How much does SEO cost in the UK?

Why trust this page: I'm a marketing consultant and SEO is part of my monthly plans, so I have an interest here, and I'll say where I'm not the right fit. Every figure below links to where it came from and was checked on 21 October 2026. Anything that's my own arithmetic is labelled.

How much does SEO cost in the UK by type of provider?

SEO in the UK costs anything from nothing (doing it yourself with free Google tools) to over £5,000 a month for a national campaign. Most small businesses land between about £400 and £1,500 a month on a published package. Agency retainers run about £1,000 to £3,500. A freelance consultant averages £374 a day. The type of provider explains most of the gap, so start there.

The package figures come from UK providers that print their prices, listed in the next section. The £5,000-plus figure is one agency's estimate for larger regional firms, from First Place SEO, which says local SEO usually runs from £500 to over £5,000 a month.

What does each SEO budget actually buy?

Around £400 to £500 a month usually buys about 10 hours of work and one article. Around £1,000 to £1,500 buys 20 to 30 hours and two to four articles. Links are often charged on top at both levels. The only way to compare quotes fairly is to ask for quantities: hours, pages, articles and links each month, in writing.

Here's what four UK providers publish:

• First Place SEO (local): £500 for up to 10 hours and one article, £1,000 for 20 hours and two pieces of content, £1,500 for up to 30 hours and four articles. Link building is sold separately.
• Studio 36: £399, £699 and £999 a month plus VAT, for up to 10, 20 and 50 keywords. Each tier includes one blog post a month, on a 30-day rolling basis.
• Crouch End Media: £395, £795 and £1,195 a month, rolling monthly. Even the entry tier lists Google Business Profile work, schema and answer-first page structure.
• Whito's benchmark for agency SEO is £1,000 to £3,500 a month, covering technical work, content and links, excluding VAT.

One figure gets misquoted a lot. Whito's £500 to £1,500 a month for small businesses is a range for marketing retainers of any kind, by size of client. It isn't an SEO-only price.

What changes the price within a band: how competitive your phrases are, how many locations or services you cover, whether content and links are included, and how much technical work the site needs first. A slow site with indexing problems needs a technical SEO audit before new content is worth paying for. A firm that wins work in one town mostly needs local SEO, which is cheaper than ranking nationally.

How much does an SEO consultant cost per day or hour?

YunoJuno, a UK freelance platform, puts the average SEO consultant day rate at £374 in 2026, based on its booking data. Divided by a 7.5-hour day, that's roughly £50 an hour (my arithmetic). Two days a month comes to about £750 and four days to about £1,500. Specialists and senior people charge more, and short ad hoc jobs cost more per hour.

The YunoJuno page doesn't say whether that average is UK-only, so treat it as a guide. For a wider view of consultant rates across marketing, see how much a marketing consultant costs in the UK.

What do the SEO price surveys say?

There's no UK-only survey. The two largest are global and priced in dollars. Ahrefs found the most common monthly retainer was $501 to $1,000. SE Ranking found 30% of agencies charge under $500 a month and 64% under $1,000. Both show freelancers charging far less than agencies, and local-focused providers less than national or global ones.

• Ahrefs (439 providers, updated August 2024): average retainers of about $1,349 a month for freelancers, $3,209 for agencies and $3,250 for consultancies. Providers with a local focus averaged about $1,557 a month, against $3,474 for a worldwide focus. Ahrefs worked those averages out from the top of each price band, so they run high.
• SE Ranking (260 agencies, December 2024, of which 53 of the 119 in Europe were UK-based): 30% charge under $500 a month and 64% under $1,000.

How much does AI search optimisation (GEO) cost?

GEO, or generative engine optimisation, is the work of getting your business named in answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI results. UK add-ons and entry plans start at about £295 to £599 a month. At that price you mostly get tracking of a few prompts, schema and one page improved each month. Work to get you mentioned on other sites, such as digital PR, sits in the higher tiers.

• Crouch End Media: an AI search add-on at £295 a month, for firms that already have an SEO provider.
• SuperHub: £299 a month for monitoring, schema and content advice, or £599 for its Growth plan.
• NeuralAdX: £450 a month plus VAT for five tracked prompts, five competitors and one page improved a month.
• SE Ranking's survey found agencies with set prices charge an average of $937 a month for this work.

Is it worth paying for? It depends how visible you are now. When I tested 1,253 Suffolk firms in six sectors in September 2026, 962 weren't named by ChatGPT, Gemini or Google AI Mode for the questions buyers in those sectors ask. Most of the fixes overlap with good SEO, which is why I don't price them separately. If the site itself is the weak point, my website design services in Ipswich build those fixes in from the start. There's more on how I do it on the SEO and AI search page.

What are the red flags in an SEO quote?

The biggest red flag is a guarantee: a promised position on Google or a promised mention in ChatGPT. Nobody controls either. Close behind are quotes with no quantities, links bought without telling you where, long minimum terms, and accounts held in the provider's name. Each of these makes a cheap quote expensive later.

1. Promised rankings or AI mentions. Walk away.
2. No numbers. "Ongoing optimisation" with no hours, pages, articles or fixes listed.
3. Mystery links. Ask where links come from and whether you can see them. Cheap bulk links can do harm.
4. Long tie-ins. Many UK providers work month to month. Multiply the fee by any minimum term to see what you're really committing.
5. You don't own it. Your Search Console, analytics, Google Business Profile and content should all be in your name.
6. Reports of rankings only. Ask how they'll report enquiries and calls from search as well as positions.
7. VAT left out. Ask whether the price includes it. It adds a fifth.

Is a one-person SEO consultant enough?

For most owner-led B2B firms, yes. You usually need a sound site, a handful of pages that answer what buyers search, a few strong articles a month and your listings right. One person can do that well. It's the wrong choice if you need hundreds of pages, heavy link building or a national campaign against big brands at once.

I'm one person, so work happens in order. I don't sell SEO packages. SEO and AI search are standard requests inside my monthly plans, at £995, £1,950 or £3,950 a month, month to month. An SEO and GEO article is a quick job. A technical SEO review or an AI visibility check is a standard job. A full SEO and GEO foundation (keyword map, structure, core pages and schema) is a big build: included on the top plan, run alongside other work on the middle one, and quoted separately on the first. The writing is covered under SEO copywriting.

Results take time and I won't promise them. When I launched the 1 Week Sites website, it had 566 search impressions and one ChatGPT citation in under 30 days. Those are my own figures, from a single site, and one citation is a small start. The full picture of how I work is on the SEO consultant page.

The practical summary

Budget about £400 to £1,500 a month for SEO as a small UK business, or about £1,000 to £3,500 with an agency. A freelance consultant averages £374 a day. Add about £295 to £599 a month if you want AI search tracked separately. Before you compare prices, get every quote to list hours, pages, articles and links each month, and walk away from any guarantee.

Got an SEO quote and not sure it's fair? Book a free 15-minute call and I'll take a look at it with you.

Sources: YunoJuno SEO consultant rates 2026 (booking data); Whito, UK agency retainers research (data last verified 19 October 2026; indicative, excludes VAT and ad spend); Ahrefs, SEO pricing survey (439 providers, global, August 2024); SE Ranking, SEO pricing survey (260 agencies, December 2024); published price pages from First Place SEO, Studio 36, Crouch End Media, SuperHub and NeuralAdX. All checked 21 October 2026. Prices change; check before you buy.