An SEO proposal is sitting in your inbox, and the only benchmarks you can find online are averages built from every kind of business: plumbers, dental clinics, ecommerce stores, and the occasional software company. They don’t tell you whether a $6,000 quote from a SaaS SEO agency is normal.
On October 25, 2026, I read the pricing page of every SEO agency in this guide that serves B2B software companies and wrote down what each one charges, in its own words. This guide covers 51 agencies, and 46 of them publish a price. Their cheapest monthly tiers have a median of $4,250. The first tier that includes content has a median of $5,000. That’s well above the $3,209 a month that agencies across all industries average in Ahrefs’ survey of 439 SEO providers.
I’m a B2B SaaS writer and a content strategist at Breaking B2B, one of the agencies in the table, so I’ve marked it where it appears.
The monthly number is half of any quote. What the cheapest tier includes, how long you’re locked in, and the fees on top decide what you pay in a year, and this guide covers all three.
SEO agency pricing at a glance
SEO agencies average about $3,200 a month across all industries. Agencies that specialize in B2B SaaS start higher: across 46 that publish prices, the cheapest monthly tier has a median of $4,250, and the first tier that includes content has a median of $5,000. Before comparing quotes, check what the cheapest tier publishes, the minimum term, and any setup fee.
How much does SEO cost?
SEO costs from about $1,350 a month with a freelancer to about $3,200 a month with an agency, based on Ahrefs’ survey of 439 SEO providers, and hourly rates sit around $100 to $150. B2B SaaS specialists charge more. The agencies in this guide start at a median of $4,250 a month, or $5,000 once content is included.
| How you buy SEO | Typical cost | Where the number comes from |
| Freelancer | $1,348 a month on average | Ahrefs’ survey |
| Consultancy | $3,250 a month on average | Ahrefs’ survey |
| Agency, all industries | $3,209 a month on average | Ahrefs’ survey |
| By the hour | $111 an hour on average, and $100 to $149 at most agencies | Ahrefs’ survey and Clutch |
| One-off audit or strategy project | $2,800 to $9,500 | Rampiq, SERPsculpt, and Kairos Labs pricing pages |
| B2B SaaS SEO agency | $4,250 median for the cheapest tier, $5,000 for the first tier with content | 46 agencies’ own pricing pages, October 25, 2026 |
The cost depends mostly on what you’re buying. Advice is the cheapest way in, whether that’s an audit or a consultant who directs your own team. Writing adds the most, because a SaaS program needs comparison pages and guides written by someone who understands the product. A full program of strategy, content, and links costs the most, and that’s what most of the agencies in this guide sell.
What the whole SEO market charges
The most-cited numbers on SEO pricing come from one study. Ahrefs polled 439 SEO service providers for it, last updated in August 2024, and broke the averages down by provider type:
| Provider type | Average monthly retainer |
| All providers | $2,917 |
| Agencies | $3,209 |
| Consultancies | $3,250 |
| Freelancers | $1,348 |
The most common retainer in that survey is $501 to $1,000 a month, and 68.8% of SEO providers charge $2,000 a month or less. The average hourly rate is $111. Clutch’s pricing guide, built on data from 65,550 SEO companies and their client reviews, puts most SEO agencies at $100 to $149 an hour.
Those figures are useful as a floor, and they describe a market where most clients are small and local. A bakery that wants to rank in its town and a SaaS company competing for “[category] software” are buying different amounts of work. The SaaS company needs comparison pages, product-led guides, links from sites its buyers read, and, more and more, a plan for showing up in ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers. Agencies that do that work for software companies price it accordingly.
What 46 B2B SaaS SEO agencies charge
The table below covers SEO agencies that mainly serve B2B software companies and publish a price on their own site: a starting price, a minimum, or tier prices. I found them through Google’s “best SaaS SEO agency” lists, agency-written roundups, and my own guide to SaaS SEO agencies, and left out generalists, link-building-only shops, paid-media agencies, writing platforms, and solo consultants.
Every price was read on the agency’s website on October 25, 2026. Euro prices are converted at that day’s rate ($1.12 to the euro). “First tier with content” shows the cheapest tier that includes writing; “Not stated” means the agency’s page doesn’t say.
| Agency | Lowest monthly price | First tier with content | Terms | Source |
| Embarque | $1,500 | Same tier | 3, 6 or 12 months, paid quarterly | Pricing |
| Loopex Digital | $1,500 | Not stated | Rolling 30 days | Pricing |
| Flying Cat Marketing | $2,000 | $7,000 | 4 months, plus $5,000 launch | Pricing |
| Position Digital | $2,000 | Same tier | Not stated | Pricing |
| Quoleady | $2,250 | Same tier | Month to month (client supplies topics) | Pricing |
| Growfusely | $2,250 | $3,000 | Not stated | Pricing |
| Copper Kite | $2,450 | $4,950 | Month to month | Pricing |
| Growthner | $2,500 | $4,500 | Not stated | Pricing |
| MV3 Marketing | $2,997 | Not stated | 6 months; 30 days’ notice after | Pricing |
| Optimist | $3,000 | Not stated | Month to month (advising tier) | Pricing |
| RevenueZen | $3,000 | Same tier | Month to month; discounts for 6 or 12 months | Pricing |
| RevvGrowth | $3,000 | Same tier | Not stated | Pricing |
| Piperocket | $3,000 | Same tier | 6 months (one channel) | Pricing |
| The Rank Masters | $3,000 | Same tier | 6 or 12 months, then month to month | Pricing |
| Citelane | $3,000 | Same tier | No long-term contract | Pricing |
| GrowPad | $3,000 | Not stated | Not stated; link budget separate | Pricing |
| Nine Peaks Media | $3,500 | Not stated | 2 months, then 6-month rolling | Pricing |
| Flow Agency | $3,500 | Not stated | Not stated | Pricing |
| Rampiq | $3,800 | Not stated | Not stated (briefs, not articles) | Pricing |
| Bay Leaf Digital | $3,999 | Same tier | 6 months | Pricing |
| Perceptric | $4,000 | Not stated | 12-month rate (+5% for 6, +10% for 3) | Pricing |
| Technotize | $4,000 | Same tier | 3 months, then 30 days’ notice | Pricing |
| SaaSy Links | $4,000 | Same tier | Not stated | Pricing |
| AUQ | $4,500 | Same tier | Month to month | Pricing |
| TripleDart | $5,000 | Same tier | Month to month | Pricing |
| DerivateX | $5,000 | Same tier | 90-day pilot; off-site budget extra | Pricing |
| Authority Magnet | $5,000 | Same tier | Month to month | Pricing |
| Minuttia | $5,000 | Not stated | Stated in its llms.txt, not a pricing page | Pricing |
| Ten Speed | $5,000 | Not stated | Stated in its own roundup, not a pricing page | Pricing |
| LoudFace | $5,000 | Not stated | Not stated | Pricing |
| Rock The Rankings | $5,500 | $8,650 | 90 days (month to month costs $500 more) | Pricing |
| Exceed | €5,000 (about $5,600) | Same tier | 30-day rolling, no minimum | Pricing |
| Spicy Margarita | $5,999 | $10,499 | 30-day cancellation | Pricing |
| Breaking B2B (I’m a content strategist here) | $6,000 | Same tier | 6 or 12 months | Pricing |
| Kairos Labs | $6,500 | Not stated | Not stated; $9,500 strategy sprint option | Pricing |
| MADX | $6,500 | $11,500 | Month to month (3-month minimum); $5,500 on 12 months | Pricing |
| SaaStorm | €6,500 (about $7,280) | Same tier | €4,000 discovery phase first | Pricing |
| SERPsculpt | $7,426 | Same tier | 3 months | Pricing |
| Virayo | $7,500 | Same tier | 6 months, then month to month | Pricing |
| Radyant | €7,000 (about $7,840) | Not stated | 12 months, opt-out after 6 | Pricing |
| Siege Media | $8,000 | Same tier | 12-month contract with a 30-day out clause | Pricing |
| Stratabeat | $8,000 | Not stated | Not stated | Pricing |
| Discovered Labs | €7,995 (about $8,950) | Same tier | Month to month; €6,995 on 6 months | Pricing |
| Powered by Search | $9,000 | Not stated | $7,500/mo if billed quarterly | Pricing |
| Grow and Convert | $10,000 | Same tier | Not stated | Pricing |
| Omniscient Digital | $10,000 | Same tier | Quoted as $120,000 a year | Pricing |
Five well-known agencies in this space don’t publish a price. Here’s what their sites do say:
| Agency | What its site says | Source |
| Scalerrs | Plans listed as “Custom / month”; month to month | Site |
| House of Growth | No price; “We won’t lock you into a 12-month contract” | Site |
| Foundation | No price; its audit form’s lowest budget option is “Under $5K” | Site |
| Animalz | No public price | Site |
| Skale | No public price | Site |
How SEO agency prices break down
Nine agencies start under $3,000 a month, 15 between $3,000 and $5,000, 16 between $5,000 and $8,000, and six at $8,000 or more. The median cheapest tier is $4,250, and the mean is about $4,800.
Under $3,000. This is where you’ll find entry tiers that do part of the job. Embarque and Loopex Digital start at $1,500. Flying Cat Marketing’s $2,000 tier is advisory, Copper Kite’s $2,450 Catalyst plan covers strategy and up to five content briefs a month, and Quoleady’s $2,250 Execution plan writes the content but expects you to supply the topics. Position Digital’s content service starts at $2,000. These tiers make sense when you have a writer or a marketer in-house and need direction, or when you want to test an agency before committing to more.
$3,000 to $5,000. This band is where full programs start at smaller SaaS-focused shops. Citelane’s $3,000 plan includes four articles and five links a month. RevenueZen’s $3,000 Foundation tier includes four articles a month. Technotize’s $4,000 Foundation plan includes four pieces a month, and The Rank Masters’ $3,000 Starter covers five pages or articles a month.
$5,000 to $8,000. The well-known SaaS SEO agencies tend to start here. TripleDart, DerivateX, and Authority Magnet start at $5,000, Breaking B2B at $6,000, Kairos Labs at $6,500, and Virayo at $7,500. At this level, the agency usually owns strategy, writing, and some link or AI search work in one program.
$8,000 and up. Siege Media’s minimum is $8,000 a month, Stratabeat starts at $8,000, Powered by Search at $9,000 when billed monthly, and Grow and Convert at $10,000. Omniscient Digital quotes $120,000 a year for full-service engagements, which works out to $10,000 a month.
Across these bands, the agency’s name tells you less than the deliverables do. Citelane includes four articles a month at $3,000, while TripleDart’s page offers up to 30 content assets a month at $5,000. Put pages and links per month side by side before you compare anything else.
The cheapest tier often doesn’t include content
Seven agencies in the table price an entry tier that doesn’t include writing. The tier where content starts costs noticeably more:
| Agency | Entry tier | First tier with content |
| Growfusely | $2,250 (strategy and roadmap) | $3,000 |
| Copper Kite | $2,450 (strategy and briefs) | $4,950 |
| Growthner | $2,500 (audit and advice) | $4,500 |
| Rock The Rankings | $5,500 (no writing) | $8,650 |
| Spicy Margarita | $5,999 (strategy, briefs, and links) | $10,499 |
| Flying Cat Marketing | $2,000 (advisory) | $7,000 |
| MADX | $6,500 (AI visibility and placements) | $11,500 |
Another 15 agencies don’t say on their pricing page whether the cheapest tier includes writing. Stratabeat’s $8,000 Start-Up tier lists content strategy, for example, and Rampiq’s $3,800 AI Search Accelerator includes eight content briefs a month, which your team then writes.
Strategy-only tiers are a good deal for a team with writers who need direction. The trouble starts when you compare a $2,500 strategy tier from one agency with a $5,000 program from another and conclude the first is cheaper. When you line up quotes, compare the tiers that publish pages.
Contract terms, discounts, and setup fees
Sixteen agencies set a minimum term longer than a month. Radyant asks for 12 months with an option to leave after six, and Virayo, Bay Leaf Digital, Piperocket, MV3 Marketing, and Breaking B2B start with six months. Three-month minimums are common at the smaller shops, including Technotize, SERPsculpt, and Embarque.
Thirteen let you leave on 30 days’ notice or less, including Siege Media, which asks for a 12-month contract on its $8,000 minimum but includes a 30-day out clause. TripleDart, RevenueZen, Authority Magnet, Citelane, Copper Kite, Exceed, AUQ, and Loopex Digital work the same way. The other 17 don’t state a term on their pricing page, so ask before you sign.
Several agencies discount for longer commitments, and the gap can be large:
- Discovered Labs. €7,995 a month with no commitment, or €6,995 on a six-month term.
- MADX. $6,500 a month on a rolling plan with a three-month minimum, or $5,500 on a 12-month term.
- Powered by Search. $9,000 a month billed monthly, or $7,500 billed quarterly.
- Perceptric. $4,000 a month is its 12-month rate. A six-month term adds 5%, and a three-month term adds 10%.
Some agencies charge before the retainer starts or on top of it. Flying Cat Marketing charges a one-time $5,000 strategy launch. SaaStorm starts with a €4,000 discovery phase before its €6,500 monthly retainer. Kairos Labs offers a $9,500 strategy sprint. DerivateX bills an off-site citation budget of $1,000 to $3,000 a month on top of its retainers, and GrowPad pays for link placements from a separate budget.
Add these up before you compare. A $5,000 retainer with a 12-month term and a $5,000 launch fee costs $65,000 in year one. A $6,000 month-to-month retainer costs $72,000 if you stay the year, and nothing more if you leave after three months.
How SEO agencies price their work
Nearly every agency in the table sells a monthly retainer. A few other models show up alongside it:
| Model | How it works | Examples from the dataset |
| Monthly retainer | A fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope of strategy, content, links, and reporting | Nearly all of the 46, from Embarque’s $1,500 to Grow and Convert’s $10,000 |
| Tiered plans | Set packages with a defined number of articles or pages per month | Citelane, RevenueZen, Technotize, The Rank Masters, Embarque |
| One-off strategy or audit | A fixed project before or instead of a retainer | SERPsculpt’s $4,988 strategy package, Rampiq’s $2,800 audit, Kairos Labs’ $9,500 sprint |
| À la carte | A price per article or per link | Copper Kite at $500 an article and $500 a link |
| Hourly | Common for consulting, rare on SaaS agency pricing pages | $100 to $149 an hour on Clutch |
| Share of revenue | A percentage of the client’s revenue or funding | SimpleTiger’s packages start at 5% of revenue or funding |
The last row is the odd one out. SimpleTiger doesn’t list a dollar figure; it prices each SEO package from 5% of revenue or funding, so the cost scales with the size of the company.
Why SEO agency prices vary so much
The spread in the table, from $1,500 to $10,000 a month at the low end alone, comes down to a handful of factors.
What the agency publishes each month. The biggest driver is volume. Embarque’s $1,500 tier includes five to eight content assets a month. SERPsculpt’s $7,426 Platinum plan includes ten blog articles a month. RevvGrowth publishes its tiers by output: 10, 20, or 40 blogs a month for $3,000, $5,000, or $8,000.
How much competition you face. A SaaS company in a crowded category, such as project management or CRM, needs more pages and more links to move than one in a niche with three competitors. Agencies price that into the scope, which is why most of them quote after a call even when they publish a starting price.
Links and off-site work. Links are often priced separately or bundled at set volumes. SaaSy Links’ $4,000 plan includes five editorial links and four content pieces a month, Copper Kite sells links at $500 each, and Citelane’s plans include five or ten links a month.
AI search. AI search is now a priced line item. RevenueZen titles its pricing page “GEO pricing,” Citelane tracks AI citations across two engines at $3,000 and four at $6,000, and Rampiq’s AI Search Accelerator starts at $3,800. If showing up in ChatGPT and Google’s AI answers is part of your goal, ask whether the quote includes it or treats it as an add-on. Getting your brand into ChatGPT and Claude answers takes the same pages and mentions that good SEO builds, so a separate fee for it deserves a question.
Who does the work. Seniority shows up in price. Omniscient Digital, Grow and Convert, and Siege Media sit at the top of the table, and they’re also among the agencies named most often in “best content marketing agency” lists. Founder-led shops like Citelane sell direct founder access at $3,000.
Your stage. Several agencies match tiers to funding stage. Citelane labels its $3,000 plan for seed to Series A companies, and so does MV3 for its $2,997 Starter plan, while their higher tiers are labeled for Series A and later.
What you pay per article
Retainers are hard to compare when one agency sells four articles a month and another sells 20. Dividing the retainer by the articles it includes gives a rough per-article figure. It isn’t a fair price for the writing alone, because the retainer also pays for strategy, links, and reporting, but it shows how much content each tier delivers for the money:
| Agency and tier | Monthly price | Articles per month | Per article |
| RevvGrowth Advanced | $8,000 | 40 | $200 |
| RevvGrowth Standard | $3,000 | 10 | $300 |
| The Rank Masters Starter | $3,000 | 5 pages or articles | $600 |
| SERPsculpt Platinum | $7,426 | 10 | About $743 |
| Citelane Growth | $3,000 | 4, plus 5 links | $750 |
| RevenueZen Foundation | $3,000 | 4 | $750 |
| Technotize Foundation | $4,000 | 4 | $1,000 |
The spread runs from $200 to $1,000 a piece, and the low end comes with volume. Twenty or 40 articles a month suits a company that needs to cover a large number of searches quickly. Four articles a month suits a company that needs a few high-intent pages, such as comparisons and alternatives, written with more research behind each one.
For a sense of scale, experienced freelance B2B writers charge roughly $250 to $450 for a blog post and $800 to $1,500 or more for comparison pages and case studies. A $750-per-article agency tier that also includes strategy and links compares well with that, as long as the articles are the kind your buyers read before they choose a tool.
Why many SEO agencies don’t publish prices
While building this dataset, I checked more than 230 agencies. Many of the SaaS specialists keep their pricing private, and many of the agencies that do publish prices turned out to be generalists or link-building shops. Scalerrs lists its plans on a pricing page with “Custom / month” in every slot. Animalz, Foundation, and Skale quote after a call.
You can still read signals. Contact forms often ask for a monthly budget, and the lowest option tells you something about the agency’s floor. Foundation’s audit form starts at “Under $5K”, and Minuttia’s starts at “$5K – $10K”. Treat these as form options, not prices.
Lists go stale too. Six of the “best content marketing agency” lists I reviewed still recommend ClearVoice, and its website now redirects to Fiverr. That’s why every price in this guide carries a date.
What to check before you sign
Run every SEO proposal through these checks before you compare the totals:
- What the cheapest tier publishes. Ask for the number of pages and links per month, in writing, for the tier you’re being quoted.
- The minimum term and the exit. Ask how long you’re committed and how much notice you need to give.
- Fees outside the retainer. Ask about launch fees, discovery phases, link budgets, and tools.
- Who owns the work. Confirm that you own the content, briefs, and research if you leave.
- How results get reported. Ask for reporting tied to signups, demos, or pipeline, not only rankings and traffic. The SEO KPIs worth reporting to leadership are a good list to bring to the call.
- How the agency learns your product. Ask how they’ll get up to speed on your product and your buyers before they write.
If a proposal guarantees rankings or traffic numbers, ask how. Nobody controls Google’s results, so treat a guarantee as a reason to ask more questions.
Agency vs consultant vs freelancer
Ahrefs’ survey puts freelancers at $1,348 a month on average and consultancies at $3,250, against $3,209 for agencies. Among SaaS specialists, the gap between a consultant and an agency is wider, because the agency usually writes the content and builds the links while a consultant directs your team.
An agency makes sense when you need strategy, content, and links from one team and don’t have someone in-house to run SEO. A SaaS SEO consultant makes sense when you have writers and need direction. A freelance writer makes sense when you know what to publish and need someone to write it well.
For comparison, my own strategy and writing retainers start at $3,500 a month, below the SaaS agency median. You get one writer and strategist instead of a team, which means no link-building department and no account manager.
How I built this dataset
Which agencies are included. SEO and AI search agencies that mainly serve B2B software companies, with a starting price, minimum, range, or tier prices on their own website. I found them through Google’s US results for “best SaaS SEO agencies” and related searches, agency-written roundups, and my own agency guides, and checked more than 230 agencies in total.
Who’s left out. Generalist and local SEO agencies, paid-media and demand-generation agencies, link-building-only shops, writing marketplaces and platforms, SEO software, and solo consultants. Two agencies (Arobis AI and Tiller Digital) sat behind bot checks I couldn’t pass, so they aren’t included.
How prices were recorded. Every price comes from the agency’s own website on October 25, 2026. I rechecked the tiers most likely to change, including the entry tiers without writing, Powered by Search, MADX, and Siege Media, on October 27. I didn’t use figures from Clutch, G2, or roundups. Where a page shows a monthly or no-commitment price next to a discounted commitment price, the table lists the monthly price and notes the discount. Where a page prints one price, the table lists it with the term it comes with. The lowest monthly price is the cheapest ongoing tier; one-off audits and sprints are noted separately. Two agencies, Minuttia and Ten Speed, state their minimums outside a pricing page, and the table says where.
Corrections. If you run one of these agencies and your pricing has changed, email me and I’ll update the row.
SEO agency pricing FAQs
How much does an SEO agency cost per month?
Across all industries, SEO agencies average $3,209 a month, according to Ahrefs’ survey of 439 providers. Agencies that specialize in B2B SaaS start higher: across 46 that publish prices, the cheapest monthly tier has a median of $4,250, and the first tier with content has a median of $5,000 (checked October 25, 2026).
What’s a normal SEO retainer for a SaaS company?
SaaS-focused SEO agencies usually start between $3,000 and $8,000 a month. Retainers at $3,000 to $5,000 often include four or five articles a month, while $5,000 to $8,000 buys a full program of strategy, content, and links. The best-known agencies, like Siege Media and Grow and Convert, start at $8,000 to $10,000.
What fees do SEO agencies charge besides the retainer?
The common extras are a strategy or discovery fee before the retainer starts (Flying Cat Marketing’s $5,000 launch, SaaStorm’s €4,000 discovery phase), separate budgets for links or off-site work (DerivateX, GrowPad), and price increases for shorter commitments (Perceptric, Discovered Labs, MADX).
Do SEO agencies require long-term contracts?
Sixteen of the 46 agencies in this dataset set a minimum term longer than a month, from two or three months up to Radyant’s 12 months. Thirteen work month to month or let you leave on 30 days’ notice, including Siege Media, whose 12-month contracts carry a 30-day out clause. The rest don’t say on their pricing page.
Is it cheaper to hire an SEO consultant or freelancer than an agency?
Usually, yes. Ahrefs puts freelancers at $1,348 a month on average, well below agencies. The trade is scope: a consultant or freelancer covers strategy or writing, while an agency covers strategy, content, and links together.
Get a second opinion on your quote
Breaking B2B, the agency I work with, runs full SEO programs for budgets of $6,000 a month or more, and you can book a call with the team.
If your budget is under $6,000 a month, or you have an SEO quote and aren’t sure it includes the content you need, book a call with me.
