Monthly SEO Retainer Plans
What an ongoing SEO engagement with us actually includes: the deliverables that ship each month, the review cadence, where scope stops, and how upgrading, downgrading or leaving works. Looking for link building on its own? That lives on SEO & backlinks. Comparing market rates first? Read the SEO services cost guide.
Retainer Tiers
Foundation retainer
Small sites fixing the basics
3-month minimum, then monthly
Growth retainer
Competing for commercial keywords
3-month minimum, then monthly
Scale retainer
Multi-location or ecommerce catalogues
6-month engagement, quarterly roadmap
What Happens Each Month
The same cycle runs on every tier; only the volume of work inside it changes.
Crawl, ranking and enquiry review; the month's priorities are agreed in writing.
Technical and on-page work ships — templates, metadata, internal links, schema.
Content and off-page activity for the agreed target pages.
Reporting call: what moved, what did not, and what carries into next month.
Where the Scope Starts and Stops
Inside the retainer
- SEO strategy, technical fixes, on-page work and reporting
- Content briefs, writing and publishing within the plan's monthly volume
- Analytics, Search Console and conversion-tracking maintenance
Quoted separately
- • Paid media budget or ad management (see Google Ads & PPC)
- • Full website rebuilds or redesigns (quoted separately as a project)
- • Link-building volume beyond the retainer — bought as a separate backlink package
- • Third-party licences, hosting and stock content
Upgrading, Downgrading and Exiting
Most engagements start on Foundation while technical debt is cleared, then move to Growth once the site can support competitive terms. Upgrade when the backlog of on-page work is cleared and the constraint becomes content and authority rather than crawlability.
Downgrade when the roadmap is largely delivered and the work becomes maintenance — typically after 9–12 months on Growth. There is no penalty for either direction, and deliverables already committed for the current month still ship.
If you leave, you keep every page, brief, report and tracking configuration. Handover documentation is produced in the final month so an in-house marketer or another agency can continue without a rebuild.
Retainer Questions
What is the difference between an SEO retainer and a backlink package?
A retainer is an ongoing engagement covering strategy, technical work, on-page optimisation, content and reporting each month. A backlink package is a one-off or monthly link-building deliverable with a defined number of links. Many clients run a retainer and add links only when the on-page foundation is already in place.
Is there a lock-in contract?
Foundation and Growth run on a three-month minimum, because nothing meaningful can be measured in less. After that they continue month to month with 30 days' notice on either side. Scale runs on a six-month engagement with a quarterly roadmap.
Can I upgrade or downgrade mid-engagement?
Yes. Upgrades apply from the next billing cycle immediately. Downgrades take effect at the end of the current minimum term, so committed content and outreach for the month still ships.
What happens to the work if I stop the retainer?
Everything produced stays yours — pages, content, schema, tracking setup and documentation. There is no proprietary plugin or platform that switches off when the engagement ends.
Do you need payment in advance for a retainer?
The first month follows our standard model: the agreed month-one deliverables ship first, then the invoice. Continuing months are billed in arrears against the reported work.
Not Sure Which Tier Fits?
Send your site and target keywords. You will get a written first-month plan and the tier that matches it — with month one delivered before it is invoiced.
Request a retainer plan