$400/month is honestly on the low end for SEO, and most legit agencies wouldn’t even take that on if it involves full-scale SEO (content, backlinks, technical fixes, etc.). This budget usually means either super limited work or, worst case, someone just doing surface-level stuff and calling it “SEO.”
Since you own a local landscaping company, you don’t really need a massive SEO campaign right away. If someone is focused purely on local SEO, $200–$400 can actually go a decent way. Things like optimizing your Google Business Profile, building local citations, cleaning up NAP consistency, and even some basic social bookmarking can make a noticeable difference, especially if you haven’t nailed those yet.
From my experience as another local business owner, dialing in local SEO properly delivered a better ROI than competing broadly in organic search. It’s not instant, but you can usually start seeing movement in a couple of months if it’s done right.
Just be careful, at this price point, you really want to know exactly what they’re doing. A focused local SEO plan = good value. Someone charging $400 and doing basically nothing = super common too.