Yes for retainers, with one exception. Here’s the actual policy and why it exists.
The minimum
Local SEO Management ($1,297/month) and Full Stack ($1,897/month) both have a three-month minimum. That means:
- Months 1-3: committed, billed monthly, no early termination.
- Month 4 onward: month-to-month, cancel anytime with 30 days notice.
Three months is non-negotiable in normal cases. It’s not a contract trick — it’s an honest reflection of how local SEO timelines work.
Why three months specifically
Map pack movement typically takes 30-90 days and organic ranking shifts take 90-180 days. If we end the engagement at month two, two things happen:
- The work in progress (citations being claimed, GBP optimization deploying, content publishing rolling out, schema being indexed) doesn’t have time to compound. Local SEO is a layered system; pulling out before the layers settle means most of the investment is wasted.
- The engagement looks like a failure even when it’s working. We made all the right moves but stopped before they showed up in rankings. You’d reasonably conclude SEO doesn’t work, when actually we just didn’t let it finish booting up.
The minimum exists to protect the work, not to lock you in.
If three months feels like a long commitment for $1,297-1,897/month, the right move isn’t to negotiate the minimum down — it’s to talk through whether SEO is the right channel for your situation right now. Reach out before signing. If you only have 30 days of runway, talk to me before ordering anything.
The genuine-emergency exception
I’ll pause a retainer mid-minimum for two situations:
- Business sale or wind-down. If you sold the business or you’re closing it, paying for ongoing SEO is irrational. Email me, we pause and prorate the current month.
- Medical or family emergency. If something has happened in your life that means you need to stop everything for a while, email me. We pause, no early termination fee. Pick up when you’re ready or cancel cleanly.
These are real exceptions, not loopholes. I’ve used them four or five times across hundreds of engagements. The pattern is consistent — clients who genuinely need to pause are obvious, and trying to bend the policy for “I just want out” cases would just be the contract being unenforced rather than honest.
What’s not an exception
- “It’s not working at month two.” That’s expected; see how long until results. The minimum is exactly long enough for you to tell whether it’s working. Two months in isn’t enough data.
- “My budget changed.” I sympathize, but if your business can’t afford $1,297/month for three months, the engagement was probably too tight to begin with. We should have caught that in the pre-engagement conversation.
- “I want to switch agencies.” Switching mid-minimum means losing the work-in-progress. If you’re unhappy with how it’s going, talk to me — most issues are fixable in a 30-minute call.
After month three
Pure month-to-month. 30-day notice, no termination fee, no clawback, no contract. Stay because the work is producing. Leave because it isn’t or because circumstances changed. Both are clean exits.
This structure has held across hundreds of engagements since 2010. It’s neither aggressive nor passive — it’s calibrated to how local SEO actually works.