In a recent thread at Cr8 I gave some rough averages of incoming bid requests I received:

• 80% has a annual budget less than 1,000US$
• 10% has an monthly budget of 100-400US$
• 9% has an annual budget larger than 5,000US$
• 1% has an annual budget larger than 10,000US$

(These may be bit different compared to most SEOMoz readers, because SEO prices in US and globally are very different; and I do receive a fair share of requests outside US).

In US SEO consultation prices vary from approx. US$20/h (non-professionals) to US$100/h (semi-pro's) up to US$500/h (high-paying professionals) per hour. Then there are SEO packages that vary from US$49.95 (total bogus, but they do promise to rank #1 for any keyword) to US$2,500 (a basic SEO package) up to US$5-10,000 a month (professional packages).

With prices like these it is pretty obvious that 80% of SEO seekers have very little to choose. They could either purchase few hours of quality consultation or waste their marketing budget by trying bogus SEO packages. What is pretty clear that with current SEO services pricing demand and supply don’t meet each other extremely well, and I am surprised how little focus this issue has received amongst SEO community.

Would it be possible someday to provide quality SEO for US$500? Initially when I began thinking this issue few weeks ago I had very large doubts, but now I think it could be done. I admit that the solution would be very different compared to standard SEO, but would it matter if it delivered the goods?