Pricing
How we price, and why not a rate card
Scope follows the diagnosis, so a price list would be a guess printed in advance. Here is the shape instead, and the arithmetic to check any quote against.
How much does Ranks Five cost?
There is no rate card, because the same discipline can be two weeks of work or a year of it depending on what is wrong. Pricing has three shapes: a fixed fee for the diagnostic phase, fixed scope for definable work, and a retainer where the work is genuinely continuous.
Why no price list
A rate card for this work is either so wide it says nothing or so narrow it is wrong. Technical SEO for a twelve-page site and Technical SEO for a forty-thousand-URL retailer share a name and nothing else.
Worse, a price list invites buying by line item, which is how businesses end up paying for the service they recognise rather than the one that would fix their problem. The diagnosis exists precisely to avoid that.
The three shapes
Diagnostic phase
A fixed fee for two to three weeks: measurement audited, site crawled, logs read, and one written answer to what is actually constraining the business. Stands alone, and sometimes ends with us recommending nothing further.
Fixed scope
For work with a definable end: an audit, a migration, a build, a specific piece of remediation. Fee agreed upfront against a written scope, with the measure it will be judged on named before it starts.
Retainer
For work that is genuinely continuous: campaign management, content and authority building, ongoing measurement. Monthly fee, priorities agreed each period, with the deliverable named rather than implied.
The arithmetic to check any quote against
Whatever the fee, the test is the same and you can run it yourself:
- What is one additional customer worth to you, over their whole relationship with the business, after the cost of serving them
- How many of those would the work need to produce to cover its own cost
- Over what period, realistically, given how long your sales cycle is
- Is that number of customers plausible given the demand that exists in your market
If the answer to the fourth question is no, the work should not be bought, from us or anybody. We will run that arithmetic with you before quoting, and say so if it fails.
What the fee does not include
- Advertising spend, which goes directly to the platform rather than through us
- Third-party tooling, where a specific tool is genuinely needed
- Content production at volume, which is scoped separately when it applies
- Development work on your own platform beyond specifying what needs doing
Where any of those is needed, it is named in the proposal with an estimate rather than appearing later as an extra.
How each discipline is usually bought
Some of this work is a project with an end, and some of it only works retained. Which it is changes the number.
Generative Engine Optimization
Diagnostic first, then retained. Prompt visibility moves slowly and needs watching.
Generative Engine OptimizationAnswer Engine Optimization
Usually a defined project, scoped to a question set, then reviewed.
Answer Engine OptimizationTechnical SEO
Diagnostic first. Often a fixed-scope remediation after it, then nothing for a while.
Technical SEOEcommerce SEO
Diagnostic, then retained, because the catalogue keeps changing under the work.
Ecommerce SEODigital PR and Link Building
Retained with a minimum period. Earned coverage is not a one-month exercise.
Digital PR and Link BuildingGoogle Ads Management
Retained, as a percentage of spend or a flat fee, whichever is lower risk for you.
Google Ads ManagementPaid Social and Meta Ads
Retained, with creative production scoped separately when we produce it.
Paid Social and Meta AdsConversion Rate Optimization
A defined research project first. Testing only where traffic supports it.
Conversion Rate OptimizationWebsite Design and Development
Fixed-scope project, quoted after a requirements session.
Website Design and DevelopmentAI Automation and Workflows
Fixed-scope build per workflow, then a small maintenance line.
AI Automation and WorkflowsCommon questions
Can you give a ballpark before the diagnosis?
A range, yes, once we have seen the site and understood the market. A number before that would be a guess, and guesses in this industry are habitually optimistic in the direction that wins the work.
Is the diagnostic phase refundable if we do not proceed?
It is not a deposit, it is work, and you keep the output whether or not you continue. Several clients have taken the diagnosis and implemented it with their own team, which is a legitimate outcome.
Do you offer a trial month?
No. A month is too short for anything but unblocking work to show a result, so a trial month mostly tests whether we are pleasant to deal with. The diagnostic phase is the honest version of the same idea.
What is the minimum you would take on?
Whatever the diagnosis says is needed, provided the measurement can detect the change. Below that point we would rather say so than take the work. Brand measurement is the part that scales. Content provenance and AI disclosure is the part that never will.
How do you handle advertising spend?
It goes to the platform on your own account and your own card. We do not mark up media, because a percentage-of-spend fee rewards us for spending more rather than for earning more. Where this gets detailed is Houston; where it gets argued about is Hyderabad.
Do fees change during an engagement?
Only by agreement and in writing, and only when the scope changes. A fee that drifts upward without a scope change is a different conversation. Next: Manufacturing and industrial. After that, Marketplaces and platforms, which is where the trade-offs live.
More about Ranks Five
The parts of the business that are not a service page.
Image credits
Every photograph on the site, its photographer and its licence, listed in full.
Image creditsSitemap
Every page on the site in one list, which is faster than the menu when you know what you want.
SitemapAbout Ranks Five
Who does the work, what the constraint on taking it on is, and where we are based.
About Ranks FiveHow we work
The diagnostic phase, what gets handed over, and the one thing we will not promise.
How we workFind out what is actually holding this back
Tell us what you have already tried. Knowing what failed narrows this down faster than anything else.