By Mark McDowellPosted: Updated: 8 min read
How Much Does SEO Cost In Malaysia
SEO in Malaysia costs about RM800 to RM12,000 or more a month at an agency, going by the retainer ranges two Malaysian agencies publish. Where a business sits in that range depends on how competitive its industry's search results are and how many topics and pages the work covers each month, the same two inputs Primal sets its own fees from.
Key Takeaways
- The work behind a fee explains the quote. Two Malaysian agencies, VeecoTech and Hypercharge, publish monthly retainer ranges of about RM800 to RM12,000 or more.
- Two inputs set Primal's SEO fees. They are the industry tier (how competitive the search results are) and the package size (the topics, pages, links and posts a month of work carries).
- Rankings earn visits with no click fee. In Primal's own Google Ads account, a click on the phrase 'seo company' has cost about RM82 on average this year, which is the price of a visitor a first-page ranking earns.
- Compare SEO quotes on the work per month. Ask whether each fee includes the 8% service tax, then weigh the fee against what one customer is worth to you.
How Much SEO Costs In Malaysia And Why Quotes Differ
Ask what search engine optimisation (SEO) costs in Malaysia and you usually get a range too wide to plan with. Two Malaysian agencies publish theirs. VeecoTech puts a monthly retainer at RM900 to RM10,000 or more. Hypercharge puts it at RM800 to RM12,000 or more.
The ranges are wide because an SEO fee pays for a list of work, and that list changes from one business to the next.
Primal prices its own SEO work from that list. I think a buyer should read any quote the same way. Ask what the fee buys, and check it against what the same visitors would cost as paid clicks. Then work out how many customers it needs to pay for itself.
What SEO Firms Charge By The Hour
Most SEO firms listed for Malaysia on Clutch charge either about RM100 to RM200 an hour or about RM400 to RM600. Clutch is a review site for business services. On the first page of its Malaysia list, about a third of the firms that show an hourly rate charge US$25 to US$49, and another third charge US$100 to US$149.
Clutch shows the rates in US dollars, so the ringgit figures here use Bank Negara Malaysia’s exchange rate. The same twenty hours of work a month can cost three times as much from one firm as from another. The capture below is the central bank’s rate page used for the conversion.
Elevate, Primal’s AI Visibility Tracker, logged 3,693 answers across 66 queries about agencies and SEO on ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews over the last month, and about four in ten of them cited Clutch, more than any agency’s own website.
How Primal Sets An SEO Fee
Primal sets an SEO fee from two inputs, the industry tier and the package size. Every other line in the quote follows from those two. The tier reflects how competitive the search results are in a client’s industry. The package size decides how many topics and pages the work covers.
Primal puts every industry in one of four tiers.
| Industry tier | Industries in it |
|---|---|
| Low | Business services, interior design, manufacturing |
| Medium | Education, software, health and wellness |
| High | Automotive, property, recruitment, fashion, beauty |
| Extreme | Banking, insurance, e-commerce, travel |
A bank and a software firm might ask for the same number of pages. The bank’s pages compete with sites that have years of links and press coverage, so they need more of both before they rank. At the same package size, Primal’s harder tiers carry more link building, more press placements and more rewrites of old pages. Link building means earning links to your pages from other sites.
What A Bigger Package Carries
A bigger package covers more topics and pages each month. The keywords, links, posts and AI answers it tracks grow with it. Primal has nine package sizes, and the table sets the smallest beside the largest.
| What the package carries | Smallest package | Largest package |
|---|---|---|
| Topics | 4 | 60 |
| Target pages | 4 to 6 | 60 to 90 |
| Target keywords | 20 to 30 | 300 to 450 |
| Links earned over 12 months | 8 to 27 | 120 to 210 |
| Posts a year | 12 to 48 | Up to 120 |
| AI answer prompts tracked | 5 | 50 |
A harder tier sits higher in the links range. A clinic serving one suburb needs few topics, so it sits near the small end. That is why local SEO for a single branch costs less than a national plan. The last row checks whether ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews mention the brand. The AI SEO page explains that work.
Two quotes at the same price can carry very different amounts of this work. Ask every agency for these lines before you compare fees.
Is SEO An Upfront Payment Or A Monthly Payment
Customers often ask us this when they see a twelve-month plan. They also ask whether a startup fee is due. Primal bills each month in advance. Paying six months ahead earns a discount, and paying twelve months ahead earns a larger one.
Translation and community work on Reddit and Quora are priced as separate lines. Service tax is added on top where it applies. Ask any provider whether a setup fee sits on top of the monthly fee, and what it pays for.
What A Click On An SEO Search Costs In Google Ads
In Primal’s own Google Ads account, a click on “seo company” has cost about RM82 on average this year. In the same account, a click on the bare word “seo” has cost about RM21. The account has bought about 6,500 clicks this year, all from Primal’s own campaigns for agency, SEO and AI search services.
The account’s other SEO terms sit in between, at RM37 for “ai seo”, RM55 for “seo marketing”, RM60 for “seo ai” and RM65 for “seo agency”. The searches closest to hiring someone have the highest cost per click. The chart sets the six terms side by side.
A click is only a visit. Whether it pays depends on how many of your visitors send an enquiry and how many of those enquiries buy.
Set an SEO fee against those prices. A RM5,000 monthly fee sits inside the published ranges. At RM82 a click, it would buy about 60 clicks on “seo company” a month. A page on the first page for that search earns its clicks with no fee per click. It gets there only after the work to rank it is done. Your own industry will have different prices, and the Keyword Planner inside Google Ads shows them for your terms.
What An In-House SEO Hire Costs
An in-house SEO specialist in Malaysia costs an employer about RM4,400 to RM6,800 a month, based on JobStreet’s salary range plus statutory contributions. JobStreet puts the salary at RM3,800 to RM6,000 a month. The employer adds its Employees Provident Fund (EPF) share of 13% on a salary up to RM5,000, and 12% above that. Smaller payments go to the Social Security Organisation (SOCSO) and the Employment Insurance System (EIS).
Those figures leave out tools, training, hiring time and the manager’s hours, so the real cost is higher. One hire also brings one person’s skills. A competitive industry needs technical fixes, writing and link outreach at once. An agency spreads that work across several people. A freelancer suits one defined job, such as migrating a site to a new platform. An in-house hire suits a business with steady work in one of those areas.
How To Check Whether An SEO Fee Pays Back
An SEO fee pays back when the extra customers it brings each month are worth more than the fee.
- Divide the monthly fee by the value of one customer. The result is the number of new customers a month that cover the fee.
- Divide that by your close rate, the share of enquiries that buy. Then divide by your enquiry rate, the share of visits that send one. You now have the visits you need each month.
- Divide those visits by the click rate of your position in Google. The answer is the searches a month your terms need.
Advanced Web Ranking’s study of Google Search Console data gives the click rates for that last step. It puts the first organic result at 20.26%, and at 7.52% when an AI Overview sits above it. Your own rates sit in Google Search Console.
The table runs the sum for a RM5,000 monthly fee. It uses an example enquiry rate of 3% and a close rate of 25%, so put in your own.
| Value of one customer | Customers that cover the fee | Visits needed a month | Searches needed at position 1, with an AI Overview | Searches needed at position 1, without one |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RM500 | 10 | 1,333 | 17,730 | 6,581 |
| RM2,000 | 2.5 | 333 | 4,433 | 1,645 |
| RM5,000 | 1 | 133 | 1,773 | 658 |
The chart draws the same rows as bars. Each pair shows how many more searches a ranking needs when an AI Overview sits above it.
A business whose customers are worth RM500 needs thousands of searches a month to cover a mid-range fee. It needs nearly three times as many when an AI Overview sits on its terms. A smaller scope or a local plan serves that business better. A business with high-value customers needs far fewer searches, and a larger package can make sense for it. The fee also starts in the first month, while rankings take longer.
How To Compare SEO Quotes
Compare SEO quotes on the work each fee buys per month first, and on the price second. Ask each provider what results it expects, by when, and what experience it has in your industry.
- Ask every provider for the same lines: topics, pages, keywords tracked, links earned, posts written and AI answers tracked. A quote without a number on each line cannot be set beside one that has them.
- Ask how the provider judges your competition and which competitors it looked at. The answer shows whether the fee reflects your industry.
- Ask whether the price includes service tax. The Royal Malaysian Customs Department sets it at 8% on taxable services.
- Keep Google Search Console and Google Analytics in your company’s name. Give a provider read access to Search Console, and no more, while it reviews your site.
- Ask what any guarantee covers. A fair one names the measure, the date it is checked and the remedy if the target is missed, all in the contract. Some agencies, Primal among them, publish their performance guarantees.
- Ask about the minimum term and any discount for paying ahead. Ask too what you keep when the contract ends, such as the content and the reports.
Primal started in 2015 and has offices in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Singapore. The calculator on our SEO services page runs the payback sum with your own numbers. Our team in Kuala Lumpur can also run it on your search terms and site before you compare quotes.
Frequently Asked Questions About SEO Cost In Malaysia
What Is The Cheapest Way To Do SEO?
Doing the work yourself costs the least. The owner of a small local business can often do much of it, starting with Google’s SEO starter guide. Appearing in Google’s organic results costs nothing, so you pay with your time. You may still need a specialist for technical fixes or link outreach.
Do SEO Quotes In Malaysia Include Service Tax?
Not always, so ask each provider before you compare prices. The Royal Malaysian Customs Department sets service tax on taxable services at 8%. On a RM5,000 monthly fee, that adds RM400 a month.
Can An SEO Agency Guarantee First-Page Rankings?
Yes, an agency can put a first-page target in its contract, and Primal is one of the agencies that publish performance guarantees. A fair guarantee names the measure, such as a share of agreed keywords on page 1 of Google, the date it is checked and the remedy if the target is missed. If a quote promises positions, ask for the monthly searches behind each term it promises.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Mark McDowell is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Primal, which he started in Bangkok in 2015. He is on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2020 list and was Campaign Asia’s Southeast Asia Young Achiever of the Year in 2018. He writes about AI search and search engine optimisation.
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