How Much Does Monthly SEO Cost [Case Study]

If done in the correct way, SEO is one of the most cost-efficient platforms of digital marketing. Having a solid strategy in place will inevitably result in more traffic, leads, and sales for almost any type of business, from e-commerce to B2B. But how much should you spend on SEO per month?

We’ve decided to answer this question by calling 10 SEO agencies and asking for a quote for a small business in the fashion industry.

In this article, we are going to review the results and explore how much monthly SEO costs in different regions so that you can find out what kind of budget is required for your specific campaign based on location, size, and goals for your business.

What’s the average SEO cost per month?

The answer to this question, as you might imagine, is not easy.

There are many factors that influence the pricing for SEO services. The answer to this question is not easy, but I’ll try my best to give you an idea of what it might be for your business.

The cost of SEO may depend on a variety of factors, specifically:

• agency location
• your niche
• you budget
• your goal, aka how quickly you need results
• your current rankings

We’re going to dive into each of the factors one by one.

Agency Location

The first factor to consider is where the agency is based. The cost of doing SEO in the United States, for example, will be much higher than it is in India or Pakistan. This is partly because labor and living costs are lower in these countries compared to the U.S., so there’s more room for profit when it comes to establishing their rates.

Now guess what, we are living in the 21st century. That means that unless you’d like to have a face-to-face meeting with your digital marketing or SEO agency every other week, it doesn’t matter anymore where this agency is located. If you’re from the US, you can hire any agency from any country as long as the bank transfers to that country are supported.

Your Niche

The second price factor for the SEO cost is your niche.

Normally, the cost of SEO services doesn’t depend on the niche. However, with some fields gaining momentum (i.e. cryptocurrencies), some agencies and freelancers are going to charge more for ultra-hot niches.

Another reason for the niche-based price increase for search optimization may be due to shady businesses connected with gambling, for instance.

Your Budget

The next factor is how much you want to spend on search optimization each month.

There’s no such thing as ‘a universal price tag’ for SEO services.

Think about the last time you did some kind of renovations in your house. You had a certain idea in your mind and you had a specific budget. If you had increased your budget twice, your renovation would have been very different.

Renovating is very similar to SEO as both are tedious everlasting never-ending processes. If you ask, how much is it to renovate an apartment, this question will likely be irrelevant, as it varies tremendously.

Keep in mind that your budget will also determine the speed of your growth. Read more on how to avoid deadly mistakes when outsourcing SEO services.

Your goal (How quickly you need results)

How much you spend on SEO is determined by this question: what’s your goal and, more importantly, how quickly do you need to achieve it?

• Is your goal to get website visitors, leads, or sales? How many do you need in 6 months?
• Do you want more traffic overall so you can build up your brand presence over time through organic search results rather than paid ads (which are usually more expensive)?
• Do you want to rank for a specific keyword?

Before ordering any search engine optimization, please make sure you know your goals. If you have a hard time figuring them out, hit me up and I will try to help.

Overall, while sometimes it’s not possible to get you results in a limited time frame, in many cases, with an increased budget, you can at least speed up the optimization of your website on SERPs.

Your current rankings

One of the most important and often overlooked factors that determine how much SEO costs is where you stand, both in terms of business and search rankings.

Smaller companies generally have less money to spend on SEO, while large companies also have access to more resources, which means they can get better results with less effort than smaller businesses.

If you want to get onto the first page of SERPs, but have just purchased your domain, even if your budget is $100,000, it’s unrealistic to be there in a month or two. Thus, you’ll need to sign a contract with an agency for at least a year and make sure you’re ready for this kind of budget.

Conversely, if you’re already #1 or #2 for many of the target keywords, it whole optimization process shouldn’t take that long.

Minimal SEO Monthly Cost Per Location

It’s always hard to provide specific numbers, as the services market is very wide and eventually there will be many people out of the specified range. So hopefully this will give you a ballpark number but don’t trust it wholeheartedly.

These prices come from a real experiment we did past month. We found 10 SEO agencies and asked for a quote for a small business in the fashion niche.

Cost of monthly SEO in Europe

Europe is not an affordable region in terms of digital marketing. That being said, the minimal price of the monthly package from an average agency in Europe is around 1000 EUR, not including the VAT. On top of that, you’ll pay taxes, which you probably will be able to claim later.

There are smaller agencies that are able to work with smaller budgets, however, the impact of such optimization may be quite light.

Cost of monthly SEO in the US

SEO agencies in the United States are somewhat similar to Europe in terms of pricing. A few agencies that replied back with a quote charge around $1,000 for monthly SEO services.

Cost of monthly SEO in India

Two of the agencies we had an interview with sent us a quote of $500. This is twice as cheap as in Europe and the US. The only concern we had was the quality. The guy was calling from a large call center, we could hear the other people talking at the same time. Now they may have been the best professionals we’ve ever spoken to, but my intuition suggested that the quality of their service will be the same as the quality of our call.

What you need to remember is that compromising on quality is not acceptable when it comes to SEO. There are risks of low-quality backlinks that may affect the rankings of your website. Fixing these errors will cost you twice as much, so make sure the quality is good.

Summary: How Much Should You Spend on SEO per Month

The cost of SEO depends on many factors and there is no single answer to this question. It can range from $100 per month to tens of thousands of dollars per month depending on the size of your business, where it is located, and what goals you set for yourself.

Through our research, we discovered that when it comes to monthly packages, they generally vary from $1,000 / 1000 EUR to $2,000 depending on what’s included.

That being said, it doesn’t mean that you can’t find solutions with a smaller budget, especially if SEO is not the only marketing channel you’re using. For instance, if you’re on a budget, you can order some services separately, focusing on content or backlinks.