The short answer
Lithium’s local SEO retainer: $1,300 to $3,000 a month.
Local SEO with Lithium typically costs $1,300 to $3,000 a month. Where you land in that range depends on your market, how many services and locations you need to rank for, the shape your site is in and what a lead is worth to you. The agreement runs six months, then month to month with 30 days’ notice.
We publish our prices so you don’t need three sales calls to learn a number. Here is what each service costs:
| Service | Published price |
|---|---|
| Typical local SEO retainer | $1,300–$3,000 a month |
| Website build, separate project | Typically $5,000 per project |
| Google Ads management | From $500 a month, plus ad spend |
| Website hosting and maintenance, optional | $99 a month |
Use the calculator to see what a budget looks like over the months you’re planning for. Your proposal sets the price; the calculator only does the math on the published range. The pricing page has every service in one place.
SEO budget calculator
Enter a whole number of months from 1 to 120. This is budget math based on the published SEO range; your scoped proposal controls the price. Your selected months are not a required contract term or a forecast of results. Website work and advertising are separate.
Up or down the range
Five things that set your SEO price.
Your market
A plumber in a small town with a handful of competitors needs less work to reach the map pack than a plumber in a metro area where dozens of companies invest in SEO.
Services and locations
Each main service needs its own page, and each location needs its own profile and page. A business with one service in one town costs less than one with eight services across three branches.
Where your site starts
A site with technical problems, thin pages or no tracking needs more work up front than a clean site with a few gaps.
How much content you need
New service pages, town pages with real local detail and guides that answer customer questions all take writing, photos and review.
What a lead is worth
We scope against revenue per lead. A roofer whose average job is worth thousands can justify more work per month than a business with small tickets.
Two examples. A one-location electrician serving a few towns in a smaller market usually sits near the low end: a clean-up of the site and profile, a page for each main service, steady reviews and local links. A multi-location HVAC company in a competitive metro sits near the top: more pages, more profiles, more links and more tracking to keep straight. Our multi-location SEO guide covers that second case.
What you’re paying for
What the retainer includes, and what it doesn’t.
Lithium’s SEO retainer covers the work that gets a local business found and turns searches into calls:
- Technical fixes and on-page work: speed, crawling, titles, headings and internal links.
- Google Business Profile management, from categories and services to photos and posts.
- Citations: accurate listings across the platforms customers use.
- Content: new and rewritten service pages, town pages and guides.
- Link building from local and industry sources.
- Conversion tracking for calls and forms, and reporting tied to leads and revenue.
- AI search readiness, so AI answers can find and cite your business.
What it doesn’t include:
- A new website. A website build is a separate project, typically $5,000.
- Advertising. Google Ads management starts at $500 a month, and the ad spend is paid to Google on top. Paying for ads doesn’t buy a better organic ranking.
Many service businesses run SEO and ads together for a while: ads for calls now, SEO for the long-term base. Our SEO vs. PPC guide explains how to split a budget between them.
Comparing proposals
How SEO is priced, and the red flags to watch for.
You’ll see SEO priced three ways:
- Monthly retainer. The most common model for local businesses, because the work is ongoing.
- One-time project. An audit, a technical cleanup or a set of new pages at a fixed price. Good for a reset; rankings still need upkeep after.
- Hourly consulting. Advice for a business with its own team to do the work.
When you compare proposals, put the work next to the price. Which pages will be built or fixed? Who writes the content and who approves it? How are calls and forms tracked? How often will you review results together? Google’s guide to hiring an SEO suggests similar questions.
Red flags:
- A guaranteed first-place ranking. Google says nobody can promise that.
- Packages for a few hundred dollars a month that list hundreds of links or dozens of blog posts. That volume at that price usually means bought links or automated content.
- No access to your own accounts. Your website, domain, Business Profile and analytics should be in your name.
- Reports with rankings and traffic but no calls, forms or jobs.
- A long contract with no way out if the work isn’t done.
What we guarantee is the work: the agreed pages, fixes, listings and links, done on schedule and reported in plain language.
Is it worth it?
Do the math on a job, not a click.
To judge an SEO budget, work backward from a job. For example, say your average job is worth $4,000 and you close one in three good calls. Three extra calls a month from search adds about one job, which more than covers a $3,000 retainer. Once rankings build, those calls keep coming without paying for each click.
Here’s what that looked like for two Lithium clients. Working with Lithium, F&W Fence Co. went from 190 to 745 ranking keywords and grew organic traffic 138% to more than 630 visits a month, with a 27.78% conversion rate on its core searches. Drake’s 7 Dees grew organic traffic 380% in one year. Results depend on the market, and neither came in the first month.
Plan for the ramp. With Lithium, technical fixes usually move within 30 days, local and long-tail rankings typically move in 60 to 90 days, and revenue compounds from month four. Our guide to how long SEO takes covers the timeline in detail.
Before you ask for a proposal, run the local SEO checklist on your own site and profile. You’ll come to the conversation knowing where you stand, and you’ll know what to look for in a plan. If you’re a smaller shop, the small business SEO page shows how we scope for owner-run businesses.
