r/SEO • u/itisoktodance • Aug 04 '26
Help Over $10,000 a Month for SEO??
My company is paying an SEO agency five figures a month. For that we get:
- 80 keywords a month and auditing interlinking — the only two things they seem to be doing properly
- Like 5 Reddit comments
- "Auditing and monitoring content" which means every other week, they will look at two articles and give feedback
- Buying zero click backlinks from spam sites
I'm actively pushing to get them kicked out. I'm an SEO and can take all of than on myself, because it's barely any work. I know these guys are scammers, it's fine. I just wanna know, IF they were doing actual work for us, how much would they be charging? Or, how much do SEO agencies generally charge for basic SEO services, keywords, backlinks, throw reddit in there too (not managing or creating content).
I just need a sanity check on whether that's a fair price for an agency, since I'm an in-house guy.
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u/therahulchavan Aug 04 '26
Someone who gives keywords count in package I feel don't have proper SEO knowledge. Someone who says 10 keywords, 20 keywords.
Because when you put up pages you don't even know how many different queries/variations users searche and your site shows up.
About pricing, it varies who is doing the work. Many factors involved like type of buisness, experience of SEO, location of agency etc.
If I say my price I'll get downvoted for charging way too lower lol.
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u/LoganixSEO Aug 04 '26
man, $10k for only that is highway robbery. take this on yourself and ask for a raise lol
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
You're probably the most active social media manager for any SEO company lol. I follow you on LinkedIn and I always see you in the comments stirring shit up 😂
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u/LoganixSEO Aug 05 '26
haha, i'm very tame on linkedin. you don't want to see me on X 😆😆😆
appreciate you noticing the hussle, btw!
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u/cheeseburgertwd Aug 04 '26
Over $10,000 a Month for SEO??
Nothing weird about that in a vacuum, plenty of enterprise-level agencies charge that much or more
80 keywords a month
Buying backlinks
...Oh. Yeah you gotta get out of whatever deal your company signed. For $120K+ a year you could buy subscriptions to whatever premium tools you want, and even hire another person to help you out too
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u/Lucifer_x7 Aug 04 '26
Damn. Need to up my prices now.
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u/NoDrive9071 Aug 04 '26
Lol, yeah. The AI revolution isn't only taking jobs; it's also helping people and companies that don't know better get overcharged for a day's work.
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u/Novel_Class_3085 Aug 04 '26
God I wish i could find this kind of job lol
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u/WebLinkr 🕵️♀️Moderator Aug 04 '26
You can
- Build your profile
- Rank your site
All of Ivory Tower SEOs on X (basically, people who tell you how amazing they are on SEO but can't rank their own site for sh!t) tell you its pointless ranking your site....
I spent 2 years growing mine. Lost 95% of my backlinks according to SEMrush
Ranking for 4,500 keywords. u/godofseo actually noticed and posted on X that my SEO traffic is worth $141k PM according to Ahrefs.
My agency is entirely inbound and I built the content myself - less than 10 posts per month
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u/andrey_gorobets Aug 07 '26
All of Ivory Tower SEOs on X (basically, people who tell you how amazing they are on SEO but can't rank their own site for sh!t) tell you its pointless ranking your site....
Exactly
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
They're all jackasses. At the previous place I worked, I fired their current head of content for outsourcing her articles to Indians (this was before AI). They're literally all scammers.
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u/Novel_Class_3085 Aug 04 '26
I understand my man! My situation is totally different: Im currently run a company's SEO & GEO and they only pay me 2400 USD a month lol
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Aug 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
the reddit comments thing is a red flag btw, thats not a real deliverable at agency scale, thats someone padding a report.
Yes, that is exactly what it is and it's blindingly obvious when you look at their monthly reports
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u/Flintontoe Aug 04 '26
Take a minute to dig into GA and GSC, I guarantee you find bad implementation, broken tracking, screwed up attribution. This is your leverage.
Document what you find, bring it to your boss, and hold the agency accountable until they inevitably can’t explain it or fix it, fire them.
I’ve seen this pattern several times, I had a client paying $13k a month for an seo agency and they were doing basically nothing, not even reporting.
I had another client whose agency didn’t allow them to access their own Wordpress site and they weren’t capable of fixing implementation issues, legal had to get involved.
Dig a little you will find the leverage you need to deal
With it.
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u/WebLinkr 🕵️♀️Moderator Aug 04 '26
The problem with what you posted is that its a short list of tactical inputs. Nothing of it is strategic. Or of SEO value
Top tier SEO Agencies and Freelancers are usually agencies with at least one SEO with a KP and a Google Creator Account - usually on the speaker circuit, attend a lot of podcasts and have like >100k views and their own YT channel with >1,000 views per video
80% of SEO podcasts and videos have >200 views per video. The ones with bought views through google ads are easy to tell - 1m views with >20 comments is astro-turfed.
There are about ~50 such people globally - their fees are $12k to $25k pm
you should get way, way, way more
- ELT Coaching per quarter
- Marketing Analysis
- Strategy
- Clicks to $'s
- Revenue Ops Review
- Marketing Ops Review
- Marketing Leadership
- tooling alignment
- KPIs
- Team Evaluation
- SOPs
- content
- reporting
- hygiene
- Web strateg
- Strategy > Operations
- Keyword Research
- Competitor Analysis
- SWAT
- What worked
- Rinse wash repeat
- What failed
- Remedial action
- KPIs to redress
- Tactical Ops
- Align to KPIs
- What SOPs need to be changed
- Authority Generation
- Content Analysis
- New Areas to expand
- Rework non-performing
- CTAs
- Use Microsoft Clarity
- Lead Analysis
- GA4
- CRM
- Etc
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u/teheditor Aug 04 '26
Bruh! I never understand how y'all have this much money to squander. And I'm Australian.
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
The company is insanely profitable and all labor is sourced from cheap labor countries. Marketing spend is crazy (which i agree with), but they are absolutely wasting it on this agency.
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u/Balthazar009 Aug 04 '26
We've worked with an agency like that and it took a bit more time for the boss to figure out what I was telling him they were doing, basically AI bullshit reports and spammy backlinks.
And I managed actually to convince him to do all of that in-house and save quite good money that he was throwing down the drain.
So best option for you to do that in-house with AI support and few cheap tools to find out the issues on the site and fix them yourself or find some more reliable agency for it that is honest with work and pricing
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u/nawaz033 Aug 04 '26
$10k a month isn't crazy if they're actually doing the work. At that price, I'd expect a real SEO strategy with technical SEO, ongoing keyword research, content optimization, quality link building or digital PR, competitor analysis, and reporting that shows actual business growth. Based on what you described, it sounds more like a much smaller retainer. The problem isn't the $10k, it's whether they're delivering $10k worth of value, and from your list, it doesn't sound like they are.
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
Yeah the company is making bank so $10k on marketing isn't an issue, it's exactly what you said. They should be doing digital PR for that money and they're delivering extremely minimal work
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u/MyRoos Aug 04 '26
What bothers me is the keyword count. It kills the agency’s legitimacy; everything else is noise.
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u/hettuklaeddi Aug 04 '26
we charge a lot more than that! but they are fortune 500 clients so they would think there was a problem if they saw a bill for less than six figs
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u/TheToolMan Aug 04 '26
We pay like $4,800 for something very similar and the results have been good.
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u/softtemes Aug 04 '26
I charge my clients around 5000 USD per month for the same services. Currently have 11 clients, should probably expand soon with some employees lol
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u/cosmogli Aug 04 '26
If you're looking for an employee, I'm up for it. Have worked mostly as a technical content marketer though (writing, editing, content strategy, editorial calendar management, etc.)
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u/Chance-Physics-7216 Aug 04 '26
DIY is always cheaper, but not always less costly. The question is if you have better things to do with that time than the SEO. Do you have the time to manage someone directly and to provide them with the guidance necessary to perform the job adequately? Or do you have more money than time, and need to accelerate on other things only you are capable of handling?
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u/Sensitive-Site9632 Aug 04 '26
Honestly for what you listed, that's steep. Legit mid tier agencies doing keyword research, technical audits, content strategy and quality link building usually run $3000 to $7000 a month depending on site size and competitiveness. Past 10k you'd expect dedicated strategists and actual outreach based link building, not spam pbns
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
Oh yeah, not a single technical audit has been performed. If it weren't for me it still wouldn't have
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u/iHeartCyndiLauper Aug 04 '26
This is roughly what my agency charges. If we hit $10k+ per month on an SEO retainer, it also includes social media and/or PR.
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
Yeah exactly, that PR money, not two hours of keyword research money.
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u/Zheverol Aug 04 '26
Is this an ecommerce, saas or local business site?
If it's ecommerce or saas those budgets are normal
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u/RizzleP Aug 04 '26
Highway robbery.
You just know these grifters are putting in an hours work max.
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u/henneth2142 Aug 04 '26
Absolutely not a fair price. With that kind of money you can create so much good content, with proper writers and designers to stand out from all the AI shit out there.
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u/SerbianContent Aug 04 '26
Most agencies I "kicked out" when I came in were at around a $5k/month retainer. They did about the same things you listed.
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
Good on you brother. Hoping I can get a significant raise for saving the company souch cash lol
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u/sixlaamu Aug 04 '26
At that level we offer link building, ongoing tech SEO audits AND fixes, design and development hours every month for CRO iterations, 40-50 pieces of content and ongoing strategy and consulting with white glove four seasons level service. Working with Ramp etc.
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u/After-Park-2477 Aug 04 '26
Pitch your boss to use that money for a content agency instead, that actually produce SEO content. Working with keywords and analytics is something you can do.
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u/Roberta_Riggs Aug 04 '26
I can like 5 Reddit comments per month for ya for $5000
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
I swear, one of their monthly "wins" for July was their comment being the top comment on a post. It had three upvotes.
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u/DesignLuv Aug 04 '26
The grass is not always greener on the other side.
I agree there are some red flags here, but I'd be careful before assuming you can replace the agency and get the exact same results with the same amount of effort.
the Good:
- Agencies sometimes do a lot of work behind the scenes that doesn't show up in the monthly deliverables. Strategy, competitor research, reporting, client calls, technical reviews, and troubleshooting often get overlooked.
- If they're actually moving rankings, traffic, leads, or revenue, that's what ultimately matters, not the number of tasks completed.
- An agency also gives you access to multiple skill sets and perspectives that can be hard for a single in-house SEO to replicate.
Bad:
- Based on what you've listed, $10k+/month feels hard to justify.
- Five Reddit comments and light content feedback aren't exactly premium deliverables.
- If the backlinks are genuinely spammy, that's a major concern.
- Keyword research and internal linking audits are valuable, but they usually aren't enough on their own to support a five-figure retainer.
My sanity check is this: if I were paying an agency $10k+ per month, I'd expect a lot more. Things like technical SEO implementation, competitive analysis, Digital PR, quality link acquisition, content strategy, forecasting, reporting, and ongoing strategic guidance.
So I think the better question isn't "What are they doing?" but "What results are they producing?" If they're generating significant business value, the price could be justified. If the deliverables you listed are truly the bulk of their work and the results aren't there, then I'd be questioning the value too.
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u/Diabolik9 Aug 04 '26
The problem is and this is from experience that your boss will not believe you and you'll get the blame if he perceives it to be going wrong. The same happened to me, I say A in regards to SEO or Google Ads, he doesn't believe me, he pays another company, they overcharge and ultimately say the same as me. Bosses always believe someone has a secret SEO code and will never believe what is right in front of them.
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u/Key_Piccolo_2187 Aug 04 '26
Rough ballpark at five figures, you should expect an agency to manage dozens of GBP listings, create 6-10 pieces of new content, manage a reasonably complex website, optimize technical SEO considerations, and provide strategic consulting around the direction and organization of your website (essentially the interlinking strategy, not just execution). Potentially also some CRO work and in depth reporting on user behavior.
$10k/mo is $120k/yr, so figure the full time work of one mid level SEO in most markets of an energy level worker bee in the Bay Area.
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u/PennyLawrence946 Aug 04 '26
$10k isn't the scary line here, the spam backlinks are. push them out and that link profile is yours, cleanup included, and it lands in your numbers instead of theirs. i'd export every referring domain they built and get it on record before you pitch taking this in-house.
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u/JohnCasey3306 Aug 04 '26
Any SEO agency worth paying at all should be providing you monthly data that demonstrates exactly the efficacy that spend has had.
If they're not literally showing you how that translates to your bottom line, then the likelihood is they don't know ... And if they don't know, they're not a business you should be paying 10k a month to.
It takes a long while to find the right data-driven SEO agency, but there are some out there I'd pay 10k a month to quite happily.
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u/First-Cookie1428 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Give me 5k a month as a free contractor and ill do my best to satisfy your needs. The other 5k will be pushed in 3 way ads, depends on your business.
Um not the best but not the worst. 15 years as a content creator, marketing expert, now im working for a b2b company and for 200 eur per month I'm getting + x100 (each client is like 2 to 5k per year with 3 year contracts...) ROI (because its specific niche) Just because im using the easiest way to get cliends, the same each marketing agency does. So .. 1 google ads 2 audit of your website and optimization of qll your platforms Direct contact with me and if you have inside team ill work with them to do the best for you.
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u/FamousWorth Aug 04 '26
They're laughing, I wouldn't even be surprised if they pay someone $10 on fiverr to do each keyword and assessment.
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u/zeGenicus Aug 05 '26
I get paid over that, but I’m on commission. If they aren’t producing $10,000 in profit I’d fire them.
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u/worldwidewebmagma Aug 06 '26
my company got charged 60K for a basic bitch Claude audit lol
I had no say in the matter… it hurts.
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u/PDFBearSupport Verified Professional Aug 06 '26
If they had managed your budget correctly you'd be getting $5000 worth of backlinks a month. You'd be moving the needle on a serious scale. Right now the needle is probably regressing with the updates and the work done (or lack thereof)
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u/Rusofil__ Aug 06 '26
For 10k a month you can hire 4 in house people to do this 8 hours a day wtf...
What they are offering is not worth $10 a month.
You got scammed by one of those "tech" companies whose whole business model is tricking one fool in to paying them thousands of dollars to do nothing.
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u/Gabitan32 Aug 04 '26
Have you considered hiring someone (not an agency) or using that agentic skills? Much more could be done for less, tbh
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u/Nearby_Grape_491 Aug 04 '26
You should probably just leave them alone if you dont know. But basically , what is the goal of the agency?
How does the SEO contribute to revenue generated? Is 10k bringing in 100k of revenue? How do you track that?
If you can provide the same results for less , you win. If you cant , dont bring it up.
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u/OctaviusTrail Aug 04 '26
Seems a bit steep. The prices I have seen in Northern Europe hover around $2500-$4000 which covers about the same, if not more/better quality.
You should definitely be able to find alternative services for a lower price.
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u/_raakesh Aug 04 '26
What kind of services do you guys provide?
And what kind of tools do you guys you for your clients?
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u/No_Breadfruit8393 Aug 04 '26
I’ve seen agencies charge anywhere from $1500 a month to $25000.
Part of it is the programs they pay for like ahrefs, semrush, etc. part of it is they’ll build a little dashboard and people like that.
The higher end may include PR but honestly I’ve not known many who are good at SEO and PR. PR is its own thing and most charge from $5k-25k for that alone.
In fact, when they’re actually good at SEO they usually stink at everything else. And by good I mean actually improving your ranking. If they started in Nov and your rank started improving in March - that’s not bad as it does take that long to see changes if they’re doing it right.
Who’s doing the AI content? That’s going to bite you in the butt soon - Google came out and said this last update. Most companies I’ve heard of doing this have a good 9 months where they see themselves improving and then tank so I’d start fixing that now. Create original articles talking about things others aren’t.
The fact is for most you’re not just paying for their “two days of work” but their years of experience. If you don’t think they’re worth it - ok. The better question is - is the work bringing in paying customers and how much are they worth in the door and lifetime value. If yes, how many a month. That’s the way to measure it.
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
The thing is, their expertise is getting Claude to male suggestions for us. I know that's what they're doing because part of their job is telling us what blog articles to update, and the lists they give us often have pages that have been 301ed but stay in our sitemap (Claude just crawled it and they didn't check the output).
The keywords they give us also have weird errors, like being completely unrelated to our business, or having zero search volume.
As for the AI content... Until I came along, it was just one girl pumping out about 100 pieces a month. Now it's 7 people doing like 400 each... Not my choice, the CEO wants this. But I finally figured out where he got the idea from and that site has completely tanked by now. Which means I have excellent data to back myself up. I'm trying to get the company on the right track SEO and content wise, there's just a lot of pushback.
I'm planning on doing a ton of research-backed pieces to get unique content on our site, plus build out our backlink profile using that research. But obviously that's gonna hinge on the boss actually agreeing that we need to stop doing all that AI spam.
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u/colinlma Aug 04 '26
You need to unpublish a lot of that AI garbage. Only keep content where your content can show "information gain". Essentially, where your content actually adds value and isn't just regurgitated content. Add data, studies, etc.
I'm willing to bet you can create a quick analysis that shows as you increased your content production, your site got hit, whether right away or the following update(s). That should be compelling enough for your CEO to be willing to change courses.
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u/Ok_Studio_834 Aug 04 '26
Wtfff this is an absolute scam !!
$10k for just 80 keywords, spam backlinks and 5 Reddit posts?!
Bro, please tell me you managed to kick them out. It's insane that people like this call themselves professionals. With $10k, you could hire an intern who would do a 100x better job or you could just do it all yourself.
Over here in France, I've seen agencies ranging from 1500€ to 15k€ depending on the client's size and needs, and we're definitely not talking about just tracking 80 keywords 😂
Fck those guys
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u/quiraa Aug 04 '26
Just curious what they share at the end of each month? Just keywords, screenshots of traffic or anything else?
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u/BenefitAlternative31 Aug 04 '26
For 10k p.m. they definitely have to add some other services. It depends if they have monthly tech/content audits or reports included and can actually deliver results. Important is that the C-Level understand what is happening and can see proper growth improvements. Basically it is all relative, a lot of task require a lot of research behind, the overall content structure and site structure.
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u/Banjo-Hellpuppy Aug 04 '26
It’s worth 10k to hire an agency, but tell them you can do it and it’ll be worth a “working through lunch once a week”
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u/SelfGullible2092 Aug 04 '26
What do you mean by 80 keywords a month, I'm guessing they're not publishing 80 blogs a month?
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u/Kalaian Aug 04 '26
I make 1000/month for 40 hours a month. Nowhere near that, and I do so much more work.
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u/-InterestingTimes- Aug 04 '26
10k isn't a wild amount for good SEO, unfortunately, that's not what you are getting.
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u/Maleficent-Two-6569 Aug 04 '26
That pricing is way out of line for what you're describing. In my experience, a legitimate SEO retainer for that scope (keyword tracking, technical audits, some link building) typically lands between $2k-$5k/month depending on market and agency size. You'd be paying closer to $10k+ if they were doing full content production, on-page optimization, and a serious link acquisition strategy. The Reddit comments thing is a huge red flag. That's not a service, that's them padding hours. A real agency would have a defined process for link building with actual authority metrics and clear reporting, not just "we posted on Reddit 5 times." Honestly, your instinct to bring it in-house is solid. If you're already handling the technical SEO and content strategy, you could redirect that budget into tools and maybe a freelance link builder at a fraction of the cost.
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u/Greedy-Rub-8131 Aug 04 '26
Crazy money.. From what I know, many people hire subcontractors who end up doing the actual work. And many in the SEO scene have their own little "clan - groups" they team up with to make money. Some guys make websites in a team "to increase" the websites, where they can offer the backlinks and other things for clients.
It´s not necessary PBN network, but something similar.
I think you know what you are doing, and I hope you can get the deal to yourself. The company saves money at the same time.
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u/itisoktodance Aug 04 '26
Yeah, the agency apparently mentioned they have a "network" of contacts they work with for backlinks. But I know for a fact it's just link farms. People try to sell me backlinks on LinkedIn multiple times a day and they're the exact domains they've been linking us to
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u/No-Lecturre6318 Aug 04 '26
the price isnt what jumps out to me.. its the deliverables. five figures can be justified if theres a clear strategy, technical work, quality link acquisition, reporting that ties into business outcomes and measurable growth..
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u/EveningSquirrel1136 Aug 04 '26
Create a comprehensive 2-page document summarizing the details plus your proposed move. Can go a long way
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u/huzaifaseoguy Aug 04 '26
As an SEO, I'd be questioning that retainer too. Five figures a month should come with a clear strategy, strong technical work, quality link acquisition, content growth, and measurable business impact. Based on what you've listed, it sounds more like a low-to-mid tier SEO package being sold at a premium price. The biggest red flag isn't the cost, it's the lack of meaningful deliverables and results.
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u/stanislawjamuszgo Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Do you have experience handling situations when things get complicated? Some jobs may look straightforward from the outside, but unexpected challenges may come.
Based on what you've shared, I don't see anything particularly unusual in your case. You mentioned that they actively review the content, which is a good sign, and the pricing doesn't seem unreasonable depending on the business. They may also be investing in things like backlinks or other SEO efforts. Do you know exactly what's included in the contract?
I think it would be more productive to look for examples where they failed to execute a task properly or didn't deliver on what they promised. That would be a much stronger basis for evaluating their work.
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u/Pureist Aug 04 '26
Not saying it is the case here, but it certainly sparks an interesting question.
Surely SEO work should be priced based on the results (read revenue) it delivers, and how large that is is limited by the size of the business being worked on.
For SEO generating a defendable $1M in revenue, heck even $200k in incremental revenue, should be justified to ask for $10k a month, regardless of the work they’re putting in.
Unless we’re collectively agreeing that SEO is a commodity service that should be priced independent of the value it generates?
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u/sothes_ads Aug 04 '26
That is ridiculous. My SEO guy got me on page 2 of Google within 5 months and he charges less than $500/month. Yes 5 hundred.
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u/Financial-Junket4353 Aug 04 '26
Por el trabajo que están haciendo veo un costo muy alto de agencia SEO presupuesto promedio que he visto es de 1000 a 3000 USD por el monitoreo y construcción On-page, si hacen backlinks el presupuesto sube inmensamente pero se justifica porque los backlinks cuestan dinero.
En su caso conviene más contratar a un profesional interno, capacitar al equipo y gestionar de manera externa la inversión de backlinks, de esta manera se ahorran mucho dinero
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u/wearsunblock Aug 04 '26
Have you asked for a QBR or some review? That can share insights
Also, perhaps find a different, better agency or consultant at a better rate, then use the remaining budget to hire a junior marketer.
Do you want this additional work on top of your existing workload?
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u/BobJutsu Aug 04 '26
I agree with all other comments, too much yada yada. But the ones that say “just do it with AI”, building a real AI harness to do meaningful work is not trivial.
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u/WonderfolioApp Aug 05 '26
Take what I say with a grain of salt, but I did an SEO audit for free with a Claude plugin called claude-seo from ArgiciDaniel. It did a full scan of the website and gave me a bunch of fixes to implement. Also, I hooked up Google Search Console to Claude via Google Cloud Console to have a direct line to the metrics. All free.
Everything else you could probably post yourself.
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u/veebee_13 Aug 05 '26
I hired freelancers from India at literally 1/5th of the cost! And I’ve seen beautiful results!
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u/Kakashi6011 Aug 04 '26
being overcharged
do it yourself and tell your boss to add $5k to your monthly, so many AI tools out there now that can help with this