How much does SEO cost? The price list and what drives the price
Monthly SEO runs from $590 to $2,900, an audit from $490. Here is where that gap comes from, when a $300 package is money thrown away, and how to compare two quotes that differ by a factor of three.
SEO6 min readMiloš
On the first call nearly every client asks the same thing: what does this cost. The honest answer is that it depends, but that helps nobody. So here are the numbers and, more importantly, an explanation of where the gap comes from.
These are not estimates lifted off another site. These are the prices we work at in 2026, and the range we see in the quotes clients show us when they come for a second opinion.
Monthly SEO: from $590 to $2,900
The most common model is a monthly fee, because SEO is not a job that finishes. Our packages look like this:
| Package | Per month | Who for |
|---|---|---|
| Start | $590 | Small businesses, one city, up to 20 keywords |
| Growth | $1,290 | Companies targeting page one on 60 keywords |
| Dominance | $2,900 | Shops and larger companies, 200 keywords and up |
The difference is not in how hard we "try". The difference is in the number of pages that have to be written and fixed, the number of articles a month, the number of links, and who works on the account. The Start package gets 2 pieces a month, Dominance gets 8 and a dedicated strategist.
On top of that come the things not everybody needs: local SEO at $190 a month, Google Ads management at $290, AI visibility at $240, an extra language or market at $350, conversion optimisation at $260.
For work across several markets the price is around 1.6 times higher. That is not about exchange rates but about competition: the same position across several markets takes more content and more links than it does in one.
One-off jobs: audit, migration, a new site
Not everything has to be monthly. Three jobs are most often done once:
- An SEO audit from $490. A review of the site across six areas - technical SEO, Core Web Vitals, on-page, content, links and competitors. You get the findings sorted by impact and effort, not a list of 300 items out of a tool.
- An SEO migration from $890. For when you are changing site, domain or platform. Every URL gets mapped before launch and positions get tracked for 30 days afterwards. This is a job you pay for once, and if it gets skipped it costs you for months.
- A website build from $1,900. A site with the structure and the speed SEO needs from day one, so that nothing has to be rebuilt after launch.
Why two quotes differ by a factor of three
A client gets a quote for $350 and a quote for $1,290 for the "same" work. The difference is nearly always in four things.
How many pages have to be written
A site with 8 pages and a site with 1,400 products are not the same job, even when the keyword is the same. On a shop, half the time goes on categories, filters and duplicates - a problem a brochure site does not have.
Whether content is included
This is the biggest hidden difference. A $350 quote usually covers technical fixes and a report, and you write the copy. If your team does not write, the work stalls in month two and you have paid three months for nothing. Ask explicitly: how many pieces a month and who writes them.
How strong the competition is
"Property solicitor Manchester" and "loans" are not the same terrain. For commercial queries where serious budgets are already going into content and links, the same result takes several times more work.
Who works on the account
On cheap packages the work is usually done by a junior, with supervision that exists on paper. That is not always bad - for a simple local site it genuinely is enough. For a shop migration it is not.
When a cheap package is money thrown away
A package at $200 to $300 a month makes sense in one case only: you have a clean site, one market, a handful of keywords, and somebody in your company writes the copy. Then that money can genuinely buy technical hygiene and on-page work.
In every other case that money goes on a report that serves nobody. The sign that this is happening: the report shows "positions" and "number of keywords in the top 100", and not a single figure on enquiries, calls or sales.
If the budget really is that size, you are better off taking a one-off audit, working through the findings yourself or with your own developer, and taking a monthly package when there is money for one. The result beats a year of surface work.
What to look for in a quote before you sign
Five things that have to be written down:
- What specifically gets done each month - the number of pieces, the number of pages, the number of links. Not "content optimisation".
- Who writes the copy and whether that is in the price.
- How success gets measured. Enquiries, calls and revenue, with positions as a supporting figure.
- The length of the contract and how you get out. Six months is a reasonable minimum for first results; twelve with a penalty for leaving is not.
- What stays with you when the work ends. Access to every account, the copy and the documentation are yours.
And one thing you should not find: a guarantee of first place. No agency controls the Google algorithm. Anybody guaranteeing it is selling something else.
How soon you can tell whether the money is coming back
For a new site the first movement comes in 3 to 4 months and steady growth in 6 to 9. For a site that already has history and only needs tidying, the first changes show in 4 to 8 weeks.
A practical way to check whether a package is worth it: take the average value of one client and divide the monthly price by that number. If a $590 package needs to bring in one client worth $800 a month to pay for itself, that is a realistic target. If it needs to bring in twenty, it is not.
In short
Monthly SEO realistically runs from $590 to $2,900, depending on the size of the site and the competition. An audit is from $490, a migration from $890. The difference between quotes is almost always in the content - whether it is included and how much of it there is.
If you want to know where your site sits in all this, our price list works out the figure as you pick a package and the add-ons, with no "call us for a price". And if it is easier to ask a person, book a 30-minute call - you come out with a plan, not a quote.