Founder-led SEO, priced in AUD
SEO services for Australian businesses from A$990 a month, every task listed
SEO with us costs A$990–A$9,800 a month in Australian dollars, with no GST added, and each month's task list reaches you in writing before work starts.
From A$990 a monthexcl. GSTSee pricing →
- A$990–A$9,800/month, no GST added
- Read-only audit access to start
- You approve every page change
- No paid links or bulk AI pages
- Founder signs off each month's work
- ★ 4.9 on Google (76 reviews)
- 200+ projects since 2017
- Top Rated on Upwork
Founder-led delivery
Overview
Changes go live on your own site and Business Profile, and you check each one in your own Search Console and GA4. Ashish Sharma leads the team remotely from Lucknow, India. Nobody, us included, can guarantee rankings or leads; what we put in writing is the work. WhatsApp your URL for three named fixes, free, with no logins needed.
By Ashish Sharma, founder · Updated 6 October 2026
Quick answer
How much does SEO typically cost in Australia per month?
Published Australian SEO prices in October 2026 run from A$499 a month (Localsearch, local search only) to A$10,000+ (First Page's enterprise range), and Localsearch says most small businesses spend A$1,000–A$3,000. Codingclave charges A$990–A$9,800 a month, with your point in that band set by a written scope. Expect measurable ranking and click changes between months 3 and 6.
- The A$990 floor covers one site's priority fixes, Business Profile upkeep and a report, not a content programme
- An in-house hire costs about eight times our floor: roughly A$8,170 a month against A$990
- No GST is added to our invoices, because we aren't registered for Australian GST
- Competitive metro searches can take 6–12 months, by Localsearch's own estimate
Near you
SEO Services in your city
01of 10
SEO prices Australian providers publish in 2026, and what each one buys
Of the six pages ranking for "SEO services Australia" on 6 October 2026, three printed no price of their own: seoservices.com.au, Priority1, and First Page, which gives market ranges in its FAQ instead. Every public figure we found is below, in AUD, with the scope each provider states and whether GST is mentioned.
| Provider | Price shown on its page | Scope stated | GST stated? | Source and date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Localsearch | From $499 a month, billed monthly, no setup fee | Local SEO: on-page and technical fixes, Google Business Profile, local content, citations, monthly reporting | Not stated | business.localsearch.com.au/seo, page dated 10 Jul 2026, checked 6 Oct 2026 |
| Localsearch (FAQ benchmark) | "Most Australian SMBs invest between $1,000 and $3,000 per month" | A market benchmark, not an offer | n/a | Same page, checked 6 Oct 2026 |
| australiaseoservices.com.au | SEO $900 a month; Google Business Profile set-up $850 one-time | Monthly inclusions not listed | Yes, "subject to 10% GST" | australiaseoservices.com.au, checked 6 Oct 2026 |
| First Page (FAQ ranges; own price unpublished) | $1,500–$3,000 a month local; $3,000–$5,000 SME; $5,000–$10,000+ enterprise or ecommerce | Ranges only | Not stated | firstpage.com.au/seo, checked 6 Oct 2026 |
| StudioHawk (pricing guide) | $500–$1,000 a month entry; $1,500–$3,000 growth; $5,000+ comprehensive; $150–$300 an hour; $2,000–$10,000 for audits or migrations | A guide, not an offer | Not stated | studiohawk.com.au/blog/seo-pricing, modified 17 Aug 2026 |
| seoservices.com.au and Priority1 | Not published; quote on request | Service descriptions only | n/a | Both checked 6 Oct 2026 |
| Codingclave | A$990–A$9,800 a month | Itemised in writing for each business | No GST added (overseas supplier, not GST-registered) | Our AUD price list, 6 Oct 2026 |
Ask any provider which line items move a quote up their band; if nobody can name them, the number isn't tied to work.
GST: Of the providers above, only australiaseoservices.com.au mentions it, saying all prices are "subject to 10% GST", so its $900 a month becomes A$990 once GST is added. Ours is A$990 with nothing on top: we're an overseas supplier and not registered for Australian GST. If your business is GST-registered, ask your accountant whether the reverse-charge rules apply. With everyone else, ask whether a figure is before or after GST.
Audits: StudioHawk's guide prices project work at $2,000–$10,000 for audits or migrations. Our audit is part of month one's work under the retainer.
Already paying for SEO? Send last month's report on WhatsApp for a second opinion on what it shows and what it leaves out.
02of 10
What arrives each month, and where you can check it yourself
Each row below is a workstream, what you receive, and the screen where you confirm it happened without taking our word for it. The written scope decides which rows run: a smaller budget runs fewer rows, not thinner versions of every row.
What the A$990 floor covers
One website, a short priority list worked through in order (usually the technical and on-page rows), Business Profile upkeep and the monthly report. No new content programme, store-wide product work or migration. First Page warns against "full SEO" under $1,000 a month (checked 6 Oct 2026). The A$990 floor isn't full SEO, and the written scope says which rows it leaves out. Ask which rows your site needs on WhatsApp; the answer comes with your three free fixes.
What moves a quote up the band
Page count, number of locations, monthly content volume, store or migration work, and how crowded page one is for your searches. Some industries add their own search rules: clinics and allied health, real estate, restaurants and cafes, NDIS providers, hotels and motels and education and migration agents.
What we refuse to sell
Paid links, bulk AI-generated pages, doorway pages for suburbs and rewards for reviews. Google's spam policies (last updated 28 Aug 2026) class buying links for ranking, scaled content abuse and doorway abuse as spam, and the Google Maps content policy bans payments, discounts or free goods offered for reviews.
| Workstream | What you receive | Where you verify it | Not included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical | Crawl and indexing fixes; Core Web Vitals problems found, with the fix or a note for your developer | Search Console: Pages and Core Web Vitals reports | A full rebuild (quoted as a separate project) |
| On-page and internal links | Title, heading, copy and internal-link changes, each logged with URL, date, before and after | The live page, then that URL in Search Console | Doorway pages for suburbs you don't serve |
| Content (when the scope includes it) | Drafts of new or refreshed pages, sent for your approval | Your CMS, where nothing goes live unapproved | Bulk AI-written pages |
| Mentions without paid links | A list of outreach targets and what each one returned | The referring URLs themselves | Bought or swapped links |
| Business Profile | Services, hours, attributes, posts and photo prompts checked and kept current | Your Google Business Profile dashboard | Review incentives of any kind |
| AI search visibility | robots.txt and crawler check; AI-feature clicks, which Google counts inside "Web" | Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools | Promises that an AI tool will cite you |
| Reporting | Monthly figures pulled from your own accounts | Search Console and GA4, open to you any day | Ad spend, which you pay Google directly |
03of 10
Scope by business type: online stores, site moves and regional towns
Three kinds of site need rows the ledger only hints at, each scoped in writing before work starts.
Online stores
Product variants such as size or colour usually belong on one product URL, or carry a canonical tag pointing to the main product, so Google doesn't split attention across near-identical pages. Filters and sort orders can generate thousands of crawlable URLs; pick the few filtered pages that match a real search ("black steel-cap work boots", say) and keep the rest out of the index. On Shopify, one product can be reached at /products/ and at /collections/…/products/ paths; the canonical tag points to the first, and your internal links should too. Ecommerce SEO for an existing store runs inside this retainer, while store builds sit with ecommerce development and Shopify development.
Moving to a new site or platform
Migrations lose rankings when old URLs aren't redirected one to one. Map every indexed URL to its new address before launch and test the redirects on staging; afterwards, watch Search Console's Pages report and the old URLs' clicks for several weeks to catch a broken redirect early. Rebuilds are quoted under website development and WordPress development, outside the retainer.
Regional towns
Fewer searches and fewer competitors, so targets in the written scope come from your own Search Console figures rather than capital-city benchmarks.
Have a project in mind?
Send a few lines on WhatsApp or get a fixed AUD quote.
04of 10
Hiring an SEO specialist in Australia versus hourly help or a retainer
What does it cost to hire someone to do SEO? SEEK's data for an SEO specialist in Australia, read on 6 October 2026, gives a median base salary of A$87,500. Add the 12% superannuation guarantee, in force since 1 July 2025, and one employee costs about A$98,000 a year, or about A$8,170 a month, before a laptop or a single tool licence.
| Option | Typical cost | What sits on top | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-house SEO specialist | A$87,500 median base (10th percentile A$70,000, 90th A$100,000); about A$98,000 a year, or A$8,170 a month, with 12% super | Tools, training, management time, leave cover | SEEK salary data, 6 Oct 2026; ATO, 12% SG from 1 Jul 2025 |
| Hourly consultant or freelancer | A$150–A$300 an hour; 10 hours a month comes to A$1,500–A$3,000 (our arithmetic) | Your own time briefing and checking the work | StudioHawk's hourly range, guide modified 17 Aug 2026 |
| Australian agency retainer | A$1,000–A$3,000 a month typical for SMBs (Localsearch); A$1,500 to A$10,000+ by business size (First Page) | Setup fees and minimum terms vary | Localsearch and First Page, 6 Oct 2026 |
| Codingclave retainer | A$990–A$9,800 a month | No GST added; terms in writing | Our AUD price list, 6 Oct 2026 |
In-house starts to make sense when SEO work fills a full-time week: frequent publishing, several sites or a large store. Below that, you pay a salary for hours you can't use.
05of 10
How long SEO takes, month by month, without a promise attached
Rankings move after Google recrawls the changed pages. For an established site, expect roughly this:
- Month 1: fixes go live and a baseline is recorded for later months to be measured against.
- Months 2–3: Google recrawls and reindexes the changed pages; impressions usually move before clicks.
- Months 3–6: ranking and click changes become readable for the pages and searches you targeted.
Localsearch gives the same 3–6 month window and says competitive metro terms take 6–12 months; seoservices.com.au says new domains take longer than its 4–6 months (both checked 6 Oct 2026).
If you stop paying: Fixed technical problems stay fixed and pages you own keep working, but competitors keep publishing and refreshing theirs, so untouched pages tend to drift down over the following months. If you leave us, the accounts are already in your name and the change log goes with you.
Already running Google Ads, or need calls this month? Ads buy visibility today, while SEO builds clicks you don't pay for one by one; the two run side by side. Budgets and set-up are covered on Google Ads management.
06of 10
Can anyone guarantee #1 on Google? Google and Australian Consumer Law both say no
"Guaranteed results", claims that every client gained rankings, and unexplained success percentages all appeared on agency pages ranking for this search on 6 October 2026.
What Google says about hiring an SEO
Google's "Do you need an SEO?" guide (updated 5 Jun 2026) states: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." On whether Google sells SEO itself, the same page says "Google never accepts money to include or rank sites" in its results.
What section 4 of the Australian Consumer Law adds
A statement about a future matter, such as a forecast of rankings or leads, is taken to be misleading if its maker had no reasonable grounds for it at the time, and the maker carries the burden of showing those grounds. A page-one guarantee forecasts results that Google, not the agency, decides. This is general information, not legal advice.
Pay-on-performance offers
Some Australian agencies, First Page among them (checked 6 Oct 2026), say you don't pay if agreed targets are missed. That can be a fair deal. Before signing, read which targets count (positions for chosen phrases, traffic or enquiries), who picked them, and how long the term runs while they're measured.
No provider can promise rankings or leads, and that includes Codingclave. What we can put in writing is the work itself: the tasks, the dates and the screens where you check them.
07of 10
AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT: what AI SEO in Australia really involves
Google switched on AI Mode in Australia, in English, on 8 October 2025, according to Google's Australian blog. Its guidance for site owners (updated 10 Dec 2025) says there are "no additional requirements" to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode: no special schema and no AI text files, only the indexable, useful pages ordinary search already needs. Search Console counts clicks from these features inside the "Web" search type.
Is SEO still worth it in 2026? Yes, for most Australian businesses: AI answers are assembled from pages search engines can crawl, and Google accounted for 87.87% of the search-engine referrals StatCounter tracked in Australia in September 2026, with Bing on 9.19%, up from 6.55% in January. Google's hiring guide suggests asking whether a provider's AEO or GEO advice matches its guidance on generative AI features; put that question to anyone promising you'll be "recommended by ChatGPT" without explaining how.
| Surface | What Google or OpenAI says | What we check | Where it's measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews and AI Mode (in Australia since 8 Oct 2025) | "No additional requirements"; no special schema (Google, updated 10 Dec 2025) | Indexability, snippet controls, how useful each page is | Search Console Performance, "Web" search type |
| ChatGPT search | Allowing OAI-SearchBot in robots.txt makes pages eligible for ChatGPT search; opted-out sites can still show as navigational links (OpenAI) | That robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot | Referral visits in GA4 |
| AI model training | GPTBot is controlled separately from OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI) | Your choice, written down | Your robots.txt file |
| Bing and other IndexNow engines | IndexNow submissions reach Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep, not Google (indexnow.org) | IndexNow set-up on your site | Bing Webmaster Tools |
The free starting point is a crawler check: which AI and search bots your robots.txt currently blocks, and whether that matches what you want. Ask for the AI crawler check on WhatsApp. A chatbot that answers your own customers is a separate job, covered on our AI automation page.
Have a project in mind?
Send a few lines on WhatsApp or get a fixed AUD quote.
08of 10
Your Google Business Profile: the rules that get profiles suspended
For a shopfront or a business that travels to customers, local SEO mostly happens inside your Google Business Profile. These rules come from Google's business guidelines and Maps content policy (both checked 6 Oct 2026).
Business name: the real name, no keywords
Google doesn't permit unnecessary information in the business name and says it can lead to suspension. "Smith Plumbing" stays "Smith Plumbing", not "Smith Plumbing Emergency Plumber 24/7".
Categories: few and specific
Google asks for as few categories as possible, chosen as specifically as possible. Pick the narrowest primary category that's true, then add others only where they describe a real part of the business.
Service area: within about two hours’ drive
A service area shouldn't extend farther than about two hours' driving time from where the business is based. Tradies are the classic service-area case; dental practices show the shopfront version of the same rules.
Reviews: no incentives, ever
The Maps policy bans offering payment, discounts, free goods or free services in exchange for reviews, or for removing negative ones. Asking customers for an honest review with nothing attached is the safe route.
What we do in your profile, and what only you can do
We keep categories, services, hours and attributes accurate, write posts, prompt you when fresh photos are due and flag rule breaches. Only you can handle verification, take real photos of your premises, team and work, and answer the phone when calls start.
09of 10
Clicks fell after a Google update? Match the date before you change anything
Before rewriting a single page, line up the date of the drop in Search Console's Performance report with Google's own record of 2026 ranking updates.
| Update | Started | Rollout length | Check first |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2026 Discover update | 5 Feb 2026 | 21 days 17 h | Discover clicks only, not regular search results |
| March 2026 spam update | 24 Mar 2026 | 19 h 30 m | Links you bought or swapped; scaled or thin pages |
| March 2026 core update | 27 Mar 2026 | 12 days 4 h | How useful each affected page is for the searches it lost |
| May 2026 core update | 21 May 2026 | 11 days 21 h | As for March: page usefulness against lost searches |
| June 2026 spam update | 24 Jun 2026 | 2 days 1 h | Link and scaled-content patterns |
| August 2026 spam update | 18 Aug 2026 | 2 days 16 h | Link and scaled-content patterns |
| September 2026 spam update | 24 Sep 2026 | No end date listed on 6 Oct 2026; still rolling out | Wait for completion, then check links and scaled content |
If the drop begins inside a rollout window, work on what that update targets. If nothing lines up, check technical causes (a stray noindex tag, a broken redirect, a robots.txt change) and seasonality first. WhatsApp the date your clicks fell and your URL and we'll say which it looks like.
10of 10
How to choose an SEO company in Australia: 7 checks
Directory lists of the best SEO companies in Australia don't settle much: Semrush's 2026 list shows about 143 agencies, nearly all on 4.9 or 5.0 stars (checked 6 Oct 2026). Google's own guide to hiring an SEO asks sharper questions. Here they are for an Australian buyer, with our answers beside them, since the same checks apply to us.
7 questions to ask
- Ask about experience where you are. Google suggests asking "What's your experience in my country/city?" Our honest answer: we're India-based and don't claim Australian client results. What you can check instead: ★ 4.9 on Google (76 reviews), Top Rated on Upwork, 200+ projects since 2017 (see our work), founder-led delivery (about us), and the free three-fix review on your own site before you spend anything.
- Grant read-only Search Console access for the audit. That is Google's own advice for the audit stage.
- Never accept a link back as a condition. In Google's words, "You should never have to link to an SEO."
- Get the money terms on paper. Setup fee, minimum term, notice period and payment schedule. Don't prepay a long term to any provider, us included.
- Ask what leaves with you. Search Console, GA4, your Business Profile, the domain and the CMS should sit in your name, with the provider as a user you can remove in one click. Agree in writing who owns the content and the change log.
- Put the refusals in writing. No paid links and no bulk AI pages, in the agreement rather than on a sales call.
- Find out who does the work and who signs it off. Here, the founder signs off each month's work.
Is it safe to outsource SEO to India from Australia? Localsearch's FAQ links cheaper offers to "offshore content mills and link spam", and First Page says none of its SEO goes overseas (both checked 6 Oct 2026). We are offshore and say so; checks 2 to 6 are the controls that let you test that safely.
Between 4 Oct 2026 and 4 Apr 2027, while the south-east is on daylight saving, our 10:00–19:00 IST working day overlaps a local 9-to-5 by 1.5 hours in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Hobart, 2 in Adelaide, 2.5 in Brisbane and 4.5 in Perth. Little SEO work needs a live conversation, so calls fit into your evening and the progress log is waiting the next morning, over WhatsApp, email or video, Monday to Saturday. City-by-city hours sit on the Australia overview.
Pricing in AUD
Our SEO retainer in AUD
One monthly retainer, scoped in writing before it starts. There are no tier prices inside the band; where you land depends on what you need:
- Near the floor: one site and one location, technical and page fixes plus Business Profile upkeep (a tradie, clinic or cafe, for example).
- Mid-band: several locations or service areas, plus new or refreshed pages each month.
- Upper band: online stores, platform migrations or crowded capital-city searches.
The free three-fix review shows which of these fits before any price is discussed.
SEO, Google Ads and digital marketing
A$990 – A$9,800a month
Excl. GSTSEO, Google Ads and digital marketing (monthly retainer) · Ongoing, cancel any time
Monthly SEO work on your site and Business Profile: technical fixes, page changes, new pages when your scope includes them, and a report from your own Search Console. Any Google Ads spend is paid by you straight to Google.
Get a quote for this plan
- Fixed price in AUD
- Free scoping call
- No obligation
No GST is added to our invoices. Setup fee, minimum term, notice period and payment method are confirmed in writing for your business before you sign.
Prices are in Australian dollars and do not include GST: Codingclave is an overseas (India-based) supplier and is not registered for Australian GST. If your business is GST-registered, check with your accountant whether the reverse-charge rules apply to imported services.
Fixed AUD quote
What should we look at first?
Tell Ashish your website, the areas you serve, and whether you want more calls or more online sales; no logins or access are needed. He replies on WhatsApp with three named fixes and why each one matters, and whether you go further is up to you.
Ashish Sharma
Founder, Codingclave
Ashish or the team will reply on WhatsApp or email within one business day.
- ★ 4.9 on Google (76 reviews)
- 200+ projects since 2017
- Top Rated on Upwork
- Founder-led delivery
Prefer WhatsApp?
WhatsApp AshishFree three-fix review on WhatsApp
Send your URL and the areas you serve; no logins are needed for this step. Ashish replies with three named fixes and the reason for each, whether or not you go further.
Read-only access, then the audit
You add us to Search Console and GA4 with restricted access. The audit covers five things: indexing, Core Web Vitals, internal links, your Business Profile, and robots.txt rules for search and AI crawlers. It ends with a proposed task list for month 1.
Written scope and terms
Scope, monthly volume, setup fee, minimum term and notice period go into one document. Work starts only once you approve it.
Month 1: fixes and a baseline
Technical fixes go live first, and clicks, impressions and positions are snapshotted so later months have a fixed starting point.
The monthly cycle
You approve page changes one page at a time. Each change goes into a dated change log, the report comes from your own accounts, and the review call happens in your evening.
Quarterly scope review
Every three months the scope is reviewed with you. How and when you can change or end the retainer follows the minimum term and notice confirmed in writing for your business before you sign.
FAQ
Questions Australians ask us
Can’t see yours? Ask Ashish directly — you’ll get a straight answer, not a sales script.
Ask Ashish directly
How much does SEO cost in Australia for a small business?
Is SEO still worth it in 2026 with AI Overviews?
How much does it cost to hire someone to do SEO in Australia?
What are the four types of SEO, and which should I fix first?
Can an SEO company guarantee first page on Google in Australia?
Is it safe to outsource SEO to India from Australia?
Do Australian SEO prices include GST?
What's in an SEO audit, and what does one cost in Australia?
Ashish Sharma · Founder
Send your URL. Get three fixes back, free.
Tell Ashish your website, the areas you serve, and whether you want more calls or more online sales; no logins or access are needed. He replies on WhatsApp with three named fixes and why each one matters, and whether you go further is up to you.
- WhatsApp us or fill in the form
- Free scoping call
- Fixed AUD quote, no obligation
- ★ 4.9 on Google (76 reviews)
- 200+ projects since 2017
- Top Rated on Upwork
- Founder-led delivery
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Ashish Sharma
Founder, Codingclave · Updated 6 October 2026
Ashish founded Codingclave in Lucknow, India, in 2017 and still leads delivery on every project.
Sources (12)· public sources cited on this page
- Google Search Central – Do you need an SEO?
- Google Search Central – AI features and your website
- Google Search Central – Spam policies for Google web search
- Google Search Status Dashboard – Ranking update history
- Google Business Profile Help – Guidelines for representing your business
- Google Maps – Prohibited and restricted content policy
- OpenAI – Overview of OpenAI crawlers
- StatCounter – Search engine market share in Australia
- SEEK – Search engine optimisation specialist role and salary
- ATO – The final superannuation guarantee rate increase, 1 July 2025
- ATO – Australian business importing goods and services (reverse-charge GST)
- Federal Register of Legislation – Competition and Consumer Act 2010, Schedule 2 (Australian Consumer Law) s4