Is It Out of Scope? — SEO & marketing
Is creating a quarterly business review deck out of scope for an SEO retainer?
Usually yes, as a formal deliverable. The retainer's standard reporting cadence is included; assembling a polished presentation deck for internal stakeholders is beyond that.
This is a common request once an SEO retainer has been running long enough that the client wants to present results upward — to leadership, a board, or other stakeholders who weren't part of the regular reporting cadence.
Is it out of scope?
Usually yes as a formal deliverable. The regular reporting cadence — rankings, traffic, work completed — is standard retainer work; reformatting that into a polished, presentation-ready deck for a different audience is additional time.
Clause typically implicated
Clause typically implicated
Out-of-scope clause→ — A formal presentation deck goes beyond the retainer's included reporting format and cadence.
Example contract wording
Example contract wording (illustrative, not legal advice)
Our regular report already covers rankings, traffic, and completed work — turning that into a formal deck for a quarterly review is extra formatting and framing time, which I'd add on rather than fold into the standard report.
How MarginFlow flags it
MarginFlow flags formal presentation-deck requests outside_scope on SEO contracts, while treating the retainer's standard reporting cadence and format as included.