Lobit vs OuterBox: An Honest Comparison for B2B Industrial Distributors

Read this before you sign with anyone

Alfred wrote this comparison because the question keeps showing up in discovery calls. "We are also looking at OuterBox. Why should we go with you?" Fair question. OuterBox is a serious agency. They are not the wrong choice for everyone, and we will say so plainly where it is true.

This is not a competitor takedown. It is a clear-eyed comparison for one specific buyer: the mid-market B2B industrial or specialty distribution ecommerce operator doing $5M to $80M online, with a 5,000 to 50,000 SKU catalogue, looking at a 12-month SEO investment between $60K and $180K. If you are that buyer, this page is for you.

If you are a $200M+ enterprise with a dedicated in-house SEO team and just need agency capacity, the comparison is different. If you are a DTC consumer brand, neither of us is the right fit (OuterBox does work in consumer, but it is not their sharpest edge either).

The 60-second summary

Where OuterBox is genuinely strong

We will say this clearly because it is true.

OuterBox has 20+ years in ecommerce SEO. They have a deep bench. They have done very large engagements, including enterprise B2B. Their case study library is broader than ours. They have full PPC and CRO arms in-house, which matters if you want one agency to own paid, organic, and conversion together. Their Cleveland-based team is on US business hours, which some US clients prefer over Zagreb (we are 7 hours ahead of Eastern, which works fine for weekly calls but does require a small adjustment).

If you want a one-agency-for-everything (SEO + PPC + paid social + CRO), and you have the budget for a true Tier-1 US agency, OuterBox is on the shortlist for a reason.

Where Lobit wins for the specific mid-market industrial buyer

One: vertical depth in industrial distribution. OuterBox lists "industrial" as one of many verticals on their site. Lobit has 17 named industrial distribution niches with productised playbooks: MRO, lab supply, safety/PPE, electrical wholesale, fluid power, fasteners, JanSan, HVAC/plumbing, foodservice equipment, industrial automation, HD/fleet aftermarket, medical/surgical, industrial packaging, welding and gas, abrasives, pumps and valves, building products, plus agricultural and test/measurement added in v12. Each niche has its own keyword model, schema model, and content patterns.

This depth means we have already seen your category. We do not pay to learn it on your retainer.

Two: GEO as core programme, not add-on. AI Overview citation share is now the #1 leading indicator of next-12-month organic revenue for B2B industrial distributors. We have built our entire content and schema methodology around it from the ground up. OuterBox does excellent technical SEO. Their GEO programme is real but it is bolted on. We started from GEO and built classical SEO around it.

Three: founder-led delivery. Neven, founder of Lobit, is on every account. He runs the discovery, he reviews the audit, he sits in the monthly review. OuterBox at scale cannot offer this and they would never claim to. For some buyers this is critical. For others it is not.

Four: pricing. Our Standard tier (EUR 5,800/mo, roughly USD 6,300) is below the OuterBox typical engagement floor for B2B industrial. We deliver this margin by being EUR-priced from Zagreb with senior delivery talent at European cost structures. Same senior strategist time. Lower price tag. Full breakdown on pricing page.

Five: money-back guarantee. Lobit refunds 100% of month 1 if the audit deliverables do not meet the agreed scope, and 50% of the last 6 months if the agreed 12-month KPIs are missed (excluding force majeure on the client side). This is published and enforced. OuterBox runs on standard agency contracts. Neither approach is "right" or "wrong". Ours is a strong commercial signal of confidence and the right structure for buyers who have been burned before.

Six: replatforming SEO and PIM-to-SEO are productised. If you are mid-replatform (Shopify Plus, BigCommerce, Adobe Commerce, SAP Commerce, Salesforce B2B Commerce, NetSuite SuiteCommerce, or custom headless), we have a dedicated productised service for migration-safe SEO and PIM-to-SEO pipeline. See replatforming cornerstone and PIM-to-SEO service. OuterBox is capable here but it is typically scoped as project work.

Where the choice is genuinely a tie

For pure technical SEO on a 5,000-15,000 SKU clean Shopify catalogue, with no platform migration, no extreme vertical specificity, no urgent GEO need, and a preference for US-based delivery, OuterBox and Lobit will both deliver. Decision factors then come down to founder access, pricing, time zone fit, and the chemistry of the team you meet in discovery.

We have lost three deals in the last 18 months to OuterBox in exactly this scenario. We do not begrudge it. The client made the right call for them.

The one question that decides it for most buyers

Ask both agencies this in discovery:

"In the first 90 days, can you ship a PDP schema rollout to my top 500 SKUs by margin, with Product, Offer, Brand and category-appropriate extension schema, deployed live, validated in Search Console and tested in Schema.org validator, with measurable AI Overview citation appearance for at least 8 commercial queries by day 90?"

If the agency hedges, asks for clarification, or wants to scope it as a separate project, this is not their core competency at the speed you need. We do this on every retainer in the first 90 days as part of the standard programme. It is the proof-of-life KPI on our 90-day onboarding page.

Other comparisons in this set

We have also published honest comparisons with Tier-2 APAC agencies (StudioHawk, Megantic, Prosperity Media) and against the in-house team build option. Read them all before you decide.

Book a 30-minute side-by-side discovery call

If you are talking to OuterBox and to us, the most useful next step is a 30-minute call where we look at your actual site, your actual AI citation share, and your actual category map on a shared screen. No deck, no pitch. After that call you will know which agency fits.

Book your discovery call here.

P.S. OuterBox is a 20-year-old agency that has earned its position. We are a younger, more specialised agency that has been built specifically for the moment we are in (AI search, catalogue-scale technical SEO, founder-led delivery for the mid-market). Both can be right answers. The wrong answer for you is signing with either of us before you have done the 30-minute comparison call. Take it from both. Decide after.