Updated: 4 August 2026 · SEO, Pricing
SEO pricing ranges from free advice on YouTube to five-figure monthly retainers, and almost none of the quotes you'll see explain what actually drives that difference. Here's the honest breakdown.
The two phases, priced differently
SEO work splits into two phases that cost differently and shouldn't be confused.
The upfront technical and on-page work. Fixing site speed, structure, meta tags, and getting the foundational pages built correctly. This is typically a one-off cost, because once it's done properly it doesn't need repeating — only maintaining.
Ongoing content and monitoring. Writing new pages that answer real customer questions, tracking what's ranking, adjusting as competitors and algorithms change. This is recurring, usually monthly, because it compounds over time rather than being a one-time fix.
Quotes that don't separate these two clearly are worth questioning — you should know exactly what the upfront payment buys versus what the monthly fee is for.
What actually drives the price
How competitive your market is. Ranking for "plumber in a small town" and "web design agency in Madrid" require entirely different amounts of work, because the second has vastly more competition to outrank.
How broken the starting point is. A site with serious technical issues needs more upfront work than one that just needs content and refinement.
How many pages and how much content. A business with one service and one location needs less structure than one with several services across several areas.
Whether you need ongoing content or a one-off fix. A single technical audit costs less than a monthly retainer that includes writing new content every month.
What to actually ask a provider
Rather than asking "how much does SEO cost," ask what's included at each price point: how many pages, how much content per month, what gets reported and how often. Two quotes with the same headline number can include wildly different amounts of actual work.
Red flags in SEO pricing specifically
Guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls Google's algorithm — a guarantee usually means they'll target terms nobody searches so they can show you a screenshot of "success."
A price so low the arithmetic doesn't work. SEO takes real hours: research, writing, technical fixes, monitoring. A price that couldn't fund more than an hour a month buys very little actual work.
No mention of who owns the work produced. Content, technical changes, and access to your Search Console and Analytics should be yours, regardless of who did the work.
What I charge, and why
Real figures rather than vague ranges: SEO has the current pricing structure, split between the upfront technical and on-page intervention and the ongoing monthly work. I don't guarantee rankings — nobody honestly can — but I do commit to what gets done each month and show the data behind it.
Why comparing quotes by the headline number fails
Two providers quoting €400/month can mean completely different things. One might include ten hours of hands-on work covering technical fixes, content and monitoring. Another might include two hours and a templated monthly report generated automatically. Both are "€400/month SEO," and only one of them is likely to move your rankings.
The fix is asking for the breakdown, not the total: how many hours or pieces of content are actually produced each month, and what specifically gets reported. A provider who can't answer that clearly is either padding the number or genuinely doesn't track their own work closely enough to tell you.
What happens if you stop paying
Unlike advertising, which stops delivering the moment the budget does, SEO work built properly tends to keep producing results for a while after you pause — pages that already rank don't instantly disappear from search results. But the decline isn't zero either: competitors keep publishing, algorithms keep shifting, and content that once answered a question thoroughly can quietly fall behind a newer, more complete page from someone still investing. Rankings built on genuinely useful content erode slowly; rankings built on thin, template content erode fast, because there was never much substance holding the position in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
Is cheap SEO ever worth it? For a very simple, low-competition niche, sometimes. For anything with real competition, cheap SEO usually means too little work to move the needle, which makes it more expensive in wasted time than paying properly from the start.
How long before I see results from what I'm paying for? Technical fixes can show up in weeks. Content and rankings for competitive terms typically take several months to a year. Anyone promising faster for competitive terms is either talking about paid ads or overpromising.
Should I pay for a one-off audit or a monthly retainer? Depends on whether your site's core problem is technical (one-off fixes it) or a lack of content and ongoing optimisation (needs recurring work). Often it's both, in sequence.
Can I do the content myself and just pay for the technical work? Yes, and it's a reasonable way to control cost if you're willing to write consistently. The technical foundation still needs to be right for that content to have anywhere to land.
If you want an honest estimate for your specific case rather than a generic range, tell me your business and current situation. Full pricing is on the SEO page.
