Real 2026 price bands, what sits behind each one, and how to tell the difference between good value and an expensive mistake.
An SEO retainer is not a single product. It bundles four things: senior strategy and oversight, technical execution, content production, and link earning. The mix shifts month to month, but the cost is mostly skilled human time. That is why genuinely cheap SEO almost always means junior labour or automated shortcuts.
One-off diagnostic audits typically run £500–£1,500 and are often credited back against a retainer if you proceed. Manual link earning and digital PR are sometimes priced separately, from a few hundred pounds for individual placements up to £4,000+ for national-press campaigns.
Our own published rates sit inside these bands, see the pricing page for the current figures.
A one-off audit is the right starting point when you mainly need a diagnosis and a prioritised fix list you can hand to your own team. A retainer makes sense once you want ongoing content, link earning, and the compounding that only happens with consistent work over quarters.
A reasonable path for many businesses is to start with an audit, implement the quick wins, then move to a retainer once the foundations are solid.
If a quote is dramatically below the bands above, ask where the savings come from. Usually it is one of: offshore junior labour with no senior oversight, automated content that Google suppresses, or cheap links that create risk rather than authority.
The cost of cheap SEO is rarely the fee. It is the recovery work after a link-based penalty or a helpful-content suppression, which can take longer and cost more than doing it properly the first time.
Match spend to ambition and competition. A local service business in a quiet niche can do well at the lower band; a national brand in a crowded vertical needs the middle-to-upper band to compete at all. Budget for at least six months, because SEO compounds and a single month tells you almost nothing.
If you are unsure where you sit, a diagnostic audit will tell you what level of investment your goals realistically require.
Most of the cost is skilled human time: senior strategy, technical fixes, content, and genuine link earning. Tools and software are a small fraction. When SEO looks cheap, the human time has usually been replaced by juniors or automation, which is what creates risk.
A thorough written audit typically costs £500–£1,500 depending on site size and complexity. Many consultants, including us, credit the audit fee against a retainer if you go on to work together within a set window.
Occasionally for very simple local needs, but usually not. Cheap SEO tends to rely on automated content and low-quality links that can suppress rankings or trigger penalties, so the true cost shows up later as cleanup and lost time.
Two fields to start. A senior consultant reads it, not a sequence.
A short introduction, your site URL, and what you’re trying to achieve. If it’s a fit, we’ll book a 30-minute call.
Free £500 SEO audit included with any web dev or SEO package · no card required