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.
AI Search Visibility Is Included
Every tier is built for answer engines as well as Google, because buyers increasingly ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini before they ever open a search results page.
AI answer-engine visibility
Every retainer includes work aimed at ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Google AI Overviews — question-shaped answer pages, entity-consistent schema, and a maintained llms.txt so assistants can read the site without executing JavaScript.
Structured data that machines trust
Organization, Service, FAQPage, BreadcrumbList and HowTo markup kept consistent with the visible page, because answer engines cite pages whose claims are verifiable in the markup.
Citation-worthy content
Data-dense pages with real numbers, ranges and named sources. Assistants quote specifics, not adjectives, so each month's content ships with figures a model can lift.
Reporting on AI mentions
Alongside rankings and clicks we track whether the brand is being surfaced in assistant answers for your target questions, and which page was cited.
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.
How much does a monthly SEO retainer cost?
Our retainers start at ₹14,999 per month for Foundation and ₹29,999 per month for Growth, with Scale quoted to the catalogue. Internationally, comparable retainers usually run $500–$1,500 per month at the entry level and $2,000–$7,500 per month for competitive commercial work.
Do you offer flexible or bespoke SEO retainers?
Yes. The three tiers are starting points, not fixed boxes. If your priority is only technical work, or only content volume, we rebuild the monthly deliverable list around that and price it against the hours involved rather than forcing you into a tier.
Is there an AI SEO retainer for ChatGPT and AI Overviews?
AI answer-engine visibility is built into every tier rather than sold as a separate product — answer-shaped pages, consistent entity schema, machine-readable site context and reporting on which pages get cited. If AI visibility is the main goal, we weight the monthly plan toward that instead of classic ranking work.
How do I upgrade from DIY SEO to a managed retainer?
We start with an audit of what you already did, keep everything that works, and put the rest on a prioritised backlog. You keep your existing Search Console, Analytics and content; month one is usually technical clean-up plus fixing the pages you already ranked, so nothing you built gets thrown away.
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.
How long before an SEO retainer shows results?
Technical and on-page fixes often move impressions within 4–6 weeks. Competitive commercial keywords typically need 4–6 months of consistent content and authority work. Anyone promising page one in 30 days is selling something else.
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