An agency gives you a person, and askotter gives you a log of every change.
Good local agencies exist and plenty of businesses should hire one. Here is the split, including where an agency is the better answer.
Should a small business hire a local SEO agency or use askotter?
A local SEO agency gives you a named strategist and local market knowledge, typically for $1,500 to $3,000 a month with a three to twelve month minimum term. askotter does the same category of work for $99/mo self-managed or $600/mo managed, month to month, with published hours, every change logged, and approval by text. Neither can guarantee rankings.
- askotter pricing
- $99/mo self-managed and compute-metered above the base, $600/mo managed, $1,000/mo managed with paid channels. Month to month.
- Not for
- Neither can guarantee a ranking, and any provider in either category who offers to is telling you something about themselves. Neither replaces a sales process: traffic that arrives and is never followed up is wasted the same way regardless of who generated it.
Nine questions, answered for both.
Competitor cells describe the pricing model, because list prices change.
| Attribute | askotter | a local SEO agency |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | A business that wants published pricing, visible scope, changes it approves the same day, and no minimum term. | A business that wants a named strategist, local market knowledge, and cross-channel strategy including work no software service covers. |
| What you buy | The website, the monthly SEO loop, AI search visibility, landing pages and optional ad management, at a published price with published hours. | A retainer covering an agreed scope, usually with a named account manager and a monthly reporting call. |
| Pricing model | A flat published monthly price. $99/mo self-managed, $600/mo managed, $1,000/mo managed with paid channels. Month to month, cancel without penalty. | A retainer, commonly $1,500 to $3,000 a month for a single location, usually with a three to twelve month minimum term. Website builds are often quoted separately. |
| Setup effort | One URL or one sentence. First full draft the same day, launch typically five to ten working days. | Discovery, kickoff, strategy documents and sign-off. Frequently four to eight weeks before the first change ships. |
| Human involvement | A person reviews every change before it publishes. AI does the first pass on research, audits and drafting, which is why the price is what it is. | People throughout, though how senior is the question worth asking. Most agencies also run AI on the first pass now, without changing the retainer. |
| Who owns the website | Your domain and content from day one. The site transfers to you after six months on a managed plan. | Varies, and it is the question to ask before signing. Some agencies build on a proprietary platform the site cannot leave. |
| Who owns the ad accounts | You do, in your own name, including the history and the audiences. You keep them if you leave. | Varies. Agency-owned ad accounts are common and mean the spend history and audiences stay behind when the relationship ends. Ask explicitly. |
| Ongoing SEO work | Published hours: roughly 12 to 16 a month on the managed plan, broken down by activity. The breakdown. | An agreed scope, rarely expressed in hours. What is delivered in a given month is usually visible only in the report. |
| Visibility into changes | Every change logged with who asked, who approved and when, viewable at any time in a platform included free. | A monthly report. The individual changes made between reports are generally not itemised. |
The honest split.
You want to see the scope and the price before you buy, approve changes the day they are proposed rather than at next month's call, and be able to leave without a termination clause.
You need strategy beyond the website and search: positioning, partnerships, PR, events, or a market a national service will not understand. You have a complex multi-location structure. Or you work better with a person you can meet, which is a legitimate reason in its own right.
Neither can guarantee a ranking, and any provider in either category who offers to is telling you something about themselves. Neither replaces a sales process: traffic that arrives and is never followed up is wasted the same way regardless of who generated it.
Published, and month to month.
No setup fee and no minimum term. Ad spend is billed to you directly by Google and Meta.
You drive the builder and ship the changes Whiskers suggests. The platform does the analysis.
| Self-managed$99/moWebsite, SEO and the platform. Compute-based after that. | |
|---|---|
| Website and SEO | |
| AI web builder, unlimited edits | Included |
| Your site hosted on your own domain | Included |
| SEO: keywords, on-page, schema, rank tracking | Included |
| AI content recommendations, ready to publish | Included |
| Answer engine optimization | Included |
| askotter dashboard and change log | Included |
| Paid channels | |
| Google Ads + Meta Ads, connected and tracked | Add per channel |
| AI bidding and budget recommendations | With each channel |
| True ROAS against your real revenue | With each channel |
| How it runs | |
| Who ships each change | You |
| A person reviews every change before it ships | Not included |
| Ad accounts | Yours, you keep them |
| What moves the price | The compute you use |
| Cancel anytime | Included |
| Sign up for the free 14-day trial | |
The $99/mo covers your website and SEO on the platform. After that the price is compute-based. Ask Whiskers to run more analysis, or to watch more ad channels for you, and the bill scales with how much you use.
No setup fee. Ad spend is billed to you by Google and Meta.
Want a person to run it for you?
Our team builds and runs it. A person reviews every AI recommendation before it ships.
| What is included | PopularManaged SEO$600/moWe build it and run the SEO. | Managed + Ads$1,000/moEverything in Managed SEO, plus Google Ads and Meta Ads run by our team. |
|---|---|---|
| Website and SEO | ||
| We build and host your website | Included | Included |
| Monthly SEO, done for you | Included | Included |
| Content written, reviewed and published | Included | Included |
| Answer engine optimization, run for you | Included | Included |
| One site refresh per year | Included | Included |
| askotter dashboard and change log | Included | Included |
| Paid channels | ||
| Google Ads + Meta Ads management | Not included | Included |
| Monthly performance reviews | Not included | Included |
| Ad budget | Not needed | Under $10K/mo |
| How it runs | ||
| Who ships each change | Our team | Our team |
| A person reviews every change before it ships | Included | Included |
| Email marketing waterfall | Setup | Fully managed |
| Strategy calls | Not included | Monthly |
| Website is yours after six months | Included | Included |
| Get a free proposal | Get a free proposal | |
No setup fee. Cancel anytime. Ad spend is billed to you by Google and Meta.
Want to talk it through first? Book a 20-minute demo
Prefer to run it yourself?
The services behind these comparisons are the small business website builder, small business SEO and answer engine optimization. Other comparisons: askotter vs Wix, askotter vs GoDaddy, askotter vs Thryv, askotter vs AI website builders, self-managed vs managed.
Who is behind it, and what clients have seen.
CombinatorFounders who are alumni of the Y Combinator network.
Alumni who shipped measurement and ranking systems at consumer scale.
Serial founders who took companies from zero to a working business, then sold them.
Average growth in organic clicks, per client.
Median client growth in organic clicks, the middle of the cohort.
Average growth in sessions referred by AI assistants, per client.
Averages of each client’s own percentage change, measured in that client’s Google Search Console and Google Analytics. Results vary widely by client, and every client with a baseline grew over the window. Team background: Y Combinator, Meta and Amazon are not affiliated with askotter and do not endorse it.
Questions about this comparison
Why is askotter so much cheaper than an agency?
Do I get a dedicated account manager?
How do I know what work was done?
What should I ask an agency before signing?
Start with the audit.
It reads the site you have now and shows what is costing you work, whichever way you decide.
Self-managed is $99/mo and scales with the compute you use. Our team runs it from $600/mo.