Choosing the right SEO package is one of the more consequential decisions a growing business makes — and also one of the least well-supported. Most agency pricing pages list what each tier includes, not what it does for you. At Choco Media, we have three tiers in our seo package comparison — Starter (€199/month), Growth (€349/month), and Authority (€499/month) — and over time we have noticed a clear pattern: clients who land in the right tier move faster, waste less, and are happier after six months. Clients who pick by price alone often either underinvest and stall, or overbuy and pay for capacity they cannot use yet.
This guide exists to fix that. It is a buyer’s decision framework, not a sales page. We will walk through what each tier actually covers, the business situations each one fits, and the questions you should ask yourself before committing. If you already know you want to start, you can head straight to /campaigns/ and pick a tier — but if you want to understand why a tier fits you, keep reading.
We will cover how content volume scales across tiers, what GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) investment looks like at each level, how link-building scope differs, and the signals we use internally when a prospect is clearly a Starter vs. a Growth vs. an Authority client. By the end, you should be able to make a confident decision without needing a 30-minute sales call to get there.
What the Three Tiers Actually Cover
Before getting into the decision framework, it helps to have a clear picture of what you are comparing. We designed the tiers to be transparent rather than vague, so let us go through them concretely.
Starter (€199/month) covers the foundation: two SEO + GEO optimised blog posts per month, on-page technical fixes, basic schema markup (Article, FAQPage), and monthly reporting. It is designed for businesses that have no content engine yet and need to establish topical authority before scaling. Two posts per month is not a lot in absolute terms, but for a site with under 20 published posts it is the right cadence — enough to build a coherent cluster without producing content faster than Google can meaningfully index and evaluate it.
Growth (€349/month) adds volume and depth: four posts per month, expanded GEO optimisation (structured data for AI citation, TL;DR blocks, answer-first formatting across all content), light link outreach targeting topically relevant placements, and a quarterly competitor gap analysis. Growth is built for sites that have some content already but are not ranking consistently, or for businesses in moderately competitive niches where two posts per month would simply take too long to build authority.
Authority (€499/month) is the full engine: six posts per month, proactive link-building with monthly outreach targets, pillar + cluster content architecture, full GEO stack including Speakable markup and AI answer engineering, conversion-optimised landing pages updated quarterly, and a dedicated strategy review every month. Authority is not for everyone — it presupposes a site that is ready to compete for first-page and first-AI-answer positions in competitive categories.
The Four Variables That Actually Determine Your Tier
We have onboarded enough clients across all three tiers to see that the decision reliably comes down to four variables. Price matters, obviously, but it is the last variable, not the first.
1. Site Age and Existing Content Baseline
A site launched in the last 12 months with under 15 published posts almost always belongs on Starter. Google’s trust accumulates over time and content volume; publishing six posts per month on a brand-new domain does not accelerate that trust — it just creates more content that ages together. Starter lets you build the foundation correctly before scaling output.
A site with 20–50 existing posts, some of which rank on pages two or three, is a Growth candidate. The domain has some trust; the gap is content depth and systematic optimisation. Growth adds the volume and structure to convert those near-misses into consistent page-one results.
A site with 50+ posts, established domain rating, and competitive targets is an Authority client. At that stage, incremental content is less valuable than strategic depth, link equity, and AI-visibility work — which is exactly what Authority focuses on.
2. Competitive Intensity of Your Niche
Some niches are genuinely low-competition: a local accountancy firm in a mid-size Finnish city, a niche B2B software tool with few direct competitors, a specialist service with highly specific long-tail intent. In these cases, Starter volume is often enough to rank well within six to nine months.
Other niches — e-commerce, SaaS, marketing services, finance, health — are saturated with high-DA competitors, many of whom are publishing aggressively. In those environments, two posts per month will not move the needle quickly enough to justify the investment; Growth or Authority is the realistic minimum.
- Low competition (local services, niche B2B, specialist trades): Starter is usually sufficient
- Medium competition (regional e-commerce, growing SaaS, professional services): Growth
- High competition (national e-commerce, broad SaaS, marketing/finance/health): Authority
3. How Quickly You Need Results
SEO is a compounding asset, not a quick-win channel. That said, the timeline difference between tiers is real. In client work we have found that Starter clients typically start seeing consistent organic traffic growth at month four to six. Growth clients often see meaningful movement at month three to four. Authority clients, particularly those with an existing content base, sometimes see shifts within six to eight weeks on specific target clusters.
If you are in a situation where you need organic traffic to contribute to pipeline within three months, Starter is probably not the right fit — not because it is a bad product, but because the volume simply cannot compress the timeline that aggressively. Be honest with yourself about your timeline before choosing.
4. Your Capacity to Act on the Output
This is the variable most buyers ignore. A six-post-per-month Authority engagement produces content, technical recommendations, link opportunities, and quarterly landing page updates. If you have no one to review content for brand accuracy, handle link outreach follow-up, or implement technical changes, some of that capacity goes to waste.
Starter is deliberately lightweight on operational overhead — two posts per month can be reviewed quickly and the technical scope is narrower. If your team is lean, starting at Starter and scaling to Growth once you have internal capacity is often the smarter path.
Starter Is Right If You Are in This Situation
Use Starter as your entry point when most of the following are true:
- Your site is under 18 months old or has fewer than 20 published posts
- You operate in a low-to-medium competition niche
- Your monthly marketing budget is under €500 total, and SEO is one of several channels
- You want to test SEO/GEO performance before committing to higher volume
- Your team can dedicate one to two hours per month to content review and light implementation
- You have a 9–12 month horizon before you need organic to contribute meaningfully to leads
Starter is not a consolation prize. For the right business at the right stage, it is the correct investment — methodical, sustainable, and it builds the domain equity you need before scaling. We have clients on Starter who, after eight months, have cleaner topical authority than competitors who spent significantly more in less structured ways.
The most common Starter mistake is treating it as a short-term commitment. The clients who see the best results treat month one through six as an investment in infrastructure, not a sprint toward leads. Patience and consistency beat volume at this stage.
Growth Is Right If You Are in This Situation
Growth is the most common fit for clients we onboard. It covers the middle ground between “just getting started” and “competing for top positions in crowded categories.”
- Your site has 20–60 published posts but traffic is inconsistent or clustered around a few lucky rankings
- You are in a medium-competition niche where two posts per month feels too slow
- You have tried blogging internally but content lacks GEO structure and AI citations are not appearing
- You want link outreach included without managing it yourself
- Your timeline for organic contribution is four to six months
- You can commit €349/month for at least six months — breaking before month four rarely produces meaningful data
Growth is also the natural next step if you are on Starter and starting to feel the ceiling. The upgrade path is straightforward — we carry over all content and optimisation history, add the link outreach layer, and increase post cadence. Many clients start on Starter for three to four months to build foundation, then move to Growth once the site has enough content to support internal linking at scale.
The GEO expansion at Growth level is worth calling out specifically. At Starter, we do basic schema and answer-first formatting. At Growth, we do full structured data audits, TL;DR blocks on every post, and systematic AI citation targeting — meaning we are actively engineering content to be cited in ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. For most businesses in 2026, that layer is where a significant share of new organic discovery happens. Our SEO service page covers the full technical scope if you want to understand how this works in practice.
Authority Is Right If You Are in This Situation
Authority is for businesses that are ready to compete seriously for category-level visibility — not just a few keywords, but topical dominance across their domain.
- Your site has 50+ posts and you are already ranking for some terms, but not the high-value competitive ones
- You are in a competitive niche where main competitors are publishing six or more posts per month
- You want proactive link-building included, not just on-page work
- Organic is a primary acquisition channel and pipeline pressure is real
- You have internal capacity — a marketing manager or similar — to collaborate on strategy monthly
- You want conversion-optimised landing page work included alongside traffic acquisition
The landing page component at Authority level is worth understanding: every quarter we do CRO passes on your conversion-critical pages. This is where conversion rate optimisation and SEO stop being separate workstreams and start compounding together. More organic visitors to a page that converts at 3% instead of 1% is three times the lead volume from the same investment.
Authority also includes our most comprehensive AI citation work. By 2026, getting cited in AI-generated answers is not a nice-to-have; for certain B2B categories it is already the primary way new prospects encounter a brand for the first time. Authority clients get the full Speakable markup stack, entity-authority building, and answer-engineering review every month.
The Tier Mismatch Scenarios Worth Knowing About
We have seen a few predictable mismatch patterns repeat across client engagements. Recognising them upfront saves time and money on both sides.
Buying Starter When You Need Growth
This usually happens when budget is the primary filter. A business in a medium-competition niche buys Starter because €199 feels manageable, then after four months is frustrated that the two monthly posts are not moving metrics fast enough. The fix is almost never “wait longer” — at some point, volume genuinely does matter. If competition in your niche is real, under-investing just means the compounding starts later and at lower base velocity.
Buying Authority When You Need Starter
Less common, but it happens. A well-funded early-stage company wants to “do SEO properly” from day one and jumps straight to Authority. Six posts per month on a six-month-old domain is volume without infrastructure — the content exists, but the domain authority and topical trust needed to support it are not there yet. Starting at Starter and moving to Authority at month five or six often produces better 12-month results than starting at Authority from day one.
Treating Any Tier as a Short-Term Fix
SEO and GEO are compounding investments. A three-month engagement with any tier will produce some output, but it will not produce the compounding effect that makes the investment worthwhile. We lock pricing for 12 months precisely because clients who commit to a full year see dramatically different results than those who treat it as a quarterly experiment. If you cannot commit to six months minimum, SEO may not be the right channel right now — paid media with faster feedback loops might be a better fit. Our paid media service is worth looking at if timeline pressure is the main driver.
How to Make the Final Call
If you have read this far and are still unsure, here is a straightforward decision sequence:
- Check your domain age and content baseline. Under 20 posts? Start at Starter regardless of budget. Over 50 posts with existing rankings? Consider Authority. In between? Growth.
- Assess competition honestly. Search your three most important target keywords. If the top results are high-authority sites publishing frequently, budget for at least Growth.
- Audit your internal capacity. Under two hours per month available? Starter is safer. Have a marketing manager who can collaborate weekly? Authority unlocks its full value.
- Set a realistic timeline. Need organic contributing to pipeline in under four months? That constraint should either shift you up a tier or prompt an honest conversation about whether SEO is the right primary channel right now.
- Commit to a minimum of six months. Whichever tier you choose, the investment pays off over time. Plan for at least two quarters before evaluating.
The full tier breakdown, detailed scope at each level, and the 12-month price-lock guarantee are all on our campaigns page. If you want to talk through which tier fits your specific situation before committing, the contact page has a short intake form — we typically respond the same day.