How much does CRO consulting cost?

An audit of a primary funnel, a monthly experimentation team, and a redesign of a checkout are different purchases. For a concrete same-currency comparison, Significant CRO lists a €1,900 focused sprint and an ongoing partner engagement from €5,500 per month, excluding VAT, with a three-month initial engagement. Those are quoted offers, not a market average, and they do not buy the same scope.

These are published offers, not an industry average. They are useful for understanding what a buyer gets at each price point. They are not directly comparable by dollar amount because page count, research depth, implementation, traffic, tools, and team size vary.

Public CRO offers worth comparing

The prices show why a proposal needs a deliverables list. A one-off audit and an ongoing partner engagement carry different commitments before anyone has made a claim about expected results. Comparing the numbers as if they bought the same thing would mislead you.

Four common ways CRO work is sold

Audit and diagnosis

An audit is usually the first purchase when you do not know where the funnel is losing people, or when internal teams need an outside view. Ask whether it includes analytics validation, funnel segmentation, customer research, usability review, recordings or heatmaps, competitive review, and a prioritized implementation backlog. A document with many observations is less useful than a short list tied to evidence and owners.

The low end of public pricing often means a focused scope. Onlinuum says its $500 starting audit covers the primary funnel and a quick-wins report; its page does not identify the currency. The Conversion Optimisation Co.’s $5,000 audit covers a full funnel for one website or app and lists user testing separately, again without identifying the currency. Those are different products even though both use the word audit.

Ongoing experimentation

Monthly work can include hypothesis formation, research, copy and design, development, QA, test launch, analysis, and reporting. It may also include a testing platform or pass that cost through separately. Significant CRO lists an ongoing partnership from €5,500 per month, excluding VAT, with a three-month initial engagement.

Ask how the provider decides a test is ready to stop. “Run to significance” sounds precise but depends on baseline conversion, traffic allocation, seasonality, sample-ratio issues, and the number of variants. A provider can manage that process; it cannot guarantee a meaningful result by a particular date.

Redesign and implementation

Redesign work is often quoted after research identifies a structural issue. The estimate may include UX and copy, visual design, front-end development, CMS or checkout work, analytics events, accessibility, QA, and release support. A test design in Figma is not a production redesign. A recommendation is not an implementation.

Separate those line items in the proposal. If the consultant does not write code, ask who will build the change and who owns regression testing. If the provider does build it, ask whether engineering time, design revisions, and post-launch fixes are capped.

Coaching and advisory support

Coaching is the lightest operating model: an internal team does the research and implementation, while an expert reviews plans and helps prioritize decisions. The Conversion Optimisation Co. publishes a Conversion Co-Pilot at $1,290 per month with unlimited feedback requests, walkthrough reviews, Slack, email or direct-message support, and strategic input on tests, copy, and UX. It is a different purchase from buying a team to run experiments for you.

Estimate the total engagement cost

Use a simple model before you compare proposals:

total cost = discovery or audit + strategy and research + design + implementation + testing tools + analysis/reporting + tax or pass-through expenses

For a hypothetical example, a €1,900 sprint plus a three-month €5,500 monthly engagement would be €18,400 before VAT. That arithmetic does not predict a result, and it does not make the two services equivalent to another provider’s €18,400 package. It only exposes the commitment you are considering.

Count each charge once. If an audit or retainer already includes research, design, analysis, or a testing tool, do not add that item again to the estimate.

Check whether the quote has a minimum term, prepaid payment, VAT or sales tax, user-testing incentives, software fees, travel, and a limit on revision or implementation hours. Significant CRO explicitly excludes VAT from its euro prices and lists a three-month initial engagement. Those details belong in your comparison sheet.

If you have low traffic

Low traffic does not mean you should ignore conversion problems. It does mean that a significance-driven testing retainer may be a poor first purchase. Start by checking event tracking and form errors, watching a modest set of recordings, talking to customers, and reviewing the main path on mobile and desktop. Fix clear friction, then measure the change over a sensible period.

When a consultant proposes tests, ask for the traffic assumption, primary metric, guardrail metric, minimum detectable effect, and stopping rule. Avoid any promise that a winner or a statistically significant result will arrive in two weeks. The timetable depends on traffic and behavior you do not control.

Questions to put in the brief

• Which conversion event and business outcome are we optimizing, and how is it tracked today?
• What exact pages, segments, devices, and traffic sources are in scope?
• What will we receive at the end of the audit: findings, evidence, copy, designs, code, a test plan, or all of these?
• Who supplies customer interviews, analytics access, design, engineering, QA, and approvals?
• How many experiments or implementation hours are included each month?
• Are testing software, research incentives, VAT, sales tax, and travel included?
• What happens when a test is inconclusive or a proposed change cannot ship?
• What is the minimum term, payment schedule, cancellation rule, and ownership of the resulting designs and code?

For a provider shortlist, see our best conversion rate optimization specialists and best landing page CRO agencies. Use those pages to identify potential fits, then request a proposal that states the same scope questions above.

Sources

• The Conversion Optimisation Co.: packages and pricing
• Onlinuum: CRO analysis and audit services
• Significant CRO: offers and pricing