Pricing

The price is
on the page.

Most agencies make you book a call to find out what they charge. Here are the numbers, the limits, and the two things I won't do for you.

The short version

What does local SEO and a website cost in Metro Detroit?

Quick answer

The website costs nothing to build. The ongoing work is $750 a month, month to month. The first three clients pay $250 a month, locked for twelve months. Buying the files outright is a one-time $2,000 and is never required.

  • Website build $0
  • Deposit $0
  • Standard monthly $750 / mo
  • Founding rate, first 3 clients $250 / mo
  • Buy the files outright, any time $2,000 once
  • Ad spend managed None

Plans

What it costs.

Founding client

First three shops

$250

Per month · locked 12 months · $0 to build

Identical work to the standard rate. The difference is the price, the twelve-month commitment, and that there are three of them.

  • Everything in the standard rate
  • Rate locked for 12 months
  • You give a testimonial
  • You let me publish what the work did
  • No deposit, no setup fee
Ask about a founding spot

Standard

The monthly

$750

Per month · month to month · $0 to build

The website is built at no cost, then the monthly buys the work that actually moves you: the profile, the pages, the maintenance.

  • Custom website, built at no charge
  • Hosting, domain management, SSL
  • Google Business Profile managed
  • Service pages kept current, not left to rot
  • Two update requests a month
  • Monthly report of what moved
  • Cancel any time
Start a project

Buyout

Take the files

$2,000

One time · any point · optional

If you would rather own the site than rent the relationship, buy it. This is on the page because you should not have to ask for it.

  • Every file, yours to host anywhere
  • Available on day one or year three
  • No penalty, no clawback
  • Monthly work stops unless you continue it
Ask about the buyout

The obvious question

Why $750, when Detroit agencies start at $1,500?

One person does the work and talks to you directly. That's the whole overhead — no ad budget to manage, no account manager, no office, no sales team. An agency charging $1,500 is paying for all of those and passing them on.

That's the whole mechanism. Worth being blunt about — a low number with no explanation reads like a corner being cut, and the corner is usually the client's.

Published 2026 rates from other agencies and pricing guides, checked 4 August 2026. The Detroit range is a figure published by a Detroit agency describing its own market. Website build is not included in any row but the last.
What you are buying Typical published rate
Tools only, you do the work $0 – $300 / mo
Google Business Profile managed, no website $125 – $400 / mo + ~$499 setup
Detroit agency starting rates $500 – $1,500 / mo
Boutique local SEO, plumbing or HVAC $1,500 – $5,000 / mo
Small-business AI answer optimization $1,500 – $5,000 / mo
Vinsetta Studio, website included $750 / mo, $0 to build

One more piece of arithmetic worth doing before you talk to anyone, including me. Take your average job value. If a furnace replacement or a sewer line clears $750, the monthly pays for itself the first time one extra customer finds you. If your average ticket is $95, it does not, and you should not be buying this from anybody at these rates.

Every month

What am I actually paying for?

Kept current

Your service pages

Built once, properly — written as the question a customer asks, with real numbers, real standards, and answers that include a no. After that they're maintained, not rewritten. Your services and your territory don't change every month. Prices move, seasons turn, you add a service, customers start asking something new. That's what the monthly is for.

Weekly

Google Business Profile

Categories and service areas kept correct. Posts, photos, questions answered. Review responses drafted for you. Most shops leave this half-built — it's the fastest thing on this list to move.

Included

The website, hosted and repaired

Hosting, SSL, domain management, and a site that loads in under a second on a phone in a parking lot. Two update requests a month — no rollover. Accessibility defects fixed, not covered with a widget.

Monthly

A report you can argue with

What was done, what moved, and what didn't. Positions recorded from a fixed neutral point — not your own phone, which always flatters you because you're standing in your own shop.

Included

The AI answer file

A maintained /llms.txt and structured data describing your services, prices, and service area in the format language models read. Table stakes, not magic — and it belongs in the price, not in an upsell.

When live

Missed-call text back

Automation is a feature of the retainer, not a line on the invoice — and it's not sold before it's switched on for you. When it runs, a missed call gets a text inside a minute. Until it runs for your shop, it's not part of what you're paying for.

How it works

How do the first ninety days go?

Four steps. You approve each one before the next starts.

01

Week one — the read

Your position recorded from a fixed point away from your shop, your profile audited against the categories your competitors use, your current site checked for the defects that cost you customers. You get the findings whether or not you hire me.

02

Weeks two to four — the build

The website, at no cost. Designed around how your shop actually runs, built to load in under a second, and structured so search engines and language models can read what you do and where you do it.

03

Weeks four to six — the profile

Google Business Profile rebuilt: categories, service areas, services priced where it helps, photos, posts, and a review response habit that doesn't sound like a robot wrote it.

04

Month two onward — keeping it true

The service pages ship with the build, starting with the job you most want more of. From there the work is watching what moves and keeping the pages honest as prices, seasons and services change. This is the part that reaches the towns you serve but are not located in, and it is the part that compounds.

Straight talk

Who is this not for?

A page that only says yes is a sales page. Four situations where the honest answer is that you should spend your money elsewhere.

  • You need leads this week. Organic search and AI citations are a three-to-six month program. If the phone has to ring by Friday, that is a paid-ads problem, and paid ads are not what I do. Hire someone who specialises in them and come back later, or don't.
  • Your average job is under $750. The arithmetic above stops working. At a low ticket you need volume, and volume at that price point usually means ads or a marketplace, not a service page.
  • You want someone to guarantee position one. I will not put that in writing because nobody controls it. If a competing pitch does guarantee it, that is the most useful thing you will learn about them.
  • You want an accessibility overlay widget. The one-line script that promises instant compliance does not deliver it, and it has been the basis of lawsuits against the businesses that installed it. Accessibility work here means fixing the underlying page, which is slower and actually holds up.

Common questions

Straight answers.

How much does local SEO cost in Metro Detroit?

$750 a month, and $0 to build the website. No deposit, no setup fee. The first 3 clients pay a founding rate of $250 a month locked for 12 months. Buying the site files outright is a one-time $2,000 and is never required. For comparison: Detroit agencies publish starting rates of $500 to $1,500 a month, Google Business Profile management sold on its own runs $125 to $400 a month plus a setup fee near $499, and 2026 pricing guides put boutique local SEO for a plumbing or HVAC company at $1,500 to $5,000 a month.

Is the free website really free?

Yes. The build is $0 with no deposit and no setup fee, and it is paid for through the monthly rate, which is why the monthly exists. If you cancel, the hosted site goes offline after a 14-day grace period unless you buy the files for $2,000. Your domain, your content, your Google Business Profile and your reviews are yours from day 1 and stay yours either way.

Can an SEO company guarantee a #1 ranking on Google?

No. Google's own documentation states, “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google,” and warns you to “beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a ‘special relationship’ with Google, or advertise a ‘priority submit’ to Google.” No guarantee of position is offered here. What is committed instead is 1 named piece of work every month and a report showing what moved and what did not, including the months when nothing did.

Do you run Google Ads or Local Services Ads?

No. No ad budget is managed here and 0% of ad spend is charged, because there is no ad spend. All work is organic: the Google Business Profile, the website, and service pages written to be quoted inside AI answers. Local Services Ads in particular require Google screening, license and insurance verification, and an address Google can confirm, which is a different job from this one. If paid media is what you need, hire someone whose whole practice is paid media.

How long does local SEO take to work?

Google Business Profile edits usually appear within days. Map pack movement typically takes 1 to 3 months. Organic rankings and citations inside AI answers are a 3 to 6 month program, because they depend on pages that have to be written, indexed and then trusted. Anyone quoting a faster number for organic search is guessing.

Why does my business show up on Google Maps in my own town but not the next one?

Because the Google map pack is weighted heavily toward physical proximity. A shop in Warren is structurally disadvantaged for a search made about 8 miles away in Royal Oak, and no amount of profile work moves the building. Organic results and citations inside AI answers are decided by what the page says instead, which is why a well-built service page can reach a town you serve but are not located in. For a business covering 10 or 20 towns from 1 address, that gap is most of the market.

How much of my time is this going to take?

About 45 minutes at the start, then roughly 15 minutes a month. The first call is you talking about the work while I take notes, plus a walk round the shop with a phone camera. After that you look at what I drafted, tell me what is wrong, and get back to work. You will not be writing anything. The trade knowledge has to come out of your head, but getting it out is my job, not homework I hand you.

Who actually does the work?

Matt Garvin, and only Matt Garvin. There is no account manager between you and the person building the thing, no junior taking over once the contract is signed, and no sales team. 20+ years building digital products, including work for NASA and Fortune 500 companies, and a master's in UX and Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan School of Information. The absence of that overhead is the reason $750 works at all.

How many changes can I request each month?

2 update requests a month, and they do not roll over. A request is a content change: new hours, a new photo set, a price update, a seasonal banner. Updates usually take 2 to 3 business days. New pages, new integrations and redesigns are quoted separately. The limit exists so the monthly rate stays honest rather than becoming a queue nobody can clear.

What if I already have a website?

Then it gets kept and repaired rather than replaced, and the monthly rate does not change. The test is concrete: if it loads in under 2 seconds on a phone, passes a WCAG 2.2 AA check, and can be edited without a developer, rebuilding it is wasted money and the work goes into the Google Business Profile and the service pages instead. If it fails those, the rebuild costs $0 anyway.

Do you work outside Metro Detroit?

Yes. The studio is in Royal Oak and the core service area is 3 counties, Oakland, Macomb and Wayne, covering Ferndale, Berkley, Madison Heights, Clawson, Troy, Birmingham, Warren, Sterling Heights and Southfield. Work also runs remotely to Ann Arbor, Lansing, Flint and Grand Rapids. Delivery is remote either way: 1 call and a screen share.

Why is the $250 founding rate available at all?

Because the studio is new and has no published client results yet, and fixing that is worth more than the $500 a month difference. The first 3 clients get identical work for $250 a month, locked for 12 months, in exchange for a testimonial and permission to publish what the work did. After those 3, the rate is $750. The price does not quietly drop again later for whoever pushes hardest.

Is there a contract?

The standard $750 rate is month to month and can be cancelled at any time, effective at the end of the billing period. The $250 founding rate is a 12-month commitment, which is what pays for a website built with no fee up front. Neither carries a cancellation penalty beyond finishing the term you agreed to. Full terms are on the terms page.

Prices last reviewed 4 August 2026

Not sure it is worth it?

Tell me the trade and the town. You get the read either way — where you place from a neutral point, what the profile is missing, and whether any of this is worth $250 to you.

Let's talk