What Therapist SEO Costs in 2026 (Honest Breakdown)

Most SEO providers charge a monthly retainer, and the most common one is $501 to $1,000 a month, according to a survey of 439 SEO providers by Ahrefs. A solo therapy practice can usually spend less than that: most of the groundwork is done once, and in our experience the monthly work after it is smaller.

Below: what drives the price, what you get from doing it yourself, a freelancer or an agency, and what we charge.

What drives the price

Three things set most of the price.

What is done once and what is done every month. Setting up your Google Business Profile, fixing how your site is built and writing your main service pages is a one-time job. The monthly work is new pages, keeping your details current and checking what is working. A retainer that bills the same setup work every month has you paying for it twice.

How many practices compete for your searches. A trauma therapist in a large city competes with more practices than a couples therapist in a small town, so it takes more pages and more months to show up.

How many clinicians and offices you have. A group practice with three offices needs a Google profile and a page for each one, so it costs more than a solo practice with one office.

Doing it yourself, a freelancer or an agency

Doing it yourself

The tools are free. A Google Business Profile costs nothing, and so does Google Search Console, which shows the searches that bring people to your site. The cost is your time: every hour on this is an hour you are not seeing clients. If you want to start yourself, we wrote down the five steps, in order.

A freelancer

Freelancers averaged about $1,349 a month in the Ahrefs survey. A freelancer is often the right size for a solo practice. Ask who does the work, and what you get each month.

An agency

Agencies averaged $3,209 a month in the same survey. That pays for a team of writers, a project manager and reporting. A group practice with several clinicians may need that. A solo practice usually does not.

Website platforms for therapists

Some website builders for therapists sell marketing with the site. Brighter Vision, for example, lists its website plans at $99 to $349 a month, and lists search work only on its custom plan, priced on request (their pricing page). Check what a bundle actually includes before you count it as SEO.

What each option gets you

• Doing it yourself: a complete Google profile, a site Google can read, and a few pages about what you treat. That is enough to start showing up for your name and some searches in your city.
• A one-time build: the same groundwork done for you, in a set time, with nothing missed.
• A monthly retainer: new pages for the searches you do not show up for yet, your details kept current everywhere, and a report on what changed.

What we charge

For a solo practice, the Foundation is $1,500 once, done over 90 days: your Google Business Profile, your site's structure, three to five pages about the kinds of therapy you offer, and a starting report. After that, the Visibility Retainer is $350 a month at our founding rate ($500 for new clients later), with no minimum term. Group practices get a quote within 2 business days. Everything is on the pricing page, and SEO for private practice therapists explains what the work covers.

Is it worth it?

Work it out with your own numbers. Multiply your session fee by the number of sessions a typical client has with you. That is what one new client is worth to your practice.

For example, at $150 a session, a client you see weekly for 20 sessions brings in $3,000. The first year with us costs $4,650: the Foundation, then nine months of the retainer. At those numbers, two new clients cover it.

Judge it over a year, not a month. In our experience, new pages take months to start bringing inquiries, and the ones that work keep bringing them.

What to watch out for

Guaranteed rankings. Google's own advice: "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." (Google Search Central)

Long contracts. SEO takes time, but a provider who is confident in the work does not need to lock you in for a year. Month to month is a fair thing to ask for.

Work you cannot see. Ask for a list of every change made to your site. Google suggests asking any SEO provider whether they will share the changes they make.

No experience with therapists. Therapy websites have rules other businesses do not, for example around testimonials. Ask what work they have done for practices like yours.

Frequently asked questions