SEO pricing in 2026. What agencies, consultants and freelancers actually charge.
Ongoing SEO typically costs $1,000-$5,000 a month in the US and £500-£5,000 a month in the UK for small and mid-sized businesses. Hourly rates run from about $75 to $200, and one-off audits from a few hundred dollars to well over $5,000. Below are the market levels, the pricing models, and what moves the number up or down.
US market
What SEO costs per month in the US
The figures below are the levels US agencies and SEO providers publish on their own pricing pages and in industry surveys (September 2026). They cover an ongoing retainer: strategy, technical work, content and reporting. What is included varies a lot, so read them as ranges, not quotes.
| Business size | Typical monthly retainer | What it usually covers |
|---|---|---|
| Startup or micro business | $500-$1,500 | Basics: technical health, a handful of pages, local listings |
| Small business | $1,500-$3,500 | Ongoing content, on-page work, local or regional focus |
| Mid-sized business | $1,500-$10,000 | National keywords, regular content, some link building |
| Large business | $5,000-$20,000 | Many templates and pages, content teams, digital PR |
| Enterprise | $10,000-$50,000+ | Multiple markets, large sites, dedicated specialists |
For context, the largest public survey of SEO providers (439 respondents, 2024) found the most common retainer was $501-$1,000 a month, while agencies averaged around $3,200. Half of all providers asked for less than $3,000 a month. The spread is wide because the market runs from solo freelancers to full-service agencies.
UK market
What SEO costs per month in the UK
UK pricing follows the same shape at slightly lower numbers. Published UK guides agree that anything under roughly £800 a month buys very little senior time.
| Business type | Typical monthly retainer |
|---|---|
| Local business or startup | £300-£1,200 |
| Growing SME | £1,500-£3,000 |
| Mid-market B2B | £2,500-£8,000 |
| Enterprise | £5,000-£20,000+ |
| Freelancer (any size) | £500-£2,500 |
Pricing models
Four ways SEO is priced. And when each one makes sense.
| Model | US | UK | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer | $1,000-$5,000 typical | £500-£5,000 typical | Ongoing growth, content and maintenance |
| Hourly consulting | $75-$200/hour | £40-£250/hour (London seniors up to ~£400) | Advice, reviews, in-house team support |
| Day rate | Varies | £200-£400 junior, £400-£700 mid, £700-£1,200+ senior | Workshops, technical deep dives |
| One-off project | $500-$5,000 common, more for large sites | £1,000-£20,000 | Audits, migrations, a set of new pages |
Monthly retainer
The default for ongoing SEO. You pay a fixed amount each month for an agreed scope. It suits businesses that need a steady flow of new pages and someone keeping an eye on the site. Ask exactly what the fee buys: hours, pages, reports, links.
Hourly and day rates
Useful when you have people to do the work and need an experienced second opinion. The most common US hourly band in survey data is $75-$100, while US agencies average closer to $150. Specialists in technical or international SEO sit at the upper end.
Project pricing
A defined deliverable at a fixed price: an SEO audit, a site migration, keyword research, or a set of landing pages. Good for a clear starting point, or for businesses that want to own the result rather than rent ongoing work.
Performance-based
Paying per ranking or per lead sounds safe but is rarely offered by established providers, because rankings depend on things no one controls. When it is offered, check how "results" are defined. Ranking for a keyword nobody searches is easy.
Audits
What an SEO audit costs
Audits have the widest price range of any SEO service, because the word covers everything from a free automated report to weeks of manual analysis.
- Automated or light audits: a few hundred dollars. Mostly tool output with some comments.
- Small to mid-sized sites: roughly $1,000-$5,000 for a thorough manual audit with a prioritized plan.
- Large ecommerce and SaaS sites: $10,000-$20,000+ when there are tens of thousands of URLs.
- UK: published audit prices range from about £500 to £7,500.
The useful question is not the price but the output. A good audit ends with a short list of fixes in order of impact, not a 90-page export. Read more about technical SEO if your issues are in the code.
Price drivers
Six things that set the price
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How competitive your searches are
Ranking a dentist in a small town is a different job from ranking a SaaS product against funded competitors. The more money there is in a keyword, the more work it takes to win it, and the higher the retainer.
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The state of your site
A slow site with thin pages, broken redirects or content Google cannot read needs fixing before anything else works. That first phase is often priced as a one-off project on top of the monthly fee.
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How much content is needed
Content is usually the biggest line item. One new page a month and twenty new pages a month are two very different budgets, even with the same agency.
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Local, national or international
Local SEO for one location is the cheapest tier. National campaigns cost more, and every extra language or market adds research, content and technical setup.
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Who does the work
Freelancers, small studios, mid-sized agencies and enterprise agencies charge very different rates for similar-sounding services. The difference is mostly overhead, process and how senior the people doing the work are.
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Links and digital PR
Some retainers include outreach and link building, some do not. Paid placements and PR campaigns can double a budget, so check what is in the scope before comparing quotes.
Cheap SEO
What $300 a month actually buys
At a few hundred dollars a month, the provider can spend a handful of hours on your site. That is usually enough for an automated report, some keyword tracking, and perhaps one generic article. It is rarely enough to research your market, fix real technical issues or write pages good enough to rank.
That does not mean more expensive is better. Plenty of large retainers go to reporting and account management. What matters is how much of your budget turns into work that changes the site: better pages, faster load times, content that matches what people search for.
Budgeting
How much should you spend on SEO?
Start from the value of a customer, not from a package. If one new client is worth $5,000, a few extra leads a month justify a serious budget. If a customer is worth $50, SEO has to reach a lot of people to pay off, and the plan should favor pages that can rank for many searches at once.
Early-stage companies often get more from a focused project (research plus a set of strong pages) than from a small monthly retainer. We cover that in more detail on our page about SEO for startups.
What SEO returns
What organic search has done for our own products
We are a small studio in Denmark working with clients in the US, UK and Europe. We know what SEO is worth because we run it on products we own and pay for ourselves.
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120,000+
UnfollowCheck
Read the case : UnfollowCheck
users worldwide, 1M+ profiles tracked and 30,000 monthly visitors to unfollowcheck.com, mostly from Google. -
#1
Dronk
Read the case : Dronk
on the App Store's party game chart the same week it launched. dronkapp.com gets 5,000+ visitors a month in 13 languages on a domain that is only six months old.
No price list
Why you get a proposal, not a package
A "from $499" package tells you nothing about what your site needs. We would rather look at your site, your competitors and the searches that matter, then tell you what we would do, what it costs, and whether it is worth it. Sometimes the honest answer is a smaller project than you expected.
See how we approach SEO for clients, or read about our AI search optimization work.
Related
Related SEO services
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
How much does SEO cost per month?
In the US, most small and mid-sized businesses pay between $1,000 and $5,000 a month for an ongoing SEO retainer, with around $2,500 a common midpoint. In the UK, the typical range for SMEs is £1,500-£3,000, with local businesses starting around £500. Enterprise retainers run far higher on both sides of the Atlantic.
What is a normal hourly rate for SEO?
Published US rates cluster between $75 and $200 an hour. In the UK, freelancers typically charge £40-£150 an hour, agency consultants £100-£250, and senior London specialists up to around £400.
How much does an SEO audit cost?
A basic, largely automated audit can cost a few hundred dollars. A thorough manual audit of a small or mid-sized site usually lands between $1,000 and $5,000, and large ecommerce or SaaS sites with many thousands of URLs can cost $10,000 or more. UK agencies publish audit prices from roughly £500 to £7,500.
Is cheap SEO worth it?
Rarely. A few hundred dollars a month does not buy much senior time, so cheap packages tend to rely on automated reports and generic content. The risk is not only wasted money but low-quality links or pages that you later have to clean up.
How long before SEO pays off?
Expect several months before new pages settle into stable rankings, and longer in competitive markets. Technical fixes can show effects sooner. Anyone who promises page one in weeks for a competitive keyword is guessing.
Why don't you publish your own prices?
Because two SEO projects rarely have the same scope. We would rather look at your site and your market first, then give you a specific proposal, than post a "from" price that does not fit.
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