Calculators and planners
SEO ROI calculator
Estimate what SEO could return from your own numbers: extra traffic, conversions and revenue, the return on what you spend, and the month it pays for itself, with the formula shown.
Free · No signup · Runs in your browser
The numbers below are an example. Replace each one with yours.
Agency, freelancer, tools and your own time.
3 to 36.
From Google Analytics or Search Console clicks.
Compounds each month.
New pages and fixes usually take months to show in traffic. 0 starts growth in month one.
Share of organic visits that buy, sign up or enquire.
Profit per sale, or a lead's value: sales from leads × average deal.
+50% return over 12 months
Pays for itself in month 10, on these assumptions.
- Total cost
- $18,000
- Extra revenue
- $26,919
- Return
- 50%(revenue − cost) ÷ cost
- Payback
- Month 10
- Extra visits
- 8,973179 extra conversions
Revenue and cost to date, month by month
The table below has the same numbers.
| Month | Organic visits | Extra visits | Extra conversions | Extra revenue | Revenue to date | Cost to date | Net to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,000 | 0 | 0.0 | $0 | $0 | $1,500 | -$1,500 |
| 2 | 2,000 | 0 | 0.0 | $0 | $0 | $3,000 | -$3,000 |
| 3 | 2,000 | 0 | 0.0 | $0 | $0 | $4,500 | -$4,500 |
| 4 | 2,160 | 160 | 3.2 | $480 | $480 | $6,000 | -$5,520 |
| 5 | 2,333 | 333 | 6.7 | $998 | $1,478 | $7,500 | -$6,022 |
| 6 | 2,519 | 519 | 10.4 | $1,558 | $3,037 | $9,000 | -$5,963 |
| 7 | 2,721 | 721 | 14.4 | $2,163 | $5,200 | $10,500 | -$5,300 |
| 8 | 2,939 | 939 | 18.8 | $2,816 | $8,016 | $12,000 | -$3,984 |
| 9 | 3,174 | 1,174 | 23.5 | $3,521 | $11,537 | $13,500 | -$1,963 |
| 10 | 3,428 | 1,428 | 28.6 | $4,283 | $15,820 | $15,000 | $820 |
| 11 | 3,702 | 1,702 | 34.0 | $5,106 | $20,925 | $16,500 | $4,425 |
| 12 | 3,998 | 1,998 | 40.0 | $5,994 | $26,919 | $18,000 | $8,919 |
How it’s worked out
- Visits stay at 2,000 for the first 3 months, then grow 8.0% a month, compounding.
- Extra visits in a month = that month’s visits − 2,000 (today).
- Extra revenue = extra visits × 2% × $150.
- Return = (total extra revenue − total cost) ÷ total cost.
- Payback = the first month the extra revenue to date covers the cost to date.
Before you trust it
- Note
These are your assumptions, not a forecast
Nobody can promise a growth rate. Run it again with half the growth to see the cautious case. - Note
SEO lags, then compounds
Pages take months to rank, and traffic can keep coming after the spending stops. A 12-month window can undersell work that pays off in year two. - Note
It counts organic visits only
No brand lift, no AI assistant mentions, no repeat customers, unless you build them into the value of a conversion.
How it works
Enter what you spend on SEO each month and your organic visits today.
Set the growth you expect, the wait before it starts, your conversion rate and what a conversion is worth.
Read the return, the payback month and the month-by-month table, then try a cautious version.
How the calculator works
It compares two things over the months you choose. Cost is your monthly spend times the number of months. Revenue is only the extra revenue from organic visits above today's level: extra visits × conversion rate × value of a conversion. Visits stay flat during the wait before growth starts, then grow by your monthly rate, compounding, or by the steady rate that reaches your target in the last month.
Return on investment is (extra revenue − cost) ÷ cost. 0% means SEO paid for itself exactly; 100% means you got back twice what you spent. The payback month is the first month in which the extra revenue so far covers the spending so far. The table shows every month, and the CSV has the same numbers for your own spreadsheet.
Choosing honest inputs
- Monthly spend: everything, including agency or freelancer fees, tools, writers and your own time at a fair hourly rate.
- Visits today: organic sessions from Google Analytics, or clicks from Search Console. Use a recent month that isn't a seasonal peak.
- Growth: there's no standard rate. A young site growing from a small base can grow fast in percentage terms; an established one rarely keeps up double-digit monthly growth. If a plan or agency gave you a target, use target mode and look at the monthly rate it implies.
- Conversion rate: the share of organic visitors who buy, sign up or enquire, from your analytics.
- Value of a conversion: profit rather than revenue if your margins are thin. For leads, multiply the share of leads that become customers by the average deal.
Why SEO looks bad early and better later
SEO is slow to start. New pages take time to be crawled, indexed and trusted, and changes to existing pages take time to show in rankings. That's what the wait before growth is for: during those months you pay and see little back. After that, results can compound. Pages keep ranking after the work on them is done, so traffic can keep growing while the spend stays flat.
A short window punishes that shape. A plan that loses money over six months can look strong over twenty-four. Try both: the net-to-date column shows where the line crosses from cost into return.
What it leaves out
The calculator counts organic visits that convert and nothing else. It ignores brand searches that grow as more people find you, mentions in AI assistants, links other sites give you, repeat purchases, and traffic you would have lost without the work. It also assumes your conversion rate holds as traffic grows, which it often doesn't: visitors from broader keywords tend to convert less. Use the result to compare scenarios and set expectations, not as a promise.
Questions people ask
What's a good ROI for SEO?
There's no honest single figure: it depends on your margins, your competition and how long you measure. Compare SEO with your other channels over the same period, using the same value of a conversion.
How long does SEO take to pay off?
It depends on the site's age, the competition and how much work goes in. Plan for several months before traffic moves, and judge it over a year or more rather than month by month.
Should I use revenue or profit as the value of a conversion?
Profit, if you can work it out. Revenue makes every channel look better than it is.
Can I use it for a brand-new site with no traffic?
Yes. Set today's visits to 0 and choose a target number of visits. The calculator ramps up evenly to the target after the wait, because a percentage of zero stays zero.
Where do my numbers go?
Nowhere. The calculator runs in your browser, and the CSV is made on your device.
Want it done for you?
Romeo does the SEO work these numbers depend on
Every week he finds keywords you can win, writes and improves pages, fixes technical problems and adds internal links, and sends each change for you to approve, so you can swap assumptions for results.
