month work?

Plenty of businesses are offered SEO for $300 or $500 a month. Can it work? The honest answer depends on the market, not the price. In a small town with three competitors, a few hours a month on the right things can be enough. In a big city, for a search that brings in serious money, it rarely is: there are not enough hours in $300 to out-work competitors who are spending ten times that. The useful test is not "is this cheap?" but "how many hours, of whose time, on what, does this buy, and is that more than the businesses above me are getting?"

GoodFirms draws the same line from the agency side: for campaigns aimed at a whole country or a competitive trade, it calls a budget under $1,500 a month "a red flag". That is not a rule that cheap never works. It is a reminder that the fee has to buy more effort than your competitors are putting in, and cheap plans rarely do in a crowded market.

What drives the price of an SEO consultant

Two businesses can ask the same consultant for "SEO" and get quotes thousands of dollars apart. These are the things that move the number.

How crowded your market is

The more money a search is worth, the more businesses fight for it, and the more work it takes to win. GoodFirms found that 23.6% of agencies serving finance clients charge over $5,000 a month, against 9.1% of those serving education. Trades and professions with expensive clicks, such as law firms, plumbers, roofers, heating and cooling companies and dentists, usually face the most competition for the top spots.

Which part of Google you want to show up on

Many owners do not realise that "showing up on Google" means at least three different places, priced differently because the work is different.

• The map. The box of three businesses with a map that appears for searches like "plumber near me". Getting into it is mainly local work: your Google Business Profile (the free listing that shows your hours, photos and reviews on Google Maps), your location pages, local listings and links. Our local SEO and Map Pack expansion pages go into detail.
• The regular results. The list of websites under the map. Moving up it is mostly website work: technical fixes, on-page work such as titles and page structure, content and links from other sites. It usually takes more work, especially for searches across a whole country, which is why organic SEO is generally priced above local.
• The AI answers. Google's AI Overviews, ChatGPT and similar tools that write an answer and name a few businesses or sources. Google says there are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode" beyond what it already asks of pages in search, so the same work that ranks you tends to feed these answers too. Our guide to Google's AI Overviews explains how it picks sources.

When you compare two monthly quotes, check which of the three each one is for. A Maps-only plan and a plan for the regular results are not the same product at different prices.

How far you want to reach

Ranking in one town costs less than ranking across a country. In Ahrefs' poll, providers serving local markets averaged $1,557 a month, against $3,473.74 for those serving a worldwide market. GoodFirms says the $500 to $1,500 band "remains viable" for a business competing in a single city or region. If you serve many towns, our multi-location SEO page explains how that work is priced and run.

How big your website is

A ten-page site and a ten-thousand-page online store are different jobs. Every page has to be readable by Google, and every product or service page competes for its own searches. That is why audits and website moves are priced by size, and why ecommerce SEO usually costs more than SEO for a local service business.

Who does the work

Advice is cheaper than advice plus labour. A consultant who hands you a plan charges for hours of thinking; a team that also writes the pages, fixes the site and earns the links charges for all of it. When you compare a consultant's hourly rate with an agency's monthly fee, add the cost of whoever on your side will carry out the consultant's plan.

The consultant's experience

Ahrefs found the hourly rate rises with experience: $73.05 on average for people two years or less into the business, $97.11 for two to four years, $102.03 for five to ten years and $118.35 for ten years or more.

Experience is worth paying for when it shows up as judgement: knowing which of fifty possible fixes will move your rankings and which are busywork. Ask any consultant what they would do first and why. The answer tells you more than their years.

What an SEO consultant actually does each month

Whatever the price, ongoing SEO comes down to a handful of jobs done well and done repeatedly. When you read a quote, check that these are in it, and who does each one.

Fixes what Google cannot read

Slow pages, broken links, pages Google has been told to skip, two pages chasing the same search. These are technical fixes, and they come first, because nothing else works on a site Google struggles to read.

Writes and improves the pages that win searches

Each service you sell, in each place you sell it, needs a page that answers what a customer searching for it wants to know. That means writing new pages and improving existing ones: their titles, their headings and what they actually say.

Earns links from other websites

Google treats a link from a trusted website as a sign that yours is worth showing. Earning those links, from local press, trade bodies and suppliers, is slow work, and it is part of what separates the top results from the rest. Our link building and off-page SEO pages explain how it is done properly.

Keeps your Google Business Profile complete

Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your hours, photos, services and reviews on Google Maps. It is one of many inputs into who shows in the map, alongside your website, links, local listings and how close you are to the searcher. Keeping it complete and accurate is part of local SEO.

Reports in plain words

A good monthly report says which searches moved, where you now rank on Google, Maps and AI answers, and what happens next. If the report is a wall of charts nobody explains, ask for a call to walk through it.

One-off projects: audits, website moves and recoveries

Some SEO work has a start and an end, and is priced as a project. Ahrefs found the most common project fee for consultants was $5,001 to $10,000, and that in the US and Canada, 83.3% of providers charge at least $1,001 per project. GoodFirms puts project-based work at $2,500 to $20,000 or more, and a full technical audit at $1,500 to $5,000 when it is sold on its own.

The common projects are these.

An audit

A full check of what is holding your site back: pages Google cannot read, slow pages, broken links, pages competing with each other for the same search, gaps against competitors. A good audit ends with a ranked list of fixes in plain words, not a 90-page export from a software tool. Our SEO audit page shows what one should contain. In Canada, Search Engine People puts a good technical audit for a site of under 100 pages at "around CAD$1,500 one time".

A website move

A redesign or a new web address can wipe out years of rankings if the old page addresses are not carried over. The project is to plan the move so they are. Our website migration page shows what that plan covers.

A recovery

Rankings fell after a Google update or a technical accident, and someone has to diagnose why before anyone touches the site.

A plan

A written roadmap you carry out yourself or with another team. Search Engine People prices a full package of keyword research, competitor analysis and content mapping at "around CAD$4,000 one time".

Projects are good value when the job really is one job. The risk is buying an audit when what you needed was the work the audit lists. Ask, before you pay, who will carry out the fixes and what that will cost.

What changed in SEO pricing in 2026

The newest survey, GoodFirms' from spring 2026, shows three shifts worth knowing before you read any quote this year.

Prices went up

54.3% of the agencies GoodFirms surveyed raised their prices in 2025 to 2026. Among them, 37% named work for AI search as the main reason. If a quote is higher than last year's, it is fair to ask what you now get that you did not before.

AI search is often sold as an add-on

Where agencies sell AI-search work separately, GoodFirms found it averages more than $900 a month. Google, for its part, says there are "no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode" beyond what it asks of pages in search. Some AI-search work is real and specific. Ask what it is and how it is measured. Our approach is on our AI SEO page, and in our monthly plans it is included.

Fewer hours, more retainers

29.9% of agencies no longer bill by the hour at all, and 60.6% charge mainly by monthly retainer. GoodFirms also found 13.4% now use a mix: a monthly base plus fees for big pieces of work such as a website move. Hourly work is still common for audits, website moves, recoveries and advice.

What SEO consultants cost in Canada

What Canadian firms publish

Because the big surveys say so little about Canada, the best evidence for Canadian prices is what Canadian firms publish themselves. Search Engine People, a Toronto agency, wrote in a pricing guide updated November 10, 2025, that "hourly rates like CAD$175 per hour are very common for senior work", and that for a medium-sized website, "a CAD$1,500 per month retainer or a CAD$6,000 one time project should get you a solid SEO foundation."

The same guide gives Canadian figures for smaller jobs too. For a small business in a single location, with a modest website and moderate competition, it suggests "around CAD$1,000 to CAD$3,000 per month" for a full ongoing plan.

How that compares with the US figures

Those figures sit close to the US survey numbers once you convert them. C$175 is about US$124 at the October 16, 2026 rate, right in the middle of the $100 to $150 band consultants most often charge. A C$1,500 retainer is about US$1,060, which sits at the lower end of the professional range in GoodFirms' data.

What to expect to pay in Canada

So, in rough terms, a Canadian owner can expect:

• Senior hourly advice: about C$150 to C$250 an hour.
• A monthly plan for an established local business: from about C$1,500 a month, rising with competition, locations and the size of the site.
• A one-off project: from a few thousand dollars for an audit to well over C$10,000 for a large site move.

We work with businesses across Canada, with local pages for Toronto, Mississauga, Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, among others.

Why the sums are different in Canada

One thing is different in Canada, and it changes the sums: the alternative to SEO usually costs less. Google's average price for a click on "emergency plumber near me" in October 2026 was $31.03 in Canada, against $76.63 in the US (both in US dollars). That brings us to the question every owner is really asking.

Is an SEO consultant worth it? A way to do the sums without guessing

Nobody can honestly promise you a return on SEO before they have seen your market, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What you can do is compare SEO with the thing most businesses already understand: paying Google for clicks.

Here is the comparison in plain terms. A month of SEO at $1,500 costs the same as about 19 ad clicks for an emergency plumber in the US. Those 19 clicks stop the day the budget runs out. A page that ranks on the first page of Google for that search keeps being found the next month, and the month after, for the same plan fee. That is the whole case for SEO, and also its weakness: it takes time to get there, and the clicks you buy work from day one.

The gap is widest where clicks are dearest. At $163.07 a click, $1,500 buys a US personal injury firm 9 visitors. That is where ranking for a search is worth the most. Our law firm SEO page goes into that market, and our guide to law firm SEO shows how people choose a lawyer on Google, Maps and AI answers today.

So do the sums this way, in four steps.

Step 1: List the five searches that bring you your best customers

"Emergency plumber near me", "divorce lawyer Mississauga", whatever yours are.

Step 2: Find out what one click on each costs on Google Ads

Any SEO consultant worth hiring can tell you on a first call.

Step 3: Compare the monthly SEO fee with the clicks it would buy

If the fee buys a handful of clicks in your trade, ranking for even one of those searches covers it many times over. If it buys hundreds, SEO has to work harder to beat ads, and the plan should say how.

Step 4: Ask what ranking movement the consultant expects, by when, and what happens if it does not come

That last part is the one most quotes leave out.

Many businesses use both: ads for speed, SEO for the clicks that keep coming. If you are weighing Google's other paid option, our guide to Local Services Ads versus SEO covers it.

Consultant, agency or do it yourself: the cost beyond the fee

The fee on the quote is only one line of the real cost. Here is how the three options compare once you count everything.

	Independent consultant	Agency	Do it yourself
Typical fee	$100 to $150 an hour is the most common band; projects $5,000 to $10,000	$1,500 to $5,000 a month for most established businesses	Software and your time
Who does the work	Usually you or your web person, unless the consultant runs a team	The agency's team: strategy, writing, technical work, links	You
Hidden cost	Your team's hours to carry out the plan	Contract length, add-ons, and work you can't see	Your evenings, and mistakes that are slow to undo
Best for	Businesses with someone in-house who needs direction	Businesses that want the work done and someone answerable for it	Very small local businesses with time and patience
What to ask	"Who will do what you recommend, and how long will it take them?"	"What exactly happens each month, and what if rankings don't move?"	"What would I stop doing to make time for this?"

There is no wrong column, only a wrong fit. An owner with a capable marketer on staff may get more from four hours of the right advice than from a year of an agency. An owner who has no one may waste a fortune on advice nobody acts on. If you are choosing between agencies, our guide on how to choose an SEO agency walks through it, and our comparison of the best SEO agencies in Toronto lays eleven firms' published prices, contracts and guarantees side by side.

How to compare two SEO quotes

Quotes are hard to compare because each provider describes the work in its own words. Five checks put them on the same footing.

Put them side by side, line by line

Write each quote out as a list of what actually happens each month. If one quote can't be turned into a list, that tells you something already.

Check they are for the same part of Google

A plan for the map, a plan for the regular results and a plan for AI answers are three different jobs. Make sure you are not comparing a Maps-only price with a full plan.

Count the hours, and whose they are

Ask how many hours a month each fee buys, and whether they are senior hours or junior ones. Divide the fee by the hours and you have a real hourly rate to set against the survey figures above.

Read how you leave

A month-to-month plan and a 12-month contract at the same price are not the same deal. The one you can leave has to keep earning its fee.

Ask for proof from businesses like yours

Every serious provider can show rankings it has moved, with the search, the starting position and the result. Ask for ones in your trade or your kind of town.

Red flags in an SEO quote

The quotes that go wrong tend to go wrong in the same few ways.

A promise of the number one spot

Nobody controls Google. A specialist can commit to work, to dates and to what they will do if results do not come. "Guaranteed #1" with no conditions is a sales line.

A task list instead of a plan

"Ten links and four blog posts a month" is the same list for every business, whatever your market needs. Ask which searches each task is meant to move.

A long lock-in

A 12-month contract with no way out means the contract, not the results, keeps you there. Month-to-month plans exist, including ours.

No names, no dates

A plan without an owner and a deadline on each line is a wish list.

Reports full of numbers that never mention calls

Traffic and "impressions" (the number of times you were shown on Google) matter, but ask how the report connects to the searches that bring you customers.

AI search sold as a separate mystery product

GoodFirms found agencies charging $900 or more a month extra for AI-search work. Some of that is real work. Ask what exactly is done, how it is measured, and how it differs from the SEO you are already paying for. In our plans it is included.

Prices with nothing behind them

Every serious provider can show you rankings they have moved for businesses like yours, with the search, the before and the after.

Ten questions to ask an SEO consultant before you pay

1. Which searches do you think bring my best customers, and how many people make them each month?

Their answer shows whether they have looked at your market or are selling a package.

2. Who ranks above me for those searches today, and why do you think they do?

A consultant who can name the businesses above you, and the reasons, has done the homework.

3. What would you fix first, and why that before anything else?

Order matters more than the list. The first fix should be the one holding you back most.

4. Who does the work: you, your team, or my people?

This decides the real cost. Advice your team has to carry out costs your team's time too.

5. How many hours a month does this fee buy, and of whose time?

Divide the fee by the hours and you can compare it with the survey rates in this guide.

6. Is this for Google Maps, the regular Google results, AI answers, or all three?

The map, the regular results and AI answers are different work. Make sure you know which you are buying.

7. When should I expect to see rankings move, and what do you do if they don't?

A plan without dates can never be late. Ask for the dates in writing.

8. How long is the contract, and how do I leave?

A long contract protects the provider. A short one makes them keep earning it.

9. Can you show me rankings you have moved for a business like mine, with the before and the after?

Ask for the search, the starting position and the result, not just a screenshot of a good day.

10. What will the monthly report show me, and will you walk me through it?

If you will not read the report, it is not doing its job. Ask how it connects to the searches that bring you customers.

A good consultant will answer most of these on the first call, often before you have paid anything. The ones who can't are telling you something.

What we charge, and what it covers

We said at the start that our prices would be here, in the same detail. They are the same prices that appear on our pricing page.

What	Price	What it is
Strategy call, audit and roadmap	Free	30 minutes on Google Meet. We search your market live, show you who ranks above you and why, and name what we would fix first. The roadmap is yours to keep either way.
Advice-only consultation	$497 an hour	One hour with a strategist on your site and your market. Bring your questions and your team. You leave knowing what to fix first, and your people do the work.
Google Maps (local SEO)	From $1,497 a month	The strategist and the team that work to get you into the map box. Higher for multiple locations, websites and complexity.
Google rankings (organic SEO)	From $2,697 a month	The strategist and the team that move your website up the regular Google results. Higher for multiple locations, websites and complexity.

The advice-only hour is for businesses that already have people to do the work and want a strategist's direction. If you're not sure which you need, start with the free call.

What every monthly plan includes

Every monthly plan is month to month, so you can leave whenever the work stops earning its fee. Each one is run by a strategist with a team behind them, and includes the work for AI answers, including Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT, at no extra charge.

Our two guarantees

Every monthly plan comes with two guarantees in writing. If you don't see visible improvement in your key metrics within the first 20 days, we refund $200 on top of returning your payment for that period. If your qualifying keywords aren't on the first page of Google within 60 days, we keep working for free until they are. The details are on our guarantees page.

Who our plans are for

We are a full-service SEO agency, so the same team covers organic SEO for searches across a whole country, local SEO for a town or a set of towns, ecommerce SEO and Shopify stores, businesses with many locations, B2B companies, and AI search. More than 1,500 business owners in the US and Canada have worked with us, from New York, Chicago and Dallas to Los Angeles and Toronto. Read what they say on our reviews page. Our plans are for established businesses doing $20,000 a month or more, because ranking work needs a business with enough trade behind it to take the extra calls.

What the money has bought

A few of our clients' own rankings:

• 360 Hazardous Cleanup in Louisville, Kentucky went from #37 to #1 on Google Maps for "blood cleanup services". In 20 days, all 8 searches we tracked for them reached the map's top three.
• Chapman McAlpine, a law firm in Barrie, Ontario, ranks #1 for "barrie family lawyers", above the other family law firms in town.
• Angkorscape in Seattle is named in Google's AI answer for "luxury landscape designers", and ranks #1 in the results below it.
• Shoreside Therapies near Milwaukee moved from #6 to #1 for "couples therapy milwaukee" between March 10 and March 30, 2026.

You can read more of these, organised by where on Google each one happened, on our case studies page.

The bottom line

An SEO consultant in the US or Canada will most often cost you $100 to $150 an hour for advice, or $1,500 to $5,000 a month for ongoing work, and more for big or crowded markets. Canadian prices land in the same place once you convert them: around C$175 an hour for senior work and from about C$1,500 a month for a solid plan.

But the useful question was never only "how much?" It is "how much, for what, done by whom, measured how, and what happens if it doesn't work?" A cheap hour of advice nobody acts on is the most expensive SEO there is. A fair monthly fee, tied to named searches and dates you can hold someone to, is usually the cheapest.

If you want to see what that looks like for your business, our SEO consulting page shows the roadmap we build, line by line. Or book the free 30-minute call: we will search your market live, show you who ranks above you and why, and tell you what we would fix first.

Prices and survey figures in this guide were checked on October 17, 2026. We will check them again in January 2027.