Determining SEO Cost for Enterprise Organizations

Agency, Consulting, Internal Resources, Software, and More

One of the top questions we consistently get asked: Should I invest in SEO and if so, how much do I need to invest? We surveyed the SEO community – agencies and enterprises – and asked them this very question: How much do you invest in SEO?

The range of answers varied widely, from $2,000 per month to more than $20,000 per month. In response, we wanted to answer this question in a way that paints a complete picture of the costs involved.

We’ve read every SEO pricing guide out there and have covered it all, from the cost of technology to internal team resources to full-service SEO agencies, and even the different costs in local SEO and eCommerce SEO. 

SEO pricing and SEO plans vary widely due to the different needs that businesses have.

To determine the cost of SEO for your enterprise business, you must carefully weigh the different options available and consider their potential value.

The best answer is that it depends. It's so frustrating, and you can see why - companies invest anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000 per month! But, there’s a reason: so much goes into the cost of SEO. 

In general, SEO costs between $750–$2,000 per month based on the scope of the project. For enterprise-level companies, pricing starts at $2,000 per month. SEO software for keyword rank tracking costs between $500–$4,500 per month (depending on the number of keywords tracked), and rates for consultants fall between $500–$3,000 for a monthly retainer.

There is no single cookie-cutter SEO pricing package for every organization. Moreover, you should be very wary of any agency, consultant, or tools provider that tells you otherwise! 

Your SEO plan is dependent on your current search visibility.

For instance, the launch of a new brand requires a particular strategy when it comes to search engine optimization, digital marketing, social media, and PPC management.

This strategy will be inherently different from that of a company that already has brand awareness within that product category.

Be aware that when it comes to shopping for SEO, you get what you pay for. 

Pricing models vary: most services are priced according to an agency’s monthly retainer, single project free, fixed-price contract, or an hourly fee for agreed-upon work.

Depending on the size of your organization and whether you have an in-house team of SEO experts, you may save money by opting for the tools or technology that directly align with your goals and training your own team to use them effectively.

For example, you might need a tool that helps streamline content creation for what your target audience is searching for, a tool for auditing the health of your company’s backlinks when launching a link building campaign, or even a keyword tool that helps you survey competitors for keyword opportunities.

The specific services and tools you choose should depend on what will add the most ROI for your organization.

SEO as an Investment

Potential customers are searching for your services. If you aren’t at the top of your SEO game, they will find a competitor to answer their queries and sell them products and services instead.

Optimizing for keywords that prospective customers are searching for helps capture market share and expand your target audience.

In order to reach these prospective customers through organic search, you need to align this demand with an investment into SEO strategy, content, and an approach to creating the best search experience. 

The way you think about SEO also matters.

But how can you determine which services are essential for your organization and fit within your budget?

Read on to discover the tools you should be looking for as well as an overview of the different SEO companies that offer them and the typical pricing for all external SEO services and internal resources.

1. Rank Tracking

Rank tracking is an essential investment because it helps you determine if your SEO tactics are making an impact. Rankings demonstrate the success of your SEO campaigns and reveal problems with search visibility early on.

How much does Rank Tracking Cost?

Rank tracking is essentially free, if you don't need to scale – just use Google and start manually counting, or leverage Google Search Console’s average position data. There are even free ranking tools.

But, if you need scalable, reliable rank tracking, you should expect to pay. For example, an SEO package with 5,000 keyword queries, rank checked weekly is around $1,250–$1,800 per month.

→ Key Factors to Evaluate in Keyword Ranking Tools

2. PC (Google AdWords) and Organic Integration

Tools that integrate paid and organic search campaigns funnel keyword pricing and conversion data into organic search, making use of both data sets.

Another benefit: by targeting high-performing search terms through paid ads and organic search, your page has the chance to show up more than once within the same search results.

How much does PPC Integration Cost?

Google AdWords data can easily be extracted to compare to your top-ranking keywords in organic.

It takes time to collect that data and integrate it with your organic search data to discover opportunities and gaps. seoClarity integrates your Google AdWords account so you can easily compare data and find opportunities for integration between the two channels.

3. Reporting, Dashboards, and Analytics

When determining the current SEO health of a website, SEO experts use a tool to accelerate their output. These dashboards and reports highlight high-performing pages as well as pain points to adjust.

They also keep an eye on how competitors are performing in search. A dashboard brings this wealth of information into one convenient control panel for easy monitoring.

How much does SEO Reporting Cost?

SEO reporting usually includes the cost of time spent. Either an agency is supporting you and reporting is included in your SEO package, or you are using different tools and pulling this reporting together.

There are providers (like seoClarity!) that let you build a report once for each team or executive and have it sent automatically at the frequency of your choice.

4. Content Engagement from Your Social Media

Determine if you are reaching your target audience on all platforms by collecting data on content engagement. These tools track content performance and perform tests to increase engagement.

Creating content for engagement helps your business reach a larger audience, resulting in more backlinks and higher conversion rates.

How much does a Social Media Campaign Cost?

The main cost is the time investment of posting and monitoring your social media. At an enterprise level, this isn't typically in the SEO budget, but rather a team that you should integrate with to optimize your content for both SEO and social.
 

5. Technical SEO

Technical SEO analyzes how search engines’ robots crawl and index your site. An SEO audit uncovers potential problems and gives you a chance to course-correct before errors impact your site’s ranking.

How much Does Technical SEO Cost?

A year’s subscription to Screaming Frog, an SEO crawler, costs about $200 a year. An agency may crawl a site regularly to identify new issues and determine fixes in a retainer setup for a minimum of $500–$750 per month.

6. On-Page and Off-Page Optimization

On-page optimization involves optimizing the parts of your own website that you can control, from web design and coding to page titles and on-page copy.

This might include alt-tags, page metas and even the URL structure. Off-page optimization refers to ranking factors that occur off of your website.

For instance, having backlinks from another website impacts your site authority.

How much do SEO Optimizations Cost?

The cost of SEO optimizations is based on the time you invest in completing them. Technology helps make the process faster to identify and implement.

Creating a scalable and consistent outreach process for backlinks requires investment in the strategy, investment in time for trial and error, and investment in content to create link-worthy pages.

7. Link Building

Analyzing the links that lead to your site as well as those that lead to competitors helps you determine opportunities for improving your site’s authority.

Likewise, a link building analysis helps you disavow incoming links from websites that may harm your business’s reputation.

How much does Link Building Cost?

A link audit and strategy can be done as a one-off project for $1k+ with freelancer help or as part of an agency offering. From those results, there may be several link building tactics to act on.

If the tactic involves outreach, additional tools like hunter.io to can help find contact info (starting at $200 plus extracts for email address).

If you're looking to get in front of traditional journalists, HelpAReporterOut is useful at $50 for the middle package. To pay a freelancer or agency to do the work for you, expect to pay around $50 for a quality link after a sound tactical approach and targets are established.

8. Keyword Research

Keyword research helps focus content creation on topics that your target audience and customers are looking for, capturing their attention at different points in the search funnel.

How much does Keyword Research Cost?

A keyword research tool on its own costs about $200–$500 per month, depending on the number of queries you need.

But you should also consider the cost of the time it takes to analyze keywords/topics and prioritize which to create SEO campaigns for. We are estimating this task will take around 8-12 hours every month.

In an SEO campaign, you need to  identify a topic that your target audience will find valuable and create content on landing pages or pillar pages that support that topic.

SEO tools help strategists optimize pages for short- and long-tail keywords that drive traffic, while a sound content marketing strategy ensures the content reaches your audience.

As SEO and content go hand in hand, it’s important to allocate budget for the creation and promotion of original writing that targets your searchers’ demand.

Paying for quality writing is an aspect of the SEO budget that is often overlooked. However, all traffic-driving pages require content to support your customers' journey and inform search engines about your page.

Modern crawlers and robots are adept at uncovering the semantic meanings of the text provided and using that information to determine its value to searchers.

Additionally, when it comes to articles and blog posts also shared on social media, the quality and relevancy of the content affects the users' experience and the likelihood that they will engage with it and share it.

If your team works with an in-house content team, content creation and management may not fall within the SEO budget.

However, if you plan on outsourcing SEO to an agency, be sure to ask if content creation is part of the package, and moreover, who will be responsible for creating your website’s content and managing it in your CMS or though WordPress.

Content Creation Pricing

Naturally, different expertise levels, commitments, and the cost of living where you're located result in different expected salaries.

Entry-level content writer: $35,000–$50,000 annual salary

Content Strategist with at least 5 years of experience: $55,000–$75,000 annual salary

Director of Content or Direction of Communications: $90,000+ annual salary dependent on experience.

Freelance writers: $0.20–$0.30/word for basic blog posts, but up to $1.25 per word depending on the expertise level and the depth of experience and type of content creation that’s needed.

Writing Services: Often these services require a minimum content package or monthly fee. A content package might include a commitment to 10 commissioned pieces per month at a set rate.

This is charged per piece or per word and varies starting at $100 per piece and up to $800 if it's a comprehensive guide or blog post.

Monthly fees work to retain their services and are typically added in addition to a specific price per piece. For example, WriterAccess charges a subscription of $39 per month and then members can get content written for $100–$300 on topics that most writers have some level of knowledge of.

If you opt for writing services as a solution, you still need someone in-house to manage and provide a steady stream of content briefs and content ideas.

Content Distribution

A content distribution strategy tends to cost between $500 and 1,500+ per month. This is above and beyond the general responsibility of SEOs, but may help increase visibility. Think of this as a bucket of investments.

This is supportive and additional to bring even more visibility to your organic search efforts.

This investment gets you started so you can test your way into what drives the best results for your company.

Outbrain

A platform that adds boxes containing links to sponsored content on existing web pages. The allocation of these links is based on content relevance and the target audience.

Social Media

Sharing content across your social media channels or through paid social advertising helps you reach existing and prospective customers with products and information.

Email Newsletter/Promotion

Sharing a digest of your new content that links back to your site directly with subscribers increases page views.

Zemanta

A platform that uses real-time bidding to help content marketers reach their target audience through paid advertising.

HARO

A website where experts in a field can share their expertise with reporters working on related stories. In exchange, selected experts may ask to have information about their websites shared as part of the story, earning a backlink and increasing their authority on the topic.

Maybe you already have a dedicated SEO team who need tools that can inform their work — fine-tuning your strategy so your practices run more efficiently.

Or, you might be looking to add SEO tracking and reporting into your workflow. Either way, bringing your SEO tools in-house allows your business a customized approach to search engine optimization.

By opting for SEO software rather than an external consultant or team, you can access data as needed. In addition, you can advise the launch of a new product and support continual content creation, adjust and test new optimizations, and collect insights about your competitors’ search data.

The Cost of SEO Platforms

An SEO platform provides a solution that covers the entire SEO lifecycle, while SEO tools allow your team to focus on the individual reporting and data pieces they need.

SEO software costs depend on the size and needs of your business.

Most SEO package prices begin around $2,500–$3,000 per month. However, the price depends on your number of domains, as well as the quantity and frequency of tracked keywords you need to rank check.

Adding domains is an additional cost, while SEO keyword rank checks typically cost $0.10/each to $0.30/each for weekly rankings. 

Often times, SEO software providers offer SEO pricing packages with established minimums for keywords and domains, so you can choose the one that best fits your organization’s needs.

These offerings also differ based on the included features, which take the size of the company into consideration and base the included features off those that would typically suit a business of that size.

However, these standard packages may be added on or customized to fit an organization’s needs, goals, or upcoming strategy. And now for the shameless plug: at seoClarity, we offer a robust SEO platform designed for enterprise businesses.

Get more details on specific SEO platform packages that meets your organization’s needs.

→ Best Enterprise SEO Platforms and Tools

Whether you’re debating between funding an in-house team or are opting for an SEO agency or consultant, know that the costs associated with these different options vary widely.

SEO companies have widely-varying pricing models, which makes SEO pricing change based on the vendor(s) you choose and your own company's specific needs.

Keep reading to learn what you can expect to pay, as well as some of the advantages and disadvantages of each SEO resource.

In-House SEO Teams

Price: Varies depending on team makeup. 

An in-house SEO team has some clear advantages over an external agency. Namely, they work full-time with your organization’s interests in mind. With the time spent on-site, they gain important industry knowledge that helps them make the best decisions for your organization.

Expect to pay a $40,000–$85,000 salary for an SEO analyst, depending on their experience level. The salary of an SEO typically falls between $57,000 and $70,000.

An SEO manager typically earns a salary of $60,000–$150,000, while a director of search and acquisition, responsible for both paid and natural search, earns $120,000–$190,000 annually.

SEO Consulting

Price: Project-based cost structure, typically with retainers ranging from $500–$3,000 per month; hourly rates range from $50–$350.

If your enterprise business doesn’t have an in-house SEO team yet, consultants offer their expertise on a project-by-project basis.

This option also works well for an organization with a small SEO team who is working on a large-scale project and may require extra help to complete it before a looming deadline.

Consultants work on projects with your on-site SEOs, bringing their years of experience into the workflow.

The cost structure for consulting is based on the project. For instance, if you’re looking for a site audit, expect to pay between $500–$2,000. If you need link building instead, expect to pay about $1,000 per month or per link acquired. 

Looking for something smaller scale? Consider booking based on hourly rates. For example, if you’re working on a website relaunch and need new page optimizations, a rate of $50–$350 per hour may work better with your budget.

However, it’s important to remember that with SEO, you get what you pay for. Consultants who charge higher rates often have proven results, valuable years of experience, or an area of specialty that will make an impact on your site.

SEO Agency

Price: Ranges from $12,000 to $1 million per year.

An SEO agency is an off-site team that handles your SEO needs on a monthly or by-project basis. Companies without a dedicated SEO team often rely on agencies to fill this gap in their own expertise.

An agency team often contains a variety of specialists in analytics, link-building, optimization, and content creation. They can also work alongside an in-house team and even provide training to full-time employees while handling some of the SEO workflow as you build a new team from the ground up. 

Are you considering hiring an SEO agency to handle a new project, train a new in-house team, produce quality content, or acquire links to your website?

An agency can provide SEO help for a site or product launch. Agencies, especially large ones, are process-driven and deliver consistent results. Expect to pay around the full-time equivalent of building out an in-house team. With most agencies, a monthly retainer is required to maintain the contract. 

SEO agency pricing is often shared though blended hourly rates; however, the amount of individual expertise each member of the team brings to your project can vary greatly depending on the agency’s composition.

You may overpay for some services included within the package deal while others, such as content creation, may require an additional cost. 

The price of an agency varies according to their experience level, reputation, and positioning as specialists in your field. The cost is further determined by the scope of the work, based on the size of your organization and particular SEO needs.

Combining Technology and Services 

Look for combination technology and services as an option for those enterprise businesses that want access to their SEO data and reporting, or for those companies who are building a dedicated organic search team with agency support.

SEO platforms offer short-term or advanced services in addition to the technology – from onboarding and training that teaches you to use the platform to more personalized support designed to identify the SEO game plan with the quickest results.

The top SEO platforms offer a dedicated Client Success team member to make sure you get the most from the technology. Unlike most tools providers, seoClarity provides tailored support through Client Success and SEO Professional Services, ensuring users get the most ROI from the platform.

In contrast, pay-as-you-go SEO tools might only offer online resources and call center or online chat support.

National SEO

Focusing on national SEO for both broader terms and long-tail keywords provides a return on revenue and rank position.

Aiming for a national audience requires frequent rank tracking, monitoring and research to improve or maintain first-page position, in addition to content creation, optimization and digital marketing so your content reaches its audience.

Lastly, technical SEO provides an easy user experience for both prospective customers and search engine crawlers.

Local SEO

If your business operates a brick-and-mortar location where foot traffic matters, gains in local SEO can have a big impact on your revenue. Remember when location pages on a site were the only place you could find details about a business?

Now, Google Business Profile has taken over (though those location pages are still an important source of traffic). 

However, having your location and business hours available on many websites increases the margin for error. Investing in location management software (such as Yext) that lets you sync your large or small business’s information across local directories and search engines can result in a $100,000 investment.

A local SEO tool like LocalClarity helps automate these processes, increasing traffic, providing for a better user experience and getting customers in your door.

Most platforms charge per location so it’s important to find a technology partner that offers a comprehensive set of forward-looking services with an emphasis on customer engagement (customer reviews & response, Q&A, posts, images, videos, categories, attributes, sentiment analysis, etc.) and less of a focus on static data (location name, address, phone number, and web address).

Price of Local SEO Tools

Many industry players operate in the $20–$30 per location range, even businesses with 1,000+ locations.

This is often the case when a platform designed for sole-proprietors is being tasked with handling scale. Enterprise grade platforms, like LocalClarity, start at $8 per location and provide volume pricing starting at 200 locations.

Your local SEO shopping list should include the following to make sure your large or small businesses are accessible to your local customers:

• Google Business Profile
  • Present your business and storefront consistently across Google platform services, including in search results and Google Maps with a management tool such as LocalClarity.

• Reviews Management
  • Look for a tool like LocalClarity that lets you respond to new reviews and track customer rankings from various sources (Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.) all in one place.

• Question & Answer Management
  • Monitor and respond to the Google Q&A questions people are asking about your brand. With the right tools, you will no longer need to visit each location’s Knowledge Panel to read and answer the questions consumers are asking.

• Local SEO Visibility
  • Improve your rank in local search for traffic-driving keywords through map stacking, Google Maps rankings and rank tracking. For business with 100+ locations, seoClarity offers local rank tracking, local map pack results, and Google Maps rankings at scale for businesses focused on driving foot traffic.

• Location-Based Rank Tracking
  • Monitor your ranking in the local SERP by city, zip code or state. The marketplace charges for these rank checks and keyword checks per location, so support your investment with a team by implementing tactics and creating strategies from the ranking data. 

• Citation Management
  • Control your business listings with a service or tool that automates the process of updating information and removes duplicate or closed locations.
    
    

Ecommerce SEO

If you’re running an eCommerce site, you want your product pages to rank for incremental long-tail keywords so potential customers can easily discover your brand through organic search.

Ranking for long-tail keywords targets users closer to the buying phase of the search funnel, which means a greater percentage of sales result from those site visits.

If you want visibility in the competitive eCommerce search landscape, you need a tool that helps target those specific keywords phrases most relevant to your products. That way, you capture that search traffic and revenue directly. 

Multi-faceted navigation lets Google index filtered pages so the searcher lands directly on the spot closest to the funnel leading to conversion and allows you to gain traffic directly to your product category pages.

An SEO platform helps you discover which keywords have search volume, optimize those pages and offer them to Google for indexing while avoiding duplicates. Products such as Bloomreach, YourAmigo and Searchdex specifically target long-tail keywords for your SEO business.

Price of Ecommerce SEO

The price for ecommerce SEO ranges depending on the size of the site’s inventory. Providers charge on a cost-per-click or a percent of sales that originate from pages created by the software. Startup costs can be between $1,000–$3,000.

Then, continued monthly costs depend on how much traffic and sales result.

SEO pricing and plans vary widely between organizations and are largely dependent on the particular goals of that organization.

Those with an in-house SEO team may only require a suite of SEO tools to better improve their presence in organic search.

Other organizations may prefer to work with an SEO agency or consultant to achieve their goals while lending support and expertise.

However, the strategies and tools needed also differ according to the particular vertical targeted, whether national, local or ecommerce SEO.

Whichever way you go, the cost for SEO should be supported through keyword research and analysis of your current website in order to bring a return on your investment.

SEO Pricing FAQ

How much does SEO cost?

In general, costs range between $750–$2,000 per month based on the scope of the project. For enterprise level companies, SEO pricing starts at $2,000 per month.

SEO software for keyword rank tracking costs between $500–$4,500 per month depending on the number of keywords tracked, and rates for consultants fall between $500–$3,000 for a monthly retainer.

Is SEO worth it?

A successful SEO plan can achieve a higher ROI than other earned media channels. A general understanding of ROI is that a product should earn more than it costs.

However, due to the ever-changing nature of the search landscape and the long-term game of search engine optimization, it’s sometimes harder to understand what a return on investment looks like for SEO.

We've worked with some pretty great brands over the years who have seen some massive results from SEO. See the successes for yourself over on our case studies page.  

Why is SEO so expensive?

Proper SEO requires tools, talent, and training. All of these assets combine to give you a strong organic search presence. Different companies may find that they have different needs, and the SEO services they need will impact the amount they spend on SEO.