Fees
No package tiers, because the work is not standard. What follows is the fee structure we use, the six things that actually move the number, and what to be suspicious of in somebody else's quote.
Structure
Almost every engagement starts with the first. What follows depends on whether you are building, defending, or both.
A one-off audit of everything indexed about you or your business, ranked by damage and by fixability, delivered as a written report with a prioritised action list. Two to three weeks. Priced as a fixed fee before we start, and it is yours to keep whether or not you continue. We do not quote a programme before this exists, because doing so means guessing.
A defined build or remediation programme with monthly reporting against agreed rank, coverage and removal targets. Billed monthly in advance against a written scope, typically over six to twelve months because that is how long search actually takes. Scope changes are re-quoted, not absorbed silently.
Monitoring, a warm crisis protocol, ongoing publication and a line answered within the hour. Lower monthly fee than a programme, with a separate activation fee if a live incident is triggered. For principals and firms whose exposure is permanent rather than episodic.
Cost drivers
Two clients with what sounds like the same problem can differ by a factor of five. These are the variables that account for it, and any firm quoting before it knows them is quoting a package.
A three-month-old forum post and a six-year-old article on a national title are not the same job. Domain authority of what you are displacing is the single largest driver.
One listing is a task. Nineteen aggregators copying one listing is a programme, and the long tail of smaller sites is where the hours go.
Where there are grounds under the PDPA, POHA or defamation, removal is faster and cheaper than displacement. Where there are not, you are buying months of construction instead.
A common name shared with a well-known person is materially harder and slower than a distinctive one, because you are competing with an established entity rather than an empty page.
Displacement requires assets to displace with. A client who already has a personal site and existing coverage starts several months ahead of one starting from nothing.
Compressing a nine-month programme into four is possible in some cases and it costs more, because it means parallel workstreams and more senior time rather than a sequence.
What is included
The person who scoped your mandate runs it. Not an account executive with a handover document.
Against agreed targets, including what failed. Removals refused are reported alongside removals granted.
Complaints, opt-outs and de-indexing requests are work, not disbursements.
Everything published is drafted by us from your material and approved by you before it goes anywhere.
Before you compare quotes
Common questions
Because a number without a scope is a guess, and we would rather quote accurately after the assessment than anchor you to a figure that turns out to be wrong in either direction. The assessment itself is a fixed fee quoted before it starts, so there is no open-ended commitment at any point.
The record assessment. It is deliberately structured so that you can stop there — a meaningful number of clients read the report, discover the problem is smaller than feared, and handle it themselves. We would rather that than a retainer nobody needed.
No. Results in this work depend on decisions made by platforms, editors and search engines that neither party controls, and contingency pricing pushes a firm toward whatever is easiest to claim credit for rather than whatever is most useful to you.
Monthly, yes. It is also a different service — a retainer maintains a position and keeps a protocol warm; a programme moves one. Most clients run a programme first and step down to a retainer once page one is where it should be.
Private enquiry
Tell us roughly what you are dealing with and we will tell you what the assessment costs and what it covers.