In a regional office the decisive number is not the price. It is the threshold above which a line has to go to the parent for approval. A spend below it is a regional decision taken this week; a spend above it is a submission, a currency conversion, a justification memo and a wait of one to two quarters — for a difference that is frequently a few hundred dollars a month.
Unusually for this field, neither price has to be requested — which is what makes the calculation below possible at all. AutoSEO lists one domain at 149 dollars monthly, FullSEO the same domain at 500. Beside them sit two extras, each ordered by itself: encyclopedic placements priced at ten dollars, obtainable as 0, 1, 5 or 10, and partner-network placements at one dollar, obtainable as 0, 20, 100 or 500.
Which side of the approval line each option falls on
Every group sets this differently and every regional office knows its own figure precisely. What almost nobody does is check the options against it before choosing, which produces the familiar outcome: a proposal for the largest sensible configuration, submitted upward, and still unanswered when the year ends.
| Annual figure | Typical treatment | Realistic timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Under two thousand | Regional discretion in most groups | This week |
| Two to five thousand | Regional head signs, no submission | Two to three weeks |
| Five to fifteen thousand | Group submission with justification | One to two quarters |
| Above that | Annual planning cycle only | Next financial year |
The third column is the one that matters more than the second. A configuration approved in two quarters starts producing evidence two quarters later than one approved this week — and since anything in this field needs twelve months before it says something, that delay is not administrative. It is half the answer, postponed.
How the two options differ once they are running
AutoSEO — proceeds without being asked
Built for the case where nobody has formal responsibility for the site.
- Nobody has to ask for the proposals. They are assembled out of what Google reports, out of how the returned results look, and out of any starting terms somebody typed in. Take one, drop one, or ignore the list entirely for four weeks — the process carries on regardless.
- Link building proceeds in the background. The partner network handles it without item-by-item approval — the point at which this stops resembling software waiting to be operated.
- Proposals concern pages that already exist. A named page and a specific edit, rather than a rebuild for which no regional office has the authority anyway.
- The numbers are not billed separately. Reporting, placement history and the project log sit inside the monthly figure and never appear as their own line.
FullSEO — steering, provided somebody steers
Fits an office where one named individual is able to judge which questions deserve answering.
- A human decides; the machine fills in when nobody does. Weeks in which the review does not happen simply fall back to automatic choosing. Nothing grinds to a halt — but nor does the extra payment produce anything in those weeks.
- A floor on where links come from. Rather than taking whatever is available, a minimum authority is set. That property is what gets examined if anybody ever looks.
- Nothing takes effect unreviewed. Each proposed change passes a human check before it is applied.
- Staff form part of the service. For this tier the provider additionally lists people working on search, on site development and on written material.
In a regional office the choice between the two is decided by an unusual constraint. The larger package requires somebody to spend half an hour a week choosing what to pursue — and in an office of four people covering thirty markets, that half hour has to displace something that a country manager is currently asking for. Where it cannot, the smaller package delivers the same outcome for 4 212 dollars a year less.
Turned around, the case reads differently. Where that half hour genuinely exists, the surcharge buys something no additional budget replaces: the ability to order what gets pursued by what matters in this region rather than by what the automatic selection finds. A regional office knows which markets are opening, which certifications are about to change and which competitor has just entered — and none of that is visible to an automatic process. Where somebody can bring that knowledge to bear weekly, the larger package earns its difference. Where nobody can, it does not.
What appears in the submission
A monthly figure, converted, annualised, and compared against a threshold. The whole of what any approver will look at.
- Between 159 and 1 050 a month
- Determines the approval route
What no submission records
The half hour a week the larger package assumes, taken from an office already covering thirty markets with four people.
- Nobody costs it
- Decides whether the spend works
Two optional items, sold in fixed amounts
| Ordered on its own | Unit cost | Permitted quantities | Top quantity, monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Encyclopedic placements | 10 $ | 0 · 1 · 5 · 10 | 100 $ |
| Partner-network placements | 1 $ | 0 · 20 · 100 · 500 | 500 $ |
The quantities admit nothing in between. Arrive at seven encyclopedic placements as the sensible figure and the decision reduces to five or ten, which is fifty dollars a month against a hundred and six hundred dollars apart across the year. Inside a group where every deviation has to be accounted for, that fork belongs in the submission itself and not in a note appended afterwards.
Four configurations, priced end to end
All amounts in dollars, exclusive of tax and without negotiated reductions. Twelve times the monthly amount gives the yearly one — a point worth making explicitly here, since it is the yearly amount, and only that, which decides how the request has to be routed.
| Line | Components | Per month | Across a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | AutoSEO, plus 1 reference-work slot (10 $) | 159 $ | 1 908 $ |
| B | AutoSEO, plus 5 reference-work (50 $) and 100 network (100 $) | 299 $ | 3 588 $ |
| C | FullSEO, plus 1 reference-work slot (10 $) | 510 $ | 6 120 $ |
| D | FullSEO, plus 5 reference-work (50 $) and 500 network (500 $) | 1 050 $ | 12 600 $ |
Seeing all four annualised alongside the approval threshold inside one workspace turns the choice into a two-minute comparison rather than a discussion.
Read against the first table, the picture is stark. Lines A and B sit on the regional side of the approval line in most groups; lines C and D do not. The step from B to C costs 2 532 dollars a year and converts a decision taken in a fortnight into a submission taking two quarters — which is a considerably larger cost than the money, and it never appears in the comparison.
It is also worth knowing what each optional item is for, since they get bought together and then assessed as one expense. Reference-work slots target the material quoted when a paragraph is assembled — which, for a regional office trying to correct a home-market description, is directly relevant. Network slots affect how a site is weighed in a conventional results list, which on a global domain is largely determined by the group rather than by the region. Two mechanisms, two timescales, and in a single budget line neither can be assessed at the year end.
Why the smallest workable line is usually right here
Approved regionally, running this month
Twelve months of evidence accumulate starting now, and the case for anything larger next year rests on your own figures rather than on a vendor's.
- No submission required
- Evidence starts immediately
Submitted upward, running eventually
The submission is stronger with evidence and you have none, because the thing that would produce it is what you are asking for.
- Circular by construction
- Frequently declined once
Keeping the evidence accumulating from month one inside a single account is what makes the later submission a matter of exporting rather than of assembling.
The right-hand card describes the position most regional offices put themselves in, and it is genuinely circular: the submission needs evidence, the evidence needs the spend, and the spend needs the submission. Starting on the regional side of the line breaks that loop for under two thousand dollars a year, and twelve months later the submission for the larger configuration writes itself — with local figures, in the group's own reporting format.
What happens across twelve months
Billing starts immediately; results do not. That gap ends more of these efforts than anything else, and in a regional office it compounds with the reporting cycle: the first quarterly report falls due before anything could plausibly have happened, and it is the report that shapes whether the line survives.
The figure worth reporting keeps changing as the months pass, too. In the opening weeks nothing but coverage moves fast enough to be worth watching; after that the placement data starts carrying information, later the visitor counts, and last of all enquiries whose origin can be traced. Setting that progression out in the very first quarterly submission — while the numbers are still absent, not once they have disappointed — is what stops the second submission being read as evidence of failure. Since one workspace records each stage with a date against it, the progression can be presented as documentation rather than as an assurance.
Two administrative details that cost time
- The prices are in dollars and the budget is not. Which means the annual figure moves with the exchange rate and can cross an approval threshold without anybody changing anything. Budget with a margin above the threshold rather than exactly at it.
- Billing follows the domain, not the office. Where the regional site is a country folder of a global domain rather than its own, the charge attaches to that domain — and the conversation about who pays becomes a group conversation.
- A second domain doubles the entry. Two domains on the smaller package is 298 dollars monthly and 3 576 across a year, which in most groups is still on the regional side of the line.
- Monthly billing helps here. Because the commitment is monthly rather than annual, the submission is for an ongoing line rather than a fixed contract — a distinction that matters in some approval processes and is worth stating explicitly.
The first point catches offices out regularly and is entirely avoidable. A configuration budgeted at exactly the approval threshold in local currency will cross it during the year, at which point somebody discovers that a line already running now requires a submission. Leaving ten per cent of headroom costs nothing and removes the possibility.
One check that comes first
Committing before establishing whether the pages are catalogued at all costs the first six months. An afternoon settles it, across three questions: does the wording travel with what the server sends, has anything taken it in, and does each page hold enough distinct material to stand alone? On a global template the answer to the first is frequently no, and that finding belongs in a request upward rather than in a spending decision.
Whether the pages leave the server intact is a technical review question. Which regional wordings are realistically within reach comes from keyword research, and whether the country pages capable of answering them exist falls to content strategy. Both packages run inside the same interface, so moving between them changes one setting — which is also why the step from B to C can be taken mid-year once the submission clears.
Work out your own annual figure
Questions from regional and group finance
Which line should a regional office start with?
Whichever is the largest that still falls on the regional side of your approval threshold — usually line A or B. Starting there produces twelve months of local evidence without a submission, and that evidence is what makes a submission for anything larger straightforward a year later. Starting above the line means asking for the thing that would have produced your justification.
Why does line C cost 2 532 dollars a year more than line B?
Three movements produce that figure. Moving to the larger package adds 351 dollars a month. Against that, line C drops from five reference-work slots to one, returning 40, and drops the hundred network slots, returning a further 100. The net is 211 a month, or 2 532 across a year — and whether it is worth it turns entirely on whether anybody has half an hour a week to exercise the control it buys. In a four-person regional office, frequently nobody does.
Does the top network amount deliver five times the hundred amount?
It does not. The figure counts placements rather than their standing, and the proportion of weak sources rises with the amount. In a technical category where the wordings are not heavily contested, the middle amount suffices and the remainder is better spent on the regional pages themselves.
The prices are in dollars. How do we budget that?
With headroom above whatever approval threshold applies, rather than exactly at it. A configuration budgeted at the threshold will cross it during the year on exchange movement alone, and a line already running that suddenly requires a submission is an unnecessary conversation. Ten per cent covers it in ordinary conditions.
Is the larger package worth it without a dedicated person?
It requires a named person with thirty minutes reserved every week who can decide which questions this region ought to be answering. Absent that, the system reverts to choosing on its own and the annual 4 212 dollars purchases a lever nobody pulls. Given that person, the difference can pay for itself within twelve months — though the half hour has to be taken from something, and in a small regional office that is a genuine trade-off rather than a box to tick.
Can we stop after six months?
There is no obstacle, and it is the poorest use of the money available. Half a year reveals how placements have moved and next to nothing about enquiries, especially where a buyer spends months researching before making contact. With only six months of funding secured, the sensible course is the cheapest arrangement carried across all twelve — less spent overall, and something to conclude at the end instead of a line item nobody can interpret.