Three ways it is billed
A monthly retainer is the most common and makes sense because SEO is continuous work: writing, technical fixes, monitoring. A one-off project makes sense for a technical audit or a site migration, where there is a clear start and end. Hourly billing suits you when you already have someone in house and need occasional help. What does not make sense is paying per ranking position, because position depends on things nobody controls.
Realistic ranges
For a small local business, monthly SEO on the market runs roughly from 150 to 400 EUR. For a more serious site with several services and towns, 400 to 1,000. A one-off technical audit with a prioritised list usually costs 300 to 800 EUR depending on site size. If a quote sits well below this, what is usually being sold is automated text generation and directory submissions, which at best does nothing.
Where the money actually goes
- Writing content, and it is the largest line. SEO without new pages does not exist.
- Technical fixes: speed, mobile errors, structure, markup.
- Query research, so nobody writes what nobody searches for.
- Internal linking and cleaning up pages that compete with each other.
- Measurement and reporting, because without Search Console data you are guessing.
Red flags
A guaranteed first position is the most reliable sign something is wrong, because Google states plainly that nobody can promise it. The same goes for "a thousand backlinks" and for a monthly report showing only visits, with no queries and no conversions. Ask to be shown Search Console, not a colourful PDF. How SEO compares with ads on cost per enquiry is worked through in our piece on ads versus SEO.
Our SEO service works on a fixed monthly agreement, and exactly what gets done is written into the offer before we start.