SEO pricing UK 2026: how much does SEO cost?

Updated: 12 November 2026. Figures are a planning guide; the real cost of your project is set in a written proposal after reviewing your site.

SEO pricing in the UK: who charges what?

Sources: the £99–£5,000+ range and the £799 median come from Whito’s study of 45 published UK SEO prices (June 2026; a re-check of 38 comparable prices in October 2026 gave a £837.50 median). The provider-type ranges are Whito’s planning estimates drawn from industry reports and freelancer platforms rather than from that price file, so read them as a rough guide.

For a wider view, Ahrefs surveyed 439 SEO providers: the most common monthly retainer was $501–$1,000 (20.4% of respondents), the most common hourly rate $75–$100 (24%) and the most common project fee $2,501–$5,000 (21.2%). That survey is international and in US dollars, but it points to the same picture: most providers sit in the low hundreds to low thousands per month.

Monthly retainer, project or hourly?

Not every website needs ongoing monthly SEO. If you do not yet know what is wrong, a one-off piece of work is usually the better start:

• SEO audit: technical problems, missing or weak pages, where competitors are ahead and a prioritised task list. Typically £500–£3,000 in the UK, depending on the size of the site and the depth of the review.
• Implementation project: fixing what the audit found, with a defined scope and end date.
• Monthly retainer: when there is a roadmap that needs steady progress: technical fixes, page improvements, content and reporting.
• Hourly or day rate: useful for advice, training or a second opinion on an agency’s work. Experienced UK freelancers commonly charge £60–£150 an hour.

Other common one-off costs, as planning ranges: keyword research £300–£1,500, a website migration £1,000–£5,000, local SEO setup £250–£800 (Whito planning estimates).

What drives the cost of SEO?

• Size of the site: a 15-page service website and a 3,000-product shop do not need the same effort.
• Competition: “solicitor London” and “industrial fan supplier Leeds” are not equally hard.
• Technical condition: a slow, broken or half-migrated site needs its foundations fixed before anything else pays off.
• Content: who writes it? Including content production raises the price noticeably.
• Implementation: does the provider only recommend changes, or make them on your site? Most proposals do not say, and it changes the value completely.
• Markets and languages: each additional country or language is a separate piece of work.

Why “guaranteed rankings” are a warning sign

Google decides rankings with its own systems; no agency or consultant controls them. Google’s own guidance on hiring an SEO states that no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google. A “guarantee” usually hides one of three things:

• First-page rankings for terms nobody searches, such as your own company name.
• Spammy link packages that may work briefly and then cause problems.
• A “we keep working for free until it works” clause that commits to nothing measurable.

What can be guaranteed is the work: what will be done each month, who will do it and what will be measured.

What a good monthly SEO service should include

1. A recorded starting point

   Search Console, analytics and enquiry data captured before work begins, so progress can be compared.

2. A written priority list

   Which pages and problems are tackled each month, agreed in advance.

3. Technical fixes that actually ship

   Speed, indexing, internal links and structured data problems fixed on the site, not just listed in a report.

4. Better money pages

   Service and product pages updated around the questions customers really ask.

5. Local visibility where it matters

   Google Business Profile and consistent business details for companies that serve a local area.

6. A useful monthly report

   What was done, what changed and what comes next, including enquiries, not only a rankings table.

How to tell whether SEO is working

Rankings alone are a poor measure. Look at:

• Are impressions and clicks from searches related to your services growing in Search Console?
• Do visitors to your service pages fill in forms or call?
• Are the enquiries from the right customers, or from irrelevant searches?
• Is your visibility in Google Maps and your review count improving?

Technical fixes can show within weeks. On competitive searches, clear results usually take several months, so judge a retainer on its direction over a quarter rather than on the first month.

8 questions to ask before you sign

1. What exactly will be done each month?

   Ask for a concrete task list, not “ongoing optimisation”.

2. Who makes the changes on the site?

   Someone who only sends reports and someone who fixes your site are not offering the same service.

3. How will links be earned?

   Bought link packages are risky; ask where links come from and how.

4. Is content included?

   How many pages a month, who writes them and who approves them?

5. What will the report show?

   Are enquiries and sales reported, or only rankings?

6. What is the minimum term and notice period?

   Read the exit terms in long contracts.

7. Who owns the accounts?

   Search Console, analytics and Google Business Profile should stay in your name.

8. Have you worked with a similar business?

   Ask for concrete examples and, where possible, a reference.

If you work with me

I am an independent developer and SEO consultant based in Istanbul, working with UK businesses with UK working-day overlap. I do not just recommend changes: on WordPress and WooCommerce sites I implement them myself. Current guide prices are £1,500–£2,500 for an AI visibility and SEO audit, £3,500–£7,000 for an implementation project and £7,000–£15,000 for ecommerce or multi-location work. A monthly SEO retainer starts at £1,500 a month. Every proposal sets out the scope, deliverables and timing in writing; I do not guarantee rankings.