That's the honest range. The rest of this post covers why your number lands where it does, what you should get for it, and how to spot the agency that's about to waste your money.
SEO prices in Australia at a glance
Here's what Australian businesses typically pay, by what they're buying. All prices are in Australian dollars.
| What you're buying | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Local or small business SEO | $1,500 to $3,000 a month |
| Competitive city markets | $3,000 to $6,000 a month |
| Enterprise SEO | $7,500 a month and up |
| Agency hourly rate | $140 to $300 an hour |
| Freelancer hourly rate | $80 to $150 an hour |
| One-off SEO audit | $1,500 to $10,000 (most small business sites $2,000 to $4,000) |
Why SEO prices vary so much
Two quotes for "SEO" can be thousands of dollars apart, and both can be fair. The price follows the amount of work it takes to beat the businesses already ranking. These are the things that move it.
How competitive your market is
A plumber in inner Sydney is up against far more businesses than a plumber in a country town. More competition means more pages, more links and more months before you crack the top three.
How many locations you serve
One shopfront in one suburb is one job. Five locations, or a service area across a whole city, means a Google Business Profile, local pages and reviews for each of them.
The state of your website
If your site is slow, hard to use on a phone or missing pages for the services you actually sell, that gets fixed first. A healthy site costs less to grow than a broken one.
Where you're starting from
A new business with no reviews and no links starts from zero. An established one with a decent profile is mostly fixing and building, which usually moves faster.
What's actually included
Some packages are a monthly report and not much else. Others include content, links, Google Business Profile work and reviews. Compare what's done each month, not just the price.
What you should get for your money
Whatever you pay, you should be able to see the work. For a local business, a proper monthly SEO service covers:
- Your Google Business Profile: categories, services, photos and posts, so you show up in the map pack. That's what local SEO is.
- Technical fixes to your website: speed, mobile, broken pages, the stuff Google trips over.
- Pages built around real searches, one for each service and area you want to win.
- Reviews: a simple way to ask happy customers, and replies to every review. More on that in our reputation management service.
- Links and mentions from real local and industry websites.
- A plain-English report each month: what was done, what moved, and how many calls and enquiries came in.
And you should own everything: your website, your Google Business Profile and your analytics. If an agency won't give you access to your own accounts, walk.
Why anything under $1,500 a month is a red flag
Cheap SEO isn't a bargain. It's a slower way to pay for nothing. At the agency rates above, $1,500 buys roughly five to ten hours of work a month, and the list above doesn't fit into less.
So when someone quotes you $500 or $800 a month, ask what's being skipped. Usually it's the content, the links or the reviews, which happen to be the parts that actually move rankings. What's left is a monthly report explaining why nothing moved.
Price isn't the only red flag. Be wary of anyone who:
- Guarantees first place on Google. Nobody can. Google decides.
- Locks you into a long contract before you've seen any results.
- Keeps your accounts in their name, so leaving means starting again.
- Sells links by the thousand. Buying links breaks Google's spam policies.
- Sends reports you can't understand, with no mention of calls or enquiries.
How to set your SEO budget
Work backwards from what a new customer is worth to you, not from what your competitor says they pay. Here's a simple example with made-up numbers.
Say your average job is $2,000 and you keep about a third of it as profit, so roughly $660 a job. At $2,000 a month, SEO pays for itself at about three extra jobs a month. Everything after that is profit.
Then give it long enough to work. Rankings move on Google's timeline, not your agency's, so judge SEO over months, not weeks. If you need the phone ringing this week, Google Ads can fill the gap while SEO builds.
Is SEO still worth it in 2026?
Yes. People still search Google when they need a plumber, a lawyer or a dentist, and the ones who search are ready to buy. That hasn't changed.
What has changed is that more people now also ask ChatGPT or read Google's AI Overviews first. The good news: those AI answers lean on the same things SEO builds, like a solid website, a strong Google Business Profile, reviews and mentions around the web. We cover that side in AI SEO.
What does Loud Yak charge?
We don't do bronze, silver and gold packages. Every client gets a written proposal after a call, priced on how competitive your market is and what it'll take to win it.
No lock-in contracts. Stay because it's working. You can see everything we do on our SEO services page.
FAQ
Is SEO a monthly cost or a one-off?
Mostly monthly. Ongoing SEO is usually a monthly retainer, because rankings need constant work to win and keep. Audits and website fixes can be one-off jobs.
Can I do SEO myself?
Some of it, yes. You can set up your Google Business Profile, ask customers for reviews and reply to them. The technical work, content and links take time and skill, and your time isn't free either.
How long does SEO take to work?
The groundwork happens in the first couple of months. Rankings then move on Google's timeline, and how fast depends on your market and your competition. A good monthly report shows you what's moving.
Is SEO being replaced by AI?
No. AI tools like ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews pull from the same signals SEO builds: your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews and what's said about you online. Good SEO now covers both.