I'm a former software engineer turned growth marketer that helps startups generate SEO traffic.
I do my best to estimate the potential ROI for your business before we kick off any particular initiative. But this estimate is a hypothesis. Google does not expose all its search user behavior data for everyone to peruse, and both search algorithm and search user behavior changes over time. So we cannot predict a specific result with certainty. What we can do is make directionally correct business decisions based on that hypothesis, and iterate our way to optimizing your returns from your SEO marketing channel.
When things go well, you can expect SEO traffic to hit significance 2-3 months after an initiative's go-live date. This means that your business needs should be in a place where you can afford to wait 4-6 months from day zero of engaging me to realize business ROI from your SEO efforts.
A typical programmatic SEO initiative should take about 8 weeks to go live. This may take more or less time depending on the staffing (copywriting, design, and engineering) you're able to allocate to the initiative.
My primary value-add to my clients is strategy: everything else is generally outsourceable at a rate lower than my own. That said, I am a software engineer, have copywriting skills, and regularly subcontract with designers - so I'm able to work with you to gap-fill any talent gaps that your team might have.
My approach is tailored for companies that will be around a long time (think 3-10 years+). So I focus on long-term, sustainable white hat strategies. I don't try to "trick" Google into ranking you well: you and I will collaborate on building valuable, meaningful content that does an excellent job serving Google searchers with the answers they're seeking.
Because initiatives typically take 8 weeks to go live, most engagements will last a minimum of 2-3 months. My contracts operate on a month-to-month commitment.
Pricing can vary on a client-by-client basis - especially if you want me to gap-fill engineering/development/design talent gaps for you.
That said, I expect most of my clients to be willing to allocate a minimum of $10k USD/month towards SEO - I work with companies where the end-goal (maybe after a few more rounds of funding) is to scale their SEO function into at minimum a multi-person full-time employee team.