Pricing question

[Mmclean07]

Hi all! I have a question for the group.

I work in a small marketing agency. We have a large client that we’ve done various work for. They have roughly 800 field staff who all have their own GMB profiles. We’ve been doing GMB management for a select group of their field staff (posts, reputation management, on site seo, etc).

They have requested a proposal to manage all 800 profiles. It would not include all the services we have been offering to this point, just basic management like closing old profiles, opening new ones, keeping information up to date, etc. We will be working with their enterprise databases to keep this information up to date.

I know there are several services that do similar things. What is the market rate for basic GMB management service at this volume of profiles?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Mmclean07, that is a tough one. It depends entirely on how many of those pages are in the soup vs. problem-free, how much time you have to spend gathering info from the client, how much time you need to spend contacting Google about suspensions and other issues, how much GMB-feature use you do (e.g. Posts), how much ancillary work you need to do (e.g. consulting, citation work, spam patrol.), and so on.

If it's a larger client, you've got a good relationship with them, you trust each other, and you know you'll have plenty of justifiable non-busywork work to do each month, then I could see maybe $3k a month to start with. Less (or much less) than that if your first, gut-level reaction to their RFP was "Sweet! Sounds like a plum deal." Possibly more than that if your immediate reaction was "Oh boy. That'll be real work." If you already know and like them, the first number that popped into your head was probably close.

If possible, I'd agree on a provisional amount that you and your client loop back to in a few months, depending on how much huffing and puffing is required on your part. That lets you (and them) adjust, rather than say, "You know what, let's pack it in." You may have no choice but to build in some flexibility, because there will probably come a point when there's less GMB management for you to do because you've done such a good job, or way more to do, if there is some snafu.

So I wouldn't think too much about the 1.0 monthly amount, because you'll reevaluate.

Just for a drive-by comparison, here's what Whitespark's very hands-on service runs:

SEO Services: Google Business Profile Management & Local SEO | Whitespark

whitespark.ca

(I think it's more for smaller multi-location companies, or the grading would have to go way down for an 800-page company.)

 

[Mmclean07]

@Mmclean07, that is a tough one. It depends entirely on how many of those pages are in the soup vs. problem-free, how much time you have to spend gathering info from the client, how much time you need to spend contacting Google about suspensions and other issues, how much GMB-feature use you do (e.g. Posts), how much ancillary work you need to do (e.g. consulting, citation work, spam patrol.), and so on.

If it's a larger client, you've got a good relationship with them, you trust each other, and you know you'll have plenty of justifiable non-busywork work to do each month, then I could see maybe $3k a month to start with. Less (or much less) than that if your first, gut-level reaction to their RFP was "Sweet! Sounds like a plum deal." Possibly more than that if your immediate reaction was "Oh boy. That'll be real work." If you already know and like them, the first number that popped into your head was probably close.

If possible, I'd agree on a provisional amount that you and your client loop back to in a few months, depending on how much huffing and puffing is required on your part. That lets you (and them) adjust, rather than say, "You know what, let's pack it in." You may have no choice but to build in some flexibility, because there will probably come a point when there's less GMB management for you to do because you've done such a good job, or way more to do, if there is some snafu.

So I wouldn't think too much about the 1.0 monthly amount, because you'll reevaluate.

Just for a drive-by comparison, here's what Whitespark's very hands-on service runs:

SEO Services: Google Business Profile Management & Local SEO | Whitespark

whitespark.ca

(I think it's more for smaller multi-location companies, or the grading would have to go way down for an 800-page company.)

Jim, this was a super thoughtful reply. Thanks for taking the time to write it... I love this forum because people like you (total strangers) take the time to write out a very thought out perspective. I didn't even consider building in a "reevaluation" clause, but that makes perfect sense for both me and my client.

Thanks again, Jim!

 

[JoyHawkins]

When we come up with pricing, I always base it on a time estimate. Estimate how much time it would take you to manage 1 listing and multiply that by your hourly rate x 800. You don't necessarily need to pitch it to the client as by the hour, it's just how I would arrive at a given number. Then in 3 or 6 months, you can re-evaluate if you need to increase the price (in case you didn't price it high enough).