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Prices & budgets · Oct 2026 · Updated October 2026

How much does SEO cost in Canada in 2026?

The short version: $1,500–$5,000 a month buys a small-business agency retainer in Canada, $500–$1,500 buys a local entry scope, and our own published price starts at $1,200/mo. The long version, what those ranges actually buy and what moves a quote inside them, is below.

All figures in CAD Ranges from Canadian cost guides Our price: from $1,200/mo

01The short answer

Direct answer

In Canada in 2026, SEO for a small business costs $1,500–$5,000 CAD per month on an agency retainer; local SEO entry points run $500–$1,500/mo. What separates quotes inside those ranges is the amount of work in the month: locations, content, technical fixes and the strength of the competition. Lazor Digital publishes its price instead of quoting on a call: SEO & AI search (GEO) from $1,200/mo, month-to-month, including technical SEO, Google Business Profile management, local pages, content written to be cited by AI answers, the AI visibility layer and the Review Engine, reported monthly in calls and citations.

02The ranges

What the Canadian market charges

These are the ranges Canadian cost guides publish for 2026. They are the market's numbers, not ours; our row is at the bottom, labelled.

SEO pricing in Canada · 2026 · monthly, in CAD
What you buy	Typical range	What it covers
Local entry scope	$500–$1,500/mo	One location, one market: a properly managed Google Business Profile, on-page fixes, a working review flow and a monthly report. The right size for a single-location business in a smaller market.
Small-business agency retainer	$1,500–$5,000/mo	Everything in the local scope, plus ongoing content, more service and location pages, technical SEO work every month, and a competitor set that is actively tracked. Most established local businesses land in this band.
Below the local band	Under $500/mo	Not enough working hours to do the job. What is usually sold at this price is automated reports, directory submissions and a dashboard login. Rankings do not move on software alone.
Lazor Digital, published price	From $1,200/mo	The full scope from our SEO & GEO page: technical SEO, profile and Maps, local pages, citable content, the AI visibility layer and reporting in calls and citations. Month-to-month.

How to read a quote against this table. A quote is only comparable when the month is itemised: how many pages get built or fixed, how much content is written, how many locations are managed, and what gets reported. Two quotes $1,000 apart can be the same work at different margins, or different work entirely. The itemisation tells you which.

Sources: the market ranges in this guide are drawn from published Canadian agency cost guides and industry pricing surveys, including the pricing research published by Clutch and Ahrefs. Our own row is the published Lazor Digital price list, shown with its working everywhere on this site.

03What moves the price

Five factors set the number

None of them is your postal code or how the salesperson sized you up. If a quote cannot be traced back to these five, ask what it is based on.

Pushes the price up

More locations and markets: every location carries its own profile, pages and review flow
Entrenched competition: outranking businesses that have invested for years takes more content and more months
Technical debt: a slow site with indexation problems spends its first months on repairs before growth work
Many services to rank: each service needs its own page, its own content and its own proof
An online store: catalogue size turns SEO into a per-category, per-product workload

Keeps the price down

One location and one clear service area
A technically sound site: the budget goes to growth instead of repairs
A focused service list: fewer pages, each one finished properly
Reviews already flowing: the profile starts from trust instead of from zero
A realistic timeline: compounding over quarters costs less per month than trying to force it in weeks

04Our published price

What $1,200/mo buys at Lazor

Our price sits inside the local band and below the typical retainer range, because the scope is fixed and published instead of assembled per prospect. This is the scope, in full.

SEO & AI SEARCH (GEO) · FROM $1,200/MO · MONTH-TO-MONTH

Everything in the retainer

Technical SEO: crawl, speed, indexation and schema, fixed by us, not handed to you as a PDF of homework
Google Business Profile & Maps: categories, services, photos, Q&A and the review flow, managed monthly
Local pages with real content: service and area pages written from your actual territory, never spun city copies
Content that answers buyers: direct-answer pages and FAQs on the questions customers ask, the format AI assistants cite
The AI visibility layer: an AI information page and llms.txt for your business, plus monthly citation tracking across ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews
Reporting in calls and citations: one monthly report against the audit baseline, with the Review Engine included inside the retainer

From$1,200/mo SEO and AI search (GEO), in full →

Where it goes from $1,200. The published figure is the floor for a single-market local business. More locations, a larger content programme or a store catalogue move the scope, and the exact figure is fixed in your proposal before work starts, from the same list. The whole menu, including SEO + Ads together at $3,700/mo, is in the full published price list. Winnipeg businesses pay the same published prices: see marketing services in Winnipeg.

05FAQ

SEO cost questions, answered straight

How much should a small business budget for SEO in Canada?

Plan on $1,500–$5,000 a month for an agency retainer, or $500–$1,500 for a local entry scope: one location, a managed Google Business Profile and the foundations done properly. Below $500 a month there are not enough working hours in the month to do the job; what gets sold there is automated reports and directory submissions. Lazor Digital's published price starts at $1,200/mo, inside the local band and below the typical retainer range, because the scope is fixed and published.

Why is one agency $600 a month and another $3,000?

Almost never the logo on the invoice. It is the amount of work in the month: how many pages get built or fixed, how much content is written, how many locations and profiles are managed, and how much technical debt the site starts with. Ask any agency to itemise the month before you compare prices; a quote that cannot be itemised cannot be compared.

Is SEO or Google Ads the better first buy?

They do different jobs. Ads buy leads this month and stop the day the budget stops. SEO builds an asset that keeps producing calls, but it compounds over 3–6 months, not weeks. If the phone needs to ring now, start with ads; if you are tired of renting every lead forever, SEO is the buy. Most of our clients end up on both, which is why we offer them together.

What exactly does Lazor's $1,200/mo include?

Six workstreams, listed in full above: technical SEO, Google Business Profile and Maps management, local pages with real content, content written to answer buyers and be cited, the AI visibility layer (an AI information page, llms.txt and monthly citation tracking), and a monthly report measured in calls and citations. The Review Engine is included inside the retainer. Month-to-month, no long-term contract.

Do you require a long-term contract for SEO?

No. SEO & GEO runs month-to-month from day one. We would rather earn the renewal with the monthly report than enforce it with a contract; if the numbers stop working, you stop.

06Start

Start with the baseline. It's free.

The 48-hour audit prices your scope against the published list: where you rank, where you show in Maps, who ChatGPT names instead of you, and the exact figure that applies to your business.

STEP 1

Free audit & AI scan: 48 hours

Your site, Google presence and AI visibility, recorded on video. Yours to keep either way.

STEP 2

Fixed-price plan

Scope and price from the published list, from $1,200/mo, before any work starts.

STEP 3

Judge the monthly report

Rankings, citations and calls against the baseline. Continue month-to-month only if the numbers earn it.

SEO & AI Search (GEO)

From $1,200/mo

Month-to-month. No long-term contract, no setup fee invented on a call. If the report stops earning its keep, you stop.

Get my free audit →