Price SEO by calculating your actual cost to deliver, then applying a margin that reflects the client's potential ROI and competitive landscape. Start with three inputs: time required (analyst hours, content writer hours, outreach hours), tools and overhead (Ahrefs, Semrush, hosting for test sites, project management), and market positioning (are you competing with offshore agencies at $500/month or white-label partners at $10,000/month). For local SEO—think Ottawa plumber or Toronto dentist—you're typically managing 10–30 keywords, optimizing GMB, building 5–15 citations, and publishing 2–4 content pieces monthly. That runs $1,000–$3,000/month if you're efficient. National or e-commerce SEO with 100+ target keywords, technical overhauls, and ongoing link acquisition scales to $5,000–$25,000/month because the effort compounds: competitive analysis, content clusters, developer coordination, and sustained outreach all eat hours. Project-based pricing works for audits ($2,500–$8,000 depending on site size), migrations ($4,000–$15,000), or penalty recovery ($3,000–$10,000). Retainers suit ongoing campaigns because SEO results accumulate—you can't optimize 50 pages, build 20 links, and disappear. Value-based pricing (percentage of revenue lift) sounds appealing but requires tight attribution and clients who trust your tracking; we avoid it unless the client has clean analytics and realistic expectations. Packaging mistakes to avoid: don't bundle everything into one "SEO package" because a 10-page local site and a 5,000-page e-commerce catalog have nothing in common. Itemize core deliverables (technical audit, on-page optimization, content production, link acquisition) so clients understand what they're paying for. Build in quarterly strategy reviews—it justifies the retainer and lets you adjust based on algorithm updates or competitor moves. At Ottawa SEO Inc., we price most retainers between $2,000–$8,000/month depending on market competitiveness and content velocity, and we're transparent about what hours go where. If a client's budget doesn't cover the work needed to move the needle in their niche, we'd rather pass than under-deliver. Price for the outcome you can realistically achieve, not what the client wishes SEO cost.