K60 vs K90 vs K365: Which Recruitment SEO Programme Do You Need?

By Dan Jones, Founder, Kaizen SEO · Former recruiter, 10+ years in search

Key takeaways

• Kaizen runs three depths of recruitment SEO, not three price points of the same thing. K60 proves it, K90 arms it, K365 compounds it.
• Each one contains the one below it, so the choice is depth, never direction. You can start at K60 and step up without redoing work.
• K60 is £4,950 plus VAT for 60 days, K90 is £9,950 plus VAT for 90 days, K365 is £34,950 plus VAT for twelve months. All fixed scope, all bought once, no monthly fee and no lock-in.
• The deciding question isn't budget. It's whether competitors are already ranking above you, because that's what decides whether you need link building from day one.

Three depths, one direction

Most agencies pitch tiers that differ by how many hours you buy. Ours differ by how far the work goes. The architecture, the page protocol and the measurement are identical across all three. What changes is how much gets built, whether authority work runs alongside it, and how long the compounding has to take hold.

That matters when you're choosing, because it means a wrong choice costs you time rather than money. Nothing gets rebuilt when you step up. K90 opens with the K60 build. K365 opens with the K90 build.

K60, £4,950 plus VAT, sixty days

The entry depth, and the one most agencies should start with. In 60 days we clear the technical faults, configure GA4 and GTM properly, rebuild your priority money pages to protocol, and build one authority cluster with up to 15 gated pages behind it.

Bought as separate products that work totals £7,980. You own every asset, whatever the outcome and whenever you leave, and we guarantee five of your commercial keywords onto page 1 or 2 of Google, measured at day 90. We select them from the day one research, you approve the list in writing before any work starts, and if one misses we keep working it at no extra cost until it lands.

K60 excludes link building deliberately. On a site with structural faults, links push authority into pages that can't convert it. Fixing the foundation first is cheaper and faster. That exclusion is the single most important thing to understand about K60, because it's also the thing that decides whether K60 is enough for you.

K60 fits when: your site has never had proper SEO, or it's been rebuilt or migrated recently, or you're not sure the last agency did anything. It also fits when you want evidence before committing a bigger budget.

K90, £9,950 plus VAT, ninety days

Everything K60 does, roughly doubled, plus the authority work K60 leaves out. Ten money pages rebuilt, two authority clusters with up to 30 gated spoke pages, and every technical fault cleared.

The authority block delivers 4 DR30+ placements, 3 DR20+ niche edits, 1 syndication and 50 citations, worth £1,848 at component rates. Two months of active AI citation work run alongside it across Reddit, national PR, listicle placement and forum presence. The guarantee works the same way at K90, except the number doubles: ten of your commercial keywords on page 1 or 2 of Google, measured at day 120.

K90 fits when: rivals are already visible on the searches you care about. If a hiring manager searching your discipline finds three competitors before they find you, fixing your own site isn't enough. You have to outrank someone, and that takes links and citations, not just clean architecture.

K365, £34,950 plus VAT, twelve months

The programme that replaced our retainers. A new authority cluster every month, built on 10+ rebuilt money pages, with quarterly strategy resets run by Dan Jones directly rather than handed to an account manager.

Across the year the authority programme delivers 45+ placements from DR20 to DR30+, worth more than £13,500 at component rates. Twelve months of AI citation work cover Reddit, national PR distribution, listicle placements, forum presence and citation monitoring across four AI platforms. Each quarter we scope a set of commercial keywords and you approve the list in writing. Miss one and it carries into the next quarter on top of that quarter's own set, not in place of it.

It can be paid upfront, which is standard, or across 12 payments of £3,450 totalling £41,400. The difference pays for the financing, never for extra scope.

K365 fits when: being invisible costs you more than the fee. That's usually firms in high fee markets, where one missed retained search is worth more than the programme. If a single placement earns you £15,000, K365 pays for itself inside three.

How to choose, in one question

Search the terms a client would use to find an agency like yours. Not your brand name, the generic ones: your discipline plus "recruitment agency", your discipline plus "recruiter", the role titles you place.

If nobody relevant ranks above you, your problem is your own site. Start at K60.

If two or three rivals sit above you, your problem is competitive. You need K90, because no amount of on-site work alone will move you past a competitor who already has authority.

If you're in a market where the same four firms own every term and have done for years, you need the compounding that only K365 gives you. There's no shortcut past a twelve month authority programme in a market like that.

What happens if you pick wrong

Picking too shallow costs you a quarter. You'll finish K60 with a clean site, better reporting and real movement on long tail terms, then find the head terms still belong to someone else. You step up to K90 and the K60 work carries forward.

Picking too deep is the more expensive mistake, and it's the one agencies make when a supplier sells on ambition rather than diagnosis. If your site has structural faults, buying a year of link building first wastes most of the first quarter's authority. That's why the ladder exists in this order.

If you're unsure, start at K60. It's designed to be the cheapest way to find out.

Where Overwatch fits

Overwatch is £490 a month, rolling, and it isn't a fourth tier. It's for agencies running SEO in house that want the monitoring, the protocol and the escalation without buying delivery. If you have someone internal doing the work, that's the one to look at.

Frequently asked questions

Can I start on K60 and upgrade later?

Yes, and most agencies do. K90 opens with the K60 build and K365 opens with the K90 build, so nothing is rebuilt and nothing is paid for twice.

Why does K60 exclude link building?

Because links sent to a site with structural faults push authority into pages that can't use it. Clearing the faults first makes every link bought later worth more. It's a sequencing decision, not a cost saving.

Are these retainers?

No. Each one is a service bought once, fixed scope at a fixed price, with no monthly fee. K365 is a twelve month programme, so paying across twelve months spreads the cost of that service rather than signing you up to a rolling fee you later have to cancel. We retired our retainers because an open ended monthly fee gives an agency no reason to finish anything.

Can I spread the payments?

Yes. K60 can be paid as 2 payments of £2,850, K90 as 3 payments of £3,800, and K365 as 12 payments of £3,450. Upfront is standard and cheaper. The spread covers the cost of financing it, never additional scope.

What does the guarantee actually commit you to?

Getting named commercial keywords onto page 1 or 2 of Google. Five on K60 measured at day 90, ten on K90 measured at day 120, and a scoped set each quarter on K365. We select them from the day one research, you approve the list in writing before any work starts, and we measure it in your own Search Console. Miss one and we keep working it at no extra cost until it lands. Your side is approvals inside 5 business days and specified technical changes inside 15. A miss that holds up the work pauses the clock from the day we tell you in writing.

Do I own the work if I don't continue?

Yes. Every page, cluster, placement and report is yours permanently, whichever depth you buy and whatever you decide afterwards.

Which one should you book?

Run the search described above before you book anything. It takes two minutes and it answers the question better than any sales call. Then book a 15 minute walkthrough and we’ll tell you which depth the search result points to, including when that answer is K60 rather than something larger.

About the author

Dan Jones, Founder, Kaizen SEO

Dan spent several years placing candidates before moving into search, and has worked in SEO for over a decade. He is the only UK recruitment SEO specialist who came off the recruitment floor first, which is why Kaizen’s work starts with how agencies win retained briefs rather than with generic site tactics. He writes about recruitment SEO, AEO and the search behaviour of hiring managers and senior candidates.

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