Most agencies that lose money on SEO did not lose it on delivery. They lost it at the quote, because they priced before they knew their cost, then discovered the real scope in month two.
Know your cost per unit before you quote
Do not think in retainers. Think in units.
- One technical audit for a site of a given size
- One page of content to a given standard
- One link at a given quality tier
- One hour of implementation
Your supplier should give you a fixed number for each. If they will not, you cannot quote with confidence and you will pad every estimate, which loses you deals, or underquote, which loses you margin.
Once you have unit costs, a retainer is just arithmetic. Four pages, two links and three hours of implementation a month has a knowable cost.
What margin is normal
Agencies reselling delivered SEO typically run between 40 and 60 per cent gross margin. Below 40 and account management eats it. Above 60 and you are usually either doing significant work yourself, or your client is going to find the market rate eventually.
Remember that account management is a real cost. Budget two to four hours a month per account for reporting, calls and the client's questions. If you price at a 45 per cent margin and then spend eight hours a month managing the account, you are working for nothing.
Where the margin actually leaks
Scope creep on content. "A blog post" means 800 words to you and 2,500 with original research to the client. Define word count, revision rounds and what a revision is, in writing, before the first brief.
Unbilled strategy. The quarterly planning call, the competitor question, the "quick look" at the new landing page. Individually small. Across ten accounts it is a full week a month.
Reporting. If your supplier sends a report you have to rewrite, that is an hour per account per month. Insist on unbranded output or your own template, and make it a condition rather than a request.
Link cost variance. Links priced per placement vary enormously by site quality. If your supplier quotes a range rather than a number, your margin is a range too. Agree tiers with fixed prices per tier.
Build the rate card before the pitch
A one page internal sheet: every unit, your cost, your price, your margin. Then quoting a retainer takes ten minutes and you know the margin before you send it.
The agencies that struggle with SEO are almost always the ones quoting from feel, then discovering the cost afterwards.
Sell outcomes, price inputs
Your client buys "more leads from search". You price "one audit, four pages, two links, three hours". Keep those two things separate in your own head and in your documents.
The proposal talks about the outcome and the plan. The internal sheet and the supplier agreement talk about units. If you let the client buy units they will start negotiating the number of links, which is not a conversation that ends well for anyone.
What to ask a white-label supplier before you sign
- What is your turnaround for each unit, in working days?
- What happens if you miss it?
- Will you ever contact my client, under any circumstances?
- Are reports unbranded, or can you use my template?
- What exactly do you check in an audit? Ask for a redacted example.
- For links, what are your quality tiers and what defines each one?
- What is the minimum commitment? If it is more than one project, ask why.
If any answer is vague, the vagueness will become your problem in month three.
Start with one project
Do not move a retainer to a new supplier on the strength of a sales call. Buy one audit. Look at what comes back. See whether the turnaround was real and whether you would be comfortable putting your logo on the document.
That is how most of our agency partners started, and it is what we recommend even when the answer is a different supplier. White-label SEO for agencies covers how we work, and pricing explains how the partner rate card is structured.