Outcome Simulator
Project realistic traffic + revenue gains from an SEO plan grounded in YOUR own data.
What it is
Plug in the monthly SEO work you can realistically sustain — articles, backlinks, audit fixes — plus your conversion rate and average order value. The simulator pulls YOUR tracked keyword positions and real search volumes, projects month-by-month traffic and revenue for up to 12 months, draws a chart, writes a plain-English 4-paragraph read on whether the plan is realistic, shows the top keywords driving your baseline, lets you compare conservative / realistic / optimistic scenarios side by side, models the downside of doing nothing while a competitor invests, and exports a printable client proposal white-labeled with your agency logo + brand color. Not a magic number — a defensible projection built on numbers you can point to.
Why it matters
SEO has a long delay between work and results. Clients (and your own brain) need to see the projected payoff to stay patient. The Simulator turns 'trust me, it'll work' into a chart with real numbers — and a branded PDF proposal you can hand a client. Nobody else in the SEO SaaS market gives you this.
How to use it (step-by-step)
Follow these in order. Each step is 30 seconds to 2 minutes.
Step 1
Enter your scenario inputs
Articles/month, backlinks/month, total audit critical fixes, your conversion rate %, average order value $, and how many months to project (1–12). Be honest — use levels you can actually sustain.
Step 2
Click 'Run simulation'
You get baseline traffic, projected month-N traffic (+growth %), and projected revenue, plus a month-by-month chart and table. First 5 runs/day are free; beyond that each run costs 1 credit — the Send button shows the live cost.
Step 3
Read the plain-English narrative
The 'read on this plan' card summarizes whether the plan is realistic and what to adjust. Sanitized to strip any AI-authorship leak before it shows up in a client-facing proposal.
Step 4
Compare 3 scenarios (1 credit)
'Run all 3' takes YOUR current inputs and projects conservative (×0.5), realistic (×1.0), and optimistic (×2.0) versions in one shot — so you can show a client a believable range. Refunded if any of the 3 projections fails.
Step 5
Check the downside model
Projects what happens to your traffic if a competitor keeps investing and you don't. Free (pure math, no AI). The assumptions card explains where the numbers come from — no black-box magic.
Step 6
Export a client proposal
Opens a printable HTML proposal branded with your agency logo + color (set in Settings). Auto-opens the print dialog so you just pick 'Save as PDF'. Ready to email a client.
Pick a keyword and a fix.
From any tracked keyword, simulate what happens if you fix X. Add Article schema. Add 5 internal links from hubs. Improve CWV by 10 points. Simulator forecasts the rank impact based on similar real outcomes.
- Choose any tracked keyword
- Pick a fix from the library (schema, links, speed, content)
- Forecast based on REAL outcomes from similar projects
- Compare 2 fixes side-by-side
Fix library · sample
30-day position curve, with confidence.
The forecast is a curve — not a single number. Outerank shows you the 80% confidence band so you see best-case + worst-case at the same time. Based on compound knowledge from similar fixes across all projects.
- 30-day position curve
- 80% confidence band shown
- Based on actual outcomes from similar fixes
- Niche-calibrated (ecommerce ≠ SaaS forecasts)
Forecast curve · 30d
Run two fixes side-by-side.
Which fix is bigger ROI: 5 internal links or 1000 more words? Run both and see the forecasts overlaid. The simulator becomes a prioritization tool, not a single-shot oracle.
- Side-by-side forecasts
- Effort × impact matrix
- ROI per credit / per hour estimates
- Pick the winner and ship it
A vs B
Outcomes feed back into the model.
When you ship a fix, the actual outcome trains the forecast model. Better the more you (and everyone else) use it. The simulator gets sharper over time, not stale.
- Real outcomes train the model
- Per-niche calibration improves with usage
- Forecasts shown honestly with confidence band
- Failure cases logged + learned from
Forecast accuracy · last 90d
Why Outerank
What \"AI SEO predictors\" can't back up.
The forecast is based on real outcomes, calibrated by niche, with honest confidence bands.
Confidence bands, not magic numbers
Every forecast comes with a confidence interval. You see best/worst at once — no fake precision.
Side-by-side fix comparison
Which fix is bigger ROI? Run two simulations and see them overlaid. Real prioritization tool.
Trained on real outcomes
Compound knowledge from outcomes across all projects. The model sharpens as more customers ship.
Niche-calibrated
Ecommerce simulations use ecommerce outcomes. SaaS uses SaaS. Local SEO uses local. Not one-size-fits-all.
What costs credits
No surprises. Browsing and viewing saved results is always free.
Pro tips
- →The first 5 runs/day are free so you can iterate on inputs without thinking about credits. Beyond that each run costs 1cr — Anthropic bill protection, not a paywall.
- →Show clients the conservative scenario, not the optimistic one. Under-promise, over-deliver — the biggest cause of losing an SEO client is projecting too rosy a picture.
- →Use the downside model in sales conversations — 'here's what standing still costs you' beats 'here's the upside' 9 times out of 10.
- →Re-run quarterly with updated numbers as your real conversion rate and baseline become clearer. The projection gets sharper every quarter you feed it real data.
- →Set your agency branding in Settings BEFORE exporting a proposal — the PDF picks up your logo + brand color automatically, and it looks amateurish if you forget.
Plain-English glossary
Every bit of jargon on this page, explained.
- Baseline traffic
- Your current monthly organic clicks — computed from YOUR tracked keyword positions × real search volumes × the standard CTR-by-position curve. The starting point the projection grows from.
- Free run quota
- The first 5 runs per user per day are free so you can iterate on inputs. Beyond that each run costs 1 credit — spam-cap on the Anthropic bill so nobody can drain our AI budget on a loop.
- Conversion rate
- The % of visitors who buy or sign up. Used to turn projected traffic into projected revenue.
- AOV (average order value)
- The average amount a customer spends per order. Traffic × conversion × AOV = revenue.
- Conservative / realistic / optimistic
- Three investment levels of the same plan (×0.5 / ×1.0 / ×2.0 of your live inputs), so you can show a believable range instead of one optimistic guess.
- Downside model
- A pure-math projection of what happens if you stop doing SEO while a competitor keeps going — the cost of inaction. Free, no AI.
- Growth %
- How much your traffic/revenue is projected to grow by the final month vs your baseline today.
- Assumptions strip
- The card under the downside model that spells out the share-of-voice math. No black-box magic — the constants are documented and shown.
- Sanitized narrative
- Before the AI narrative is displayed or exported to a client PDF, we strip any AI-authorship leaks and any fake AI-search-portal claims. Same guard we ship on Site Audit and Advisor.
Questions, answered
Site Audit FAQs
Are these projections guaranteed?
Does running a simulation cost credits?
Why does the model use Haiku instead of Sonnet or Opus?
How do I make the proposal look like my agency?
What numbers should I put in?
Where does the baseline come from?
Where do the downside model's percentages come from?
How we compare
Honest comparison — where we win, where the big tools win.
vs. (no one in this category)
Most SEO tools tell you what to do; we tell you what it'll be worth — and hand you a client-ready proposal to prove it. Ahrefs / Semrush have nothing like this.
vs. Manual Excel models
Yours will drift out of sync with reality. Ours pulls live tracker positions + real DFS volumes every run, so the baseline is always current.
Ready to try Outcome Simulator?
Open it on one of your projects.
Come back here whenever you need a refresher.