How Critical to Address Redirect Chains?

[roundtable1]

We have about 100 redirect chains and were not sure of the impact they are having on our SEO.

One SEO expert wants to charge around $800 to clean these up for us.

Any thoughts on how serious of an issue this is and how important it is to address?

[GastonRiera]

Hi there!

Im not sure wherer your problem is that a few URLs have 100s redirects or that you have 100s URLs with some redirect chains. Whatever the case keep in mind that Google understands well up to 4-5 hops. 
You might/might not need the services from a SEO expert/agency, as long as you have recognized those chains, work with your dev team to reduce the amount of redirections.

One hint: Go one chain at a time, find all the URLs in that chain and analyze each of them. Look for inbound links to that URLs, traffic or any important aspect that if if you remove that URL/redirect might hurt your website.
Other hint: Do not remove that URL and let it be 404. Try shorten the chain and the extracted URLs point them to other page, of course be sure that they are related and it helps users.

To back what i'm saying: Matt Cutts said it in these videos:
Can too many redirects from a single URL have a negative effect on crawling? Is there a limit to how many 301 (Permanent) redirects I can do on a site?

Hope it helps.
Best luck.
GR.

[KevnJr]

If you understand html and SEO, then this could be an "in-house" job, otherwise hire only a professional that can be held accountable. Make certain of your wishes/needs and document that both parties understand the need and expected results.

$800 is not much money to have your site professionally repaired.

KJr