Short answer: for a small business, professional SEO usually costs from a few hundred to about two thousand dollars a month. In an Ahrefs poll of 439 SEO providers, the most common monthly fee was USD 501–1,000, and 68.8% charge USD 2,000 a month or less. The spread is huge because "SEO" can mean anything from a one-page checklist to a team working on your site every week.
Typical prices (Ahrefs poll)
| Format | Market price | When it fits |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly SEO, small business | most common USD 501–1,000 a month | Ongoing work on one site in one or two cities |
| Local SEO | providers serving local clients average USD 1,557 a month | Clinics, trades, salons, restaurants |
| One-off project (audit, site move, set of pages) | most common USD 2,501–5,000 | A task with a clear end |
| Competitive niche or several markets | freelancers average USD 1,349 a month, agencies USD 3,209 | Large sites, several regions or languages |
| Do it yourself | no fees: Google Search Console and Google Business Profile are free | One location and a few hours a week |
Monthly, per project or by the hour
- Monthly retainer (78.2% of providers): ongoing technical care, new pages, reports.
- Per project (48.9%): an audit, a site move, a set of pages.
- Hourly (34.8%): most common USD 75–100 an hour, good for a second opinion on an offer.
Many providers use more than one model, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Prices in euros and rubles
German-language sources put SEO for a small business at about 500–1,500 € a month and local SEO at 500–2,000 € (Ahrefs DE, July 2026). An agency guide (evergreen.media, October 2026) gives 1,000–2,000 € in a smaller town and 2,000–4,000 € in a mid-sized city or a competitive niche, plus VAT. Russian sources start at about 30,000 ₽ a month for a local business. These are authors' estimates, not surveys.
How long until results
Budget for at least 6–12 months. Google says some changes show within hours and others take months, and in an Ahrefs sample only 1.74% of newly published pages reached the top 10 within a year (most of them had no SEO work at all). If you need leads next week, combine SEO with ads for the first months.
Red flags in an SEO offer
- "First place in Google" by a date. Nobody controls the ranking.
- Hundreds of cheap links for a fixed fee.
- The agency keeps the logins to your analytics and site.
- Reports with positions only, without traffic and leads.
- A price far below the market with "everything included".
Before you sign
Ask for a 3-month plan: what will be fixed, which pages will be added, what the monthly report will show. Keep analytics, Search Console and the site on your own accounts, and judge SEO by leads over 6–12 months, not by the first month.
The full guide, with what's included at each price, a price-by-site-type table and free vs paid SEO tools, is on our site: How much does SEO cost for a small business in 2026?
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