SEO Pricing Survey Insights: How Much Does SEO Cost in 2025?
Carefully designed pricing models are the cornerstone of success for SEO agencies because they secure a steady client flow and promote sustainable growth.
That’s why SE Ranking, in partnership with Duda, recently ran a marketing and SEO agency pricing model survey. We identified the most dominant pricing models, average rates, factors causing agencies to raise prices, and more. Our goal was to help SEO agencies better understand the state of the industry.
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Monthly retainers are the most popular agency pricing model.
53% of survey participants prefer monthly retainers over other pricing models. These agencies still offer hourly and project rates to cater to customer preferences.
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The most popular pricing ranges are $500-$1000 per month, $50-$100 per hour, and $500-$2000 per project.
64% of agencies charge below $1,000 per month, 60% set their hourly rates below $100, and 66% charge under $2,000 per project.
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Agencies in North America typically charge more than those in Europe.
The biggest gap is in hourly pricing, where 40% of agencies in the US and Canada charge over $125 per hour. Only 6% of European agencies charge the same fee.
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70% of the agencies surveyed either increased their pricing recently or plan to in 2025.
The main reason is inflation and higher costs of living, followed by improved expertise and value proposition, and higher operational costs.
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85% of agencies bundle their service into SEO packages.
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Nearly 93% of agencies provide SEO services along with PPC, SMM, web design, and website maintenance.
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61% of agencies consider adding optimization for AIOs and other AI-driven engines to their services.
43% plan to integrate AIO optimization into their existing offerings, while 18% plan to offer it as an extra service.
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Agencies with finalized pricing for AIO optimization services generally set, or intend to set, an average monthly fee of around $937 for these services.
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As agencies grow, their pricing increases across retainers, hourly rates, and project fees.
Larger agencies are more likely to charge premium rates, with over 70% of agencies with 25+ employees charging over $1,000 monthly retainers, over $100 per hour, and over $2,000 per project.
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Agencies that succeed at retaining their clients also have higher pricing.
The share of agencies that charge over $1,000 per month, over $100 per hour, and over $100 almost doubles when their customers stay for over 2 years.
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Agencies managing more client projects at a time have higher pricing rates.
Only 1 in 7 agencies managing five or fewer projects charge above-average rates. Every second agency that runs more than 25 projects charges higher fees.
Short pricing survey overview: Participants, methodology, and more
We partnered with Duda to gather input from 170 agencies from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK, Ireland, and continental Europe. We supported the dataset with pricing rates of 90 agencies listed in our Agency Catalog. In total, this resulted in a dataset pulled from 260 agencies.
The vast majority of agencies surveyed serve small or local businesses, with 94% of them focusing on this segment. Other popular industries include e-commerce or online stores (54%), non-profit organizations (32%), and SaaS companies (15%).
A good chunk (78%) of respondents represented small agencies under 10 people. This includes 53% of agencies with under five people on board and 25% of agencies comprising five to 10 specialists. Larger agencies with 11 to 25 and 25+ employees comprised 12% and 10% of the respondents, respectively. This skewed our survey data toward smaller SEO agencies.
Even so, the digital agency landscape is dominated by small agencies. A 2023 agency pricing report by Promethean Research found that 64% of 45,000 digital agencies across the US and Canada employ up to 10 people.
When calculating the percentage, we rounded the results to the nearest whole number.
Our final disclaimer: We gathered a total of 260 responses from survey participants and agencies listed in our Agency Catalog. While this sample size may not be large enough to reach statistical significance, we believe this overview provides valuable insights for SEO agencies looking to benchmark their pricing models against those of their peers.
Preferred pricing models
53% of survey participants prefer monthly retainers over all other pricing models, and 80% listed monthly retainers along with other models as their favorites. At the same time, SEO agencies demonstrate flexibility by offering monthly, hourly, or project rates depending on customers’ preferences.
Pricing rates distribution: Global and regional specifics
For ease of analysis, we divided all the data into two regional groups: US & Canada and Europe. It is worth noting that out of 113 agencies representing North America, only 7 originate from Canada. At the same time, out of 119 European agencies, 53 are UK-based.
Overall, the most popular pricing ranges are $500-$1000 per month, $50-$100 per hour, and $500-$2000 per project.
Agencies in North America typically charge more than those in Europe, with notable differences in hourly, project, and monthly fees.
Monthly pricing ranges
The distribution shows that 64% of agencies offer monthly retainers below $1,000, with 30% charging less than $500 per month. Fewer agencies have higher-priced retainers, with 20% in the $1,000-$2,000 range, 13% in the $2,000-$5,000 range, and only 2% of agencies charging more than $5,000 per month.
In the US and Canada, 25% of the agencies we surveyed charge less than $500 per hour while in Europe the number goes up to 39%. At the same time, 22% of respondents from the US and Canada charge over $2000 per month while in Europe only 9% of agencies charge similar rates.
Hourly pricing ranges
The majority of agencies, 45%, set their hourly rates between $50 and $100.
In the US and Canada, around 23% of agencies charge less than $75 per hour, whereas in Europe, this rate applies to a higher 47% of agencies. Conversely, 40% of agencies in the US and Canada charge over $125 per hour, but in Europe, this figure drops significantly to just 6%.
Project pricing ranges
The most common range for average project-based fees is $500-$2,000, with approximately 66% of agencies falling within this range. Among them, 38% charge $500-$1,000 per project, while 28% charge between $1,000 and $2,000 per project. Only 18% of agencies charge over $3,000 per project.
In the US and Canada, the trend is the same—65% of agencies charge between $500-$2,000 per project. The share of agencies that charge under $1,000 per project is 7% lower than in Europe with more agencies staying in the middle ground. At the same time, 4% of the survey participants charge over $10,000 per project as opposed to just 1% of the surveyed agencies in Europe.
Price hikes: Trends and reasons
32% of respondents recently increased their pricing, and 38% said they were planning to raise their current rates in 2025. 30% of respondents said they preferred to keep their rates the same.
Reasons for increasing rates:
- 28% of agencies report increasing their rates due to inflation and higher living costs.
- 25% attribute their rate increases to enhanced expertise and value proposition, which allows them to deliver at higher levels and compete at higher market rates.
- 19% of agencies cite higher operational costs as the reason for their rate hikes.
- 13% explain that their decision is spurred by a growing demand for their services.
- 10% mention that adding more services to their offerings is a factor driving their rate hikes
- 5% of agencies monitor their competitors’ rates and adjust their pricing to match.
SEO package bundling vs. individual SEO services
Out of all agencies surveyed, 85% bundle their service into SEO packages.
Offering a variety of SEO packages allows agencies to meet the diverse needs, budgets, and goals of different businesses. Having a clear value proposition makes it easier for clients to choose the most suitable solution. As a client’s business grows, they can upgrade to a more comprehensive package and build long-term relationships.
From the perspective of agencies, service bundling allows them to upsell more comprehensive packages or cross-sell additional services like PPC advertising or website design. Comprehensive packages help agencies stand out from the competition while streamlining operations.
SEO-only agencies vs. multichannel agencies
Out of all the agencies surveyed, about 93% provide SEO services along with other marketing offerings such as PPC, SMM, web design, and website maintenance.
Meanwhile, 7% of agencies specialize solely in SEO, without offering additional marketing services. Of these, only 2 agencies have indicated plans to expand their service offerings to include other marketing channels in the future.
Agency plans for offering optimization for AIOs and other AI-driven engines
Out of all the agencies surveyed, 61% intend to expand their offerings by incorporating optimization for AIOs and other AI-driven engines.
Out of these agencies, 43% plan to offer optimization for AIOs and other AI-driven engines as a part of their existing offerings, and 18% plan to offer AIO optimization as an extra service. In turn, 39% do not plan to expand their offerings with optimization for AIOs and other AI-driven search engines.
Agencies that have finalized their pricing typically charge (or plan to charge) an average of $937 per month for AIO optimization services.
Correlation between agency size and pricing
As agencies grow in size, their pricing goes up. Up to 80% of large agencies charge above-average fees as opposed to 20-31% of small agencies with less than five people on board.
Correlation between client retention and pricing
Out of all surveyed agencies, 50% worked with their clients for 2 years or more. These agencies charge the highest fees.
The share of agencies who charge more within every pricing model increases as they switch to long-term projects and get better at retaining clients.
Only 13% of agencies reported retaining their clients for less than 6 months. This group of agencies charges no more than $1,000 per month.
Correlation between the number of client projects managed and pricing
Agencies handling fewer than five projects typically charge under $1,000 per month (88%), under $2,000 per project (85%), and under $100 per hour (85%).
The shares drop gradually as agencies take on more projects.
In the group of agencies that run over 25 projects, 49% charge under $1,000 per month and under $2,000 per project. 40% charge under $100 per hour.
SE Ranking: A reliable agency-first SEO suite
No matter how much you choose to charge your clients, it’s always a good idea to have a premium SEO toolset designed with agencies’ needs in mind. SE Ranking offers:
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- Unique datasets that deliver reliable insights: constant improvement of data quality is SE Ranking’s top priority.
- Free data migration for annual subscriptions.
- 3 to 5 manager seats are already included in the Pro and Business plans.
- Flexible pricing tiers to match different data needs.
- A special Agency Pack add-on that caters to the needs of SEO agencies by offering unlimited WL reporting, a lead generation widget, extra client seats, exclusive placement in the curated Agency Catalog, and more.
