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How to outsource SEO: what it costs and what to check

The monthly SEO report lands: charts, a keyword list and two sentences about what they did. You open your site and can’t find what changed. Here’s how to hand off SEO so you can see the work on your own pages.

Josh Pigford, founder of FirstIndex6 min read
The short answer

Outsource the doing, not just the advice: fixes to your pages, new comparison and pricing pages, technical work and AI answer tracking. Judge it by what goes live on your site, every change dated and checked by a person first. Hiring out the full plan costs about $25,000 a month at an SEO agency. We do it for $2,000 a month.

What do outsourced SEO services include?

It’s five kinds of work, and a plan for a software company should cover all five.

  1. Fixes to the pages you already haveTitles and descriptions on pages that get shown but not clicked, and rewrites so a page answers what buyers ask.
  2. New pages buyers search while choosing“[Competitor] alternatives”, “[you] vs. [competitor]”, your pricing and a page for each job your product does.
  3. Technical workIndexing, sitemaps, broken links, structured data and a robots.txt that lets AI crawlers in. Check yours in a minute.
  4. AI answer trackingThe questions your buyers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Claude, asked again and again, with a count of how often you’re named.
  5. A weekly reportWhat changed on your site, and what moved.

You don’t need a separate AI plan. The work that gets you named in AI answers is mostly SEO: pages that answer the question, that crawlers can read and that other sites mention. Google says there are “no additional requirements” to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, “nor other special optimizations necessary.”

What does it cost to outsource SEO?

Ahrefs polled 439 SEO providers and found the average agency retainer was $3,209 a month, and the average freelancer charged $1,348. That money buys a slice of the work. Here’s what the whole plan costs to hire out, from our cost model:

The full SEO and AI visibility plan, cost a month, three waysFirstIndex, done for you: $2,000 a month. Freelancers you hire and manage: $8,200 a month. An SEO agency: $25,310 a month. Bars start at $0.FirstIndex · done for you$2,000Freelancers · you hire and manage them$8,200An SEO agency$25,310
Cost a month for the full plan: up to 12 in-depth articles, 50+ fixes to existing pages, comparison pages, free tools, AI answer tracking and a weekly report. Our cost model, priced at published market rates in October 2026.

Most of that money goes to writing and page fixes. These are the four biggest lines:

The four biggest lines of the full plan, cost a month, at an SEO agency and with freelancers12 in-depth articles: $12,000 at an agency, $3,600 with freelancers. 50+ fixes to existing pages and daily checks: $3,960 at an agency, $1,800 with freelancers. 2 comparison pages: $2,000 at an agency, $600 with freelancers. 1 free tool: $2,000 at an agency, $630 with freelancers. Bars start at $0.12 in-depth articles$12,000 agency$3,600 freelancers50+ page fixes · and daily checks$3,960 agency$1,800 freelancers2 comparison pages$2,000 agency$600 freelancers1 free tool$2,000 agency$630 freelancers
Cost a month, by line of the full plan. Our cost model, October 2026. Every line is on our pricing page.

The freelancer total leaves out the hours you’d spend finding, briefing and managing 4 or 5 people. On a 12-month plan, ours is $1,500 a month. Here’s how we compare to an agency.

Should an SEO agency make the changes on your website?

Yes. A lot of outsourced SEO is recommendations only: an audit, a list of fixes, a monthly report. Then the list sits in your backlog behind product work.

Done for you means the provider makes each change on your site, either directly or through your CMS. That’s how we work: real changes ship to your site every day, and we check each one before it goes live. When you compare providers, ask who makes the changes on your site. Our list of 13 SaaS SEO agencies answers that for each one.

How to evaluate outsourced SEO

One r/SEO poster described their agency’s reports as “a couple of sentences to explain what they have done but no actual detail as to why.” These five checks catch that early.

  1. Every change is listed with its page and dateOne of the questions Google suggests asking an SEO is “Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site”. A report that can’t name the page didn’t change one.
  2. A person checks each change before it goes liveAnd you get asked first about anything that changes what your product claims, or adds a new section to your site.
  3. The dates line up with Search ConsolePick a change, set the Performance report to the weeks around its date and look at that page.
  4. AI answers are counted over many runsThe same question can name you once and skip you the next time. Here’s how to count them.
  5. Nobody promises a rankingGoogle’s own line: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” A provider who promises one is guessing.

What to keep in-house when you outsource SEO

The usual worry is that the know-how walks out with the provider. One r/DoSEO commenter: “once the contract ends, the experience also goes unless training is also included in contract.” Keep these four things and it stays with you.

  1. Your Search Console and analyticsIn your company’s account, with the provider added as a user.
  2. Your site and your CMSThe provider gets access. You own the account.
  3. Your product facts and positioningYou decide what every page says about you. The provider writes from your facts.
  4. The change logEvery change with its page and date, so whoever comes next can pick up where the last one stopped.

With us, you keep every change we shipped.