You’ll get three PDFs. One is $299 a month and a login to a dashboard with 40 keywords in green. One is $3,500 a month from a shop that at least named the pages they’d build. One is $18,000 “enterprise” with a 12-month lock and a guarantee they can’t keep. All three will say SEO. I write the middle kind of proposal for a living, out of Riverside, and I’m tired of owners thinking they got ripped off when they bought the cheap one, or thinking they were sophisticated when they bought the lock-in. SEO costs what the hours cost against your competitors. A roofer in a town of 18,000 and a carrier that needs lane pages are not the same SKU. Below are ranges we use in 2026 conversations — not a coupon, not a threat.
Those three quotes are not competing. They’re different products.
The $299 one is usually offshore reporting, a citation blast, and two blog posts a month that could be about any company in any city. Sometimes a few links you wouldn’t want attached to your domain. It can look busy. It almost never moves a competitive map pack. If your market is sleepy and the listing is already strong, a small monthly for reviews and GBP hygiene can still be rational. That’s not what most $299 pages are selling.
The few-thousand-a-month shop (when they’re honest) is paying a person to fix the site, write service pages, run the listing, and report on calls. That’s the product. Whether they’re any good is a different question — ask what shipped last month, not what “strategy” they have.
The giant lock-in is sometimes real enterprise work (multi-location templates, legal, a team). Sometimes it’s a salesperson who found out you have budget. A 12-month no-cancel clause is not how rankings work. It’s how their quota works.
Numbers, since that’s what you searched
Lone Crest’s site says work starts from $250. That’s scoped work, not “full SEO for a metro HVAC company for $250.” Ongoing search for a real local program is a retainer. These are typical U.S. ranges for labor that isn’t fake. Your city and your competitors will shove you up or down.
| What you’re actually buying | What we see quoted | When it’s the right shape |
|---|---|---|
| Audit / “tell me what’s wrong” | $750–$4,000 once | You have a site. You don’t need a 12-month marriage to find out the listing is unverified and the repair page doesn’t exist. |
| Local service business, one market | $1,500–$5,000 / month | GBP, a handful of money pages, review rhythm, reporting on calls. HVAC, plumbing, a contractor who isn’t in a bloodbath metro. |
| Ugly local competition (HVAC, legal, dental, several cities) | $3,000–$8,000 / month | More URLs, more review ops, someone actually watching Maps. You’re not going to win that on a hobby budget. |
| Niche national / B2B (trucking lanes, specialized services) | $4,000–$12,000 / month | Lots of pages, technical work, content that isn’t “10 tips.” Trucking lives here more than “near me.” |
I don’t sell “SEO finished in 60 days”
You can finish a website in 60 days. You can publish ten pages. Rankings aren’t a construction punch list. Competitors keep publishing. Google changes how the map behaves. Reviews go stale. If a pitch says you’re done and ranked, they’re selling a project and calling it SEO so it sounds like an investment instead of a rebuild.
The pattern that actually happens: first 90 days is foundation (often nothing sexy in Search Console). Months four to nine are when local and niche terms move if pages went live. If nothing on the site or the listing changed after a quarter, you didn’t buy SEO. You bought meetings.
If you want a number for your market, send the site.
Sometimes the honest answer is don’t buy SEO yet — fix the site. That’s still a useful call. SEO services or contact.
Ask for a scopeThe reason the prices diverge by 10x is hours, not “AI SEO”
Five things shove the number around: how many other people are paying to rank for the same query, how broken the site is, how many services or cities need their own URL, whether you need the map or only the blue links, and whether a human who understands the trade is doing the work. Inland Empire HVAC is not “plumber in a town with two competitors.” A carrier that needs shipper pages and driver pages is not a dentist.
Local (the map, “near me”) is listing + reviews + proximity + a site that doesn’t contradict the listing. That’s why a tight HVAC program can beat a bloated national blog. Maps writeup: how to rank on Google Maps. HVAC: HVAC SEO. National informational SEO is a different cost structure — you’re in a fistfight with publishers. Niche vertical (we live in trucking) is often cheaper than ranking “best CRM” and more expensive than a quiet suburb. Specificity is the whole game: trucking SEO.
What you can actually get for $300 a month
After the agency’s ads, software, and the salesperson’s cut, there isn’t a senior person left to fix your title tags and write a repair page that isn’t embarrassing. So you get volume: posts, directories, a report. I’ve seen the links. Some of them I’d pay to remove.
If someone in a cheap market only needs the listing tended and a reminder to ask for reviews, a small retainer can be honest. If you’re bidding against shops that have been collecting reviews for five years, $300 is not a strategy. It’s a way to feel like you “have SEO.”
Things I tell people not to sign
Guaranteed #1 for “AC repair near me.” Google doesn’t sell that, and anyone who promises it is promising you a screenshot from one ZIP code on one afternoon.
They rank a domain they own, not yours. You leave, you have nothing.
“1,000 backlinks.” That’s a package, not a plan.
City-page mills. We already covered why HVAC owners get burned.
Reports that never mention the phone. If they won’t look at whether the site converts, you’re paying to send people into a leak. This is the conversion argument.
DIY is real. Most owners don’t finish it.
Claim the listing. Ask for reviews. Write four service pages in language your CSR already uses. That’s a legitimate start, and the tools are cheap. Where it dies is the third month, when the writing is annoying and something technical is broken and nobody owns it.
A freelancer is the right cost for a simple one-location business if they’re actually shipping. An agency is the right cost when the site, the ads, and the SEO have to be one argument — or the vertical is weird (trucking). That’s the slot we occupy: SEO, site, ads, without three vendors blaming each other on a Zoom.
Budget from the job, not from a blog table
If a changeout or a dedicated lane is worth thousands, a few thousand a month to own the search is not a spiritual question. If you can’t name the query that should produce the lead, don’t buy a retainer. Buy an afternoon that tells you whether the listing is even verified.
Local shops usually need Maps + money pages, a site that doesn’t hide the phone, and ads in the two months that pay for the year. SEO without conversion is a hobby. Ads with no SEO is rent forever.
If you want our number for your market — Inland Empire, a service area, a fleet — send it. I’ve told people to wait and fix the website. That’s still a cheaper sentence than a year of the $299 dashboard.
Pricing questions from the last dozen calls
How much does SEO cost per month?
For a real local program, we usually see $1,500–$5,000. Competitive trades and several cities sit higher. Under $500 is almost always reporting and content nobody asked for. Lone Crest starts at $250 for scoped work; retainers depend on the site and the competitors.
Is SEO cheaper than Google Ads?
Ads can make the phone ring this week. SEO is slower. The useful comparison is cost per booked job with both running, not CPC versus a keyword rank. In season we often run both.
Can I pay once instead of monthly?
You can pay once for a rebuild, an audit, or a stack of pages. Rankings still rot if nobody asks for reviews or the site breaks. Call a one-time fee a project.
How do I get a quote from Lone Crest?
hello@lonecrestmedia.com or (510) 255-5634. Office is 7450 Northrop Dr, Riverside, CA. We’ll look at the site and the market before we invent a package name.
If you want the number from us
Jimmy K, Lone Crest Media. We don’t guarantee positions. We do tell you what the hours are for. SEO services — or just call.
