The Core Philosophy: Budgeting for Capacity, Not Output
The traditional approach to SEO budgeting – paying for a set number of deliverables (e.g., “5 articles and 10 links”) – is becoming obsolete. This “output” model incentivizes factory-produced work that increasingly fails to perform in an era where AI Overviews capture attention upstream, and zero-click searches dominate user behavior.
A few days ago, I read an excellent Growth Memo published by Kevin Indig in November (“Budget SEO for capacity, not output”), which articulates this shift clearly and reframes the budget conversation entirely.
Capacity means buying strategic brainpower and organizational agility, aka the ability to pivot strategy instantly, whether that means optimizing for AI Overviews one month, fixing technical debt the next, or investing in digital PR to build third-party signals.
The Goal: You are not buying “stuff.” You are buying the capability to build influence across an expanding set of discovery surfaces: traditional search, AI-powered answers, LLM recommendations, and recommendation loops that may never appear in your analytics.
What Capacity Should Buy: Indig’s Seven Priority Areas
When allocating your SEO budget, Indig recommends prioritizing these capability areas rather than counting deliverables:
- Digital PR: Third-party signals drive 85% of brand visibility in LLMs. Quality over volume; hitting upper boundaries of link authority matters more than link counts.
- Technical SEO + UX: Foundational work that enables AI agents to crawl, review, and recommend your site efficiently.
- Audience + First-Party Data Research: Understanding which search surfaces your users actually use; decisions increasingly happen within AI outputs, not after the click.
- Content Operations + Re-optimizations: Content recency is non-negotiable. Evidence suggests that refreshing content every ~90 days may provide a competitive advantage.
- Additive Content with Information Gain: Net-new takes, insights, and original perspectives that add to the conversation; not regurgitated commodity content.
- Engineering + Design Support: Interactive tools and experiences that deliver value after the “validation click” is earned.
- Video and Custom Graphics: Low-fi video content and custom graphics are earning mid-output placement in AI Overviews; an underinvested visibility lever.
Your specific allocation should vary based on your audience, competitive landscape, and organizational gaps. The framework below provides practical structures for how to staff and budget for these capabilities.
A Practical Budgeting Framework by Business Size
The following framework translates capacity thinking into concrete team structures and budget ranges. These are not Indig’s prescriptions, but they represent one way to operationalize his philosophy across different organizational scales. Then, they refer to the US market; therefore, they should be localized if your business operates in another country.
A. Small Businesses & Startups
Focus: Establishing the foundation and building initial trust signals.
Option 1: The “North Star” (Consultant Only)
- Structure: Senior Consultant (Strategy) + Founder/Junior Employee (Execution)
- Role: The consultant provides strategic direction, preventing wasted spend on low-value agencies while the internal team executes.
- Budget Range: $2,500 – $5,000/month (Consultant retainer: $2k–$4k; Tools/misc.: ~$500)
B. Medium Businesses
Focus: Content velocity, technical excellence, and agility to respond to Search algorithm and AI shifts.
Option 1: The “Gold Standard” (Consultant + In-House)
- Structure: Senior Consultant + 1 In-House SEO + Freelance Technical Writer
- Role: High agility. The Consultant sets strategy and mentors on Classic & AI Search SEO shifts; the In-House SEO ensures daily execution and content freshness; the Writer creates high-value, additive content rather than commodity filler.
- Budget Range: $16,000 – $24,000/month (Consultant: $3k–$5k; In-House SEO: $10k–$12k salary+overhead; Freelance Writer: $3k–$7k)
Option 2: The “Agency Guardian” (Consultant + Agency)
- Structure: Senior Consultant + External Agency
- Role: The Consultant acts as quality control, vetting the agency’s output to ensure strategic value, not just activity metrics.
- Budget Range: $8,000 – $18,000/month (Consultant oversight: $4k–$8k; Agency execution: $4k–$10k)
C. Enterprise Businesses
Focus: Market influence, cross-functional strategy, and protection against AI-driven visibility erosion.
Option 1: The “Guardian” Model (Strategist + In-House Lead + Agency)
- Structure: Senior Strategist + In-House Project Manager + Large Agency
- Role: The Strategist prevents the agency from burning budget on low-value output and ensures alignment with capacity priorities. The In-House Lead manages day-to-day operations. The Agency provides execution muscle.
- Budget Range: $30,000 – $55,000+/month (Strategist: $3k–$7k; In-House Lead: $10k–$14k; Agency: $17k–$35k+)
Option 2: The “Catalyst” Model (Strategist + Strong In-House Team)
- Structure: Senior Strategist + Full Internal Team (Developers, Writers, SEOs)
- Role: The Strategist breaks internal silos, mentors the team on GEO/AI shifts, and advocates for resources in the boardroom, unblocking the internal team’s potential.
- Consulting Fee: $7,000 – $15,000/month
Note: This is the strategic layer only. The internal team’s operational cost (salaries, overhead) typically runs $50k–$100k/month separately.
Methodology: How These Estimates Were Calculated
These budget ranges are derived from 2024–2025 market data, adjusted to reflect capacity-based thinking rather than commodity output pricing.
Data Sources
- Salary Reports (Glassdoor/BuiltIn): The median US salary for an SEO Manager is approximately $100k. Adding ~30% for overhead (taxes, benefits) creates a “cost to company” baseline of $10k–$12k/month.
- Agency Pricing (SE Ranking 2024 Survey): 64% of agencies charge under $1,000/month, with 30% charging under $500. However, effective agencies serving mid-market clients average $3k–$10k, with enterprise contracts starting at $10k+. Monthly retainers remain the dominant model (53% preference).
- Freelance Writing Rates (AWAI): High-quality technical writing – essential for additive content with information gain – now commands $0.20–$0.50/word, supporting the higher writing budgets ($3k+) in this framework.
The Capacity Adjustment
To align with capacity-based budgeting, this framework excludes low-end outlier data (e.g., $500/month SEO packages). Such pricing typically reflects output-focused models – link packages, templated content – that fail to build the strategic capabilities Indig describes.
The Hourly Reality:
- A Senior Strategist capable of advising on Classic & AI search visibility, and scenario-based planning typically charges $150–$300/hour.
- Small Business Math: ~10–15 hours of high-level strategic guidance = $2,500–$4,500/month
- Enterprise Math: ~2–3 days/month of deep advocacy, training, and cross-functional alignment = $7,000+/month
From Output Metrics to Capability Building
The shift from output-based to capacity-based budgeting requires a different conversation with stakeholders. As Indig notes, the question is no longer “What ROI do we expect from this spend?” but rather “What capabilities do we need to earn visibility?”
This framework provides practical structures for that capability investment, whether you’re a startup needing strategic direction, a mid-market company building execution velocity, or an enterprise protecting against AI-driven visibility erosion.
The specific numbers will evolve as markets shift. The principle – investing in strategic agility rather than deliverables – will not.