An SEO retainer is an ongoing arrangement where a company pays an agency or consultant a fixed amount each month, or each quarter, for continuing SEO work. Retainers suit SEO because the results build over time: pages need researching, writing, publishing, maintaining and measuring every month, not once.
Need help with SEO?
Comppound runs SEO and AI search for SaaS companies. We plan what to publish, produce it with AI, and every page passes automated checks, and a person reviews samples and anything high-risk.
- Published to your site and tracked in Search Console
- One person answers for your account
- Plans from $400 a month, terms from 3 months
What to check before signing
- The scope: which pages, fixes and reports ship each month, written down.
- The term and how renewal works, and how much notice cancelling needs.
- Who does the work, and who answers for the account.
- Whether you keep access to your own Search Console and analytics throughout.
- What happens if the first month's work does not ship.
Retainer or project?
A one-off project suits a fixed job such as a site migration or an audit. A retainer suits the ongoing work of building and maintaining pages that rank.
Frequently Asked Questions
Prices vary widely by scope and provider, from a few hundred dollars a month for a focused plan to five figures for full-service agencies. Compare what each includes, not only the price.
Keep reading
- SEO Roadmap: A dated plan of the SEO work that will ship, in what order and why, usually by quarter, with what each piece is expected to move.
- SaaS SEO: Search engine optimisation for software companies: getting the pages buyers search for while they evaluate tools to rank in Google and be cited in AI answers.
- Acquisition Channel: A route through which a company finds new customers, such as organic search, paid ads, referrals, partners or outbound sales. Each has its own costs and limits.
- Annual Recurring Revenue: The yearly value of a SaaS company's active subscription contracts, excluding one-off fees. The headline size metric for most subscription businesses.
- Average Contract Value: The average annual value of a customer contract, excluding one-off fees. It shapes which sales motion and acquisition channels a SaaS company can afford.
- Average revenue per account: Average revenue per account is recurring revenue divided by the number of paying accounts.
