Head office asks what Germany costs for a year. Not what a package contains, not what the strategy is — what the twelve-month figure is, in one line, comparable against the other five territories on the sheet. That question deserves an arithmetic answer, and it rarely gets one.
SEO proposals are unusually reluctant about price. They describe packages, bespoke scoping and effort by arrangement. What the year adds up to is seldom written anywhere, which makes the line impossible to place next to the other territories and, for an exporter, impossible to approve.
This article works four cases through completely. The prices are fixed and published: AutoSEO at 149 dollars per month per domain, FullSEO at 500 dollars per month per domain. Two add-ons are bought separately — Wikipedia placements at 10 dollars per slot in steps of 0, 1, 5 and 10, and PBN placements at 1 dollar per slot in steps of 0, 20, 100 and 500.
What separates the two tiers
The difference is not the analytics. Search Console reporting, position tracking, market analysis and the indexing tools sit in the same workspace at both tiers. The difference is how much happens automatically and where a person intervenes.
AutoSEO — the campaign runs itself
For companies that want a live campaign without allocating internal hours to it.
- Automatic keyword selection and prioritisation. The pool is assembled from Search Console, live search results and your own seed terms; every candidate is individually accepted, rejected or deferred.
- Automated link building. Placements accumulate through the partner network without each case requiring sign-off.
- Model-generated page recommendations. Suggestions about which existing page to rework or link better, made against your actual site.
- Full analytics and a live assistant. Search Console, SERP tracking and the project timeline are included rather than charged separately.
FullSEO — automation plus a team
For companies that want a say in which terms are pursued and which links are placed.
- Manual keyword selection with automatic fallback. Terms are chosen by hand; if the selection is not made, automation takes over so the campaign does not stall.
- Manual placement against a target Domain Rating. Instead of any link, a quality threshold is set and selection follows it.
- Human review mode for changes. Proposed edits pass a person before they take effect.
- A team behind the automation. Search specialists, developers and writers form part of this tier according to the provider's own description.
For a business operating at a distance from the market, this framing matters more than it does for a domestic company. Manual term selection is only worth paying for if somebody who understands German commercial vocabulary is available to make the selection. Where nobody is, the higher tier buys a control nobody exercises — and the automatic fallback quietly does the work anyway, at three and a half times the price.
One detail that price comparisons regularly miss: both tiers include the same analytical depth. The eight Search Console views, the six position-tracking views, the six views of generative market analysis and the indexing tools are not gated behind the higher tier. A company buying Case A works with exactly the same figures as one buying the maximum configuration; it simply delegates more of the decisions about what to do with them. For a business that previously had no structured reporting at all, that is the larger step — the tier above changes the working method rather than the data. Both sit in the same Semalt workspace.
The two add-ons and their fixed steps
Both add-ons are bought independently of the chosen tier and only in fixed quantities. They are the part of the invoice that grows fastest when nobody sets a limit.
| Add-on | Price per slot | Steps | Monthly at the largest step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia placements | $10 | 0 · 1 · 5 · 10 | $100 |
| PBN placements | $1 | 0 · 20 · 100 · 500 | $500 |
The steps do not move smoothly, which matters at approval time. If seven Wikipedia slots feel right, the choice is between five and ten — that is 50 or 100 dollars a month, a difference of 600 dollars across a year. Decisions like that belong in the plan before purchase rather than in a variance report afterwards.
Four cases worked through
All four are twelve-month totals in dollars, before tax and before any discount. Every figure is a straightforward multiplication and can be checked on a calculator.
| Case | Composition | Monthly | Twelve months |
|---|---|---|---|
| A · One market | AutoSEO, Germany only, no add-ons | $149 | $1,788 |
| B · Three markets | AutoSEO on three domains, no add-ons | $447 | $5,364 |
| C · Germany, reinforced | FullSEO + 5 Wikipedia slots ($50) + 100 PBN slots ($100) | $650 | $7,800 |
| D · Six markets | AutoSEO on six domains, no add-ons | $894 | $10,728 |
Two intermediate figures come up in almost every approval conversation. The tier difference alone is 500 minus 149, which is 351 dollars a month or 4,212 dollars a year — the price of having a say, with no add-ons attached. And the maximum configuration, FullSEO with ten Wikipedia slots at 100 dollars and five hundred PBN slots at 500 dollars, comes to 1,100 dollars a month and 13,200 dollars a year.
Why the per-domain structure suits exporters
Both prices apply per domain. For a company running one site per market that is unusually convenient, because it makes the territory line directly comparable — Germany costs the same as Poland at the same tier, and any difference in the sheet reflects a decision rather than a pricing quirk.
Same tier everywhere
Six markets at the entry tier: 894 dollars a month, 10,728 a year. Simple to approve, simple to compare.
- No argument about allocation
- Underinvests in the strongest market
One market reinforced
Germany at the full tier with add-ons, five others at entry: 650 plus 745, which is 1,395 a month and 16,740 a year.
- Follows where the revenue is
- Requires someone to make the selection
The second card is worth checking: five markets at 149 dollars is 745 dollars, plus 650 for Germany gives 1,395 dollars a month, and multiplied by twelve that is 16,740 dollars a year. Whether that weighting is right depends on a figure that lives in the business rather than in any tool — the share of revenue Germany actually represents.
There is a third arrangement that exporters arrive at more often than either of the two above, and it deserves naming: one market at the full tier for a year, then a decision. The reasoning is sound — use the market you understand best to learn what the tool actually produces, then apply that judgement to the others. The risk is equally clear. If the chosen market is the one where the brand is already strongest, the results will flatter the exercise and the conclusions will not transfer. Choosing the second-strongest market for the trial produces a less pleasant number and a more useful one.
Whichever arrangement is chosen, site tags make the comparison legible afterwards. A tag per territory acts as a filter across every view, so the question "which markets moved and which did not" is answered from one screen rather than six exports. That matters more in year two than in year one, when somebody has to justify continuing.
What this is being compared with
A number in isolation says little. It becomes meaningful against the alternatives the same company is genuinely weighing, and there are usually three.
| Alternative | Annual order of magnitude | What differs |
|---|---|---|
| Internal time, two hours a week | around 100 working hours | no invoice, but capacity taken from somewhere else |
| A local freelancer per market | depends on scope and country | knowledge sits with a person; tools are extra |
| Separate tool licences | several subscriptions in parallel | data lives in disconnected interfaces |
| Case A for comparison | $1,788 | analytics, campaign and indexing in one place |
The third row hides the cost that never appears on any invoice: somebody's time spent reconciling exports. With one market it is an irritation. With six it becomes a recurring half-day every month, and the resulting figures are hand-made and therefore unverifiable. A shared workspace does not perform magic here; it removes the reconciliation step, and with eleven external integrations behind a single sign-in it also removes five of the six logins.
Which tier suits which company
Rather than a recommendation, a short set of questions that can be answered honestly. In most cases they produce an unambiguous result.
- Is there someone who can spend thirty minutes a week on approvals? If not, the manual selection in the higher tier is a premium paid for a feature nobody operates.
- Does that person read German commercial vocabulary? Term selection for this market cannot be delegated to someone who cannot tell an enquiry term from a research term in that language.
- How many domains are involved? Both prices are per domain. Six markets cost six times, at any tier — Case D shows that for the entry tier.
- What is a single order worth? At an order value of a few hundred euros the campaign has to produce many enquiries. At industrial order values, one per year can carry the largest configuration.
- Can the company sustain twelve months? If the honest answer is "possibly six", the smaller tier is the correct choice — an abandoned full configuration costs more than a completed entry one.
The fourth question is decisive and asked least often. A business whose average order contributes 400 euros needs three times as many additional orders as one contributing 1,200 euros, at identical cost. Without that figure every pricing discussion is speculation, and which term groups carry which order value becomes visible during keyword research long before any return calculation.
A final consideration about risk rather than price. At the entry tier the automation decides which terms are pursued; it is sometimes wrong and it corrects itself continuously, because every cycle reassesses candidates. At the full tier a person decides, and a badly chosen term group stays badly chosen until somebody revisits it. The built-in automatic fallback cushions this but does not replace a regular review. A company that buys the higher tier and then neglects the selection has purchased a more expensive version of the lower one. The selection interface itself sits in My SEO and shows volume, current position and the origin of each recommendation next to every candidate, which makes the review a fifteen-minute task rather than an afternoon.
The same review is where local signals get decided for a foreign supplier — service area, contact details, whether a German address is claimed at all. Those choices affect which terms are winnable in the first place and are covered under local SEO.
What happens inside the twelve months
Costs begin in month one; effects do not. That asymmetry is the most common reason for early cancellation, and the most expensive, because the spending has already happened before the results start.
What you look at changes as the year progresses. In the first weeks, index coverage and the number of pages accepted are the informative figures because they respond quickly. From month two, entries and exits in the position bands become interesting. From month four, clicks and enquiries are worth reading; before that they are noise. Only towards the end of the year does a figure exist that can be put in front of a finance function. Knowing that sequence saves four months of frustrating reports built around the wrong number, and the project timeline in My SEO Stream keeps the sequence of events on record so the year can be reconstructed afterwards.
What the first month looks like
The practical side: what actually happens after a purchase. The sequence is similar at both tiers and differs mainly in the number of approvals required.
Connection and inventory
Google accounts are connected through a single consent; the existing site is inventoried.
- Search Console, Analytics and mail in one step
- First reporting after the two-day lag
Keyword pool and approvals
Candidates arrive from three sources and are decided individually.
- Accept, reject or defer
- Manual selection additionally at the full tier
Building begins
Placements start, page recommendations arrive, the timeline records each step.
- Domain Rating and donor traffic shown per link
- First movement from week four at the earliest
Reporting and control
Exports for the working level, short reports for management.
- CSV and JSON up to 10,000 rows
- PDF up to 250 rows, with your own logo
Anyone wanting to run the tiers, the add-ons and the twelve-month total against their own figures rather than a worked example will find the selection and the accompanying analytics in the workspace. The technical precondition — a site that can be indexed at all — is covered under technical SEO; without it, every tier is the wrong one.
Review tiers and add-ons in the dashboard
Frequently asked questions
Are the prices per domain or per account?
Per domain. 149 dollars a month covers one domain at the entry tier, 500 dollars covers one domain at the full tier. Six market sites therefore cost six times — 894 dollars a month and 10,728 dollars a year at the entry tier. They are still administered in one shared workspace, with site tags acting as a filter across every view.
Are the add-ons one-off or recurring?
They are bought as slot allocations: Wikipedia in steps of 0, 1, 5 and 10 at 10 dollars each, PBN in steps of 0, 20, 100 and 500 at 1 dollar each. The calculations here treat them as recurring monthly, which matches how a campaign normally runs. If you only need them for part of the year — the quarter before a trade fair, for instance — pro-rate accordingly.
Do 500 PBN slots deliver five times what 100 deliver?
No. The number describes quantity of slots, not the standard of the referring sites, and a larger step raises the chance that weaker sources are included. For most mid-sized exporters the middle step is the better starting point: enough movement to see an effect without letting the add-on dominate the invoice.
We sell into six countries. Should every market get the same tier?
Even allocation is simpler to approve and usually underinvests in the strongest market. Weighted allocation follows the revenue but requires somebody to make and defend the selection. The worked comparison above puts the even case at 10,728 dollars a year and one weighted case at 16,740 — the gap is real, and so is the difference in what each buys.
Can we switch tiers later?
Switching is a matter of purchasing. The substantive question is whether anything changes as a result. Moving up is worthwhile once somebody in the business genuinely intends to select terms and approve placements. Without that person, the move changes the invoice by 351 dollars a month and the way of working by nothing at all.
At what point does Case C at 7,800 dollars pay for itself?
That depends solely on order value and conversion rate — two numbers that live in the business rather than in the tool. For scale: at a contribution of 2,000 dollars per order, four additional orders in the year cover it. Whether four is realistic cannot be committed to in advance, which is why the smaller tier is the safer decision when in doubt.
