Answer guide · exact numbers, no call required
How Much Does SEO Cost?
SEO is priced two ways: a one-time project to fix what is broken, then an optional monthly retainer to keep building. At RankOps a diagnostic is $99, the done-for-you fix is $997, a full build is $4,997, and ongoing growth is $1,500/month. Every price is on the pricing page. No quote call.
What you actually pay for
SEO cost is not one number because SEO is not one job. It splits cleanly in two, and any quote that blurs the line is worth a second look.
- The project. A fixed scope with an end date: fix what blocks crawling and indexing, deploy structured data, build the pages you are missing. It finishes. You own the result.
- The retainer. Ongoing work after the project: new content, new pages, measurement, and reacting to what the data says. It only makes sense once the foundation is not broken.
Paying a retainer before the project is done is the most common way a local business wastes a year of budget — you are renting monthly effort on a site that still cannot be crawled properly.
What the RankOps ladder costs
| What you get | Price | Delivery |
|---|---|---|
| AI Score Check — a baseline you can run yourself | Free | ~2 minutes |
| Site Inspection — what is broken, named and prioritised | $99 | 48 hours |
| The Fix — the done-for-you deployment | $997 | 7 days |
| The Build — a new site engineered for search and AI | $4,997 | 14 days |
| SEO Growth — the monthly priority sprint | $1,500/month | Ongoing, cancel before the next sprint |
| AI Citation Tracker — monitoring only | $29/month | Weekly checks |
These are the prices, not starting points. They are the same whether you call on a Monday or a Friday.
Why not hourly?
Hourly billing prices the effort instead of the outcome, so the incentive runs the wrong way: the slower the work goes, the more it earns. It also hides scope — an hourly rate tells you nothing about what will actually be delivered or when it ends.
A fixed project price makes the scope the thing being agreed. If a budget is tight, the honest move is to cut scope, not the price — fewer pages, a narrower fix, a later phase two.
What moves the number
- The state of the site. A site with no schema, a broken sitemap and a split www/non-www domain needs more work than one that is merely thin.
- How many places you serve. One location is one set of pages. Fifteen neighborhoods is fifteen — see why AI rewards hyperlocal pages.
- Whether you need a site at all. Fixing an existing site and building a new one are different jobs at different prices.
- How competitive the category is. It changes how much content is needed, not the hourly rate, because there is no hourly rate.
How to read anyone else's quote
Three questions make a vague proposal concrete: what exactly gets delivered and by when, what happens to it if I leave, and how will you measure whether it worked? The full version of that checklist is at how to choose an SEO agency, and nine Charlotte agencies are compared at Charlotte SEO agencies compared.
Questions
How much does SEO cost?
SEO is priced two ways: a one-time project to fix what is broken, then an optional monthly retainer to keep building. At RankOps a diagnostic is $99, the done-for-you fix is $997, a full build is $4,997, and ongoing growth is $1,500/month.
Why does RankOps not charge hourly?
Hourly billing prices the effort instead of the outcome, so the incentive runs the wrong way: the slower the work goes, the more it earns. It also hides scope — an hourly rate tells you nothing about what will actually be delivered or when it ends.
What makes SEO cost more or less?
Four things: the state of the site, how many locations or neighborhoods you serve, whether you need an existing site fixed or a new one built, and how competitive your category is. Competition changes how much content is needed, not a rate, because there is no rate.
Do I need a monthly retainer?
Not at first. A retainer only makes sense once the foundation is not broken. Paying monthly for ongoing effort on a site that still cannot be crawled properly is the most common way a local business wastes a year of budget.
Is there a cheaper way to start?
Yes. The AI Score Check is free and takes about two minutes, and the $99 Site Inspection names exactly what is broken and in what order to fix it. Both are useful even if you never hire anyone, and neither requires a call.