If you are asking whether ¥50,000–¥100,000 a month can buy SEO or website operations, this article works out how many hours of work that fee can buy, and what to confirm before you sign.
The amounts in the worked examples are for the arithmetic only; they are neither market rates nor my price. Rates vary widely with conditions, so here is a formula you can apply to any quote instead.
Three ideas carry the decision:
- A monthly fee buys working hours, not results
- If most of those hours go to meetings and reports, the site does not change
- Accounts and data should stay with your company after the contract ends
The first decision, whether to invest in SEO at all and where to begin, belongs to SEO priorities for small businesses. This article is about the specification once you have decided on an ongoing contract.
Convert the monthly fee into hours
When you read a quote, turn the fee into time.
Monthly working hours = (monthly fee − tool costs and other expenses) ÷ cost per hour
Implementation hours = monthly working hours − regular meeting − report writing − research
A vendor may decline to tell you their hourly rate. If so, ask "What is the monthly cap on hours?" You get the same information.
Hypothetical example: consumption tax and expenses are ignored. The hourly costs are figures chosen for the arithmetic, not market rates. Assume four hours a month go to a one-hour regular meeting, two hours of report writing and one hour of research.
| Monthly fee | Assumed cost per hour | Monthly hours | Implementation hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¥50,000 | ¥10,000 | 5 hours | 1 hour |
| ¥50,000 | ¥20,000 | 2.5 hours | None (meetings and reports alone exceed it) |
| ¥100,000 | ¥10,000 | 10 hours | 6 hours |
| ¥100,000 | ¥20,000 | 5 hours | 1 hour |
For the same monthly fee, implementation time ranges from zero to six hours.
Plug in a real rate and it looks like this. My own base rate is ¥7,000 an hour (excluding tax), with scope and price fixed in writing before work starts (pricing page). At that rate, ¥50,000 a month buys about 7 hours; spend the same 4 hours on the meeting, report and research as in the example above, and about 3 hours are left for implementation.
What fits into that time?
Hypothetical example: the times below are one way I allow for work when estimating, not statistics. Site structure and review effort can change them by a factor of two or more.
| Task | Assumed time | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Review the title and description of one page | 0.5–1 hour | Only pages with impressions in Search Console |
| Edit the wording of the contact page and test it | 1–2 hours | The CMS (the site's editing screen) allows it |
| Set up and test one redirect (forwarding an old URL to a new one) | 0.5–1 hour | You have server or CMS settings access |
| Add and verify one tracking event | 2–4 hours | Access to GA4 and the tag manager |
| Rewrite one service page | 3–6 hours | You can supply the facts and examples |
| One new article, including interviews and fact-checking | 6–12 hours | Grows with specialist content |
With one hour left, you may fit a few title fixes. With six hours, you can move one service page or a handful of small fixes. Add a new article every month and other work stops. If a proposal says "articles every month are included", ask how many hours each takes, who writes it and who checks the facts. That shows whether the low price comes from short hours or something else.
Unsure what a monthly contract should cover?
Set a monthly cap on hours, then keep checking, fixing and measuring
Do you need a monthly contract at all?
Google's page on hiring an SEO says that owners of small local businesses can probably do much of the work themselves. Check what you can handle in-house before you outsource.
A monthly contract is sometimes the wrong shape:
| Situation | Better approach |
|---|---|
| Few pages, and you would run out of things to change | A one-off review, then fix what it finds |
| Search Console or GA4 is not set up, so effects cannot be measured | Sort out measurement first |
| Enquiries arrive but do not turn into orders | Look at the sales process before the site |
| Someone in-house can update the site and has time | Do it in-house and bring in a third party a few times a year |
An ongoing contract suits companies with real improvements to make and nobody, or not enough people, to make them. For measurement, see how to see your traffic and enquiries with Search Console and GA4.
Reports only versus implementation included
Monthly contracts fall into two broad types. Neither is better; it depends on whether someone in-house can act.
| Aspect | Reports and advice only | Implementation included |
|---|---|---|
| What you buy | Analysis and recommendations | Analysis, recommendations and agreed fixes |
| People you need | Someone with time to carry it out | Someone to review and approve |
| How it usually stalls | Recommendations are not carried out | Waiting for approval |
| Access needed | Can start with read-only | Editing access to the CMS or server |
| What you receive each month | Recommendations and priorities | A change log and test results |
| Number to check | Recommendations published | Changes published and hours used |
When I look at an existing arrangement, the first thing I check is not how long the report is but how many recommendations were published by the following month. If three months of recommendations are sitting unused, that is a problem with who does the work, not with the report. Carrying on simply adds cost.
With implementation included, editing access means you need clear lines of responsibility: which work needs prior confirmation, who presses publish, and how a problem gets undone. Handing over access with those unanswered is risky.
Decide what you receive each month
Google suggests asking whether a vendor will tell you about all the changes they make to your site and give detailed information about their recommendations and the reasons behind them. The items below let you follow the history even when the person changes.
[Sample monthly report format]
1. Hours this month: ○ used of a ○-hour cap
2. Changes published: date / URL / change / reason / how verified
3. Unfinished work and why
4. Changes in numbers: Search Console and GA4 (state the period and conditions)
5. Next month: up to 3 items, with priorities
6. Decisions or material needed from your side
Item 2, the change record, matters most. When rankings or enquiries move, this record is the only way to narrow down possible causes. A report that lists only rankings cannot tell you what was actually done.
Contract terms to confirm
Quasi-mandate or contract for work
Japanese contracts usually distinguish between promising a finished result and promising the provision of work, and the two ask different things of the buyer.
| Type | Position in the Civil Code | Typical part of a retainer |
|---|---|---|
| Contract for work (請負) | Pay for "completing a piece of work" (Article 632) | One article or page delivered as a finished item |
| Quasi-mandate (準委任) | Entrusting non-legal affairs (Article 656 applies the mandate rules); the provider owes the care of a good manager (Article 644) | Monthly analysis, recommendations and ongoing fixes |
Ongoing operations are often contracted as provision of work, in which case hitting a ranking or enquiry count is not a condition of payment. You can also make only the deliverable-based part a contract for work. The contract title alone may not settle it, so check the clauses for what the fee is actually paid for.
Article 651 of the Civil Code is the starting point for ending early. It says a mandate may be cancelled "at any time" by either party, but cancelling at a time unfavourable to the other party can give rise to damages (except where there are unavoidable reasons). In practice, contracts normally set notice periods and cancellation fees in a cancellation clause. For the interpretation of a specific contract, consult a lawyer or other specialist.
If your counterparty is a sole freelancer, Japan's Freelance Act (in force since 1 November 2024) also applies. The duty to state the work and the fee in writing or by electronic means (Article 3) applies whether or not your company has employees. Other duties, such as 30 days' notice before ending an engagement (Article 16), depend on how the buyer is set up; see what it costs to outsource a website, and how to brief it and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's explanation.
Clause checklist
| Item | What to confirm | Worth reconsidering if |
|---|---|---|
| Hours cap | Monthly cap, and notice before exceeding it | It says only "as needed" |
| Unused hours | Whether they roll over | Nobody explains that they expire |
| Minimum term | Length and the reason for it | The only reason given is "until results appear" |
| Renewal and cancellation | Auto-renewal, notice deadline and method | You can cancel only in one specific month |
| Early-termination fee | How it is calculated | The full remaining term |
| Extra costs | Tools, subcontractors, urgent work | What costs extra is not listed |
| Who does the work | Subcontracting and confidentiality | You cannot tell who does the work |
| Rights in deliverables | Who holds copyright, and whether Articles 27 and 28 are named | It says only "deliverables belong to the client" |
| Accounts | Created in your name | Created only under the vendor's account |
| Undoing changes | Backups and a rollback procedure | Nobody knows how to roll back |
| Rankings | Any guarantee, and how target terms are chosen | Success is measured on terms the vendor chose |
| Prohibited methods | Following Google's spam policies | Bought links are presented as results |
What remains after the contract ends
Settle ownership and access at the start and ending the contract stops being hard.
| Item | Access you should hold | Access for the vendor | Check |
|---|---|---|---|
| Search Console | Your account as owner | Full user or restricted user | Remove verification tokens on exit |
| GA4 | Your account as administrator | Editor or viewer | Use a shareable admin address, not a personal one |
| Google Business Profile | Your company as primary owner | Manager | Managers cannot add or remove users |
| CMS | Your own admin account | A dedicated vendor account | Do not share IDs and passwords |
| Domain and DNS | Registrant and control panel in your name | Only when needed | Covered in a separate article |
| Rank tracking and other tools | Whether data can be exported | The vendor's tool is fine | Get a CSV when you cancel |
Google advises granting only read access to Search Console when an SEO proposes an audit. In other words, do not hand over editing access before you have seen the work.
A detail often missed is the Search Console verification token. According to Search Console Help, removing an owner from the user list does not remove their tokens. While a token remains, the removed owner can re-verify ownership and regain access (current owners are notified when this happens). On exit, also check "Unused ownership tokens" under Users and permissions. Tokens are sometimes shared with other Google services, so confirm what one is for before deleting it.
Put copyright in the articles and pages in writing too, because it decides whether you can rewrite and reuse them after the contract ends. The points the contract needs to cover are explained in the article on outsourcing a website.
A realistic timeline, and what to watch
What Google says about how long changes take to show in search, and how to read it, is covered in SEO priorities for small businesses. On rankings, Google is explicit: no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
This is the order I use to plan the early stage. It is a sequence of work, not a forecast of results.
| Period | Work | What you can judge |
|---|---|---|
| First month | Tidy access, check measurement, list technical problems | Whether the measurement can be trusted |
| Months 2–3 | Publish the highest-priority fixes | The pace of execution |
| Month 4 onward | Separate work to continue from work to stop, using the numbers | Whether it is worth continuing |
In the first three months, what you watch is whether the agreed changes were published. No movement in rankings or enquiries is not automatically failure, but if no changes were published at all, that is a problem with the contract.
KPIs you can measure yourself
Do not rely only on the vendor's report. Make sure you can check these yourself.
| KPI | Where to look | How often | Reading it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks and impressions by page | Search Console, Performance report | Monthly | Separate branded (company-name) searches |
| Average position | Search Console | Monthly | Can fall when more search terms start to appear |
| Reaching the contact page | GA4 | Monthly | Check the event definition has not changed |
| Enquiry completed (key event) | GA4, reconciled against your inbox | Monthly | Do not rely on the GA4 count alone |
| Valid enquiries, meetings, orders | Your own ledger | Monthly | Exclude sales emails |
| Changes published and hours used | Monthly report | Monthly | Whether they match the goal, more than how many |
When a vendor reports "rankings went up", check whether those terms lead to enquiries and whether the reporting conditions match last time. Sometimes branded searches are simply growing the total clicks. Only your ledger can show whether orders followed.
Three things to write down before you sign
Before you sign anything, write down these three things.
- Who can change the site each month (in-house or external, and for how many hours)
- Which numbers you can see yourself (who owns Search Console and GA4)
- What you want to keep when the contract ends (accounts, articles, the change record)
Once you have a quote, convert the fee into hours and subtract the meeting and report time. If little is left, treat it as a report-centred contract.
If you work with me, I likewise set a monthly cap on hours, make the agreed fixes, and guarantee neither rankings nor enquiry counts. My approach to scope and cost is on the website growth and measurement page.