Profitability software for SEO agencies
In SEO the smallest retainers are usually the expensive ones. Verbial compares what each client contracted against what your team actually cost to serve them, so the $2,500 account absorbing twelve hours a month shows up as the margin problem it is, months before the renewal conversation.
The problem
Deliverable pricing hides how much labor each SEO retainer actually consumes.
A $2,500 account at twelve hours a month is under $210 an hour before the account manager's time is counted at all. Nobody does that sum during a busy quarter.
A migration lands mid-retainer, the team does it because the client needs it, and the month's margin leaves with it. It never appears as anything but a heavier timesheet.
Ten articles at 800 words and ten at 2,500 are the same line on the contract and nothing like the same cost. The same is true of a local citation cleanup and a digital PR placement.
How it works here
How SEO agencies set profitability up
- Loaded cost per role
- Fully loaded payroll rather than hours times a billable rate, so non-billable time and the cost of carrying a specialist are both in the number.
- Contracted revenue per client
- What the retainer actually commits, month by month, set against the cost of serving it. Overages and pass-through sit separately so they cannot flatter the margin.
- Split by workstream
- The same departments the hours pace against, so you can see whether it is technical, content or digital PR that turns a healthy-looking account thin.
Margin per client, current today rather than rebuilt next quarter, with the evidence to re-price the small retainers at renewal.
Common questions
How is SEO client profitability actually calculated?
Contracted revenue for the client against the fully loaded cost of the people who worked on them, using approved hours. Not hours times a billable rate, which counts over-servicing as though it were revenue.
Can we see which workstream is losing money?
Yes. Cost splits by the same departments the hours pace against, so a retainer that looks healthy overall can still show technical running at a loss inside it.
When do we find out a retainer is underwater?
While the month is running. Margin updates as approved hours land, rather than arriving six weeks after the month closes when nothing can be done about it.
What do we take into a renewal conversation?
How much work the account received against what it contracted, by workstream. Re-pricing from a record of delivered hours is a different conversation from asking for a raise.
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