SEO Retainer Proposal Template
For SEO specialists quoting an ongoing programme to a business that wants organic traffic and will judge it every month.
- Who it is for
- SEO specialists
- Ideal client
- A business that wants organic traffic every month
- Category
- Marketing
- Packages
- 3
An SEO retainer gets cancelled for one of two reasons: nothing happened, or the client could not tell whether anything happened. Both are scope problems rather than performance problems, and both are fixed by counting the work.
What the client reads
The scope
This is the wording the template arrives with. Yours replaces it.
The packages
3 to choose from
The client picks one, and the one they pick is the one they approve and pay on.
Essentials
Foundation SEO
A$1,000
Monthly
- Monthly technical check
- 2 blog posts optimized
- On-page improvements
- Rank tracking
- Monthly report
Growth
Active SEO growth
A$2,500
Monthly
- Technical optimization
- 4 blog posts
- Link building (5/mo)
- Content updates
- Rank tracking
- Bi-weekly report
- Strategy call
Aggressive
Maximum visibility
A$5,000
Monthly
- Full technical SEO
- 8 blog posts
- Link building (15/mo)
- Content strategy
- Local SEO
- Weekly reporting
- Dedicated strategist
The whole thing, live
The page your client opens
Not a screenshot. This is the real client page running on an invented deal. Pick a package and press approve to see what your client would see; nothing is sent or charged.
How it gets paid
Paid in full on approval
This template asks for the whole amount when the client approves, which is how advisory and ongoing work is usually sold. The payment happens on the same link the proposal is on.
Card or bank transfer, and you choose which per deal. If you want a package to bill every month instead of once, you set that on the package itself when you build the deal, and the client can cancel it from their own link.
Prices are a starting point in Australian dollars. Change the figures, the inclusions and the number of packages to suit what you sell.
The starting terms
What approving the page records
These sit above the approve button. The client reads them, and approving records that they accepted them.
These terms cover the work you approve on this page.
- Scope. The deliverables, the channels and the reporting are those described above. Extra work and rush requests are quoted before they start.
- Payment. The deposit shown on this page is paid on approval. Ongoing work is billed each period in advance as set out above.
- Advertising spend. Ad spend is paid by you, directly to the platform, on your own account. It is not part of this price and is not handled on your behalf unless the package above says so.
- Approvals. Content is sent to you for approval. Where approval does not arrive in time, the schedule moves and the fee for the period still applies.
- What is promised. The work is the programme described above. No particular reach, ranking, lead volume or return is promised, and platform rules and algorithms are outside anyone's control.
- Ending it. Either of us may end ongoing work in writing, effective at the end of the current period. Nothing rolls over automatically beyond that.
- Access and ownership. Accounts, pages and ad accounts stay in your name. Work produced for you is yours once the period it belongs to is paid.
Approving this page records that you accepted this scope, this price and these terms.
Starting terms, not legal advice. Read them, change what does not match how you work, and have a lawyer look at them if the work is large enough to warrant it. Your own default terms in Settings replace these automatically.
Pricing it well
What decides whether this job is profitable
Each tier here counts what arrives every month: the posts, the links, the technical pass and how often a report lands. A client reading it can see the difference between the tiers without having to understand any of the underlying work, which is the only honest way to sell a service whose results nobody can promise.
The packages are priced per month, and you decide how they bill: once, or as a retainer that charges every period until it is cancelled, which you set on the package itself when you build the deal. The starting terms say that either side can end ongoing work at the end of a period, and that no ranking or lead volume is promised. That second sentence is worth having a client accept in writing rather than explaining in month four.
Before you send it
What to change first
The parts of this template most likely to be wrong for you.
- The post and link counts, which are the whole basis of the pricing
- Whether content is written by you or by the client's writer
- The reporting rhythm, which costs more time than people expect
- Any minimum term, which this template deliberately does not impose
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