Avinash Kaushik says AI has made 25% to 75% cuts to SEO retainers possible now, and marketers should renegotiate. Work the platform now does for free should not carry a strategist's price tag. Own your data first, then have the conversation.
Paying retainer rates for work a platform now does for free is not loyalty. It is a subsidy you forgot to cancel.
Avinash Kaushik, one of the most respected names in analytics, has told marketers to renegotiate their SEO contracts now and expect savings of 25% to 75%. His argument is blunt. The work that used to justify a monthly retainer, keyword lists, on-page tweaks, reporting, is now handled by the platform itself. Paying a strategist rate for machine work is a habit, not a cost.
Kaushik is not saying fire your agency. He is saying restructure the deal. He proposes a smaller base retainer for governance and data ownership, project fees for the work that genuinely needs judgement like entity building and content architecture for AI Overviews, and an outcome incentive tied to real organic revenue or a verified citation share, not to keyword rankings any tool can now generate on command.
He adds one hard prerequisite. Own your data before you renegotiate anything. GA4, Search Console, log files and whatever AI citation tracking you run need to sit in your hands, not the agency's. If they hold the data, you have no leverage to ask for any of this.
Why it matters
Plenty of Australian businesses are still paying 2019 retainers for 2026 work. The tools got cheaper and faster, the skill and thinking did not automatically follow, and the invoice never moved. This is a chance to redirect that money to the work that actually needs a human, the strategy, the positioning and the judgement calls a model cannot make. The businesses that win are the ones who know what they are paying for and can tell the difference between value and habit.
The retainer savings Kaushik says AI now makes possible on existing SEO scopes. Source: Search Engine Journal.
What to do about it
Audit your retainer line by line. Separate the work a tool now does from the work that needs a strategist.
Take your data back first. If your agency holds GA4, Search Console or your ad accounts, fix that before any conversation about fees.
Restructure, do not just cut. A smaller base for governance, project fees for real strategy and an incentive tied to revenue beats a flat retainer.
Pay up for the new work. Entity building and AI Overview strategy are genuinely harder, and worth more, than the old checklist.
The machine does the busywork now. Pay your people for the thinking, and stop paying anyone for the parts a platform handles for free.