The Real Estate SEO Pricing Framework That Helps You Evaluate Any Proposal

Before comparing numbers, it helps to understand the three structures you'll encounter when evaluating real estate SEO providers.

Monthly Retainer (Most Common)

A recurring engagement where the agency or consultant handles ongoing optimization, content creation, link building, and reporting. This is the dominant model for real estate SEO because organic search is a long-term channel — it requires consistent effort to build and maintain rankings.

Retainers give you predictable costs and sustained momentum. The trade-off is that you're committing before you see results, which is why provider selection matters significantly.

Project-Based Fees

A one-time scope: typically a technical audit, site architecture overhaul, or a content buildout of neighborhood and service-area pages. Project fees make sense when your site has a specific structural problem or when you want a foundation built before layering on ongoing work.

Standalone projects without ongoing maintenance often stall. Real estate markets shift, competitors publish new content, and algorithms update — a one-time project doesn't account for any of that.

Performance-Based Pricing

Some providers charge based on ranking improvements or lead volume. This sounds attractive but introduces its own risks: providers may prioritize easy keyword wins over high-intent targets, and attribution in real estate is genuinely complex. A buyer who finds you organically may close months later through a referral chain.

Performance pricing works best as a hybrid — a reduced base retainer plus a results bonus — rather than a pure pay-for-rankings structure.

What most growing brokerages use: a monthly retainer with a defined scope, quarterly check-ins on deliverables, and clearly defined KPIs (organic sessions, ranking position for target neighborhoods, and inbound inquiry volume).

The following ranges reflect what we observe across engagements and what industry benchmarks suggest. Actual pricing varies based on market competition, site condition, and service mix.

Independent Agents ($500–$1,500/month)

At this tier, you're typically getting: basic technical optimization, Google Business Profile management, a limited number of optimized service-area or neighborhood pages per month, and monthly reporting. This scope is appropriate when you operate in a single market, have a modest existing web presence, and want to build organic visibility over 6–12 months without heavy content investment.

What you won't get at this budget: aggressive link building, large-scale content production, or competitive targeting in high-density metros like Miami, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

Real Estate Teams and Small Brokerages ($1,500–$3,500/month)

At this level, providers can deliver meaningful content volume (4–8 pages/month), local citation management across multiple agents, more structured link acquisition, and reporting tied to lead metrics rather than just traffic. This is the most common engagement size for growth-stage teams who want to reduce dependence on Zillow leads or paid social.

Regional and Multi-Office Brokerages ($3,500–$8,000+/month)

Larger firms operating across multiple ZIP codes or metro areas need proportionally more content, technical infrastructure (location page architecture, schema markup at scale), and authority-building. At this budget, you can realistically compete for high-value keywords like "homes for sale in [competitive city]" rather than only long-tail variations.

A note on cheap SEO in real estate: In our experience, sub-$500/month packages in competitive urban markets produce minimal measurable impact. The work required to move rankings in a market with established portal competition (Zillow, Realtor.com, Redfin) simply can't be done at that price point.

Two firms with identical monthly retainers may be buying very different things. These are the variables that move the number.

Market Competitiveness

Ranking for "real estate agent Denver" is a fundamentally different challenge than ranking for "homes for sale in [suburban ZIP]". Competitive metros require more content, more backlinks, and longer timelines. Providers who understand your specific market will price accordingly — if someone quotes a flat rate without asking about your target keywords, that's a signal.

Site Starting Condition

A site with poor technical health (slow load times, duplicate content from IDX feeds, broken internal linking) requires remediation before content and link work can compound. Expect a higher initial investment — either a standalone technical audit/fix project or a higher first-month retainer — if your site needs structural work.

Content Volume and Complexity

Neighborhood guides, city landing pages, buyer and seller resource content — this is the engine of real estate SEO. Content production is labor-intensive and often accounts for the largest portion of a retainer budget. Firms targeting 10+ neighborhoods will spend more than those focusing on two or three.

IDX Integration Complexity

IDX (Internet Data Exchange) feeds generate thousands of listing pages automatically, which can help or hurt SEO depending on how they're implemented. Optimizing IDX for search — canonical tags, structured data, indexation controls — requires technical experience specific to real estate platforms. Not all SEO providers have it.

Link Acquisition Strategy

Building links to a real estate website requires different tactics than general business SEO. Local press, community partnerships, neighborhood resource pages, and real estate media placements are the effective channels. Providers who rely on generic link networks won't move domain authority in a meaningful way for a local real estate brand.

These are the questions we hear most often from agents and brokers evaluating SEO investment for the first time.

"Can't I just do SEO myself?"

You can handle some of it — publishing neighborhood content, optimizing your Google Business Profile, getting client reviews. But technical SEO, link acquisition, and keyword strategy at a competitive level require specialized knowledge and consistent time investment. Most agents who try to DIY SEO either underinvest in content quality or abandon the effort before results arrive. If your time is better spent with clients, delegation usually produces better ROI.

"Why would I pay for SEO when I can buy Zillow leads?"

Zillow leads are rented attention. The moment you stop paying, the leads stop. Organic rankings, once established, continue generating inquiries without incremental cost per lead. The trade-off is timeline: paid leads arrive immediately, organic results typically take 4–9 months to materialize. Most brokerages find a mix of both is optimal during the growth phase.

"We tried SEO before and it didn't work."

This is the most common objection — and worth investigating before writing off the channel. In our experience, "SEO didn't work" usually traces back to one of three causes: the provider lacked real estate-specific knowledge, the engagement was too short (under 6 months), or success was measured against the wrong KPIs (rankings for low-intent keywords rather than inquiry volume). The question isn't whether real estate SEO works — it's whether your previous provider executed it correctly.

"Is there a minimum commitment?"

Most reputable providers ask for a 6–12 month minimum because organic SEO genuinely requires that runway to show results. Be cautious of month-to-month arrangements pitched as flexibility — they often signal that the provider isn't confident enough in their results to ask for a commitment, or that they're not planning the long-term strategy your site needs.

If you're starting with a defined monthly budget, here's a practical framework for thinking about where the dollars go — and what to prioritize first.

Phase 1: Foundation (Months 1–3)

The first priority is ensuring your site can rank — which means resolving technical issues, establishing correct site architecture for location pages, and setting up tracking so you can measure what happens next. If your site has IDX integration, this phase includes IDX SEO configuration. Expect this phase to feel slow from a results standpoint; the work is structural.

Phase 2: Content and Local Authority (Months 3–8)

This is where most of the budget does its work. Neighborhood guides, city-specific landing pages, buyer and seller FAQ content, and local citation building all happen here. Google Business Profile optimization and review strategy also intensify during this phase. Organic traffic typically begins moving in months 4–6 if the foundation work was solid.

Phase 3: Compounding and Competitive Targeting (Month 8+)

Once you have ranking content, the strategy shifts to improving existing pages, targeting more competitive terms, and building the backlink profile that allows higher-authority targets to rank. This is also when conversion rate optimization — ensuring that the traffic arriving converts to inquiries — becomes worth addressing.

Budget split benchmark: In a typical real estate SEO retainer, content production accounts for roughly 40–55% of the scope, technical work 20–30%, and link acquisition 20–30%. These ratios shift based on where your site is in its development — newer sites spend more on technical and content foundation; established sites shift more toward link building and content depth.

If you want to understand what your specific market and firm size would require, explore our real estate SEO services — we scope engagements based on market data, not package tiers.