UNCHARTEDSEO
SEO pricing models, compared honestly. Four ways to pay, one way to decide.
Every SEO quote you will ever receive uses one of four pricing models: a monthly retainer, a fixed project fee, an hourly rate, or performance based pricing. Also, each has a legitimate use and a failure mode, and knowing which is which protects you more than any price comparison. Our own two published plans on the SEO pricing page use a monthly retainer, and this page explains why alongside the honest case for each alternative.
Want a real number for your site? Both plans are published in full.
Pricing structure is one signal among several. The red flags page covers the rest.
- Two plans, both published in full
- Published pricing, no sales call needed
- Billed monthly or annually, annual is two months free
Four models, four different risk allocations.
A pricing model is really a decision about who carries the risk. A retainer spreads it across months. A project fee fixes it at signing. Hourly shifts it to the client, who pays for time regardless of outcome. Performance pricing appears to shift it to the agency, and usually does not.
None of these is dishonest by nature. Also, the problems come from mismatch: hourly billing applied to open ended ranking work, or performance pricing applied where attribution cannot be verified. Match the model to the shape of the work and each one is defensible.
The ongoing number, published in full.
Both plans publish in full: Launch at $100 per month, or $1,000 per year, and Scale at $250 per month, or $2,500 per year. Annual is two months free. Cancel anytime. Your plan runs to the end of the period you have paid for.
What are the main SEO pricing models?
Four: the monthly retainer, a recurring fee for ongoing work. The project fee, a fixed price for bounded work like an audit or migration; the hourly rate, common for consulting; and performance pricing, where fees attach to results. Retainers dominate because ranking work is continuous, while projects and hourly suit work with a defined end.
Which pricing model suits which kind of work?
The one that matches the shape of the work. Ongoing ranking programs suit retainers because the work never has a natural end. Audits, migrations, and site builds suit project fees because they do. Consulting and advisory suit hourly. Performance pricing is the one to treat skeptically, because attribution disputes and misaligned incentives follow it around.
Why do most agencies use monthly retainers?
Because the work is genuinely continuous: content ships, links accumulate, positions get defended, and algorithms keep changing. A retainer matches billing to that reality. The legitimate criticism is that retainers can hide thin output, which is why the fix is naming monthly deliverables in numbers rather than abandoning the model.
What is wrong with performance based SEO pricing?
Three things in practice: attribution is contested, since rankings move for reasons besides the agency’s work. The incentive tilts toward easy keywords rather than valuable ones; and the definition of the paid for result reads by the party being paid. It can work with rigorous, agreed measurement, but that rigor is rare.
The four SEO pricing models compared
| Dimension | Monthly retainer | Project fee | Hourly rate | Performance based |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Ongoing ranking programs | Audits, migrations, builds | Consulting and advisory | Rarely advisable |
| Risk sits with | Shared across months | Agency, once scoped | Client, pays for time | Disputed in practice |
| Predictability | High, fixed monthly | High, fixed total | Low, hours vary | Low, definition varies |
| Failure mode | Thin output hiding inside the fee | Scope disputes at the edges | Meter running without outcomes | Attribution fights and easy keyword chasing |
| The protection | Deliverables named in numbers | Written scope with edges defined | Capped hours and defined outputs | Independently verifiable metrics agreed first |
How to pick the right pricing model
Define whether the work ends
Ongoing ranking work has no natural end and suits a retainer. An audit, migration, or build has a finish line and suits a project fee.
Decide who should carry the risk
Fixed fees put scope risk on the agency. Hourly puts it on you. Pick deliberately rather than by default.
Name the outputs regardless of model
Every model fails the same way: unnamed outputs. Pages, links, hours, and reviews, in numbers, before signing.
Stress test the exit
Ask what happens if you leave in month three. The answer reveals whether the model was designed for the work or for retention.
Pricing model terms, defined
- Monthly retainer
- A recurring fee for a defined ongoing program, the dominant model for ranking work because the work is continuous.Also called: ongoing SEO fee, monthly SEO plan
- Project pricing
- A fixed fee for bounded work with a clear end, such as an audit, migration, or site build.Also called: fixed fee SEO, flat rate SEO, one time SEO cost
- Hourly billing
- Paying for time rather than outcomes, suited to consulting where the value is expertise on demand.Also called: SEO hourly SEO rates, time and materials
- Performance pricing
- Fees attached to results such as rankings or leads. Attractive in principle, undermined in practice by attribution disputes and keyword cherry picking.Also called: pay for performance SEO, results based SEO, commission SEO
- Hybrid pricing
- Combining models, most commonly a project fee for foundations followed by a retainer for the ongoing program.Also called: blended pricing, project plus retainer
- Scope
- The specific work a price includes. The variable that makes two identical prices mean different things, under every model.Also called: deliverables, inclusions, SEO pricelist
Pricing model questions, answered plainly.
Which model does Uncharted use, and why?
A monthly retainer at published prices, and two plans only: Launch at 100 dollars per month, or 1,000 dollars per year, and Scale at 250 dollars per month, or 2,500 dollars per year, billed monthly or annually with annual two months free. Ranking work is continuous. So the retainer fits, and publishing both plans removes the pricing games the model is sometimes criticized for. Bounded work like a standalone audit is scoped as a project instead.
Can I combine pricing models?
Yes, and it is often the right structure: a project fee to fix the foundation, a technical cleanup or migration, followed by a retainer for the ongoing program. The bounded work gets a bounded price and the continuous work gets a continuous one.
Is hourly SEO ever the right choice?
For consulting, yes: strategy sessions, an expert review, advisory work alongside an internal team. For full ranking programs it fits badly. That is because open ended work on a running meter puts all the risk on you. If you do buy hourly, cap the hours and define the outputs.
Should I ever accept performance based pricing?
Only with independently verifiable metrics agreed in writing before work starts, and a clear definition of which results count. Those conditions are rare. Without them, the model tends to produce attribution fights and effort aimed at whatever ranks easiest.
Why do quotes under different models look so different?
Because each model prices a different unit: months, projects, hours, or outcomes. Convert every quote to the same question, what ships, by when, for how much in total, and the comparison becomes possible.
Why not offer performance based pricing if you are confident?
Because confidence not issue, attribution
Because confidence is not the issue, attribution is. Rankings move for reasons neither party controls, and a model where we get paid only for outcomes we can claim credit for pushes toward chasing easy wins over valuable ones. Published pricing plus a documented baseline gives you a cleaner way to judge us: compare what changed against what was recorded before we started.
Who actually does the work at this price?
The founder, working directly on the account rather than routing it through account managers and junior staff. That is the structural reason these numbers work: a founder led practice carries none of the overhead a mid sized agency has to price into every retainer. It also means the person who recommends the work is the person who does it, which removes a layer where accountability usually goes to die.
Can I pause a program and restart it later?
Yes, and people do. Seasonal businesses in particular sometimes run hard in the build up to a season and pause through the quiet months. What is worth knowing is that positions decay while nobody defends them. So a pause is a real cost rather than a free option. We will tell you what a pause is likely to cost in visibility before you take it, and the decision stays yours.
Do you offer discounts for longer commitments?
One, and it is published rather than negotiated
One, and it is published rather than negotiated: annual is two months free. Launch is $100 per month, or $1,000 per year, and Scale is $250 per month, or $2,500 per year, so the annual saving is the same offer for everyone and there is nothing to haggle over. Cancel anytime. Your plan runs to the end of the period you have paid for.
What happens in a month where nothing moves?
It gets reported as a month where nothing moved, with an explanation of why and what changes next. Search work does not advance evenly, and a report that shows progress every single month is describing something other than reality. The recorded baseline is what makes a flat month readable as a flat month rather than a crisis or a cover up.
How do I compare two agencies when only one publishes prices?
Ask the one that does not for a number in writing before any call, and treat the response as data. An agency that can state a price in an email can state it on a page, and one that cannot usually prices against what it thinks you can pay. You are not being difficult by asking. You are running the only test that works before money changes hands.
What is not included in the published price?
Nothing that belongs in it
Nothing that belongs in it. The plan covers the work described, and the only items quoted separately are genuine one off builds such as a new website or a migration, which get their own fixed quote before anything starts. The published price is the price, and the ceilings that bound it are printed beside it: up to 30 articles per month, and up to 25 tracked keywords on Launch or up to 75 on Scale. If a cost would surprise you later, it gets named now.
Can the price change after I sign?
Not without your agreement in writing. You can move between Launch and Scale whenever you decide you should, and a scope change gets quoted before it is built. Nobody here has an incentive to let a price drift. That is because a client who feels ambushed does not stay, and retention is the whole business model at these rates.
Related work and services.
Where each pricing model actually breaks.
Monthly retainers align with how search work behaves, since results compound rather than arrive. The failure mode is the retainer that becomes an annuity, where the work quietly reduces while the invoice does not. A published price you can cancel anytime and a documented baseline are what prevent that, which is why we use both.
Hourly billing sounds fair and punishes you for iteration. Also, every revision costs more, efficiency reduces the vendor’s revenue, and you carry all the estimation risk. It suits narrow advisory work and almost nothing else.
Project pricing fits work with a real ending, such as a build, an audit, or a migration. It fits ongoing search badly. That is because search does not end, and a project framing encourages a burst of work followed by decay.
Performance pricing is the most seductive and the most dangerous. It sounds like shared risk and it usually creates misaligned incentives: chasing easy terms, claiming credit for movement that would have happened anyway, and disputes over attribution when it matters most.
The four models, side by side
| Model | Fits | Breaks when |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | Ongoing compounding work | Scope drifts down while the invoice holds |
| Hourly | Narrow advisory engagements | The work needs iteration, which it always does |
| Per project | Builds, audits, migrations | Applied to work that has no end |
| Performance based | Almost nothing in search | Attribution is contested, which is always |
Which SEO pricing model is best?
For ongoing search work, a monthly retainer you can cancel anytime. That is because the work compounds and the terms keep it accountable. Project pricing is right for anything with a defined ending, such as a build or a migration. Hourly suits advisory only, and performance pricing creates incentive problems that surface exactly when the stakes are highest.
The pitch patterns worth refusing.
No price without a call. This is a negotiation structure wearing the costume of a consultation, and it puts you at an information disadvantage before anything begins.
Guarantees about rankings or dates. Nobody controls the ranking systems, so a guarantee is an exclusion list you have not read. Request it.
Fast link volume. Ask for the source. Purchased and exchanged links sit squarely inside what Google’s spam policies define as link schemes, and the risk is the domain.
Traffic reporting without a documented baseline, which makes every subsequent claim impossible to falsify.
What each published plan actually includes.
Launch at 100 dollars per month, or 1,000 dollars per year, is the entry plan: up to 30 articles per month, up to 25 tracked keywords, and a documented baseline you read in your own dashboard. Also, it is the honest entry point when one market holds most of your revenue.
Scale at 250 dollars per month, or 2,500 dollars per year, raises the tracked keyword ceiling to 75 and adds a 60-minute monthly strategy session delivered personally, support response within one business day and explicitly not same-day, competitor teardown reports, Search Console integration, and early access to new capabilities as they ship.
Both run the same enforcement layer, which is the part no retainer comparison captures: the system cannot generate a claim outside your signed registry. Enforcement, not review.
Both bill monthly or annually, and annual is two months free. Cancel anytime. Your plan runs to the end of the period you have paid for. The plan follows the demand map rather than the other way around.
What you should have in writing before you pay anything.
The price, the terms, and what ends the arrangement. Whatever the billing period is, it should be stated plainly, with no notice period buried in a clause. If a contract length exists, it belongs on the first page rather than the fifth.
The scope, in specifics. Also, which markets, which pages, which deliverables, and at what cadence. Scope written as adjectives is scope that will shrink quietly, and the shrinkage is never announced.
The baseline. Where you stand today across the terms and markets that matter, recorded before work begins and by someone accountable for it. This single document is what converts every future claim from an assertion into something checkable.
See what the two plans include and what they cost on the pricing page.
Everything here is checkable.
Updated September 6, 2026