SEO in the UK typically costs between £750 and £5,000 per month for a small to mid-sized business, with most genuine agency retainers falling between £1,500 and £3,500. One-off audits generally run £1,000 to £5,000. Freelancers charge roughly £40 to £100 an hour, and agencies £75 to £200.
The price is driven by four things: how competitive the market is, how large the site is, how much technical debt has to be cleared first, and whether content and link building are included or billed separately.
Anything under about £500 a month is not SEO. At that price the provider cannot afford the hours, so what you are buying is an automated report and a handful of purchased directory links.
Why nobody will give you a number
Because a number can be compared, and most agencies would rather not be.
So you get "it depends on your goals," a discovery call, and a proposal three weeks later that turns out to be £2,400 a month.
Here are the numbers.
UK SEO pricing, honestly
| Model | Typical range | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly retainer, small business | £750 – £1,500/mo | Local SEO, a small site, one or two competitive terms |
| Monthly retainer, mid-market | £1,500 – £3,500/mo | Where most genuine agency work sits. Technical, content, links, reporting. |
| Monthly retainer, competitive or national | £3,500 – £10,000+/mo | Competitive verticals, large sites, serious link investment |
| One-off technical audit | £1,000 – £5,000 | Depends entirely on site size and depth |
| Freelancer, hourly | £40 – £100/hr | — |
| Agency, hourly | £75 – £200/hr | — |
| Project-based (migration, rebuild) | £2,500 – £25,000 | — |
| London premium | Add roughly 20–40% | Higher overheads, more competitive market |
In US dollars, roughly: small business $1,000 to $2,000/mo, mid-market $2,000 to $5,000/mo, competitive $5,000 to $15,000+/mo.
These are market rates, not a quote.
What you actually get at each price
Under £500 a month. An automated report. Some directory submissions. Possibly some purchased links that will eventually cost you more to disavow than you paid for them. You cannot buy meaningful SEO hours at this price. The arithmetic simply does not work, and everyone in the industry knows it.
£750 to £1,500 a month. Roughly a day to a day and a half of skilled work a month. Enough for genuine local SEO on a small site. Not enough for serious link building or a technical rebuild.
£1,500 to £3,500 a month. Two to four days of work a month. This is where real SEO happens: technical fixes actually implemented, content produced on a schedule, links built through genuine outreach, and reporting a human wrote.
£3,500 to £10,000 a month. A team. Multiple disciplines running in parallel. Digital PR. Programmatic builds. This is what a competitive vertical requires and there is no shortcut around it.
What actually changes the price
Competition. "Plumber Bicester" and "personal injury solicitor London" are not the same job and cannot cost the same.
Site size. A 20-page site and a 40,000-product Magento store are different projects entirely.
Technical debt. If the site is a broken JavaScript app with no server-side rendering, the first three months are engineering, not SEO. → Technical SEO
Is content included? Frequently it is not, and the client discovers this in month two. Ask. Get it in writing.
Is link building included? Same. And link building is the most expensive component, because outreach does not scale.
Who implements? This is the question that matters most and almost nobody asks it. An audit that arrives as a 60-page PDF of problems is homework, not a service. Ask: do you fix it, or do you tell me about it?
Why cheap SEO costs more
The £300 a month provider is not a cheaper version of the £2,500 provider. It is a different product.
Purchased links. From link farms and pay-to-publish networks. They work briefly and then attract a manual action. Cleaning up a toxic backlink profile costs more than the SEO ever did.
Spun or low-quality content. Published at volume, ranks for nothing, dilutes the site's quality assessment across the whole domain.
Automated reports. Rankings for keywords nobody searches.
Twelve months lost. This is the real cost and it is never on the invoice. A year of no progress in a market where competitors did not stand still.
The £300 provider is not cheap. It is expensive and slow, and you pay in the currency of time.
Retainer, project, or hourly?
Retainer. The default, and correct for most. SEO is compounding and continuous.
Project. Right for a defined piece of work with an end: a migration, a technical audit, a site rebuild.
Hourly. Rarely a good fit. It incentivises the wrong things and means nobody is thinking about the strategy between invoices.
Performance-based / pay-on-ranking. Be extremely careful. It incentivises the provider to chase easy, low-value keywords they can win quickly. You end up ranking first for things nobody searches, and the contract technically succeeded.
→ The SEO retainer explained · SEO packages: fixed price vs custom
How to tell a good quote from a bad one
Good signs: they asked about your business before quoting. The scope names the deliverables in numbers. They will say what they cannot do. They tell you it will take six to twelve months. They implement rather than recommending.
Bad signs: a guaranteed number one ranking. Nobody can guarantee this and anyone who does is lying. A price with no scope. A twelve-month contract with no exit for you. No mention of technical SEO. They will not say where the links come from.
What about doing it yourself?
Genuinely viable if you have time and no budget.
Do this yourself, free: set up Google Search Console. And Bing Webmaster Tools — which almost nobody does, and which gates whether ChatGPT can see you at all. Fix your Google Business Profile properly. Write real content that answers your customers' actual questions. Ask happy customers for reviews.
That will take a small local business a surprisingly long way.
Where you will hit a ceiling: links, technical depth, and time.
How much does SEO cost in the UK?
Typically £750 to £5,000 a month, with most genuine agency retainers between £1,500 and £3,500. One-off audits run £1,000 to £5,000. Freelancers charge £40 to £100 an hour and agencies £75 to £200.
How much does SEO cost per month?
For a small UK business, £750 to £1,500. For mid-market work, £1,500 to £3,500. For competitive or national campaigns, £3,500 to £10,000 or more.
Is cheap SEO worth it?
No. Under about £500 a month the provider cannot afford the hours, so you are buying an automated report and purchased links. The real cost is twelve months lost while competitors move.
Why do SEO prices vary so much?
Competition in the vertical, the size of the site, how much technical debt has to be cleared, whether content and link building are included, and whether the agency implements the work or only recommends it.
Should I pay for SEO monthly or as a project?
Monthly for ongoing work. Project-based for defined pieces of work with an end, such as a migration or an audit.
Are performance-based SEO deals a good idea?
Usually not. They incentivise chasing easy, low-value keywords rather than the commercially important ones.
Can anyone guarantee a number one ranking?
No. Anybody offering that guarantee is lying, and they know they are lying.
How long does SEO take to work?
Six to twelve months for meaningful results in most markets. Anyone promising results in thirty days is describing something that is not SEO.
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