HONEST COMPARISON

Should you hire an agency, a freelancer, do it yourself, or buy our audit?

An honest answer, written by people who run an SEO product. We will tell you when each option is the right call, including when ours is not. We do not run a sales team and we do not need to bend the truth to close you on a retainer.

Comparing
UK SEO agency
Freelance consultant
DIY tools
BumpUp SEO
Typical price
£400 to £2,000+
£300 to £800
£0 to £200
£79 flat
Billing model
Monthly retainer
Hourly or project
Subscriptions add up
One-off, no retainer
Turnaround
1 to 3 weeks
3 to 10 days
Hours to days of your time
Under 1 hour
Sales call required
Yes, usually two
Sometimes
Not applicable
No call, ever
Sales pressure
High, paid on close
Moderate
None
None
Senior consultant level
Sometimes, often a junior
Depends entirely on the person
Depends on you
Senior framework, every report
Schema and structured data review
Usually
Sometimes
You research it yourself
Always
Core Web Vitals review
Usually
Sometimes
You research it yourself
Always
Custom to your industry
Yes
Yes, if briefed properly
If you read enough articles
Yes, via industry pages
UK / British English copy
If they are UK based
Depends on the freelancer
Depends on the tool
Yes, always
Plain English action list
Often locked behind jargon
Depends
Up to you to translate
Yes, a prioritised action plan
Refund policy
Contract dependent
Contract dependent
Not applicable
Full refund before we start the analysis

Prices are typical UK ranges based on publicly listed agency retainers and freelance day rates. Your mileage will vary. Some agencies are excellent value. Some freelancers are world class. We are not saying otherwise. We are saying you can buy a senior level audit for £79 in under an hour, with no call.

When each option actually makes sense.

No marketing tool is right for every business. Here is when we genuinely think you should consider each route, including when you should not buy from us.

Hire a UK SEO agency

£400 to £2,000+ / month

Right call when

  • You want a multi-month engagement with content production included.
  • You need link building done at scale by a dedicated outreach team.
  • You have a marketing budget and want a single point of accountability.

Not the right call when

  • You just want a clear list of what to fix right now on your existing site.
  • You do not have the patience for a two week onboarding call cycle.

Hire a freelancer

£300 to £800 / audit

Right call when

  • You already know a good one through a referral, or you can vet them carefully.
  • You want a custom engagement with back and forth questions answered live.
  • Your site has unusual structural problems that need a human eye.

Not the right call when

  • You do not have time to brief, manage, and chase a contractor.
  • You want a fixed price and a fixed scope, in writing, upfront.

The deeper read

Do it yourself

£0 to £200 in tooling

Right call when

  • You enjoy SEO and have already audited a few of your own sites.
  • You have time to read primary sources and run a proper crawl.
  • You want to learn rather than outsource the thinking.

Not the right call when

  • You are running a business and your time is worth more than £79.
  • You want a senior framework rather than a long list of warnings.

Buy our audit

£79 flat · one-off

Right call when

  • You want a clear, ranked list of what to fix, in plain English.
  • You want it within the hour, with no call.
  • You want a fixed price, with no retainer.
  • You want a senior framework applied consistently, not a junior consultant's first month.

Not the right call when

  • You want ongoing content production or link building services.
  • You want a person to manage the implementation for you and have no developer of your own. That's what our sister studio Loomly is for, not this audit.

The honest summary.

If you have already decided you want a retainer, hire an agency. If you have a brilliant freelancer you trust, use them. If you genuinely enjoy SEO and have the time, do it yourself. We are not trying to win every prospect.

But if you are a busy founder or operator and you want a clear, ranked, senior level audit of your site in under an hour for a fixed £79, that is the gap we exist to fill. One audit. One price. No call. No retainer. Cancel any time before we start the analysis for a full refund. We could not make this less risky if we tried.

Run an audit first, decide everything else later.

The cheapest way to find out whether SEO is the right investment for your business is to see the audit. You can take the report to any agency, any freelancer, or implement it yourself.

£79 flat · one-off
Run my audit →