In short
- The measuring
- Asking questions of engines. Technically the simplest part, and the part most subscriptions are built on.
- The investigating
- From a finding to an address. This is the part deciding whether you can act on what you measured.
- The executing
- The hidden item. Often missing from the quote because the provider assumes you will do it.
Which blocks make up the bill?
The first block barely scales with the size of your company: ten questions to five engines costs the same for a sole trader as for a group. The second does scale, because a group has more markets, more languages and more sources. The third depends entirely on what you can do yourself.
That explains a pattern buyers find confusing: two quotes far apart in price can both be reasonable, because one sells the first block and the other all three. The answer is not in the amount but in which blocks are included.
Which item is almost always missing from a quote?
The hours on your side. A service delivering a monthly list of recommendations tacitly assumes someone at your end works through it. Count on at least half a day a month, and more in the first months. Without those hours you are paying for a list that sits there.
The second missing item is the listing itself: some registers and directories are free, others are not, and that differs per market and per sector. Ask about it up front, because it is a cost nobody can absorb and it only surfaces once the fix list exists.
What can I do without buying anything?
More than most providers tell you. The baseline you can take yourself by putting ten questions to three assistants; your crawler access you can check in five minutes; viewing your page without scripts costs a click. Together those cover the three interventions with the widest effect.
What that does not give you is repeatability and coverage across markets. That is precisely what a service exists for, and it is the most honest way to weigh the purchase: you are not paying for the first measurement but for the twelfth.
When does this pay for itself and when does it not?
It pays where one customer won covers the annual bill, and with services and long-consideration purchases that is almost always the case. It does not pay for low-value high-volume items where the choice is made in a shop rather than in a conversation.
What makes the calculation hard is that a mention often produces no click and therefore does not surface in your statistics. The honest measure is then not traffic but whether your name comes up on the questions your buyer starts with — and that can be counted, even with nobody clicking through.
Frequently asked questions
Why are the rates not on this page?
Because an amount that appears in four places is wrong in three the moment it changes. On this site every rate comes from one page, and the check at every build fails the whole thing as soon as an amount surfaces anywhere else. That is the same rule we point out to clients whose opening hours differ in three places.
Is a cheaper subscription a worse subscription?
Not necessarily — it is often a different product. A cheap service that measures excellently and delivers no fixes is exactly what you need if you have an editor and a developer. The same service is too expensive for anyone without those people, however low the amount.
Read on
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