Thread by @noelcetaSEO

The $500/month SEO agency destroyed a client's 10-year-old domain in 4 months.

The $8K/month agency grew their traffic 340% in the same timeframe.

Here's why quality SEO can't be cheap: 🧵

1/ The math doesn't lie:

Quality SEO requires real labor hours:

Minimum monthly deliverables:

- Technical audit & fixes: 12 hours
- Keyword research & strategy: 8 hours
- Content creation (4 articles): 40 hours
- Link building (15-20 links): 30 hours
- Reporting & analysis: 6 hours
- Client communication: 4 hours

Total: 100 hours/month minimum

2/ Breaking down the real costs:

At 100 hours monthly with qualified team:

SEO Strategist ($100-150/hr): 20 hrs = $2,000-3,000
Content Writer ($50-80/hr): 40 hrs = $2,000-3,200
Link Builder ($60-90/hr): 30 hrs = $1,800-2,700
Technical SEO ($80-120/hr): 10 hrs = $800-1,200

Labor alone: $6,600-10,100/month

Before tools, overhead, or profit margin.

3/ Tool costs are non-negotiable:

Professional SEO stack:

- Ahrefs: $399/month
- Semrush: $229/month
- Screaming Frog: $29/month
- Surfer SEO: $219/month
- Google Workspace: $30/month
- Project management: $50/month
- Misc tools: $150/month

Total tools: $1,086/month

These aren't optional for quality work.

4/ What $500/month SEO actually gets you:

The budget breakdown:

Total: $500
Tools: -$200 (bare minimum)
Overhead: -$100 (20%)
Profit: -$100 (20%)
Labor budget: $100

That's 2 hours of work per month at $50/hr.

What can you do in 2 hours? Almost nothing meaningful.

5/ The cheap SEO tactics:

How $500/month agencies "deliver":

❌ Automated content spinning
❌ PBN links (blackhat)
❌ Keyword stuffing
❌ Mass directory submissions
❌ Blog comment spam
❌ Article spinning services
❌ Outsourced to $5/hr contractors

Result: Penalties, lost rankings, wasted time recovering.

6/ Real case study comparison:

Company A: Hired $500/month agency

6 months later:

- 23 manual penalties
- Traffic dropped 78%
- Lost 340 ranking keywords
- Cost to recover: $45K + 12 months
- Total damage: $200K+ in lost revenue

Company B: Hired $8K/month agency

6 months later:

- Traffic up 340%
- 890 new ranking keywords
- DR increased from 42 to 68
- Revenue attributed: $2.4M

7/ The $5K-10K monthly breakdown:

What this budget actually delivers:

Strategy & Management (15%): $750-1,500

- Monthly strategy planning
- Competitive analysis
- Performance reporting

Content Production (40%): $2,000-4,000

- 8-12 high-quality articles
- Content optimization
- Editorial oversight

Link Building (30%): $1,500-3,000

- 20-30 editorial links
- Outreach campaigns
- Relationship building

Technical SEO (15%): $750-1,500

- Monthly audits
- Implementation support
- Performance monitoring

8/ When you can spend less:

SEO under $5K/month works if:

✓ You're DIY with in-house team (just tools cost)
✓ Highly niche market (low competition)
✓ Maintenance mode (not growth phase)
✓ You do content, they do technical/strategy
✓ Local SEO only (different dynamics)

But for competitive B2B/ecommerce? $5K+ is baseline.

9/ The ROI justification:

SEO at $8K/month:

Annual investment: $96K

Conservative results (Year 1):

- 5,000 new organic sessions/month
- 3% conversion rate = 150 conversions
- $2,000 average deal value
- Monthly revenue: $300K
- Annual revenue: $3.6M

ROI: 37× return on investment

Good SEO pays for itself 40× over.

10/ Quality SEO costs $5K+ monthly because:

✓ Requires 100+ expert hours
✓ Professional tools cost $1K+
✓ Content quality matters (AI detection)
✓ Editorial links take time to earn
✓ Technical expertise isn't cheap
✓ Strategy requires experience
✓ Results compound over time

Cheap SEO = expensive mistakes.

Good SEO = investment that compounds.

Choose based on whether you want results or regrets.

Save this before your next SEO budget meeting