The short answer: SEO usually costs between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars a month. In a survey of 439 SEO providers published by Ahrefs, the most common monthly retainer was $501–$1,000 (20.4% of respondents), and 31.2% charged more than $2,000. Average retainers were about $1,349 for freelancers and $3,209 for agencies. On Clutch, where clients review the agencies they hired, the average monthly cost of an SEO engagement is about $3,200. Our SEO starts at €400 a month.
What you are paying for
SEO is not one task. A monthly fee buys some mix of the kinds of work below, and the mix matters more than the total:
- Technical SEO: crawling, indexing, speed, structured data, redirects and errors. Usually heaviest in the first months.
- Content: research into what your customers search for, and pages or articles that answer it. This is often the largest share of the work.
- Local SEO: your Google Business Profile, reviews and location pages. Creating a Business Profile is free; the work is in keeping it complete and active.
- Authority: earning mentions and links from relevant sites. Google warns against SEOs who talk about link schemes, and notes that you should never have to link to your SEO.
- Reporting: what changed, what it achieved and what comes next.
What drives the monthly price
- Market and competition: a dentist in one town and a software company selling across Europe need very different amounts of work. In the Ahrefs survey, providers serving local clients averaged about $1,557 a month, and those working worldwide about $3,474.
- Size and state of the site: a 20-page site in good shape needs less than a store with 5,000 products and years of technical debt.
- Content volume: how many pages or articles are produced each month, and who writes them.
- Languages: each language is a separate market with its own keywords and competitors.
- Who implements changes: some retainers include developer time, others only deliver recommendations.
- Experience: in the same survey, average retainers rose from about $1,541 for providers with two years' experience or less to about $3,648 for those with 5–10 years.
How to work out whether SEO pays
Before comparing proposals, work out what one new customer from search is worth to you. As an illustration: if an average new client brings €500 of profit, a €400 monthly retainer pays for itself once search brings one more client a month than before. If a customer is worth €40, the same retainer needs ten extra orders a month. The same sum tells you which budget makes sense, and it is why you should ask an SEO to track enquiries, calls and orders rather than rankings alone.
SEO prices by type of engagement
| Engagement | What it usually covers | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself with tools | Your own time, plus a research tool | Semrush SEO plan $139 a month; Ahrefs Lite $129 a month (Starter $29) |
| Freelancer retainer | One person, usually technical and on-page work | Average about $1,349 a month |
| Local retainer | Local SEO, Business Profile, a few pages a month | Most common $501–$1,000 a month; local providers average about $1,557 |
| Agency, national or international | Technical work, regular content, authority building | Agencies average about $3,209 a month; Clutch gives $2,000–$20,000 as a typical monthly range |
| One-off project or audit | An audit or a defined set of fixes | Most common $2,501–$5,000 per project |
| Hourly consulting | Advice and reviews | Most common $75–$100 an hour; agencies on Clutch mostly $100–$149 |
US dollars. Retainer, project and hourly figures: Ahrefs survey of 439 SEO providers (last updated 2024). Agency range and rates: Clutch SEO pricing guide (updated September 2026). Tool prices: Semrush and Ahrefs pricing pages, monthly billing, October 2026.
Costs that sit outside the retainer
- Content writing, if the retainer covers strategy but not the articles themselves.
- Developer time to fix technical issues an audit finds, if your SEO provider does not touch code.
- Tools: your own access to a full research tool costs $129 a month for Ahrefs Lite or $139 for Semrush's SEO plan; Ahrefs also sells a smaller Starter plan at $29.
- Site improvements: sometimes the biggest SEO gain is a faster or better-structured site, which is a development cost. Our free SEO audit shows where you stand before you spend anything.
- Time: SEO compounds slowly. Clutch reports a typical engagement of 12 months, and budgeting for much less rarely makes sense.
Do it yourself, freelancer, agency or in-house
| Option | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Small local businesses with time to learn; a Google Business Profile costs nothing | The hours it takes, and not knowing what you don't know |
| Freelancer | A defined technical or content job at a lower rate | One person rarely covers technical work, content and links equally well |
| Agency | Ongoing work across technical, content and local SEO | Paying for reports instead of work; check the monthly deliverables |
| In-house | Larger companies where search is a main sales channel | A salary plus tools, and someone has to direct the work |
For most small and mid-sized businesses the practical choice is between a freelancer and an agency, and the deciding question is not the price but who will actually make the changes on your site. Recommendations that sit in a PDF do nothing.
How to judge an SEO proposal
Google publishes its own advice on hiring an SEO, and it is worth ten minutes. The short version, with a few points of our own:
- Nobody can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. If a proposal promises one, Google's advice is to find someone else.
- Ask what results they expect, in what timeframe, and how they will measure success.
- Ask for examples of past work, and whether they follow Google Search Essentials.
- Ask what is delivered each month: pages, fixes, articles, profiles. A report on its own is not SEO.
- Make sure Search Console, Analytics and your Business Profile are in your name, so you keep them if you leave.
- Check the notice period. A minimum term is normal; so is a clear way out.
What our SEO costs
Our SEO starts at €400 a month and covers technical SEO, content and keywords, Google Business Profile and local SEO, with a monthly report. The price is agreed in writing after a short call; it is final and nothing is added on top. Your accounts stay in your name. See SEO services, local SEO or all prices.
Where SEO starts in the code, we build it in. On our own platform, TechPlay, every one of more than 200,000 games has a page of its own with its own title, description and structured data, instead of a record hidden behind a search box.
Our price
SEO · from €400
Sources
Written by
Adi Zeljković — Founder, Luminor Solutions
Part of the Luminor team — working across strategy, design, engineering and growth on the projects we write about.