SEO Pricing: What the Top 100 US SEO Companies Charge in 2026

On October 13, 2026 we opened the websites of the first 100 US-headquartered SEO companies in Clutch's "Top SEO Companies in the United States" list and wrote down every price they show. Clutch marks 17 of the 100 as sponsored placements, and only 4 of those 17 publish a price. I co-founded Seotal and lead its SEO and GEO work, and "what should SEO cost?" is the first question founders ask us.

How much does SEO cost per month at a top US SEO company?

$2,000 is the most common answer. 27 of the 100 companies publish a monthly SEO price, and the cheapest tier at those 27 has a median of $2,000. The middle half sits between $1,500 and $2,700 a month, and 17 of the 27 start somewhere from $1,000 to $2,999.

The edges are worth reading. Big Red Jelly sells an SEO Silver membership for $400 a month that covers 5 target keywords, Google Business Profile optimization and a monthly report. At the other end, uSERP's pricing page starts its link building plans at $5,500 a month and its managed SEO programs at $10,000.

The top listed tier tells you how far a package can stretch. 22 firms name a highest tier with a price, and its median is $5,850 a month. Logic Inbound's top band reaches $65,000 a month.

These are list prices for the work an agency sells, and most firms quote the final number after an audit. The three most common shapes of a published price were a full package table (17 firms), a single "starting at" figure (6) and a stated range for typical clients (5).

Why most SEO companies don't publish their prices

72 of the 100 show no SEO price anywhere on the pages we read. Their pricing pages, where they exist, lead to a form. KlientBoost's pricing page asks what you want priced and returns "3 different pricing options", and Coalition Technologies' page is a budget calculator that starts from your company's revenue.

A firm's target buyer predicts whether it shows a price. We sorted each company by the buyer its homepage pitches: small businesses, one industry, mid-market and enterprise, or everyone.

The one enterprise-focused firm that publishes, Logic Inbound, lists bands of $5,000 to $10,000, $10,000 to $30,000 and $30,000 to $65,000 a month. The small-business group publishes more often and charges less: its median entry price is $1,500.

"When you don't publish pricing on your website, it can be more difficult for AI to match you to budget-based queries." The Media Captain, a Columbus agency in the sample, in a post on its own site about pricing pages and AI search.

Clutch fills part of the gap. Every one of the 100 Clutch profiles shows a minimum project size, and 93 show an hourly band, so a buyer learns more about price from the directory than from 72 of the firms' own sites.

What an entry-level SEO package includes

Entry packages at the same price buy different work, so compare the deliverables, not the monthly figure. The seven firms below spell out what their cheapest tier includes.

The table holds two different products. Firestarter, Comrade and WebFX sell production: content, pages and links each month. Galactic Fed's entry tier is strategy and reporting, and its content audits start in the $5,750 tier. Read OuterBox's package page and Firestarter's package comparison side by side and the gap in quantities shows at once.

Our link building cost study puts those figures next to marketplace prices for single links.

Local SEO pricing compared with full SEO

A local SEO package costs a median $1,500 a month across the 9 firms that publish one, from $500 at Thrive to $2,450 at Netrocket, an HVAC marketing agency. Five firms publish both a local package and a full SEO package, and at four of them local SEO costs half as much or less.

WebFX's local SEO pricing page starts at $575 a month, a fifth of its $2,900 SEO tier. Thrive is the exception: its SEO pricing page quotes about $500 a month as the starting point for both.

Local packages center on the Google Business Profile, citations and reviews, so a single-location business that sells to its own city can often stop there. Our guide to outsourcing local SEO covers what that work involves.

Contracts, setup fees and minimum terms

Most firms say nothing about terms before the sales call: 74 of the 100 state no minimum term and 94 say nothing either way about a setup fee. The 26 that do state a term lean short.

The month-to-month firms say it as a selling point. HawkSEM's SEO services page has a section headed "Contracts Aren't Our Thing", and SEO Growth Partners in Portland lists "100% Month-to-Month" under every tier. Longer terms come with reasons: Firestarter SEO says it works on 12-month agreements because "SEO requires sustained effort over time", and Comrade recommends 12 months for SEO.

Four firms say outright that they charge no setup fee: HawkSEM, Grow Law, Black Propeller and SEO Growth Partners. Funnel Boost Media says it does charge an onboarding fee, sized to the site.

Ranking guarantees and other red flags

Ranking guarantees have almost disappeared from the top of the market. Google's own guide to hiring an SEO says "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google", and 16 of the 100 firms repeat that warning on their own pages.

The placement guarantee appears as an option in WebFX's website cost calculator, with a choice of 30, 80 or 150 keywords. Disruptive Advertising promises "measurable growth within 90 days, or your money back" to qualifying brands, and Olifant Digital offers a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Four firms guarantee what they control instead of the result: Coalition Technologies guarantees work hours in every agreement, and uSERP says its links and deliverables are "guaranteed in writing". Funnel Boost Media guarantees growth in domain authority, a third-party score, within 6 months.

A guarantee of inputs is the useful kind, because you can check it. Our checklist for spotting an SEO agency that overcharges covers the questions to ask about hours and deliverables.

How to get a real SEO price in a week

Ask every shortlisted firm for the same thing: the monthly deliverables, the minimum term and the first-month cost. Those three numbers make quotes comparable when the monthly prices are not. Our comparison of an SEO agency and a freelancer covers the other route, and the AI SEO cost study prices the newer AI search packages.

Methodology

We read Clutch's Top SEO Companies in the United States directory on October 13, 2026, in its default order, pages 1 to 4. We skipped the repeated paid ad cards Clutch inserts into the list and kept the firms Clutch marks as sponsored placements, since they are part of the list a buyer sees. We removed duplicates and took the first 100 US-headquartered SEO companies.

We excluded five listings on the way to 100: two firms headquartered abroad (Breakline in England and Brand Vision in Toronto), one whose legal entity is in India (Jeenam), one Amazon marketplace agency with no website SEO service (Amazon Growth Lab), and Big Leap, whose firewall blocked every way we tried to read its site. The 100th company in the sample was the 105th listing.

For each company we read the homepage and up to six linked pricing, package or SEO service pages in a headless browser, including text hidden in pricing tabs. We also checked the XML sitemap of every firm with no price for unlinked pricing pages.

Seven sites blocked our crawler and were read through the r.jina.ai reader proxy. Industry averages quoted in a firm's cost guide or blog posts do not count as its price.

The entry price is the cheapest monthly SEO tier. For a "starting at" price it is that figure, and for a stated range it is the low end. Clutch minimum project sizes and hourly bands come from each company's Clutch listing as displayed that day.

The data is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: the provider dataset and the summary. Clutch's own listing figures (minimum project size, hourly band, reviews and staff) are not in the file; read them on each company's Clutch profile. More studies are on the Seotal Research page.

What a part-time SEO specialist costs through Seotal

Our pricing page lists a part-time freelance SEO specialist at $1,000 to $2,000 a month for 60 to 80 hours, with a 3-month minimum, or $15 to $30 an hour with no minimum. That is a named specialist's hours rather than an agency team, at or below the $2,000 median entry package in this study.

Every specialist passes a written test, a live interview, an English assessment and a reference check. SEO outsourcing for US startups and small businesses explains how we scope the work, and our earlier guide to what SEO costs a small business covers the other line items.

Frequently asked questions

How much does SEO cost per hour?

On Clutch, 43 of the 93 companies that list an hourly band sit at $100 to $149 an hour, and 28 at $150 to $199. Ten list $200 or more. Brafton is one of the few to publish an hourly SEO rate on its own site: $200 an hour for technical SEO consulting.

Is SEO under $500 a month worth paying for?

Two of the 27 firms with a monthly price start below $500. Big Red Jelly's $400 tier covers 5 target keywords, Google Business Profile optimization and a monthly report, with no content or links, which fits a single-location business with a small service area. ScaledOn, which starts at $2,000, argues on its pricing page that SEO at a few hundred dollars a month buys automated work.

Do SEO companies charge a setup fee?

Most firms don't say. 94 of the 100 are silent on setup fees, 4 state they charge none, and Funnel Boost Media says its onboarding fee depends on site size. WebFX front-loads its plan instead: the first two months cost $8,600 against $2,900 a month afterward.