In the UK, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of SEO services to choose from as a company looking to improve their visibility on Google.
Due to remote work taking over, even some overseas SEO ‘experts’ are now becoming more renowned and used by UK companies looking to go to the next level.
Now, although this may seem overwhelming due to the array of options you have at your fingertips, there are ways you can break it down so you can choose the best SEO provider for you.
In this post, we’re going to outline the cost of SEO in the UK, the types of providers you can receive SEO services from, what to expect from them, and the common pricing models that they will use.
This is all so you can make the best decision possible for you when it comes to choosing the best service for you and your business to meet your goals, so read along to understand more.
As you may or may not know already, we are an SEO agency ourselves, but we’re going to try and cover this topic in a way that fairly and clearly outlines all the pricing models, allowing you to make a decision for yourself on what is best for your business in the UK.
The Different Types of SEO Providers You Can Choose From
The cost of SEO in the UK has many different factors that affect it, which we’ll cover more and more throughout this article, but understanding what types of SEOs you’ll be dealing with will first help you understand what may suit your company more, helping you to delve into the specialist costs of a particular provider.
The most common types of SEO providers in 2025 are:
- SEO agencies
- In-house teams
- Freelancers
SEO Agencies
When you work with an SEO agency (like us here at Quirky Digital), you can expect to receive expert advice, structure, and a plan of how they can run your SEO campaign to reap the greatest results.
Through detailed discussions, looking at goals you want to achieve, and planning out how this is going to happen, an SEO agency can boost your online presence and results via Google’s search engine using various SEO techniques.
In-House Teams
This approach is more suited to a large company with a great budget to spend on improving digital marketing, as in-house teams consist of you bringing in your own specialist SEO team into your offices to help run your campaign.
This approach is for those who can afford to have staff trained in-house, paying for SEO training and hiring staff members to carry out SEO tasks daily, which can be majorly beneficial if you have the funds.
Freelancers
Possibly the most affordable option on this list is freelancers who can carry out SEO tasks whenever you require them to.
Therefore, if you want to hire a freelancer to improve certain aspects of your SEO strategy for a few weeks or months at a time, this is feasible with freelance workers.
What Do You Receive When You Pay For SEO in the UK?
Although SEO (search engine optimisation) sounds simple sometimes, and you hear phrases such as “we’ll rank you higher on Google” or “we’ll boost your online presence,” it is not as simple as pressing a few buttons and making a few amendments, and then you’ll stay on top of Google forever.
No, SEO is an ongoing, ever-changing process with lots of strategies and processes behind it.
To give you an example of some of the main aspects of SEO, here are some of the areas of focus that your SEO provider will improve when you work with them:
- SEO audits
- Link-building
- Creating high-quality content
- Keyword research
- Site speed
- Technical SEO
- Using tools & analytics
- Researching target audience
- User intent
These are only a select few of some of the main areas that SEO providers will focus on, and within these areas, there is an array of strategies to improve these ranking factors – meaning there should always be ongoing best practices being taken within your SEO strategy.
The Different SEO Pricing Structures in the UK
Now that you know who can complete SEO work for you and what it can entail on a basic level (you’ll learn more about what you receive when you speak to the SEO provider directly), there are only a few different pricing structures that the SEO professionals can offer – here is what you can expect when speaking to different providers:
- Hourly consultation
- Monthly retainer
- Performance-based
- Price per project
- Per product
Hourly Consultation
Starting with one of the most common pricing structures, hourly SEO consultations. This structure can be useful for:
-
- Small businesses who are not ready to commit to long-term contracts in SEO
- Companies that want to address specific issues quickly
- Those with fluctuating needs, which allow flexible usage based on varying SEO requirements over time
- Those with budget constraints want complete control over when they’re paying for SEO services.
Although these benefits sound great on paper, with your control and budget being catered for, SEO is one of those projects that works well long-term and if you’re only paying attention to it at certain times throughout the year, you’re never going to give your business the best potential to grow.
Monthly Retainer
Next, we have a monthly retainer, which is what most digital marketing agencies and freelancers will offer their clients, and for good reason.
This can be great for a company that wants:
- To stay consistent with their SEO efforts, giving them the best chance of long-term success
- It allows the SEO professional to get a deeper understanding of what your company needs to succeed online
- It allows the entire SEO campaign to be worked on frequently, with all aspects of SEO being covered
- Those in a competitive niche or market trying to stand out online
- Those who value long-term growth
This pricing structure allows you to reap consistent efforts within an SEO campaign, which is what you should be aiming for, but always ensure you speak to them about the terms and contract length, along with their tailored price so you know what you’re in for.
Performance-Based
This SEO package prides itself on an SEO provider only being paid when they achieve a certain result for their client.
For example, you agree on a price to pay once they get your core landing page to the first page on Google. This model has many benefits, such as not paying until you’ve received what you ask for, but can also be difficult to manage and trust plays a big part in this.
Per Project
The next pricing structure is per project, which is essentially where you pay the SEO provider a flat fee to carry out certain SEO tasks within your website for a set period of time. You and the SEO specialist should decide what the time period is and what the correct flat fee is for that project based on what you want to achieve.
Per Product
The per-product model can be an effective pricing structure for those looking to improve on only certain SEO tasks, such as content creation.
This structure allows you to pay someone for a certain amount of words per month, for example. Or, you pay an SEO provider a certain amount for them to improve your link-building strategy, and the list goes on.
This can be excellent if you’re struggling in one area and really want to hone in on it, but SEO, in our opinion, should be a continuous process that covers all the bases of SEO.
Other Factors Determining the Overall Price of SEO in the UK
Deciding how much SEO costs in the UK is not as simple as offering a ballpark figure. There are many other complexities that determine the overall price of SEO in the UK. Here is what we know to determine what that price can be in the range of:
Locations You Want to Reach
As a business owner, you should have a pretty good idea of the places you want to target, where your target audience is based, and how you’re best positioned to reach them. Therefore, with SEO pricing, the provider first needs to know…
Are You Targeting Locally, Nationally, or Internationally Through eCommerce?
If you’re a smaller business only targeting local customers, whether this be e-commerce, brick-and-mortar, or a service-based company, the price you’re going to pay compared to that of a large enterprise targeting customers all over the world with an already established brand name is going to be miles apart.
However, it still should be your decision on what you want your target audience to be, but teaming up with SEO professionals may help you determine what you’re business model suits in terms of local, national, or e-commerce SEO services.
What are the Average Costs of SEO in the UK?
Now that you have all the information, and understand clearly all the factors affecting the prices, it is never going to be set in stone what you’re going to pay for SEO in the UK.
However, we can give you some accurate numbers to give you an idea of what to expect:
| Size of Business | Average Price of SEO (Monthly) |
|---|---|
| Solo entrepreneur or Local business with a small budget to spend on marketing | £299 – £1,000 |
| The average SME with a decent budget to spend on marketing | £1,200 – £6,000 |
| A large enterprise that is already well-known and is looking to further enhance its online presence (with a huge budget to spend on marketing) | £6,000 – £10,000+ |
A quick reminder – the price of SEO in the UK will always vary depending on your business.
However, if you’re a small business or entrepreneur, you can expect to pay between £299 and £1,000 a month; if you’re an SME, you can expect to pay between £1,200 – £6,000 a month; and if you’re a large enterprise, you can expect to pay anywhere from £6,000 onwards for monthly SEO services.
Where Do You Go From Here?
Now that you know there is a variance in what you can expect to pay depending on who you go to and your own personal business requirements, it is definitely worth speaking to multiple trustworthy SEO agencies and freelancers to see what fits you best.
Sometimes, you will find that a company or a specific person will feel right – regardless of the price.
However, you should always look for someone with expertise, who has produced incredible results before and aligns with your business’s goals to help you achieve your mission and vision.
If you want to speak to us about your vision and potentially look at using SEO as a digital marketing strategy to boost your online visibility, we can provide you with a free SEO audit, to see what your company needs to expand to the next level. We look forward to speaking with you.
