Most small business owners we speak to have been quoted three wildly different numbers for SEO in the same month: £99 from a cold email, £750 from a local agency and £3,000 from a firm in town with a nice reception. All three call it "SEO". They are not selling the same thing.
This guide sets out what SEO actually costs in the UK in 2026, what you should expect at each price point, and how to work out what you need before you sign anything.
The short answer
For a local service business in the UK (a plumber, a dental practice, a salon, a solicitor), a proper ongoing SEO retainer usually costs £500 to £1,500 a month. National or ecommerce campaigns start around £1,500 and regularly run past £5,000. One-off work such as an audit sits between £500 and £2,500.
Anything under £300 a month is almost always automated reporting with very little human work behind it.
UK SEO pricing at a glance
| Type of SEO work | Typical UK price | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|
| Freelancer, hourly | £40 to £100 per hour | Small fixes, advice, a second opinion |
| One-off technical audit | £500 to £2,500 | New site, migration, traffic drop |
| Local SEO retainer | £500 to £1,500 per month | Single location trades, clinics, salons |
| Multi-location local SEO | £1,200 to £3,000 per month | Groups with 3 or more branches |
| National SEO retainer | £1,500 to £5,000 per month | Businesses selling UK-wide |
| Ecommerce SEO | £2,000 to £8,000+ per month | Online shops with large catalogues |
These ranges come from what we see in proposals our clients show us, plus our own pricing. London agencies sit at the top of each band. Agencies in Manchester, Leeds and the wider North West tend to sit in the middle.
What actually drives the price
How competitive your market is
An emergency plumber in Stockport competes with perhaps 20 serious rivals. A personal injury solicitor in Manchester competes with national firms spending six figures a year. The second one costs more to move because the work required to outrank the competition is far greater, not because the agency is being greedy.
How much content and link building is included
The biggest cost in any honest SEO retainer is people's time: writing pages that answer real questions, earning links from local news sites and trade bodies, and fixing technical issues. A retainer that includes four well-researched articles and a handful of genuine local links each month costs more than one that sends a PDF report.
The state of your website
If your site is slow, has thin service pages or was built on a template that can't be edited properly, the first two or three months go on fixing foundations. Some agencies price that as a separate setup fee (typically £500 to £1,500). We think that's fair, as long as it's itemised.
Number of locations
Each extra branch usually needs its own Google Business Profile work, its own location page and its own review strategy. Expect to pay £150 to £400 a month per additional location.
What £500, £1,000 and £2,000 a month should buy
Here is roughly what a local business should expect at each level from a reputable UK agency.
Around £500 a month
- Google Business Profile management and weekly posts
- One new service or location page, or one article, each month
- Basic citation clean-up (see our guide to local citations in the UK)
- Monthly rank and enquiry report
Around £1,000 a month
- Everything above, plus two to four pieces of content a month
- A review generation process (our guide to getting more Google reviews covers how this works)
- Local link building: sponsorships, supplier pages, local press
- Ongoing technical fixes and quarterly strategy calls
Around £2,000 a month
- A dedicated specialist with real hours each week
- Content for several services and towns at once
- Digital PR aimed at regional and trade publications
- Conversion work on key pages, not just rankings
Red flags in cheap SEO packages
We take on a lot of clients who were burned by a cheap package. The warning signs are consistent:
- Guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls Google. A promise of "page one in 30 days" usually means ranking for a phrase nobody searches.
- No named person. If you can't speak to the human doing the work, there may not be one.
- Twelve-month lock-ins with no break clause. Good agencies keep clients by getting results. Three-month minimums are normal; twelve months with no exit is not.
- They own your accounts. Your Google Business Profile, Analytics and Search Console should be in your name, with the agency added as a manager.
- Reports full of impressions, light on enquiries. Rankings are a means to an end. You want to know how many calls and forms came from organic search.
How to work out your own budget
A simple way to sense-check a quote is to work backwards from the value of a customer.
Say you're a roofer and an average job is worth £2,800 with a 30% margin, so roughly £840 profit. If SEO costs £900 a month, you need just over one extra job a month to break even. Most of our trades clients see far more than that within six months, but it gives you a sober floor to measure against.
One of our clients, a Stockport roofing firm, went from 3 to 19 organic enquiries a month over eight months on a £950 retainer. At their close rate of about 1 in 3, that's six extra jobs a month. That's the kind of maths worth doing before you compare quotes.
If you're also weighing paid ads, our comparison of SEO vs PPC for local businesses shows how the two budgets interact.
Frequently asked questions
Is SEO worth it for a small business?
For most local service businesses, yes, as long as there are people searching for what you do in your area and you can handle more work. If your diary is already full for six months, spend the money elsewhere first.
Can I do SEO myself?
You can do a lot of the basics: claim and complete your Google Business Profile, ask every happy customer for a review, and write a proper page for each service. Where owners usually stall is consistency and link building.
How long before I see results?
Local businesses usually see movement in two to four months and meaningful enquiry growth in four to eight. We cover this in detail in how long SEO takes.
Getting a straight answer on price
Our local SEO packages start at £650 a month with a three-month minimum, and we'll tell you on the first call if we don't think SEO is the right spend for you yet. If you'd like a no-obligation quote with every line itemised, see our SEO service or get in touch.
