White label SEO pricing: how firms charge an agency, and what to mark up

White label SEO pricing has two layers: what a partner firm charges you, and what you charge your client on top. On the pages we read, a white label firm charges by the client, a managed SEO firm charges by the plan, and our own team charges by how many tasks run at once. Your markup has to pay for your own hours, the work the partner's fee leaves out, and your profit.

We don't give a market rate. We show two firms' own prices. Our own plan prices sit beside them.

How much should you mark up white label SEO services?

Mark it up by enough to cover every cost the partner's fee doesn't, plus the profit you want. We don't give a usual markup. Build yours from its parts.

Your price has six parts. The first is the partner's fee, and the other five are your markup:

• The partner's fee. It's the base of the sum. Use the real fee for the plan you'd buy, from the firm's own page or its quote.
• Your hours on the account. Writing tasks, checking the work, client calls and email, and the monthly report if you build it or send it.
• Work the fee leaves out. Anything you sell the client that the partner's plan doesn't hold. You'll do it yourself or buy it somewhere else.
• Tools. Any data tool or report tool you pay for to serve the client.
• A cushion. Work that gets redone, a client who pays late, a month with more calls than you planned.
• Your profit. What you want left after the first five.

Add the first five for one client for one month. That's your cost. Your price is that cost plus the sixth part.

Work in dollars first. A percent is quick to quote, and it can hide which of the six parts you skipped. Once the dollars add up, turn them into a percent if you like.

The markup is one half of a bigger sum. For what to count in your margin, see SEO agency profit margin.

How do you charge for SEO when a white label firm bills you by the client?

Treat the partner's fee for each client as the floor under that account, add your own parts for that client, and quote one monthly price. A fee that comes once for each client lets you run the sum one account at a time.

Here's one white label firm that bills by the client, with two other ways of billing beside it. Each row says what the price buys, because the three don't buy the same work.

Each of these is one firm's own price, and none of them is a market price. A few notes help you read the table:

• 51 Blocks aims this offer at large agencies. It's sold through Whitelabelseo.io, a second brand of the same firm.
• On that brand's page, the done-for-you SEO work is paired with "a DIY reporting platform". DIY is short for do it yourself. Who builds each client's report isn't stated, so our estimate is that the agency builds and sends its own.
• The HOTH's prices are here because one of the top pages we read for this site names it among white label partners. Its page describes the service as fully managed SEO, and we stick to that name.
• Starter is the lowest plan The HOTH's page shows. The page doesn't say whether one plan covers one client.
• Our three plans differ in one way: how many tasks run at the same time.

When the partner bills by the client, the sum for one account is short:

1. Start with the partner's fee for that client.
2. Add the cost of your own hours on that client.
3. Add anything you sell that client that the fee leaves out.
4. Add that client's share of your tools.
5. Add your cushion and your profit.
6. Quote the total as one monthly price.

Report time belongs in the second line when the partner gives you a platform and you build the reports yourself. Our cost page works that time into a monthly figure for each of four ways to get reports out. See What does each choice cost a California agency each month?.

Ask two things before you count on a fee for each client. What do you pay in a month when your client count is under the minimum? And how much notice do you get before the fee goes up?

A plan fee or a team fee may not come one for each client. If one fee serves several of your clients, spread it across them first, then run the same six lines. Run them again each time you add or lose a client.

The table gives each price and one line on what it buys. To find out what sits inside a reseller plan, see SEO reseller services.

How do you price SEO services in a contract when a partner does the work?

Write one monthly price for a named list of work, and say what that price leaves out. Your client buys SEO from you, so the contract shows your price and your list.

Six lines carry the price in a contract:

1. What's in the price. List each service by name.
2. What isn't. Name the work a client might expect and you don't sell.
3. The price and the due date. One monthly figure, and the day it's due.
4. What happens when the work grows. A new set of pages, a new location or an extra report each get a price or a way to quote one.
5. When the price can change. Say how much notice you'll give.
6. How either side ends it. Say the notice and what's owed for the last month.

Then set your client contract beside your agreement with the partner and read them as a pair. Look for three things:

• Length. If your client's price is fixed for a year and the partner can raise its fee next month, the gap comes out of your pocket.
• Notice. If you owe the client more notice than the partner owes you, you carry the gap in between.
• Scope. Every service in your client's list is either in the partner's plan or on your own to-do list.

The price is one part of the contract, and the other parts lean on it. For what each part of the contract says, see the parts of an SEO contract.

If you sell SEO next to other services, one agreement may cover them all. For one contract for more than SEO, see marketing agency contract templates.