Blog / The cost of Shopify SEO
The cost of Shopify SEO
January 16, 2026
We are open about our pricing. For a Shopify store with a large product catalogue and a turnover of £5 million plus, our fees for the initial phase of an engagement - which typically spans six months - range between £4,000 and £10,000 per month..
These figures are the most honest starting point for a conversation about the scale of work required. For brands at this scale, this isn't just a marketing retainer; it is a foundational investment in the systems that determine how your products are surfaced and understood across SEO, PPC, and AI discovery.
Expert judgment at scale
Our model is built specifically to address why standard campaigns usually fail for large Shopify stores. Unlike agencies that operate on a pyramid model - where a senior strategist sells the deal but the execution is delegated to a junior hire - we do not have any juniors on the team.
When a Shopify store reaches a certain level of complexity, a small mistake in the data or site structure can have a significant impact on revenue. We believe those environments require people with enough experience to understand the nuances of the platform before they start making changes. You are paying for specialists who apply qualitative judgment to your data and code to ensure the results are durable.
Why the cost varies
The price of the project depends on how much work is needed to fix and build your store's foundations.
・ Custom engineering. Complex sites require custom engineered solutions rather than superficial metadata tweaks. This often requires our developers to overhaul templates and build custom modules to add the specific functionality needed for advanced discovery.
・ Legacy architecture. Untangling issues from previous builds, theme updates, or migrations requires more intensive auditing and coordination with third parties.
・ Headless complexity. Decoupling the front end adds significant risk and the need for additional engineering resources, which often moves a project beyond our standard scope.
Catalogue scale and taxonomy
The size of your catalogue and the current state of your site architecture dictate the manual hours needed for our core work.
・ Taxonomy development. Building a logical taxonomy for thousands of products and mapping keywords at scale is a manual task that cannot be replaced by automated tools.
・ Catalogue volume. A high volume of collections and products increases the manual hours needed for mapping and technical on-page changes.
・ Content depth. The depth of information required for individual product and collection pages adds significant complexity to the optimisation process.
Product data quality
How your product data is managed is a major factor in how we scope a project.
・ System integration. How your PIM connects to Shopify defines the data structure we have to work with. There may be engineering work needed to fix the sync logic, or it may be a human operation to identify the data gaps and fill them.
・ Data remediation. If you have inconsistent data from multiple sources, it requires manual cleanup to ensure Shopify functions as a reliable "point of truth".
The capital outlay period
You should expect to pay us for four to six months before the revenue graph begins to move. Mature businesses rarely see meaningful results from simple metadata updates. You are paying for the technical depth required to ensure that every structural change interacts correctly with your existing setup.
Evaluating the alternatives
Picking an SEO partner means weighing the cost against the technical risks of your business. Cheap options or junior hires look good on a spreadsheet, but they often lack the engineering background to handle a complex Shopify store without breaking the underlying data.
| Alternative | Typical Cost | The Reality |
|---|---|---|
| In-house junior | ~£25k + benefits | Often generalists who lack the experience required for complex data restructuring. |
| Low-cost agency | £1k - £2k/mo | Focuses on surface level changes while the underlying architecture remains broken. |
| Blink SEO | £5k - £10k/mo | A specialised engineering team focused on building durable merchandising infrastructure. |
| High-end generalist | £6k+/mo | Usually a "black box" process that lacks Shopify specific technical depth. |
The open kitchen approach
We believe honesty about project difficulty protects your budget better than blind optimism. We maintain an active Project Risk Register for every client to mitigate issues before they impact revenue.
| Risk Identifier | Description of Risk | Mitigation Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| TR-04: Hard-coded content | Static text in Liquid files prevents programmatic updates. | Component Refactoring: Converting static blocks to dynamic Metafields. |
| TR-05: Template fragmentation | Multiple distinct templates multiply deployment time. | We consolidate variations into a master template or scope additional hours. |
| SC-01: International expansion | New markets require separate architectural scoping. | "Separate Project" Protocol: International expansion is scoped separately. |
The bottom line
We work in an industry where trust is in short supply. We believe in radical transparency - not just about what we charge, but why we charge it. We have been doing this for a long time and have learned all of these lessons the hard way, so you don't have to.
We invest a huge amount of time and energy into every project to make it a success. However, success can only happen when the parameters are correct. That is the principle that drives all of our pricing and scoping.
