How much does SEO cost for a contractor?
Most agencies hide the number behind a sales call. We will not. Here is what SEO actually costs an exterior home-service contractor in 2026, what makes the price go up or down, and how it compares to renting leads from Angi and Google. Every figure below is the same price we publish on our pricing page.
The short answer
The quick numbers, up front
For a local exterior contractor, SEO usually breaks into two costs: a one-time cost to get a rank-ready website in place, and a monthly cost to build and hold rankings over time.
- One-time website work: a new build runs $2,500 to $6,000.
- Monthly local SEO retainer: $500 to $10,000 a month, depending on how many locations and markets you cover.
- Most single-location contractors start with the $500 Growth retainer or the $2,500 Command retainer, then step up once the leads start landing.
Those are our real, published prices. The rest of this page explains what moves you up or down within those ranges, so you can size your own budget before you ever talk to us.
What drives the price
Why one contractor pays more than another
SEO is not one product at one price. Three things decide where you land in the ranges above.
Number of pages
Every service you offer and every town you cover is another page that can rank. More service and location pages means more ranking surface area, and more work. This is the single biggest driver of build cost.
How aggressive your market is
Ranking a roofer in a dense metro against ten established competitors takes more monthly content and links than a niche trade in a small market. A higher retainer buys a faster, more aggressive push into new services and neighboring towns.
Content volume each month
Rankings compound with the pages and posts you publish. Higher retainer tiers ship more ranking content every month, which is what pulls you up the results faster and holds the spot once you are there.
The three ways you pay
Every price, itemized
Here is exactly what each tier includes and what it costs. Nothing hidden, nothing bundled to blur the number.
One-time, new site
14-day site build
A brand-new, rank-ready website, live in two weeks or $250 off.
- Starter, $2,500. Home, three service pages, contact.
- Growth, $4,000. Home, up to eight pages, a location page.
- Domination, $6,000. Full multi-service build with blog architecture.
Monthly
Local SEO retainer
Where rankings actually get built, measured in leads, not impressions.
- Growth, $500 a month. Google Business Profile optimization and management, core on-page SEO upkeep, review request basics, monthly reporting. Exclusivity in your town.
- Command, $2,500 a month. Everything in Growth plus full local SEO, an ongoing content engine shipping new ranking and service pages every month, citations and reviews, AI search optimization, and a monthly strategy call. Exclusivity across the metro.
- Domination, $10,000 a month. Everything in Command run in full for every location, multi-location profiles, location landing pages, weekly reporting. Built for multi-location operators, flat rate. Exclusivity in every market you operate.
Cost versus value
SEO looks expensive until you price the alternative
The real question is not what SEO costs. It is what a lead costs, and whether you own the channel or rent it.
Angi and Google Local Services charge you per lead, that same lead is often sold to three or four competitors, and the moment you stop paying the calls stop. SEO builds an asset you own. It takes longer to pay off, but the cost per lead keeps dropping as your rankings compound, instead of rising every renewal.
- Rented leads: pay per lead, shared with competitors, priced up every year, gone when you stop.
- Paid ads: steady flow, but the clicks stop the day the budget does.
- SEO: slower to build, but you own the rankings and cost per lead falls over time.
The cheap-SEO trap
Why the $300-a-month offer costs you more
When an agency quotes a price far below everyone else, the work has to come from somewhere. Usually it comes out of the things that actually rank you.
Template pages
Cheap packages reuse the same page for every client with the trade and city swapped. Google has seen it a thousand times, so it does not rank.
Reports, not work
A low retainer often buys you a dashboard of impressions and rankings for terms nobody searches, while the pages and reviews that book jobs never get touched.
Your competitor next door
Discount agencies sign every contractor in town, so you are paying them to rank against their other clients. We take one trade per market, on purpose.
SEO cost FAQ
Common questions about SEO pricing
Most single-location contractors run the $500 Growth retainer or the $2,500 Command retainer to build and hold rankings. A more aggressive push into new services and nearby markets runs up to $2,500 a month. Many start with a one-time 14-day build from $2,500, then add a retainer once the leads begin to land.
Both. There is a one-time cost to get a rank-ready site in place, a new 14-day build from $2,500. Then there is a monthly retainer that does the ongoing work of climbing and holding rankings. You can do the one-time piece on its own, but rankings are built and defended month over month.
You are not buying a report, you are buying a specialist building and publishing ranking pages, managing your Google Business Profile, and earning reviews every month. That work compounds into an asset you own. Priced against renting leads from Angi or Google, where the same lead is sold to several competitors and the calls stop the day you stop paying, SEO usually wins on cost per lead over time.
A new site goes live in 14 days, and map pack movement often shows within a few weeks. Durable rankings for competitive terms compound over several months. The front end is fast, the ranking gains stack over time. We will never promise page-one rankings, because no honest agency can.
Rarely. A price far below everyone else usually means template pages, a dashboard of vanity metrics, and an agency that signs your competitor next door too. The cheapest option often costs the most, because you pay for months of work that never moves you up. Our free audit will tell you honestly whether you even need the work, and the smallest tier that gets you there.
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No cost to find out
Not sure which tier fits? Start with the audit
We will look at your website, your Google Business Profile, and your map pack rankings, then recommend the smallest tier that gets you there. Free, no contract, and we will tell you if your market is still open.