SEO Retainer Scope of Work Template

SEO retainers fail when the scope is fuzzy.

"20 hours of SEO per month" sounds clear until month 3, when the client expects content writing, the team is doing ad-hoc technical fixes, and the account manager can't explain what the 20 hours actually cover.

The problem isn't the hours — it's that retainers define capacity without defining boundaries. A good retainer scope specifies what categories of work are included, what's excluded, how unused hours are handled, and what happens when the client asks for something new.

Try the live demo →

---

Section	Purpose
Monthly allowance	Hours or deliverable units per month
Included work types	Categories of work covered (technical, on-page, content, reporting)
Excluded categories	Work types not covered — explicitly stated
Monthly deliverables	Specific outputs per month (reports, pages optimised, briefs)
Intake / request process	How the client requests work within the retainer
SLAs	Response times, turnaround expectations, escalation path
Reporting	What's reported, when, and in what format
Change requests	How out-of-scope work is handled and priced
Term & cancellation	Duration, renewal terms, notice period

---

• Monthly SEO retainer: [X] hours per month
• Term: [X] months, auto-renewing with [X] days' notice to cancel
• Start date: [Date]
• Primary contact: [Name] (agency) / [Name] (client)

Technical SEO (ongoing)

• Monthly crawl review and issue identification
• Core Web Vitals monitoring
• Indexation health checks
• Technical issue resolution (within hour allocation)

On-page optimisation

• pages optimised per month (title, meta, headings, internal links)
• Keyword performance review and re-optimisation recommendations
• New page optimisation for content published by client

Content strategy

• content briefs per month (keyword target, outline, word count)
• Content performance review (monthly)
• Content gap identification (quarterly)

Reporting & strategy

• Monthly performance report (rankings, traffic, conversions)
• Monthly check-in call (30 minutes)
• Quarterly strategy review (60 minutes, updated roadmap)

• Technical SEO monitoring and fixes
• On-page optimisation
• Content strategy and briefs
• Internal linking improvements
• Competitor monitoring
• Monthly and quarterly reporting

• Content writing and production
• Link building and outreach
• Paid search / PPC management
• Website development or redesign
• CMS migration
• Social media management
• Ad-hoc emergency response beyond [X] hours

• Hours are allocated monthly and do not roll over
• Work is tracked and reported in monthly summary
• If monthly hours are consistently exceeded, agency will propose scope adjustment
• Client may request reallocation between work types with 5 business days' notice

• Requests outside the included work types require a change request
• Change requests are scoped and priced separately
• Estimated turnaround provided within 2 business days of request
• Approved change request work does not reduce retainer hours

• Client emails responded to within 1 business day
• Deliverables completed within agreed monthly timeline
• Emergency technical issues (site down, deindexation): response within 4 business hours
• Monthly report delivered by [Xth] of the following month

• Initial term: [X] months
• Auto-renews monthly after initial term
• Cancellation: [X] days' written notice
• Rate review: annually, with 30 days' notice of changes

---

Tier	Hours	Best for	Typical deliverables
Starter	8–12 hrs/month	Small sites, maintenance mode	Monthly reporting, technical monitoring, 2–4 pages optimised
Growth	15–25 hrs/month	Active optimisation	Reporting, technical work, content briefs, 6–10 pages optimised
Scale	30–50 hrs/month	Larger sites, aggressive targets	Full scope, content strategy, competitor monitoring, strategic reviews
Enterprise	50+ hrs/month	Large or multi-site	Dedicated resource, weekly reporting, cross-team coordination

---

Retainers are where consistency matters most — you're defining boundaries that last months or years, not a one-off project.

With RuleDox:

• Select tier and work types — deliverables populate based on what's included
• Hours calculate from scope — not from memory or optimistic estimates
• Exclusions match inclusions — if content writing isn't in the retainer, the exclusion appears automatically
• Change request language is standard — every retainer includes the same process

Try the live demo →

---

Should retainer hours roll over? Generally, no. Rollover creates accounting complexity and encourages clients to "bank" hours for large requests that weren't scoped. If a client consistently underuses hours, the retainer scope should be adjusted — not the rollover policy.

How do I prevent retainer scope from expanding? Three things: explicit inclusions, explicit exclusions, and a change request process. When a client asks for something new, the first question is "is this within the included work types?" If not, it's a change request. This isn't adversarial — it's professional.

What's the minimum retainer term? 3 months is common. SEO results take time, and a 1-month retainer doesn't give enough runway to demonstrate value. 6 months is better for both sides — enough time for results, enough commitment for strategic planning.