Running SEO on your own might seem like a money-saver. But in cannabis, DIY often costs more than you think. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a core part of getting found online, especially for dispensaries that depend on local traffic. According to Google, 78% of users who search for a local business visit that location within a day.

So yes: showing up in search results matters. But keeping your listings accurate, menus visible, and website optimized doesn’t have to drain your resources. Here’s how to calculate the real costs of DIY SEO and decide whether it’s smarter to keep it in-house or call in a cannabis SEO expert.

What Dispensary SEO Really Costs (and What You Get for It)

It might seem simple to trust your dispensary SEO strategy to someone already working for you or a new dedicated specialist. However, as with any investment, costs must be calculated and ROI prioritized. 

Consider the cost of a new hire. Depending on their level of experience, an average monthly salary for an SEO specialist can range from $6,000 to $10,000 per month. Add to that employee benefits, the cost of SEO tools, and the necessary training to bring someone up to speed on dispensary-specific rules and local regulations. You could easily be looking at a monthly expense more in the range of $8,000 to $12,000.

To avoid these costs, many owners consider using their current staff instead. Their marketing manager or store manager can keep listings like Google's Business Profile and local directories updated, but they're likely not specialists (or do not have enough time) to go further.

As a result, SEO activities are squeezed between other priorities, with lower apparent costs instead leading to a real lost opportunity. After all, you're fighting not just with other dispensaries for valuable online real estate, but every business around you. It's vital for someone working on your behalf to know how to do SEO at an advanced level.

DIY SEO: Can Your Current Staff Handle Your Dispensary's Strategy?

Good SEO is an ongoing process that works across several buckets: local listings, upkeep with Google and Apple Maps, content creation, website health, competitor research, and analytics. Recent industry reporting found SEO professionals spending more than 40 hours every week on routine tasks, leaving less time for strategic work.

If one person is building and executing your dispensary SEO strategy well, here are the tasks they'll work on with a rough estimate of hours needed per week:

• Google Business profile and local listing updates: 2-4 hours per week to keep hours, menus, and holiday exceptions updated while finding new listings to add your dispensary to.

• Content and blog work: 5-10 hours per week. Maintaining relevance online means aiming for regular, well-researched posts. This includes keyword research, writing, editing, and on-page optimization.

• Website maintenance and technical fixes: 3-5 hours per week. This includes website speed checks and code clean-up, schema updates, and regular mobile testing.

• Market and competitor research: 2-4 hours per week. You'll need to research regularly which keywords your competitors use and which promotions they're running, so your dispensary can adjust.

• Tools, reporting, and analysis: 3-6 hours per week. This includes managing subscriptions, generating reports, and following up on your findings to improve your SEO strategy over time.
  
  
  

In total, this adds up to 29 hours per week for a baseline effort, just to keep your SEO strategy running. If you want faster growth or operate in a competitive city, those 29 hours can easily turn into a full-time job. Plus, as you grow and expand your business, your SEO efforts must scale, further increasing SEO time investment and risk of any internal turnover.

And of course, that assumes dedicated expertise; an SEO novice will not just have to spend more time learning the concepts, but will also need to spend less time on other duties running the store.

Paid platforms are another recurring cost. Tools like SEMrush, SurferSEO, and Google Analytics are common in modern SEO stacks. But outside of Google Analytics, even low-level subscription plans can cost hundreds of dollars per month.

And yet, you have to invest. Don't spend enough time on it, and your store hours become incorrect, your menus become outdated, and you begin to miss local ranking opportunities. That can cost foot traffic and frustrate customers, though your losses are hard to quantify until they begin to accumulate.

How Specialized Cannabis SEO Agencies Save Time and Money

The best way to reduce your DIY SEO costs is to hire a specialized agency. That may look expensive at first, but it bundles expertise with tools and continuity.

Agencies focused on dispensaries especially know what matters. They can work on anything from menu indexing to local citations, regulatory content requirements, and how to communicate cannabis promotions without violating platform rules.

Search Engine Journal found that most SEO budgets fall between $500 and $5,000 per month, with many falling into the $1,001 to $5,000 range. However, as your cannabis dispensary scales, so must your SEO strategy. Digital World Institute reports initial costs for multi-location businesses as $1,500 to $3,000 per month per location, with each additional location adding another $500 to $2,000. Agencies can apply that budget across a team and tools to deliver steady improvements, especially compared to a single overworked employee trying to cover everything.

The practical benefits of working with a dispensary SEO agency include:

• Expertise: Gain access to an expert team with experience in all areas of SEO, including optimization for cannabis dispensaries. Market with confidence and navigate local compliance with ease.

• Consistency: Instead of a new hire who could move on to other opportunities or spreading responsibilities across multiple staff already filling other roles, partnering with an SEO team ensures a consistent, cutting-edge approach. 

• Scalability: Your team of SEO experts has the bandwidth to scale your strategy in real time.
  
  

In many cases, that combination will yield better ROI than a DIY approach, because the agency's workflow prevents common errors and reacts to ranking trends faster than internal staff can. Ultimately, using this dedicated expertise will improve your online visibility and increase online sales.

Smart SEO Investment: Balancing Cost, Time, and Expertise

If you choose to manage SEO in-house, be realistic about the DIY SEO costs you might incur. Set a clear budget for salary, benefits, tools, and training. Commit to a content cadence that includes well-researched pages and blog posts, and schedule weekly time for Google Business Profile maintenance. Use reputable tools to track your performance and measure your ROI.

That approach can be both costly and time-intensive, especially with already time-stretched staff to execute it. It's why opting to work with a specialist may be the right choice. Look for an agency with dispensary experience and ask for examples of local wins and measurable outcomes. 

Let's build an SEO strategy that actually fits your dispensary's needs. If you want help in assessing whether in-house or agency work will give you better returns, start with an honest audit. Get in touch with CannaPlanners to uncover opportunities to grow your visibility, traffic, and sales.