Why I do not publish an hourly rate
An hourly rate tells you the cost of my time. It does not tell you what you get for it. Everything I sell is a monthly package with a set scope, or a one-off with a fixed price. You can compare it with any other quote on the same basis.
I will not quote you a national average. What follows is my price list, in full, with the terms.
What each price buys
- Package 1, SEO and AEO, A$2,900 a month. SEO and AEO set up and fixes, page speed fixes, up to 30 pages optimised and up to 2 new pages a month, rank tracking on 50 keywords and AI search tracking on 30 questions.
- Package 2, SEO, AEO and CRO, A$4,900 a month. The one I would start you on. Adds GA4, Google Ads and Meta Ads tracking, CRO improvements every month, up to 60 pages optimised and up to 4 new pages a month.
- Package 3, Full SEO, AEO and CRO, A$9,500 a month. Adds backlinks, server-side tracking, CRO testing and up to 8 new pages a month.
- Backlinks add-on, A$2,500 a month, on Package 1 or 2.
- AI search tracking, A$249 a month. Your client questions checked weekly in five AI tools.
- Answer Engine Audit, A$1,500. A one-off check of how five AI tools see your business, with a fix list and a re-test at 60 days.
All prices are plus GST. The full list is on the pricing page.
The terms
- Packages run in three month terms, billed monthly.
- Each term renews for another quarter unless you give 30 days' notice by email before it ends. No exit fee.
- You can move up a package at any time and move down at the end of a quarter.
Read another retainer's terms next to those. The number at the top of the page is rarely the expensive part.
Why the click is worth less than it was
This is no longer called an SEO retainer because of the click. Pew Research Center, working from March 2025 browsing data across about 900 US adults and roughly 70,000 searches, found that when an AI Overview appeared, click-through on the results below it fell from about 15% to about 8%. Links inside the AI answer were clicked about 1% of the time.
So a package has two jobs. Half of it is the same crawling, speed and indexing work an SEO retainer always contained. The other half is being the source the answer engines cite. The monthly number you get comes from Google's and Microsoft's own reports.
When you should not pay for SEO at all
- You cannot commit to a quarter. Run the free check on your site and fix what it finds first.
- You want forty articles a month. Forty articles a month does not get cited.
- Your site has a conversion problem rather than a traffic problem. Then CRO and tracking in Package 2 is the place to start, not more traffic.
The first 20-minute call is free. We open the generative AI report in your own Search Console together. If there is no problem worth paying to fix, I will say so.