SEO Pricing in 2025: How Much Does SEO Cost?

The cost of SEO may start from about a thousand dollars a month for a local SEO campaign. Professional SEO agencies charge between $3000 to $5000 or upwards per month — depending on the competition in your market, their services, and your SEO goals.

More than pricing models of SEO services, choosing the right search engine optimization strategy that will bring you return on investment (ROI) is one of the top factors for hiring an SEO agency. This means your SEO efforts should result in your marketing goal, whether that’s ranking in organic search, generating leads, brand awareness, or growing revenue.

How Much Does SEO Cost for a Small Business?

SEO for a small business can cost from $700 to $2000 per month. This would depend on the agency’s pricing model, SEO goal, the agency’s tenure and track record, industry, and time frame, among other factors.

SEO is also a huge area of digital marketing and SEO experts specialize in different types of SEO such as on-page SEO (page optimization, content marketing), off-page SEO (link building), technical SEO, and local SEO. However, an SEO agency is likely to offer an all-in-one SEO package that covers all of these in one fixed rate.

Can You Do SEO on Your Own In-House?

There’s no reason you can’t implement SEO campaigns in-house. Hiring an SEO consultant or a team of SEO experts has its advantages, which are:

• Close collaboration and daily updates
• Deep understanding of your law firm and your industry
• Exclusivity

Having your SEO team in-house does have its perks, but it also has its caveats. Paying a full-time salary costs more than hiring an SEO agency on a monthly retainer or even a per project basis.

Is It Worth It to Pay for SEO?

Yes, paid SEO services are worth it, whether you’re outsourcing it or employing a team. Paid SEO services give your firm the best chance of achieving your marketing strategy goals, such as ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) that result in leads and conversions.

Hiring Freelancers vs. a Digital Marketing Agency

Hiring freelancers for your law firm SEO campaigns can work if you don’t have a strict timeline and don’t mind starting slow. Remember that one person, no matter how much of a search marketing expert, has limited time and bandwidth to carry out multiple SEO work.

Digital marketing agencies, on the other hand, cost more because they have a team of specialized SEO experts doing keyword research, content creation, and even graphic design. It’s also easier to trust SEO agencies as they have case studies of successful SEO campaigns for past clients, which proves their experience.

Here’s a case study of one of our past client’s SEO campaign:

Why Should You Avoid Cheap SEO Packages…

When you pay for cheap SEO rates, you’re not going to get great results. An SEO agency that can offer rates lower than others is not likely to provide high-quality keyword research, and rely on automation or black hat tactics to get things done, which is not ideal for any SEO campaign.

Common SEO Pricing Models: Hourly rate, Monthly Retainer, and Per-Project

SEO marketing agencies offer different pricing packages for their services and the most popular rates according to an Ahrefs survey. These are:

• Hourly rate ($75 to $100 per hour)
• Monthly retainer ($500 to $1000 per month)
• Per-project ($2,501–$5,000 per project)

These price points can help you decide what suits your budget and SEO goal. You can start with an hourly rate and upgrade to a monthly retainer, or start with a per-project plan for one-time campaigns.

Which Pricing Model Works Best for Business Owners?

A monthly retainer is an ideal SEO pricing for business owners because you’re guaranteed continuity. You’ll be able to set goals and track performance on a monthly basis with either an in-house team or an agency that knows your content marketing strategy well.

How to Estimate the Cost of SEO Services

The cost of SEO services can be broken down into several parts like content marketing, link building, local SEO, and technical SEO.

Let’s take a look at how much each of these SEO services cost.

SEO Strategy

If you need to create an SEO plan or strategy for your law firm, you can hire an SEO consultant, who might charge anywhere from $75 to $200 per hour. It’s important to hire the right SEO professionals for the job, so be sure to do your research and ask for case studies that prove their experience and expertise.

Content Creation

Content creation can cost $5000 to $10000 per month can be offered as a comprehensive SEO package that includes creating a content strategy, building a blog page and creating logos and branding, or it can be as content that is paid per piece. Depending on your requirement, expect to pay a monthly retainer of $5000 to $10000 for high-quality content creation (and maintenance) or around $500 to $2000 per content (blog post, videos, podcast editing, etc.)

Here’s a blog page for personal injury law firm, Wattel & York:

Link Building

Link building, also known as getting backlinks to your site, can cost around $100 to $2000 per link or $5000 to $20000 per month, depending on a few factors including your link value, content authority, and industry. Note that this is for manual link building outreach, which is the most recommended method among search engine experts. The results of link building outreach do vary, so expect that the pricing can also fluctuate.

Technical SEO and Website Optimization

Technical SEO experts can cost anywhere between $500 to $5000, depending on the website size and the difficulty of optimization needed for the site. Technical SEO services can range from a simple on-site audit to a complete website overhaul, which would be more expensive. Out of all SEO services, technical SEO is best left to experts, as studying algorithms and optimization can take time.

Local SEO Pricing

Local SEO services can range from $300 to $2000 per month, or an average of $800 for a one-time SEO campaign. The price points for local SEO services all depend on the nature of the campaign, if you’re a small, medium, or enterprise firm, and your local SEO goal and where you are currently in local SEO rankings.

Read our complete guide on local SEO pricing.

Ecommerce SEO pricing

Ecommerce SEO services can cost $100 to $300 per hour or between $750 to $500 per month, depending on the scope of the project. One-time campaigns can range from $1000 to $10000 and up for enterprise firms.

Competition in Your Industry

Certain practice areas like family law and personal injury are highly competitive markets when it comes to search engine optimization. To stand out even in highly competitive niches and reach your target audience, you need to invest and be willing to spend more to see significant results.

Business Goals

Deciding on the right pricing for lawyer SEO services and coming up with a marketing budget depends on your business goals. Unlike pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, SEO can take a bit more time before seeing results.

If you want to achieve your goals faster, then expect to spend a generous monthly budget on SEO services that deliver the best results. However, you can take it one project at a time if you don’t mind waiting or if you don’t have a huge marketing budget to cover the cost of SEO.

How to Choose a SEO Company?

There are several considerations in choosing an SEO company for your law firm. Here are some points to consider when deciding on marketing agencies for your business.

• Avoid SEO agencies that guarantee results. There are no guarantees that your website will top the rankings using SEO marketing services, as this goes beyond anyone’s control.
• Focus on highly specialized digital marketing agencies that have case studies to vet their expertise and skill set, ideally on your practice area.

In addition to technical and practical know-how, an ideal SEO digital marketing company should focus on the following:

• Ranking your site for organic traffic
• Relevant page optimization tactics
• Creating high-quality content
• Tracking the right SEO metrics (below is an example of what we do at On The Map)

• Testing different SEO strategies that work for your firm

Get a Custom SEO Audit and Quote For Your SEO Project!

Here at On The Map, we provide a wide array of SEO services from keyword research, content creation, page optimization, and link building. Our SEO agency has extensive experience with past law firm clients who grew their business with proven SEO strategy.

Contact us today so we can give you a custom SEO plan that suits your needs.