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Pricing

SEO pricing and marketing costs, in plain numbers

Lithium publishes typical prices for websites, SEO, Google Ads and its AI receptionist, so you can check the math before you book a call.

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  • 100+ businesses served
  • Clients across the United States
  • Revenue first, not just rankings
Search visibility report ranking sarkinenplumbing.com first among local plumbing competitors
2Xleads for Sarkinen Plumbing on the same budget
Google Partner badge Google PartnerView our Partners listing 5.0on Google · read our reviews
2010Lithium Marketing, established in 2010
$10M+Over $10 million in Google ad spend managed

Businesses we’ve worked with

  • Willard Power Vac
  • Sarkinen Plumbing
  • Robinson Restoration
  • Town & Country Glass
  • Dixie Glass
  • Byers Septic Service
  • F&W Fence Co.
  • Drake’s 7 Dees
  • Rickabaugh Construction
  • Hillsview Building
  • Dozer Dave
  • Mt. Hood Pro Painting
  • On-Target Landscape
  • Atiyeh Bros Carpet
  • Lovett
  • Westmore Construction
  • Northwest New Homes
  • Porter Sealcoating & Paving
  • RescueHero Restoration
  • Panda Plumbing
  • Biermann Plumbing & Heating
  • Ballistic Junk Removal
  • Smart Doors LLC
  • Peak Performance Roofing
  • Deluxe Heating & Cooling
  • Lifetime Exteriors
  • Bruce Johnson Construction
  • Madrone Painting
  • Smart Tree Service
  • Premier Gutter Cover
  • NW Pacific Electric
  • Universal HVAC
  • Lenny Martin Painting
  • Next Level Decks & Exteriors
  • Prodan Construction
  • Smooth Rollin’ Sealcoating and Paving
  • Lovett Restoration
  • Greenlight Titles
  • G.W. Hartley IV
  • Advanced Coatings
  • Thomson Equipment
  • MyADU

SEO pricing

How much does local SEO cost?

Local SEO for a service business typically costs $1,300 to $3,000 a month with Lithium, sized to what a new customer is worth to you. Four things decide whether your number sits near the bottom of that range or the top.

1

Competition

How strong the companies already ranking for your services are, and how much work it takes to pass them.

2

Service-area breadth

A business that serves one town needs less work than one covering a metro area or a long list of towns.

3

Content needed

A site with thin or missing service pages needs more writing before it can compete for the searches that bring calls.

4

Link velocity

How quickly new links need to be earned to keep pace with the sites already above you.

If your market needs more than that range, we explain why before anything is signed. See what the SEO retainer includes.

Published prices

Every service, side by side.

Your own number moves with scope, competition and ad spend. The next section shows what moves each price.

Conversion web design

$5,000

typical project

Larger sites with more pages or integrations get a fixed proposal after a 30-minute discovery call. Six to nine weeks from kickoff to launch.

SEO

$1,300–$3,000

per month

Typical local SEO retainer, scoped against your revenue per lead.

Google Ads management

From $500

per month

Separate from ad spend. Typical: $500–$1,500 a month in management on $2,000–$5,000 a month in ad spend.

AI receptionist

$179

per month

Fully managed. No contracts, cancel anytime. Live in days.

AI automation

Scoped

after discovery

Clear, upfront pricing after a free discovery call. Custom builds typically take 1–2 weeks.

Optional hosting and maintenance: $99/month. Secure private hosting on a dedicated high-speed server, daily backups, software and security updates, and basic website changes are all included. Most clients choose this option to keep their new website updated and running smoothly; it is not required.

Our usual service agreement starts with six months, then continues month to month with 30 days’ cancellation notice. Your written agreement sets the final terms. The AI receptionist has no contract.

  • You own your domain, hosting account and website
  • Six-month starting term
  • We guarantee the work, not a ranking
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What the price buys

What each price includes, and what moves it.

Each service below lists what the price covers and what changes the number, with a link to the full service page.

Web Design

What does the website price include?

The typical website design price covers a complete WordPress site for your service business: discovery, design, the copy, tracking, search groundwork and launch QA.

See web design

Included

  • Discovery and a page-by-page content plan
  • Copy written alongside the build
  • Core Web Vitals targets: LCP under 2.5 s, INP under 200 ms, CLS under 0.1
  • GA4 events and call tracking on every form and call
  • Schema markup and an llms.txt file
  • Google Business Profile alignment
  • Launch QA on real phones, with old URLs redirected
  • A private Loom walkthrough of your finished site

What moves the price

About 90% of the sites we build come in at the typical price. A site goes past it with more service pages, CRM or booking integrations, heavier content needs or deeper conversion tracking.

SEO

What is in an SEO retainer?

An SEO retainer with Lithium pays for the whole program below, month after month, and none of it is sold as an add-on.

See SEO services SEO on a smaller budget

Included

  • Technical SEO monitoring and fixes
  • On-page optimization across your existing pages
  • Ongoing content for long-tail and upper-funnel searches
  • Google Business Profile management
  • Citation cleanup and review-funnel support
  • Multi-tiered semantic link building
  • Schema maintenance and conversion tracking
  • Monthly reporting tied to leads and revenue

What changes the mix

The exact mix shifts with your market, your competition, the season and how mature your site is.

Google Ads & PPC

What does PPC management pricing cover?

Lithium’s PPC management fee pays for the work of running your account, from conversion tracking and landing pages to bids, tests and the monthly report.

See Google Ads services

Included

  • Conversion tracking: GA4, call tracking, server-side and CRM imports
  • A landing page for each search intent
  • Keyword and match-type work with responsive search ads
  • Geo, audience and bid management
  • Remarketing to people who visited your site
  • A monthly negative-keyword review
  • Looker Studio reporting on leads, cost per lead and revenue
  • A monthly strategy call with DJ Van Zanten

What moves the price

Three things set the fee: your monthly ad spend, how many channels you run (Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta or LinkedIn) and how much landing page building the campaigns call for.

AI Receptionist

What does the AI receptionist price cover?

The monthly price covers an AI receptionist that answers every call 24/7 in your brand voice, with Lithium building and tuning its knowledge base and call rules.

See the AI receptionist Call our AI receptionist now

Included

  • Qualifies leads and books appointments
  • Answers FAQs from a custom knowledge base
  • Follow-up texts, plus SMS and MMS handling
  • CRM and calendar hooks
  • Call recording and transcripts
  • 30 natural AI voices to choose from
  • Unlimited concurrent calls
  • Transfers a caller to a real person when you want it

How it compares

A human receptionist runs $3,500 or more a month. Lithium’s own phone line is answered by the AI receptionist, so you can hear it before you decide.

AI Automation

How is AI automation priced?

AI automation is priced per project, because each build is scoped around one business’s workflow.

See AI automation

What we build

  • Workflow automation
  • AI chatbots
  • Data pipelines
  • Integrations with your CRM, calendar, phone, POS and spreadsheets
  • Document processing
  • Follow-up automation and review requests

What moves the price

Mostly how many systems the build connects and how much custom training the AI needs: a simple workflow automation costs much less than a multi-system AI agent with CRM integration. Every project is scoped to deliver a measurable return.

Outside the price

What isn’t in the price?

Ad spend is not in the price: the money for the ads themselves is separate from Lithium’s management fee, and a few fees never show up at all.

Your ad budget

Before you sign, we name the lowest monthly ad spend that still gives your account enough data to learn from.

Never on the bill

  • No setup fee on the AI receptionist
  • No hidden upsells on Google Ads
  • No hidden retainers on AI automation projects

Contracts

Do you need a long-term contract?

No, not for most services, and the terms depend on what you hire us for.

Monthly retainers

SEO and Google Ads run as monthly retainers, and you hear the exact terms before you commit to anything.

Priced projects

Websites and AI automation are priced as projects, so you know the scope and the price before any work starts.

AI receptionist

No contract at all. Keep it while it books jobs for you, and cancel whenever you choose.

Results

What the budget bought for Lithium clients.

Every number here is printed on that client’s case study.

organic traffic for Robinson Restoration, from SEO alone
26X
organic traffic for Robinson Restoration, from SEO alone
leads in 60 days for Drake’s 7 Dees
744
leads in 60 days for Drake’s 7 Dees
Google Ads conversion rate for Town & Country Glass
29.9%
Google Ads conversion rate for Town & Country Glass
organic traffic for Byers Septic Service
9X
organic traffic for Byers Septic Service

One January, Dixie Glass recorded 116 Google Ads conversions, 76% more than the 66 of the January before, while its ad spend rose only 2.29%.

Read the case studies

Dixie Glass

Google Ads conversions, one January vs the January before

+76%66
116
The January beforeThe next January
“Lithium has moved us to page 1 in Google search organically. Prior to working with them we spent a huge part of our marketing budget on paid search. Website redesign was a great experience.”
Drake SnodgrassDrake SnodgrassDrake’s 7 Dees
“Ever since we've used Lithium Marketing, our phone has been ringing off the hook and we can hardly keep up with the leads we get from Google, Facebook or through our website. Most of our leads other than referrals are through Google and it's all because of Lithium Marketing.”
Chris MartinChris MartinMt. Hood Pro Painting

FAQ

Pricing questions, straight answers.

DJ Van Zanten

Still curious?

Call (503) 766-5964 or email [email protected].

Is the first strategy call free?

Yes, the first call is a free, no-obligation 30-minute strategy call with DJ Van Zanten, a Lithium co-founder, not a junior account manager. You leave with a written priority list of the top 5 to 10 changes that will move your leads, whether or not you hire us.

Should I start with Google Ads or SEO?

Usually both, with Google Ads first if you need calls right away. Google Ads typically shows initial results within the first week and does not depend on reviews or organic rankings, so it keeps calls coming while SEO builds rankings that cost nothing per click. The Google Ads data also shows which services deserve the most SEO investment.

What do the first 90 days of an SEO retainer pay for?

The first 90 days pay for groundwork, done in a set order. The first two weeks cover an audit and a keyword map ranked by what each lead is worth to you, then come technical repairs and the core service pages, and Google Business Profile, citation and link work starts around week six.

Why is SEO a monthly cost instead of a one-time project?

Because the results stack: each month’s content, links and reviews build on the work that came before. The strategy also adjusts every 30 days based on what is producing leads, so the budget keeps moving toward the pages and services that bring in business.

Does AI search optimization cost extra?

No. Lithium never bills AI search optimization as its own line: the AEO and GEO work for Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT and Perplexity runs inside every SEO retainer. No one can promise an AI mention, so the retainer pays for the work and the monthly report on it.

Do I have to buy SEO or Google Ads with a new website?

No, the website can be the only thing you buy from Lithium. Many clients start SEO or Google Ads at launch so qualified traffic reaches the new site sooner, but that is a choice, not a condition of the build.

Free action plan

Want the number for your business?

Tell us your trade, the towns you serve and what a new job is worth to you. On the call we map where your budget should go first, what should wait and what the work would cost for your business.

What we’ll cover

  • What’s working (and what isn’t) in your current marketing
  • Site and funnel gaps that are costing you leads
  • Local SEO and paid traffic opportunities
  • Simple tracking and KPIs to measure success
(503) 766-5964 [email protected]

2000 NE 42nd Ave Ste D Unit 2370, Portland, OR 97213

Prefer to pick a time? Book a 30-minute call with DJ

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