The spread runs from a few hundred a month to five figures, for work that is sometimes identical. What you are really buying is somebody’s judgement about what to do next, and that is what to interrogate.
- Price tracks scope and seniority, not results. Nobody can sell you a guaranteed ranking.
- The cheapest tiers usually sell reports. Reports are not changes.
- Ask what will change on the site this month. A vague answer is the answer.
What does the market actually charge?
Broadly three tiers, and the differences are real even though the labels are not standardised.
| Tier | Typically includes | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Audit only | A one time report of findings, no implementation | Teams who can do the work themselves |
| Ongoing retainer | Monthly changes, content, technical fixes, reporting | Stores with budget but no in house skill |
| Project | A defined piece of work with a defined end | Migrations, replatforms, one off cleanups |
What separates good work from expensive reporting?
Whether anything changes on the site. A great deal of what gets sold is measurement dressed as work: a monthly document showing positions, with no corresponding edits to any page.
The test is simple. Ask what will be different about the website at the end of the month. If the answer is a report, you are buying a report.
What should I ask before signing?
Five questions that reliably separate the two.
- What will change on the site in the first thirty days, specifically?
- Who writes the content, and can I see three examples from stores like mine?
- How do you measure success, and what does it look like if it is not working?
- What happens to the work if I stop paying?
- How does your approach change now that a share of buying questions get answered without a click?
Is any of this worth doing myself?
The technical foundation, yes. Crawl access, structured data, product data quality and clear answering copy are learnable and mostly one time work. It is the ongoing content and outreach that eat time.
A reasonable sequence for an owner is to fix the foundation yourself, measure, then buy help only for what is genuinely repetitive. The 90 day plan is the version of that we would hand a client.
Common questions
Can anyone guarantee me rankings?
No, and an offered guarantee is a reason to walk away. Nobody controls the ranking systems, and increasingly the outcome is being named in an answer rather than holding a position.
Is a cheap monthly package worth it?
Sometimes, if it produces actual changes to the site. Frequently it produces a report and some automated link building, which at best does nothing.
How long before I see results?
Three to six months for content and authority work. Technical fixes can register faster because they change what can be read rather than what has been earned.
Related reading
- Does AI Visibility Pay Off? The Business Case
- SEO, AEO, and Backlinks: What Each Actually Does for Your Store
Run a free scan and get your reproducible 0 to 100 score with a prioritized fix list. Run the free scan.
Your buyers are already asking AI. This is how you get recommended.
Everything in this article is measurable on a live storefront. The Full Assessment and Roadmap reads your website the way ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity read it, and hands you every fix in plain English, ranked by what it is costing you, so the buyers who ask AI get sent to you.