SEO pricing breaks into three main models: monthly retainers, project fees, and hourly rates. Monthly retainers are most common and range from $500–2,000/month for local businesses targeting one city, $2,500–7,500/month for regional or multi-location companies, and $5,000–15,000+/month for competitive national or ecommerce campaigns. One-time SEO audits typically cost $1,500–3,000 depending on site size, while hourly consulting runs $100–250/hour in Canadian markets. What drives the cost is scope. A local plumber in Ottawa competing for 15 keywords needs far less work than a SaaS company chasing 200 competitive terms nationally. Monthly retainers at the lower end usually cover on-page optimization, Google Business Profile management, and basic reporting. Mid-tier packages add regular content creation, technical fixes, and some link outreach. High-end retainers include dedicated strategists, custom content teams, and aggressive link acquisition campaigns. Agencies price based on time required, not arbitrary value. If your market has 50 competitors all doing SEO, you need more content, stronger backlinks, and deeper technical work to move the needle. That takes more hours. A one-person firm charging $800/month can realistically spend 6–10 hours on your account. At $5,000/month, you might get 30–50 hours from a team handling strategy, content, outreach, and technical updates. Watch out for packages that promise rankings but don't specify deliverables. At Ottawa SEO, we price based on competitive research upfront—we assess how much content and how many quality backlinks you need to rank, then quote accordingly. If someone quotes you without analyzing your niche, they're guessing. Also avoid dirt-cheap SEO under $300/month unless it's purely maintenance; you can't execute meaningful link building or content at that rate without cutting corners that risk penalties.