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Tool vs agency vs hire calculator
Compare the true monthly and cumulative cost of three routes to the same output: an AI tool you edit, an agency retainer, or an in-house SEO hire.
At eight articles a month, an AI tool plus honest editing typically costs a fraction of an agency retainer and a small fraction of a loaded salary. That does not settle the question: an agency brings accountability and a hire brings product context, neither of which a subscription provides.
The tool
Your results appear here as soon as you change a value.
How to use it
- Use loaded salary, not gross A hire costs 25 to 40% more than the salary line once taxes, benefits and equipment are counted. The default 30% is a reasonable planning figure.
- Give each route the same output The comparison only means something if all three produce the same number of articles at a comparable standard.
- Add the things money does not buy An agency carries accountability. A hire carries context and can do work no tool can. A tool carries consistency and never resigns.
- Look at the cumulative column Small monthly differences become large annual ones, and the crossover point is usually earlier than people expect.
How the numbers work
Everything here runs in JavaScript in your browser. No input is sent anywhere, nothing is stored, and there is no account, no email gate and no export limit. The maths is deliberately simple so you can check it: where a benchmark is used, the source is named on the page rather than hidden behind a "based on industry data" claim.
Where this calculator uses published research, it uses these: the position-CTR meta-analysis from First Page Sage (updated May 2025), the 34.5% AI Overview click reduction measured by Ahrefs across 300,000 keywords, and Pew Research Center's click-behaviour study. Tool prices come from vendor pricing pages read on 2 August 2026. All of them are averages, and averages are a starting point, not a forecast: your own Search Console data beats every benchmark on this page.
Frequently asked questions
Is an AI tool cheaper than an SEO agency?
On cost per article, almost always. An agency at $3,000 a month for eight articles costs $375 each; a $99 tool plus 1.5 hours of editing at $60 an hour costs about $102. The gap narrows once you count strategy, reporting and accountability, which the retainer includes.
When does hiring in-house make sense?
When SEO is a core channel, the work needs deep product context, and there is enough of it to fill a role. Below roughly fifteen articles a month plus technical work, a hire is usually underused.
Can I combine a tool and an agency?
Frequently the best answer. The agency owns strategy and quality control, the tool owns production volume. Ask the agency what they use, because many are already running one of these tools inside your retainer.
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Last verified 2 August 2026. Prices, plans and features on this page were read on each vendor's own site on that date. Vendors change pricing often, so confirm before you buy. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will fix it.