SEO pricing Australia: what SEO and ads cost

What marketing costs, and what ours costs, before you ask.

Keyword rankings climbing, with a topical map beside them

SEO in Australia usually costs about $1,500 to $5,000 a month for an ongoing retainer, going by the price guides local agencies publish, with large national and ecommerce sites paying more. One-off projects, such as a technical audit, are priced separately. Our own SEO and AI search optimisation starts at $5,000 a month plus GST. Below are our starting prices, what the rest of the market charges for SEO and ads management, and what moves the price, so you can compare before you talk to anyone.

Our starting prices

Management fees, per month, plus GST. Your ad spend is paid to Google or Meta directly and isn't included.

Facebook and Instagram (Meta) ads: from $5,000 a month, including the creative we make for your ads.
Google Ads: from $3,000 a month.
SEO and AI search optimisation (AEO): from $5,000 a month.

Where a price sits above the starting point depends on how many campaigns, sites or locations we look after, and how much creative you need. We'll give you a fixed monthly price before you sign anything.

What SEO costs in Australia

There's no independent survey of what Australian agencies charge, so the best guide is what agencies publish. Most local SEO price guides put a monthly retainer at about $1,500 to $5,000, with large national and ecommerce sites above that. The biggest international survey, by Ahrefs, asked 439 SEO providers and found agencies charged about US$3,209 a month on average, counting each at the top of its price band.

Google Ads and Meta ads management is usually charged in one of three ways: a share of your ad spend, commonly 10 to 20%, often with a minimum monthly fee of around $1,000 to $1,500; a flat monthly fee, typically $800 to $5,000; or a base fee plus a smaller share of spend.

What affects the cost of SEO?

The size of the job. How many pages, products, locations or campaigns we look after.
How competitive your market is. Winning "plumber Melbourne" takes more work than a niche B2B search.
Content and creative. New pages, articles, ad creative and video are where most of the hours go.
Tracking and reporting. Setting up conversion tracking and CRM reporting properly takes time at the start.

What you should expect for your money

At any price you should get a written plan tied to your goals, a named person who knows your account, monthly reporting on leads and sales as well as rankings, and a contract no longer than the plan needs. Be wary of promises of page one, or of SEO for a few hundred dollars a month: that leaves too little time to do the work well. Google's own guide to hiring an SEO is plain about it: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google."

Sources: Ahrefs' survey of 439 SEO providers; published Australian agency price guides, including Impressive, First Page and Digital8, checked in November 2026. Figures are advertised ranges, before GST.

How much does an SEO retainer cost each month?

Most small and medium businesses pay between $1,500 and $5,000 a month for an SEO retainer, with smaller local businesses below that and large or very competitive sites above it. Retainers tend to fall into three bands, using the ranges above. At any budget the scope matters more than the number, so ask for it in writing.

Entry-level SEO: under $1,500 a month

This suits a small local business with a narrow scope: one location, a handful of services and little competition. Budgets at this level mostly cover upkeep, such as fixing technical issues, keeping a Google Business Profile current and a short monthly report. At a few hundred dollars a month there's very little time left for content or authority building, so check how many hours are included.

$1,500 to $5,000 a month

This is the range most Australian price guides quote, and where most small and medium businesses sit. The scope usually adds regular content, local SEO across a few locations, technical fixes as they come up and some work on links and mentions.

$5,000 a month and above

Large national sites, ecommerce stores with big catalogues and very competitive markets sit here. Our SEO and AI search optimisation (AEO), which covers how you show up in AI answers as well as on Google, starts in this band at $5,000 a month.

One-off SEO projects

Some SEO work is a one-off project with a fixed price, separate from a retainer. Common one-off jobs include:

A technical audit: a check of how search engines crawl and index the site, its speed, structure and errors, with a ranked list of fixes.
A site migration or rebuild: redirects, page mapping and checks so rankings carry across to the new site.
Keyword research and site architecture: a map of what your customers search for and the pages you need to answer them.

A one-off project suits a business with an in-house team or developer to carry out the fixes. A retainer suits one that wants the work done month after month, since rankings and authority build over time.

What sits inside an SEO scope

Most retainers combine four kinds of work. Quotes are easier to compare when you ask how the hours split between them.

Technical SEO

Site speed, crawling and indexing, structured data, broken links and redirects. Technical work is heaviest at the start and on large sites, then settles into regular monitoring.

Content

New service, location and product pages, articles that answer customers' questions, and updates to pages that have slipped in the rankings.

Authority

Authority is how much other sites, reviews and mentions vouch for yours. Building it means earning links from relevant sites, digital PR and listings in the directories your customers use. Authority grows slowly, so be cautious of anyone selling a set number of links each month.

Local SEO and reporting

Google Business Profile, reviews and location pages for businesses that serve an area, plus monthly reporting on the enquiries and sales that come from search.

How to compare SEO quotes

With no standard price list for agency fees, the fairest comparison is line by line. Put each quote's scope, hours and contract terms side by side before you look at the price.

Ask for the scope in writing: what gets done each month, and roughly how many hours.
Check how the time splits between technical work, content and authority building.
Ask who owns the content, links and accounts if you move on.
Look at the contract length and the notice period.
Compare quotes on the same scope. A lower price with less in it buys a smaller service.

Does SEO now include AI search?

It can, so ask what each quote covers. Google says the best practices for SEO remain relevant to its AI features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, and that there are no extra requirements to appear in them. Some agencies also track how a business shows up in answers from AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini, and fill the gaps they find. You'll see this called generative engine optimisation (GEO); we call it AI search optimisation (AEO), and it's part of our SEO service.

When you compare quotes, ask whether AI search is included or priced on top, which AI assistants and searches are tracked, and how you'll see the results reported each month.

How do two SEO quotes compare in practice?

Here's a made-up example. Say a South Melbourne accounting firm gets two quotes. Quote A is $1,800 a month for about 10 hours: a monthly report, technical fixes and one article. Quote B is $3,000 a month for about 20 hours: the same, plus two new service pages, local SEO for two offices and outreach for links and mentions.

Quote A costs less each month, but works out at $180 an hour against $150 for Quote B, and leaves almost no time for content or authority building. If the firm only needs upkeep, A is the better fit. If it wants to win new searches in a competitive market, B buys more of the work it needs. Asking for hours and scope in writing is what makes this comparison possible.