Two phrases appear in agency proposals more than almost any others, and both sound like they're in the buyer's favor. Neither is.
"Unlimited revisions"
This is usually pitched as confidence: we'll keep going until you're happy. In practice, here's what it means.
Real revisions happen at a specific stage of the project — after a first draft, usually — and the number of rounds is bounded by the project timeline, not the client's patience. An agency offering "unlimited revisions" is usually doing one of three things:
- Hiding the turnaround cost. Every revision cycle costs the agency design, copy, and project-management time. Unlimited revisions doesn't mean the agency absorbs that cost — it means the cost is baked into the up-front price, and if you don't use many revisions, you overpaid.
- Using it as a close-me line. "Unlimited revisions" is a handle that neutralizes the most common buyer objection ("what if I don't love the first version?"). It's a sales concession. The agency knows from experience that most clients use 1–2 revisions, not 20.
- Setting up scope creep in the other direction. Clients who hear "unlimited" assume the clock is unlimited. Projects drift, timelines slip, and the agency still gets paid on the original terms — they just burn more calendar.
The healthy structure is: two rounds of revisions on the first draft; additional rounds priced at a defined hourly rate or scoped as a change order. That's honest about the economics on both sides.
"We guarantee page-one rankings" (or any SEO guarantee)
Any agency that guarantees a Google ranking is either:
- Guaranteeing rankings on queries nobody searches for. "Page one for 'emergency plumber in [your zip code] that takes Visa'" is guaranteeable and worthless. The guarantee has to specify which queries, or it's a shell game.
- Guaranteeing rankings in Google Ads, not organic. Paid placements are guaranteeable — if you're willing to pay. "We guarantee page-one" in a contract often means "we'll bid on your terms until you're on page one," which is a description of how Google Ads works, not an SEO outcome.
- Committing to something they can't deliver. Google's ranking algorithm is not deterministic. Any agency that claims it can guarantee an organic ranking on a competitive query is either naive or lying. A credible SEO agency talks about likelihood of ranking, time to rank, and ranking distribution across a target keyword set — not guarantees.
What to ask instead
Swap the buyer-friendly-sounding phrase for something specific:
- Instead of "unlimited revisions," ask: "What's your standard revision structure, and what triggers a change order?"
- Instead of "do you guarantee rankings," ask: "For a client with a profile similar to mine, what's your typical time-to-rank distribution for the top 10 target queries?"
Specificity disarms sales language. An agency that can answer specifically usually can deliver specifically. An agency that defaults to "unlimited" or "guaranteed" almost never can.