TL;DR
Houston has 173 companies listed under SEO on DesignRush and a Clutch page whose top entry is an Austin agency, and on October 29, 2026 exactly two of the nine Houston shops worth calling print a monthly price. Astoundz runs $1,495 to $6,495 a month plus a $2,500 strategy fee with no long-term contract. EWR Digital starts Growth at $3,000 a month on a six-month agreement, with a $15,000 retainer or six-month commitment for every new client. Regex SEO's contact form starts its annual budget band at $48,000. Thrive, whose Houston page holds the top organic spot from Arlington, prints "as low as $500." Everyone else quotes on the call. OWDT is the biggest brand and the most expensive, at a $25,000 Clutch minimum. For a contractor the fit is Astoundz or EWR locally, and Skill Mammoth at $750 or $1,500 a month if you want the price on the page and month-to-month terms.
Disclosure up front: Skill Mammoth is a Minneapolis agency, we serve Texas contractors and practices remotely, and we are on this list. The other nine are Houston shops we would lose deals to in the right matchup, ranked with the same rules as our Austin, Denver, Phoenix and Charlotte lists: a real Houston office, SEO as a core service, and whatever price, contract term and proof each agency prints on its own site, read on October 29, 2026. Where a figure comes from Clutch or a Google Business Profile instead of the agency, we say so.
Read the Google results before you read this list
Search "seo company houston" from Houston on October 29, 2026 and the organic results are Thrive's Houston page (an Arlington agency), Actual SEO Media, Semrush's agency directory, Regex SEO, Coalition Technologies (Los Angeles), EWR Digital, The Manifest, Ignite Visibility (San Diego) and a roundup post. Three Houston agencies on page one. Flip the words to "houston seo company" and OWDT takes the top spot, followed by SeoProfy from Miami. The pattern is the same as Austin: the agencies with the strongest domains rank their own city pages from out of town, and the directories fill the middle.
Clutch is worse. Its "Top SEO Companies in Houston" page opens with Complete SEO, which is in Austin, then SmartSites (Paramus, New Jersey), OuterBox (Copley, Ohio), Breakline (Guildford, England, with 29 "locations" on its profile), Cyfrow (Austin), INSIDEA (a Delaware registered address and no Houston office) and Web Tonic (San Francisco). Only Coozmoo, in Pearland, is local among the top ten. The nine below all have a Houston address we could confirm on the agency's own site.
1. Skill Mammoth (ours)
We are the flat-fee option on this page, on purpose. Local SEO and AI search run $750 or $1,500 a month on published tiers with no contract and no setup fee, every plan runs on a website we build and you own ($3,000, or $150 a month for 24 months on Easy Start), and showing up when a homeowner asks ChatGPT for a plumber in Katy is built into the SEO tiers rather than sold as an add-on. The fit is home service contractors and local practices doing $500,000 to $5 million a year. We are not the fit for an energy company or a hospital system; three agencies below are, and we name them.
2. Astoundz
Houston, 4501 Brookwoods Drive, and the only Houston agency here with a pricing page in the navigation. Foundation is $1,495 a month, Growth $2,495 (marked most popular), Authority $3,995 and Dominance $6,495 and up, each with a $2,500 one-time "Voice to Visibility" strategy fee, and the page says no long-term contracts. Foundation covers one Google Business Profile location, two site development hours a month, one piece of optimized content and 25 tracked buyer prompts, which is a plan built for one-location service businesses. Extras are printed too: $250 a month per additional location, $250 for a new page design, $49 a month for ADA compliance.
Google reviews: 4.9 stars across 104. Clutch has no reviews yet and lists $100 to $149 an hour. Two things to ask about on the call. The site says "for more than 15 years" while Clutch says founded 2016. And the homepage promises "Guaranteed Results!" while the FAQ on the same site answers the first-page guarantee question with "No, and any agency that does is waving a red flag." We agree with the FAQ.
3. EWR Digital
Houston since 1999 as eWebResults, renamed in 2019, at 5999 West 34th Street. EWR prints its packages on the Houston SEO page: Foundation starts at $10,000 as a one-time project or six-month commitment, Growth starts at $3,000 a month on a six-month agreement that moves to quarterly sprints, and Market Dominator is $7,500 and up a month. Every new client starts with a $15,000 retainer or a six-month commitment. The FAQ on the same page says most Houston campaigns run $2,500 to $10,000 a month, which sits below the printed Growth floor, so ask which number applies to you.
The proof is the best on this list for a contractor: an unnamed Houston home services client at 100-plus ranking keywords with revenue up 20 to 30 percent year over year, and an office furniture client taken to position three for a 1,300-search keyword in three months. Niches named are oil and gas, law firms, healthcare, contractors and B2B. Google reviews 4.9 across 148, Clutch 5.0 across 11 at $150 to $199 an hour. If you can commit six months and $3,000, this is the Houston agency we would pick for a trades company.
4. Regex SEO
Houston, with Clutch listing a Woodway Drive headquarters and a Cherry Park Drive office, founded 2015. Regex holds the fourth organic spot and prints no price; the homepage says it broke away from "restrictive service plans" in favor of custom strategies. The contact form tells you the floor anyway: the annual budget dropdown starts at $48,000 to $100,000, so plan on $4,000 a month and up. The homepage case studies are unusually specific, with eight metrics per client: an ADHD clinic at 376 percent more online leads in nine months, a veterinary pharmacy at 269 percent in four. Niches run from medical and legal to window replacement and solar. Google 4.6 across 11, Clutch 5.0 across 2, hourly $100 to $149. Regex also appears on our Austin list with the same budget band.
5. OWDT
Houston, founded 2006, with a Clutch footprint of seven cities and the strongest domain on this list at Ahrefs DR 69. OWDT holds the top organic result for "houston seo company" and its case studies are enterprise: Memorial Hermann from 90,000 to 942,000 monthly visits, Citizens Bank, Morgan Stanley, the University of Illinois. No price is printed. DesignRush lists $275 an hour and a minimum budget of $50,000 and up; Clutch lists $200 to $300 an hour and $25,000 minimum projects, with zero reviews. Google reviews 4.8 across 33, under the category "website designer." This is the agency for a hospital, a bank or a university in Houston. It is not for a company with four trucks, and OWDT does not pretend otherwise.
6. TopSpot Internet Marketing (now OuterBox)
515 Post Oak Boulevard, since 2003, and a Houston institution in industrial and B2B search, with oil and gas, petrochemical, manufacturing and distributor clients and a "200+ Houston SEO clients" claim. What the topspot.com site does not say is that OuterBox, of Copley, Ohio, announced it had acquired TopSpot on June 18, 2024; the Google Business Profile at the Post Oak address now reads "OuterBox," 4.8 stars across 198 reviews. No price is printed. Clutch (TopSpot profile) 4.9 across 24 at $150 to $199 an hour; the OuterBox profile is 5.0 across 93. If you want the TopSpot bench, you are hiring OuterBox, which is fine as long as you know it.
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7. YellowFin Digital
A Houston office at 6200 Savoy Drive, but the headquarters is Corpus Christi, with Austin and Knoxville branches, so count it as a Texas agency with a Houston desk. Founded 2017. No price is printed; the page offers "flexible SEO packages at multiple investment levels" and, to its credit, month-to-month agreements with no lock-in contracts. The niches named include home services and contractors, and the proof includes a roofer, Tim Leeper Roofing, at 62 percent year-over-year growth against a 25 percent goal. Clutch is the strongest signal here: 5.0 across 29 reviews at $100 to $149 an hour. The Houston Google listing has two reviews.
8. Actual SEO Media
Houston, headquartered on Texas 249 with seven Greater Houston locations named on the site, founded 2012 per Clutch, and the second organic result for the head keyword. No price is printed; the navigation offers social media pricing and an instant PPC estimate but no SEO figure. The niches list is long and includes plumbing, roofing, contractors, pool construction and commercial cleaning, which is the right list for this blog's readers. The examples on the Houston SEO page are hypothetical rather than named clients. Google 4.4 across 27 at the West Houston location; Clutch shows zero reviews at $100 to $149 an hour. Ranking second in your own city on a DR 37 domain is itself a credential.
9. SEO Houston Inc.
708 Main Street downtown, since 1999, a two-to-nine person shop whose navigation includes a link literally labeled "SEO Fees." The page behind it prints no number: packages "built to fit different budgets," recommended after a free consultation. No long-term contracts, which the header repeats. Awards are a three-time BBB winner and an Inc. 5000 listing. Google 5.0 across 7, Clutch $50 to $99 an hour with no reviews, DR 18. The small-shop option, with a small-shop footprint.
10. Versa Creative
7600 West Tidwell Road, with a second office in Dallas, founded 2009, 50 to 249 people on Clutch. Versa is a full-service creative agency where SEO is one line among branding, video and media, with education, government and healthcare clients (Alief ISD, YES Prep). No price, no pricing page, no SEO case study figures. Google 4.3 across 53, Clutch 4.7 across 3. If you want one Houston agency for the brand, the campaign and the search work together, this is that; if you want search alone, it is the wrong shape.
What they charge, side by side
| Agency | Printed price | Contract | Google reviews | Clutch hourly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skill Mammoth | $750 or $1,500 a month; site $3,000 or $150 a month | Month to month | Published on our site | n/a |
| Astoundz | $1,495 to $6,495 a month plus $2,500 once | No long-term contract | 4.9 (104) | $100 to $149 |
| EWR Digital | Growth from $3,000 a month; Foundation from $10,000; $15,000 retainer or 6 months to start | 6 months | 4.9 (148) | $150 to $199 |
| Regex SEO | Not printed; form starts at $48,000 a year | Not printed | 4.6 (11) | $100 to $149 |
| OWDT | Not printed; $275 an hour and $50,000 minimum on DesignRush | Not printed | 4.8 (33) | $200 to $300 |
| TopSpot (OuterBox) | Not printed | Not printed | 4.8 (198, as OuterBox) | $150 to $199 |
| YellowFin Digital | Not printed | Month to month | 5.0 (2, Houston) | $100 to $149 |
| Actual SEO Media | Not printed | Not printed | 4.4 (27) | $100 to $149 |
| SEO Houston Inc. | Not printed | No long-term contract | 5.0 (7) | $50 to $99 |
| Versa Creative | Not printed | Not printed | 4.3 (53) | $100 to $149 |
| Thrive (Arlington) | "As low as $500"; form bands from $2,500 a month | Month to month | 5.0 (6, Houston) | $100 to $149 |
| Verdict | Two of nine Houston agencies print a price. Both are the ones to call first, because a printed price is a company that expects to be compared. | |||
One correction to a claim on that Thrive page: it says "5.0 rating on Clutch." Thrive's Clutch profile showed 4.6 across 115 reviews on the same day.
For contractors specifically
Houston is the largest-growing metro in the country, up 126,720 people to 7,904,627 between July 2024 and July 2025 by the Census Bureau's March 2026 release, and Harris County alone added 48,695. The Texas licensing files on October 29, 2026 show 3,044 active air conditioning contractor licenses and 1,746 electrical contractor licenses with a Harris County address. That is the competition for "ac repair Katy," and it is why the $500 entry tier and the $25,000 enterprise minimum both exist in the same city.
For a one-location trades company, the shortlist is Astoundz's Foundation tier at $1,495, EWR's Growth at $3,000 if you can sign six months, YellowFin for month-to-month with a contractor roster, and us at $750 or $1,500 with the site included. Everything that matters in Houston local SEO is remote work: the Google Business Profile, a page per suburb from Sugar Land to The Woodlands, reviews, and the Local Services Ads layer that Google is folding into Google Ads this year. A Houston office helps for a coffee; it does not move a map pin. The playbook itself is in our SEO for contractors guide.
How to choose between them
Ask every agency the same three questions. What is the monthly price and what is the term, in writing, before a discovery call. Which Houston clients in my trade can I call. And what happens to the website if I leave; OWDT, TopSpot and Versa build sites, and the answer decides whether you can switch agencies without starting over. Then check the agency's own Google Business Profile ranks for its own name in its own city. Two agencies on this list rank their own homepages on page one for the city's head term, and that is the most honest proof of competence a Houston SEO company can offer.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the best SEO companies in Houston?
By fit, on October 29, 2026: Astoundz for a one-location service business that wants a printed price and no contract; EWR Digital for a contractor or law firm that can commit six months at $3,000 a month; Regex SEO for a medical or industrial company with a $48,000-a-year budget; OWDT for enterprise and healthcare; TopSpot, now OuterBox, for industrial B2B; YellowFin for month-to-month terms. Skill Mammoth serves Houston contractors remotely at $750 or $1,500 a month.
How much does SEO cost in Houston?
Printed Houston figures run from Astoundz's $1,495 a month to EWR Digital's $3,000-a-month Growth floor and $7,500-plus Market Dominator tier, with Regex's contact form starting at $48,000 a year and OWDT listed at $275 an hour with a $50,000 minimum on DesignRush. Thrive prints a $500 start from Arlington. Clutch hourly bands for Houston shops run from under $25 to $300-plus.
Which Houston SEO companies publish prices?
Astoundz ($1,495 to $6,495 a month plus a $2,500 strategy fee) and EWR Digital (Growth from $3,000 a month, Foundation from $10,000) print a number. Regex prints annual budget bands. Skill Mammoth publishes $750 and $1,500. OWDT, TopSpot, YellowFin, Actual SEO Media, SEO Houston Inc. and Versa Creative quote on the call.
Are the agencies on Clutch's Houston list actually in Houston?
Mostly not at the top. Complete SEO is in Austin, SmartSites in New Jersey, OuterBox in Ohio, Breakline in England, Cyfrow in Austin, INSIDEA lists a Delaware address, Web Tonic is in San Francisco and Digital Success is in Dallas. Coozmoo in Pearland is the only local agency in the top ten.
Was TopSpot acquired?
Yes. OuterBox of Copley, Ohio announced the acquisition on June 18, 2024. The topspot.com site still runs under the TopSpot name without mentioning it, and the Google Business Profile at 515 Post Oak Boulevard now reads OuterBox.
Do I need a Houston agency for Houston SEO?
No. Local SEO runs through the Google Business Profile, suburb pages and reviews, all remote work, which is why Thrive ranks first for the city from Arlington and OWDT serves seven cities from Houston. A local agency helps if you want to meet in person; it does not change the ranking work.
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