One price. One proposal.

No tiers, no rush fee, no per-page charge, and no call at the end where something else gets sold to you. I don't sell SEO, so there is nothing else to sell. The same price covers an SEO proposal, a GEO or AI-search proposal, or one that mixes both.

I audit English and Chinese proposals, including cross-border deals.

Check my proposal before I sign See how the audit works
  • Flat $199, paid once
  • Report within 24 business hours or a full refund
  • Full refund if you never send the proposal
  • I don't sell SEO

24 business hours count Monday to Friday only, not US federal holidays.

$199

Flat, USD, paid once. Covers one proposal from start to finish.

Report within 24 business hours of receiving your proposal.

$199 is a small price to pay to protect a year of your time.

A bad SEO contract costs more than the monthly fee. You wait months for results that never come. A minimum term keeps you paying while you find out. The money you prepaid does not come back. I read the proposal before you sign, while you can still change the terms or walk away.

The $3,209/month figure is the Ahrefs agency average, used for scale, not a quote.

The audit

$199

Paid once. No renewal, no term, nothing recurring.

A 12-month retainer at the Ahrefs agency average of $3,209/mo

$38,508

The number that matters is the total, not the monthly figure the proposal leads with.

Time to see first signs

1-3 months

In my experience, first signs show in about 1 to 3 months, and by about 4 to 6 months you should know which way it's going. It depends heavily on your niche. Under a minimum term, those months are prepaid.

At the Ahrefs average, the audit costs about half of one percent of the commitment it checks. It can't promise results, and neither can anyone else. What it can do, even when the verdict is Fair, is catch a long minimum term, an auto-renewal, or a clause that leaves the agency owning your content. The right proposal can save you a lot of money and put your budget into work that brings in leads and revenue sooner.

Real retainers vary widely, and the average cost of SEO for a small business only means something once you know how many hours it buys. A site audit is a different purchase: SEO audit pricing runs from free tools to thousands of dollars at an agency.

Illustrative figures, not a forecast for your business.

Everything in the report. Nothing sold after it.

What you get

  • Your verdict, a 0-100 risk score and the top 3 issues, all on page one
  • A ready-to-send email to the agency with the key points to push back on
  • A check against all 18 red flags, including what the proposal leaves out
  • Five more AI-search flags when the proposal sells GEO, AEO or "AI visibility", as a line item or as the whole proposal
  • A price sanity check against comparable scopes and how SEO agencies price their work, or against local SEO pricing when the quote is for a local business
  • A review of your live website against the plan, and of whether its timeline fits how long SEO should take to work
  • Up to three of the agency's case studies checked against public evidence, each rated verified, plausible but unverifiable, or doubtful
  • A short read of the agency's public reviews: consistent, mixed or concerning, with the evidence
  • The report as a PDF, within 24 business hours of receiving your proposal
  • Seven days of follow-up questions by email, at no charge
  • One free re-audit if the agency revises the proposal: same agency, same engagement, within 7 days of your report. No late-delivery refund and no cash value
  • Comparing two agencies? Two proposals are two audits, and I compare them side by side
  • One proposal, in English or Chinese, as files or a pasted email thread

What you do not get

  • Doing the SEO work. I don't sell it, at any price.
  • Referral fees. If you want a specific type of SEO help, I can refer you to someone, but nobody pays me for it.
  • Audits for agencies. I work for buyers only, so an agency cannot buy an audit of its own proposal.
  • Legal review of the contract. This is a commercial opinion, not counsel.
  • A full technical site audit. The site check exists to test the proposal, not to replace an audit.
  • Negotiating with the agency on your behalf. You get the script; you send it.
  • Ongoing monitoring once you sign.
  • A private investigation of the agency. Case studies and reviews are checked against public evidence only, inside the 24 business hours.

The refund rules fit in three lines.

You paid but never sent the proposal
Full refund, any time before you submit the intake form with your proposal. Changed your mind, found the answer elsewhere, or the agency withdrew the offer: same outcome, no questions.
If the report is late
Full refund if the report is not delivered within 24 business hours of receiving your proposal (Monday to Friday, not US federal holidays). You keep the report.
After the report arrives
No refund. The report is final once delivered: disagreeing with the verdict, changing your mind, or what you decide afterward are not grounds for a refund. If I misread the proposal, I correct the report free within the 7-day follow-up window. The free re-audit of a revised proposal has no cash value.

Full terms on the refund policy page.

Before you sign, get it read by someone with nothing to sell

A flat $199. One proposal, read line by line. A written verdict within 24 business hours.

Check my proposal before I sign