What Does SEO Cost?
Anything between €0 and €10,000 a month is on offer in the market. This page explains what actually drives the price, which billing models are common and how to spot dubious offers.
Pricing models
The three common billing models
Typical market ranges in Germany – varying by region, experience and specialization.
Hourly rate
€80–150/hour
Common for audits, consulting and targeted implementation. Transparent, but hard to budget when the scope is unclear upfront.
Monthly retainer
from €500/month
The classic agency model for ongoing support. Sensible for continuous content building – problematic when it stays unclear what work a month actually contains.
Project price
from €2,000
Fixed price for a defined package, such as audit plus technical implementation plus core pages. The most predictable option and our preferred model to start with.
Cost factors
What actually drives the price
Competition
A niche provider in a regional market needs a fraction of the budget of an insurance comparison site. Competition for your search terms determines the effort more than anything else.
Starting point
A technically clean website with existing content needs fine-tuning. A post-relaunch mess with indexing problems needs weeks before rankings are even possible.
Content volume
Are ten good pages enough, or does your topic need fifty? Content production is the biggest ongoing cost – and the one where AI workflows cut costs the most.
Speed
If you need results in six months, you invest more upfront. With twelve to eighteen months of runway, a smaller monthly budget achieves the same.
Why we can offer lower prices
A large part of SEO work is analysis, research and content creation. That is exactly what our AI workflows accelerate massively: audits, keyword clusters and content drafts take hours instead of days. Strategy and quality control remain human work.
The result: you pay for impact, not for agency hours sat out. Work that classically takes three person-days we often deliver in one – and pass the difference on in the price.
Three warning signs in SEO offers
Ranking guarantees
"Position 1 guaranteed" is not something anyone can seriously promise – Google decides, not the agency. Guarantees only work with worthless search terms nobody competes for anyway.
Cheap backlink packages
"500 backlinks for €99" come from spam networks. At best Google ignores them, at worst they hurt you. We regularly see such link profiles in audits – cleaning up costs more than the supposed bargain.
Opaque reports
If the monthly report only shows visibility index curves but not what was concretely done: ask. You are buying work and results, not colorful charts.
Common questions
SEO costs: frequently asked questions
A concrete quote instead of ranges
Send us your website and your goal. You get a fixed-price quote with clearly defined deliverables – and an honest call if SEO is not the right lever for you right now.
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