Local SEO
Being built and being found are two different jobs.
A site nobody finds is a business card in a drawer. This is the ongoing work that puts a local business in the map results and keeps it there, priced for one person doing it directly.
Short answer
Starter SEO is $500 a month and covers local maintenance: Google Business Profile managed, listings kept consistent, reviews answered, rankings tracked, and a monthly report on calls and form fills. Growth SEO is $800 a month and adds a published article a month, wider tracking, quarterly technical work and local outreach. Toronto agencies charge $1,500 to $2,500 a month for a full campaign; neither of these claims to be one.
What this is, and what it is not
Toronto agencies quote $1,500 to $2,500 a month for a local campaign, and the published guidance across Canadian pricing guides is that anything under about $500 a month is not a real campaign. That guidance is correct.
So these plans do not claim to be one. Starter SEO at $500 a month is local maintenance: the listing, the consistency, the reviews, the tracking, the report. It is the work that has to be right before a campaign budget would mean anything, and it is the step almost every local business has skipped.
Growth SEO at $800 a month adds the things that actually move rankings: written content every month, more terms tracked with competitors beside them, quarterly technical work, and local outreach. That competes in your postcode. It does not compete with a national brand spending five figures a month, and I will say so rather than take the money.
The work, in order
Each step is wasted without the one above
- 01 Get the listing right Google Business Profile claimed, the most specific accurate category set, every service listed individually, hours correct including statutory holidays, service areas named. This is the highest return free thing a local business owns and most have it about half filled in.
- 02 Make the details agree Your name, address and phone identical everywhere they appear: site, listing, Facebook, Yelp, directories. "Suite 4" in one place and "#4" in another is enough to make matching harder. Unglamorous, and most of what local SEO actually is.
- 03 Answer the reviews All of them, briefly, including the good ones. Anything under four stars gets a reply drafted for you that acknowledges, does not argue, and moves it to a phone call. Arguing in public has never once worked.
- 04 Write what people search for A service with its own buyers and its own objections earns its own page, and that page is what ranks. Growth adds an article a month aimed at a term your buyers actually type, which is also what gives outreach something worth linking to.
- 05 Report on calls, not impressions Impressions and clicks are inputs. Calls and form fills are the thing you wanted. Analytics is set up to count phone taps and submissions as conversions, and the monthly report leads with those numbers.
The plans
Monthly, no contract
Starter SEO
$500
a month
- Google Business Profile managed: hours, photos, services, posts
- Ten local search terms tracked, reported monthly
- Directory and citation details kept consistent across the web
- On page fixes to two pages a month
- Review monitoring, with a reply drafted for anything below four stars
- A one page monthly report: calls, form fills, and where you rank
- Hosting, backups, SSL, and security updates included
Honest limit. No link building and no content volume. If you want to actually climb for competitive terms, that is Growth.
Growth SEO
Most chosen
$800
a month
- Everything in Starter SEO
- One written and published article a month, targeting a term your buyers search
- Twenty five search terms tracked, with competitor positions alongside
- A new or rewritten service page each quarter
- Quarterly technical audit: speed, crawl, structured data, broken links
- Local link and citation outreach, six quality placements a quarter
- A monthly call to go through what moved and why
Honest limit. Still not an agency campaign budget. Honest ceiling: this competes locally, not against national brands with a five figure monthly spend.
Pairing a build with a plan is cheaper than buying them apart. The Growth Bundle is $1,200 setup and $700 a month for a standard website + growth seo.
Where this sits
Published 2026 Canadian and Toronto rates
- Dispatch, Starter SEO $500 a month
- Dispatch, Growth SEO $800 a month
- Entry level local SEO, Canada $750 a month and up
- A Toronto local campaign $1,500 to $2,500 a month
- A Toronto mid tier retainer $3,000 to $4,000 a month
- GTA wide aggressive growth $3,000 to $6,000 a month
Read what a Toronto small business should pay for SEO before buying it from anyone, including me. It covers the four questions that tell you whether you are buying work or an invoice.
Common questions
How long before I see anything?
Three months before rankings move and six before the pattern is clear. Listing and review work shows up faster, sometimes in weeks, because it changes what Google already knows about you rather than trying to earn something new.
Can you guarantee position one?
No, and nobody honestly can. It is trivial to rank first for a phrase nobody searches, which is how that promise is usually kept. What I will do is tell you which terms are realistic for your business and track those.
Do I need a plan if you built my site?
No. A website bought on its own has no monthly fee attached to it, and it keeps working untouched. The plans are for owners who want someone watching the listing and writing each month, not a condition of the site continuing to exist.
Can I cancel?
SEO plans run month to month with no contract and no cancellation fee. Search work does need a run at it: expect three months before rankings move and six before the pattern is clear. If you want a guarantee of position one, nobody can honestly sell you that.
What if I just want the checklist?
Take it. The local SEO checklist is the same list I work from, and the first eight items cost nothing and are yours to do in an afternoon. I would rather you did them than paid me to.