Let me be honest with you: there’s nothing I can tell you about SEO that would justify a $300/hour rate for SEO consultant services here at Sycosure (not that I offer any). So of course when I see some no-name SEO consultants with websites struggling to rank on page 5 for low competition keywords trying to charge upwards of $300/hour, I immediately assume their consulting services will come with the meaning of life and a lifetime supply of free pizza, because their pricing is that ridiculous.

Before I help you determine whether or not these services truly are overpriced, I’m going to go over exactly what an SEO consultant does.

Firstly, What Exactly Does An SEO Consultant Do?

You would think that all an SEO consultant does is just give you advice, but some of them take on additional tasks. During my research into finding out exactly what an SEO consultant does, I’ve across the following services:

• Providing expert advice on the topic of SEO*
• Researching difficult questions regarding SEO
• Performing an SEO site audit
• Optimising your site’s on-page SEO
• Keyword research
• Building backlinks

*All of them do this, otherwise they wouldn’t be consultants.

Amazingly, some of these additional services are the exact same services offered by plain old search engine optimisers and SEO auditors.

Price Comparison Between SEO Consultants & Other SEO Specialists

Let’s make this interesting: we’re going to compare the average hourly rates (determined by Moz and other SEO sites; links will be provided) of SEO consultants to SEO auditors and regular search engine optimisers. For the sake of this comparison, the SEO Consultants will only offer consultancy (advice and researching difficult questions)

SEO Consultants

• How Much They Charge: $125-$400
• Source:http://www.bruceclay.com/seo/prices.htm

The Work They Do

• Provide advice regarding SEO tactics
• Research questions about SEO for you that they may not have an immediate answer for

SEO Auditors

• How Much They Charge: $125-$200
• Source: https://blog.serps.com/how-to/charge-for-seo-services/

The Work They Do

• Find flaws in your SEO strategy
• Thoroughly check your backlink profile
• Offer reports showing you how to correct the flaws and improve your strategy

Search Engine Optimisers

• How Much They Charge Hourly: $50-$300
• Source: http://searchengineland.com/pay-seo-hourly-monthly-project-based-full-answer-219903

The Work They Do

• Optimise your site’s on-page SEO
• Build backlinks
• Research keywords

Based on the information above, I’ll let you determine which on you think is the better deal.

So Are SEO Consultant Services Overpriced?

If you did’t feel like determining it for yourself, then my final answer is that they’re only overpriced when someone without much experience tries to charge for SEO consultancy. If the search engine optimiser knows what they’re talking about, has a good track record with websites, has truly helped out their clients, and is priced reasonably for their target consumer, then to me they’re worth every penny. Then again, I’d argue that SEO auditors are a better bang for your buck.