How much does an SEO company charge for penalty recovery?
There is no standard price, because the work depends on three things a company can only judge after looking at your site: whether you have a manual action or an algorithmic drop, how much of the site the problem affects, and whether link cleanup is genuinely needed. A sound quote names those three, lists the work that follows from them, and says what happens if the first attempt does not succeed. A quote given before anyone has looked at your Search Console is a guess.
The type of problem
A manual action appears in Search Console’s Manual Actions report with a stated reason, so the company knows what Google flagged and can scope the fix and the reconsideration request directly. An algorithmic decline comes with no notice. The company first has to establish what changed, and sometimes the answer is a broad ranking update rather than anything that can be recovered by cleanup. That diagnosis is work in itself, and it should be quoted as a first step, so you pay for an answer before committing to a larger project.
How much of the site is affected
A problem confined to one section, such as a set of thin pages, costs less to fix than one running through the whole site. For content problems, the price follows the number of pages that need rewriting, merging, or removal. For problems that came from years of aggressive tactics, the review itself takes longer, because every page and every link built in that period has to be checked.
Whether link cleanup is needed
Link cleanup can be the largest line in a recovery quote, and it is worth checking that it is needed. Google’s documentation on disavowing links explains that most sites do not need the disavow tool, and that it is meant for sites with a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links that have caused, or are likely to cause, a manual action. It also states: “Google works very hard to make sure that actions on third-party sites do not negatively affect a website.” A large count of “toxic” links in a third-party tool is an estimate, not Google’s assessment, so ask what evidence beyond the tool’s score supports a large cleanup, especially when there is no manual action for links.
Where cleanup is warranted, its cost grows with the number of linking domains, because each has to be reviewed and, where possible, a removal requested before anything is disavowed.
Fixed fee or retainer
A fixed project fee suits a manual action with a clear, contained cause: diagnosis, fix, and one reconsideration request, with a stated price for a second request if needed. A monthly retainer suits algorithmic declines and severe problems, where improvements have to be made, measured, and adjusted over a longer period. Whichever you choose, ask what is included, what is not, and what happens if recovery takes longer than planned.
What no quote can include
No company can promise when, or whether, Google will lift a manual action or reassess a site, because those decisions sit with Google. A quote that includes a guaranteed recovery or a fixed date is promising something outside the company’s control. A sound quote prices the work and states the uncertainty.