SEO prices 2026: how much does search engine optimisation cost?

Updated: 20 August 2026 | WebPot DEV

The short answer: on the European market monthly search engine optimisation runs between €400 and €3,000 net a month, and most small and medium businesses sign in the €590 to €1,500 band. Local work narrowed to a single town can start from €300 net, while a webshop in a competitive market may spend between €1,200 and €4,000 net a month. One-off items run separately: a basic SEO audit is €400 to €1,200 net, and a strategic one €1,200 to €4,000 net. The hourly rate for SEO typically settles between €60 and €120 net.

The bands are compiled from several European provider and price guide sources of August 2026, as net values.

We approach search engine optimisation from the developer side. We do not publish a single monthly fee, because the size of the work differs radically from site to site. The guide below is therefore not a price list but a help in reading any quote you get.

Four pricing models

Prices of individual tasks ordered separately

Adding them up is misleading. In a good monthly package three or four of these run in parallel, dosed by priority, not all at once. If a quote promises everything every month, it is either very expensive or very superficial.

What decides the bottom and the top of the band

• The strength of the competition. For a narrow, niche phrase you can get to the front in three months; for a general, high-volume keyword a year may not be enough.
• The starting state of the site. On a technically sound site most of the work is content; on a slow, badly structured site six months of clean-up comes first.
• Whether you have your own source of content. If the expertise is in the company and only the wording is needed, that is cheaper than the provider having to research it as well.
• Whether link building is needed. This is the most expensive item and the riskiest, so it is worth starting only once the technical and content work is in place.
• How large the site is. Above a thousand products the product data and the category structure alone are several months of work.

When it pays off

SEO is not a cost but an investment with a delayed return. On a site in good shape the first measurable movement comes between 2 and 4 months, and the business effect between 6 and 12 months. That is why a monthly fee is always worth looking at over at least six months: €800 net a month is €4,800 over half a year. The question is how many new enquiries that money has to bring for it to be worth it.

A simple calculation: if an average order is worth €3,000 net and the margin is 40 per cent, then €4,800 of SEO spend pays off at four new orders. If that is realistic in the given market, it is worth starting. If not, either aim at a narrower set of keywords or choose a different channel.

The new item in 2026: AI visibility

Alongside the classic results list, another surface has appeared: the answers of ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews. These choose their sources by a different logic than the ranking, so a good Google position is not enough on its own. The GEO service now taking shape on the market is typically priced as a fixed-price audit plus a monthly package.

With us the AI visibility audit is a fixed €990 net, and the ongoing GEO package is €790 to €2,400 net a month. This is deliberately a separate item alongside classic SEO, because the work is different: structured data, answer-shaped content, connecting Bing and IndexNow, entity building and measuring real AI crawler traffic. We have set out the details on the AI visibility and GEO optimisation page.

Three promises worth walking away from

1. A guaranteed first place. The ranking comes from Google, not from the provider. Anyone who guarantees it is either optimising for an insignificant phrase or not telling the truth.
2. Full-service SEO for €200 a month. That buys two or three hours of work, which is enough for writing a report but not for real work.
3. A cheap link package with hundreds of links. Bulk, low-quality links are no longer neutral today, they are a risk.

Five questions when you request a quote

1. What exactly does the monthly fee include? Item by item, not as a list of capabilities.
2. What is the plan for the first three months? If there is no plan, there are no priorities either.
3. How do we measure the result? Rankings, traffic and the number of enquiries together, not just one of them.
4. Who carries out the technical fixes? Many quotes only give recommendations, with the development work billed separately.
5. How long is the notice period? A long tie-in is a commercial argument, not a professional one.

Frequently asked questions about SEO prices

Related pages: search engine optimisation, AI visibility and GEO optimisation, server-side tracking, website development prices 2026, webshop development prices 2026.