How much does SEO cost in the US? Price it against a salary

Short answer: Ahrefs’ survey of SEO providers averages US$2,917 for a monthly retainer and US$111 for an hour. Divide your quote by an hourly rate and you see the hours you are buying. A median US marketing specialist earns US$78,760 a year, about US$9,400 a month once benefits are added (our arithmetic). So buy hours until your quote gets close to that figure, and insist on knowing how many hours it is.

A national price range tells you very little about what you will actually get. Two checks tell you more, and both take a calculator and five minutes. This article is a spoke of our US guide to SEO, AEO and GEO, and it covers the money side only.

The dollar figures people quote, and who they describe

The best public dataset is the Ahrefs SEO pricing survey by Joshua Hardwick, updated August 15, 2024. It polled 439 SEO service providers worldwide. Of those, 78.2% charge a monthly retainer, 48.9% charge per project and 34.8% charge by the hour.

The averages: US$2,917 a month for a retainer and US$111 an hour. By provider type, agencies average US$3,209 a month, consultancies US$3,250 and freelancers US$1,348.63. Hourly, consultancies average US$171.18, agencies US$98.90 and freelancers US$71.59. Providers serving a local market average US$1,557.08 a month, and those serving a worldwide market US$3,473.74.

For the US and Canada taken together, the survey says 66.7% of providers charge US$75 to US$200 an hour, and 79.1% charge at least US$1,001 a month. It publishes no US-only figure. Worldwide, the most common retainer band is US$501 to US$1,000 (20.4%), and lower-cost countries pull that band down.

Be clear about what this is. It is a worldwide survey of sellers who chose to answer a poll, it is two years old, and it has no US-only cut. The page prints plain dollar signs and does not name the currency, and we read them as US dollars. It is a good starting point, not a US price list.

Divide every quote by an hourly rate

A monthly fee is a price for hours, whether or not the proposal says so. Divide the fee by an hourly rate and you see how much human attention you are buying. Here is that arithmetic on the survey’s two averages.

Monthly fee	Hours at the freelancer average (US$71.59)	Hours at the agency average (US$98.90)
US$1,500	about 21	about 15
US$3,000	about 42	about 30
US$5,000	about 70	about 51

That table is our arithmetic on the survey’s average hourly rates.

The shape is the point. A US$3,000 agency retainer is roughly 30 hours a month, which is under one working week. Those hours also include calls, reporting and account management, so the time spent on your site is less than that.

A quote that will not state its hours or its hourly rate cannot be compared with anything. You cannot weigh it against a freelancer, against a hire or against next year’s quote from the same firm.

What the same hours cost on your payroll

Now price the same work as an employee. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook entry for market research analysts, last modified August 27, 2026, gives a median annual wage of US$78,760 in May 2025, or US$37.87 an hour.

Two cautions. The occupation’s full title in the data is market research analysts and marketing specialists. The federal O*NET database files “Search Marketing Strategists”, with job titles such as SEO strategist and SEO consultant, under this same occupation and reports the same wage for it. So this is the wage of the broader group, not an SEO-only wage. No official SEO-only wage exists.

Wages are not the whole cost of an employee. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026 shows that for private industry workers, wages and salaries are 70.0% of what an employer pays and benefits are 30.0%. That is US$32.82 and US$14.07 of US$46.89 an hour. It is the all-private-industry average, not a figure for marketing staff.

Our arithmetic combines the two, and it is a rough estimate because it applies an all-industry benefits share to one occupation’s median. US$78,760 divided by 0.70 is about US$112,500 a year in total compensation, or about US$9,400 a month. The hourly version is US$37.87 divided by 0.70, about US$54 an hour.

The month a hire starts to make sense

A full-time year is 2,080 hours, about 173 hours a month. The in-house hour at about US$54 is cheaper than the agency average of US$98.90. The catch is that you must buy all 173 of them, whether or not you have 173 hours of SEO work.

US$9,400 a month at US$98.90 an hour is about 95 agency hours. That is the crossover. A hire starts to make sense when you would otherwise be buying roughly 95 or more agency hours a month, which is a retainer of about US$9,400. Below that, renting hours is cheaper. Above it, the hire’s lower hourly cost starts to win.

Three things push the real crossover higher than the estimate. It leaves out recruiting, software, management time and the weeks before a new hire is productive. One person rarely covers technical work, writing and link outreach equally well, so you may still pay outside help. And a median is the middle, so half of these jobs pay more than US$78,760.

For most small businesses, then, the retainer is cheaper than the hire. The verdict is short: below roughly US$9,400 a month, buy hours, and insist on knowing how many.

A hypothetical Omaha orthodontist with three quotes

This is a hypothetical, not a client. An orthodontist with two offices in Omaha, Nebraska gets three quotes.

The first is from an agency: US$3,000 a month, with no hours stated. The second is from a freelancer: US$85 an hour for 20 hours a month, so US$1,700 a month and US$20,400 a year. The third is a suggestion from her office manager to hire a marketing coordinator.

Work it through. At the survey’s agency average of US$98.90, the agency quote is about 30 hours. But that is the survey’s rate, not this agency’s, so her first move is to ask the agency for its hours. The freelancer is 20 named hours for US$1,700. The hire is about US$9,400 a month loaded on the median, for 173 hours she cannot fill with SEO work.

The hire is out. Between the other two, she picks whichever will put the first three months in writing, as a named list of work in order. The freelancer’s quote already states its hours.

A sensible first three months, in order: fix the two Google Business Profiles and the site’s technical faults; write pages answering the questions parents ask on the phone; then build a page for each office’s area.

Hiring a freelancer adds one tax form

If you pay a freelancer directly, you take on a filing duty. The IRS instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC, revised 12/2026, say that for tax years beginning after 2025 a business reports nonemployee compensation on Form 1099-NEC when it pays a person at least US$2,000 in the year for services. The instructions say the threshold may be adjusted for inflation from 2027. The form is due January 31.

Payments to corporations are generally exempt. Payments made by credit card or through a third party payment network are reported by the payment company on Form 1099-K, not by you.

Apply that to the Omaha example. A freelancer at US$1,700 a month paid by check or bank transfer passes US$2,000 in the second month. Collect their tax details before the first payment and expect to file one form each January. An agency that is a corporation usually triggers nothing.

This is not tax advice. Confirm with your accountant.

Why your metro moves the number

Our own hub, the US digital marketing cost guide, prices full marketing programs by metro tier. Top-tier metros run US$6,000 to US$15,000 a month, second-tier metros US$4,000 to US$8,000 and smaller markets US$2,500 to US$5,000. It also says that below about US$3,000 a month you are buying one person’s part-time attention.

Those are our ranges for whole programs, meaning SEO plus paid media management plus content. They are not SEO alone and they are not a survey.

The hourly rate changes less between metros than the number of hours needed. The bar is set by whoever already ranks, so a crowded market needs more hours before anything moves. Our US SEO guide puts the wait at three to six months in a mid-sized metro and six to twelve in a major one for commercially valuable local terms. For an example of a metro-level breakdown, see our Houston guide.

One more line item. Most states do not tax marketing services, but a few tax specific categories, so ask whether the quote includes sales tax.

What an audit should tell you before you pay monthly

Pay for an audit, or get one, before you commit to a monthly fee. An audit turns a fee into a list of work with hours against each item. Google’s own page, Do you need an SEO?, last updated June 5, 2026, says an audit “should be about giving you realistic estimates of improvement, and an estimate of the work involved.”

Google also gives two practical rules. When someone audits your site, “only grant read access to Search Console.” And ask the question Google suggests: “What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe?” The page adds one sentence worth remembering: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”

An audit that has no estimate of work and no hours is a sales document. One that lists the faults, orders them and puts hours beside each one is something you can price against a freelancer or a hire. Our free audit shows what needs fixing on your site, which gives you something to check a quote against. Weigh our view accordingly: Nexiiom is an agency, and we sell SEO, AEO and GEO services.

When to keep the money

Sometimes the right answer is no, or not yet. Here are three cases.

First, you need leads inside three months. SEO is slow, and paid search is the honest answer for speed. Read our Google Ads cost guide before you sign an SEO retainer.

Second, you are a single-location local business that has not yet completed its Google Business Profile or built a review process. That work is free and it comes first. Start with our local SEO guide for US small businesses, and come back to retainer pricing afterward.

Third, the quote cannot state its hours, who does them and what is delivered in the first three months. If a provider will not answer those three questions, you have nothing to compare, and the money is better kept until someone will.

Frequently asked questions

How much does SEO cost per month in the US?

Ahrefs’ worldwide survey of 439 SEO providers averages US$2,917 a month for a retainer, but it has no US-only figure. For the US and Canada together, 79.1% of providers charge at least US$1,001 a month. Agencies average US$3,209 and freelancers US$1,348.63. Treat those as a rough guide to what sellers say they charge, then divide your own quote by an hourly rate.

What is a typical hourly rate for SEO in the US?

The survey average is US$111 an hour worldwide: US$171.18 for consultancies, US$98.90 for agencies and US$71.59 for freelancers. For the US and Canada together, 66.7% of providers charge between US$75 and US$200 an hour. The survey publishes no US-only average, so use these as a range to test a quote against, not as a price list.

How many hours of SEO does US$3,000 a month buy?

At the survey’s average freelancer rate of US$71.59, about 42 hours. At the average agency rate of US$98.90, about 30 hours. The agency figure is under one working week, and agency hours include calls, reporting and account management. This is our arithmetic on survey averages, so ask your own provider for its real rate and a count of the hours it will spend on your site each month.

Is it cheaper to hire an in-house SEO than pay an agency?

Per hour, yes: about US$54 in-house against the survey’s US$98.90 agency average. But you buy all 173 hours a month. By our rough arithmetic a median hire costs about US$9,400 a month with benefits, which equals about 95 agency hours. Below a retainer near that figure, renting hours is cheaper. Above it, a hire starts to make sense.

Do I have to send a 1099 to a freelance SEO consultant?

Possibly. For tax years beginning after 2025, you report payments of at least US$2,000 in a year for services on Form 1099-NEC, due January 31. Payments to corporations are generally exempt, and payments by credit card or a third party network are reported by the payment company instead. A freelancer paid US$1,700 a month by bank transfer passes the line in month two. This is not tax advice, so confirm with your accountant.

How long does SEO take to pay off in a US metro?

Our US SEO guide puts it at three to six months in a mid-sized metro and six to twelve months in a major one, for commercially valuable local terms. The bar is set by whoever already ranks, so a crowded market needs more hours before anything moves. Do not sign anything that promises a date, because no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google.

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Not sure what you would be buying? Run a free audit and see what needs fixing before you compare quotes.