Guide ·
What an SEO audit costs for a small SaaS in 2026
Public prices for an audit of a small site run from about $50 on a marketplace to $5,000 at an agency. Here is what each band usually buys, what moves the price, what to ask before you pay, and the claims that should make you walk away.
First, the sources
Most price guides are written by people selling audits
Most of the sources below are agency blogs or SEO tool companies selling the same service. So is this page: Outcrop sells audits. We found no independent survey of audit prices. The largest survey of SEO prices, by Ahrefs, polled 439 SEO providers, and its data is from 2023.
So read every figure as what sellers say they charge, not what buyers pay. Each figure links to its source and says when that source is from. We re-checked each page on 20 Oct 2026.
1 · Price bands
Four bands, from marketplaces to agencies
Prices in US dollars for an audit of a small site. Large sites, shops and sites in several languages cost more in every band.
| Band | Price for a small site | What it usually includes | Source and date |
|---|---|---|---|
Marketplaces Fiverr, Upwork | $50–$250 on Fiverr, $100–$500 on Upwork, for a technical SEO audit | Often a report from an automated checker, sometimes with a short summary. What you get depends on the seller. | aiproposer, updated 15 Aug 2026. The page was offline on 20 Oct 2026; archived copy from 5 Sep 2026. |
Freelancers and small specialists | $650–$1,500 for a site under 50 pages | A manual review with prioritised recommendations, according to the source. | rankai, published 28 May 2026. |
Productized audits fixed scope, price on the page | $80 for a 20-minute video review and $5,500 for a 3–4 week deep dive (Detailed, both sold out); $1,997 (We Do Worldwide); from $2,000 (Growfusely) | A fixed list of deliverables, a stated delivery time, and often a sample report you can read before you pay. | Prices as shown on each seller’s page on 19 Oct 2026, re-checked on 20 Oct. |
Agencies | $1,500–$5,000 for a one-time technical audit of a small business site | A technical and content audit, usually with calls, and often as the first step toward a monthly retainer. | buldrr, published 22 Jul 2026, updated 23 Sep 2026. |
One-off SEO projects in general
For one-off SEO projects of any kind, not only audits, the most common fee in the Ahrefs survey of 439 SEO providers was $2,501–$5,000. Freelancers averaged $2,349 a project and agencies $9,508. The survey data is from 2023.
AI search audits
Audits of how a brand shows up in AI answers, sometimes sold as GEO audits, are newer. One guide puts them at $500–$2,000 as a one-time job (llmpulse, published 11 May 2026, updated 13 Oct 2026). Another puts agency GEO audits at $1,500–$5,000 (demandlocal, read on 19 Oct 2026; it blocked our re-check on 20 Oct).
2 · What moves the price
Six things that move the price
Two audits with the same name can be very different jobs. These are the parts that make the difference.
- Pages
- Crawling a small marketing site and crawling a large catalogue are different jobs. Most sellers price by the number of URLs or by the kind of site, and shops, catalogues and sites in several languages cost more.
- Scope
- A technical check alone is the cheapest. Each extra part adds time: an on-page review page by page, keyword research, a competitor check, an AI search check.
- Calls
- A kick-off call and a walk-through call take a senior person’s time, and they are in the price whether you need them or not.
- Who reads the output
- Running a crawler takes minutes. Reading its warnings, dropping the ones that do not matter for your site and ranking the rest is the expensive part.
- Paid data
- Search volumes and competitor backlinks need paid tools. Audits that include them cost more, or the seller passes the tool cost on.
- Implementation
- Most audit prices cover finding the problems, not fixing them. Fixes are usually quoted separately, by the hour or as a project.
3 · Before you buy
Eight questions to ask before you pay
A good seller answers all of them in writing, before you pay.
- Can I see a sample report?
- A real one, from a real site, not a template. It shows you what you will get better than any list of features.
- How many pages does the price cover?
- And what happens if your site has more. A fixed price with a page limit is easier to compare than “from”.
- What exactly is delivered?
- A list of every warning a tool found, or a short list of fixes ranked by impact, each with the page and the change to make.
- Does it cover keywords and AI search?
- Ask where keyword data comes from, and whether the audit checks AI crawlers, robots.txt, llms.txt and structured data.
- Who checks the findings?
- A person who reads the results against your site, or a tool export sent on as it is.
- Are fixes included or quoted separately?
- And whether the audit fee comes off the fix work if you go ahead.
- What access do you need?
- Read access to Google Search Console is normal. Admin passwords sent by email are not.
- When is it delivered, and can I get a refund?
- A stated delivery time and written terms are signs of a process, not a one-off.
4 · Red flags
Claims that should make you walk away
- A ranking guarantee. Google’s own guide to hiring an SEO says it plainly: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” (Google Search Central, page last updated 5 Jun 2026).
- A guaranteed spot in AI answers. Nobody controls what ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini say, and answers change from one run to the next.
- Secret methods. If a seller will not say what they check and why, you cannot judge the result.
- Links bundled into the audit. Bought links break Google’s spam policies and can do more harm than the audit does good.
- A long report with no priorities. Hundreds of warnings and no order to fix them in is a tool export, not an audit.
- Pressure to decide now. “This price is only valid today” has no place in a fixed-scope service.
5 · Where we sit
Where Outcrop sits
Our SEO audit is $490 for sites up to 500 URLs and $890 above, and our AI search visibility check is $290. Both are fixed prices in US dollars before VAT, delivered in writing with no calls. That puts the audit below the freelancer and agency bands above and near the bottom of the productized ones, and the AI check below the $500–$2,000 band for AI search audits.