Local SEO Pricing: What Local SEO Costs, and What I Charge
By Muhammad Amir, Searcora
Local SEO pricing is hard to compare because most providers do not publish it. In the largest public survey, local SEO averaged $1,557 a month, and the most common hourly rate was $75 to $100. My rate is $10 to $20 an hour. Below: where those numbers come from, what changes the cost, and how to tell an affordable service from a risky one.
I run Searcora and do the local SEO work myself: Google Business Profile, website pages, listings and reviews, for businesses in the US, the UK and other countries. This page gives the market prices first, then my own rate, so you can compare any quote you have been given.
What local SEO usually costs
Ahrefs asked 439 SEO providers what they charge and published the answers in the Ahrefs SEO pricing survey (page last updated August 2024). These are the figures for local SEO. They are survey answers from providers in many countries, so read them as a guide, not a price list.
| Local SEO price | Survey figure |
|---|---|
| Average per month, all providers | $1,557 |
| Average per month, agencies | $1,819 |
| Average per month, freelancers | $1,150 |
| Most common hourly rate | $75 to $100 |
What I charge: $10 to $20 an hour
My local SEO work is billed by the hour, at $10 to $20 an hour. Where the rate falls in that range depends on the work, and it is agreed with each client before anything starts. There is no fixed monthly package, because two businesses rarely need the same hours. For scale, $1,150 — the freelancer average in the survey above — pays for 57 hours at $20 an hour.
The table below is arithmetic, not a set of packages. The hours for your business are estimated in the written scope after I have looked at your profile and website.
| Hours of work | At $10 an hour | At $20 an hour |
|---|---|---|
| 5 hours | $50 | $100 |
| 10 hours | $100 | $200 |
| 20 hours | $200 | $400 |
| 40 hours | $400 | $800 |
Why the rate is lower than an agency’s
The difference is cost, not a shortcut in the work.
- One person. I do the work myself. There is no sales team, account manager or office in the price.
- Based in Multan, Pakistan, working remotely with clients mostly in the US and the UK.
- A public record you can check: Top Rated Plus on Upwork, 600+ projects, 99% Job Success. The reviews there are written by clients and cannot be edited by me.
- The same guidelines as anyone else. No bought reviews, no keywords added to business names, no fake locations — a low price is no use if the profile is suspended.
Hourly, monthly, project or package: how local SEO is sold
Most quotes use one of four models. Knowing which one you are looking at makes two quotes comparable.
- Hourly. You pay for time spent. It suits one-off fixes and businesses that want to control the budget month by month. Ask for an estimate of hours before work starts.
- Monthly retainer. A fixed fee every month for ongoing work. Ask what is done each month and what you receive as a report.
- One-off project. A fixed price for a defined job, such as setting up a Google Business Profile, cleaning up listings or a local SEO audit.
- Packages. Bronze, silver and gold tiers with a set list of tasks. Easy to compare, but the list is written before anyone has looked at your business.
What makes local SEO cost more or less
The same six things decide the hours with almost every business.
- Number of locations. Each location has its own profile, listings and reviews.
- The state of the Google Business Profile. A healthy profile that needs refining is a smaller job than one that is duplicated, wrongly categorised or suspended.
- The state of the website. Whether pages can be edited, and whether each main service and area has a page.
- Listing clean-up. A business that has moved or changed its phone number leaves old details across many directories.
- Competition. A city-centre law firm and a village plumber need different amounts of work.
- What you do yourself. Some owners ask for reviews and write their own posts, and want only the profile and technical work.
What a local SEO package should include
I do not sell packages, but most local SEO packages list the same items. Use this list to check what a quote covers and what it leaves out.
- Google Business Profile work: categories, services, hours, description, photos and posts.
- Listings (citations): the business name, address and phone number made identical on the directories that matter for your trade and area.
- Reviews: a way to ask every customer, and a reply to every review.
- Website pages: one page for each main service and each real location, with titles and content that match how people search.
- Reporting: calls, direction requests and website clicks from the profile, compared with the period before the work began.
- The full list of tasks is in the local SEO checklist.
Affordable local SEO services: what to check before you pay
A low price is fine. A low price paid for work that breaks Google’s rules is not, because the cost arrives later as a suspended profile. Check these before paying anyone, including me.
- No ranking guarantee. Google’s own advice on hiring an SEO says: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”
- You own the accounts. The Google Business Profile, website, Search Console and analytics stay in your name.
- No bought or filtered reviews. Both are against Google’s policies.
- No keywords added to the business name and no profiles at addresses where nobody works.
- Reports you can verify. The numbers should come from your own Google accounts, not from a tool only the provider can see.
- More questions to ask any provider are on the local SEO agency page.
How a quote works
- Send a message with the business name, the areas you serve and the one thing you most want fixed.
- The first conversation is free, and so is the first look at your Google Business Profile and website.
- You get a written scope: what will be done, in what order, what is needed from you, and the estimated hours.
- Nothing is charged before you agree the scope in writing.