Most SEO packages for small businesses in the UK sit somewhere between £500 and £2,000 a month, with local-only campaigns starting a little lower, around £300 to £500. That's the market answer. The more useful answer is that the word "package" is doing a lot of hiding, because two packages at the same price can contain wildly different amounts of actual work, and the cheap end of the market is mostly selling you a report, not a service.
I sell SEO packages myself, so I have an interest here and you should read this knowing that. What I can offer in return is a view from the delivery side of what a package has to contain to be worth paying for, and the arithmetic that tells you whether a quote is fair before you've spent a penny.
What a proper package actually contains
Strip the branding off any legitimate SEO package and you find the same four workstreams underneath. The tier you buy mostly determines how much of each you get, not whether they happen.
- Technical health. Someone checks, and keeps checking, that Google can crawl and index the site properly, that pages load quickly, and that nothing broke in the last plugin update. On a small site this is front-loaded work with light ongoing maintenance.
- On-page work and content. Keyword research tied to what you sell, pages optimised against real search intent, and new content where there's a genuine gap. This is usually the biggest ongoing time cost, because writing something worth ranking takes hours, not minutes.
- Links and authority. Earning mentions and links from relevant sites. It's the slowest and most expensive workstream, which is exactly why cheap packages fake it with directory submissions.
- Local visibility. For most small businesses this matters as much as everything above, Google Business Profile optimisation, reviews, and consistent business details across the web. If you serve a local area, a package without this is missing the point. The local SEO side is often where a small budget goes furthest.
Reporting sits across all four, and it should report outcomes (enquiries, calls, revenue-relevant rankings), not activity. Ten blue ticks on a task list is not a result.
What the UK market charges
These are market bands, compiled from current UK pricing research and agency rate cards rather than my own price list.
| Tier | Typical monthly cost | What it honestly buys |
|---|---|---|
| Local-only starter | £300–£500 | GBP optimisation, citations, on-page basics for a handful of pages. One workstream done properly, not four |
| Standard small business | £500–£1,000 | The four workstreams at modest depth: maintenance-level technical, one to two content pieces, slow link earning |
| Growth | £1,000–£2,000 | Proper depth on content and links, usually where competitive local or niche national terms become winnable |
| Competitive/national | £2,000+ | Multiple content pieces monthly, active digital PR, this is agency retainer territory |
Below £300 a month there's a layer of £99-style packages that I'd class as a different product entirely, and I'll come to those.
The arithmetic that keeps packages honest
An SEO package is ultimately a block of someone's hours. Experienced UK freelancers and consultants charge roughly £60 to £150 an hour, which puts a day of someone worth hiring anywhere from £350 to £770 and beyond at the senior end. So a £600-a-month package buys you somewhere between four and ten hours of a competent person's time.
That single calculation cuts through most pricing confusion. If a package costs £250 a month and promises a technical audit, four blog posts, ten links and a monthly strategy call, the deliverables imply twenty-plus hours of work, and twenty hours of competent work does not cost £250. Either the work is automated, outsourced to someone paid very little, or simply not happening. Run the hours check on any quote you receive and you'll know which conversation you're in.
What cheap packages leave out
The £99 to £300 tier survives because its deliverables sound identical to the real thing on paper. In practice, the pattern is consistent. The "audit" is an automated tool export. The "links" are directory listings and profile pages that carry no weight. The "content" is produced at a volume and price that tells you how it was written. The "ranking report" tracks keywords nobody searches for, chosen because they're easy to rank for rather than because they bring customers.
The tell I'd weight most heavily is whether a named human owns your account. If you can't find out who is actually doing the work, the honest answer is usually software. I've written more on vetting providers in how to choose an SEO consultant, and the same tests apply to packages.
None of this means a small budget is hopeless. It means a small budget should buy fewer things done properly, not everything done cosmetically. A £400 local package that only does GBP, reviews and on-page work can be excellent value. A £400 "all-inclusive" package cannot.
Signals a package is fair
A fair package, at any price, tends to look the same. The deliverables are specific enough to count, pages optimised, content pieces produced, links earned, so you can run the hours arithmetic. The keyword targets connect to things you actually sell rather than vanity phrases. Reporting shows enquiries and revenue-relevant movement, not just positions. Nobody guarantees rankings, because nobody controls Google. And the timeline is honest, real movement typically takes six to twelve months, and anyone promising page one in thirty days is planning to either fail quietly or take risks with your domain.
If a monthly package isn't right yet
For the smallest budgets, a monthly retainer is often the wrong shape. A one-off project, a proper audit with a prioritised fix list, or a few hours of consulting to point your own efforts in the right direction, frequently beats six months of a thin retainer. I've written about where a limited budget goes furthest if you want the do-it-yourself split.
As for my own packages, the pricing depends on your site, your market and how much of the work you want to keep in-house, in exactly the ways described above. Rather than publish a number that would be wrong for half the people reading it, the best route is to request my packages and I'll come back with something scoped to your actual situation.
Frequently asked questions
How much should a small business spend on SEO per month in the UK?
For most small businesses, £500 to £1,000 a month is the realistic starting band for a package covering technical, content, links and local work at honest depth. Local-only campaigns can start around £300 to £500. Below roughly £500 a month, expect one or two workstreams done properly rather than all four, and be suspicious of anyone claiming otherwise.
Are £99-a-month SEO packages worth it?
Almost never as an SEO service. At that price the deliverables are necessarily automated: tool-export audits, directory links, thin content. If £99 a month is genuinely the budget, you're better off spending it on a few hours of one-off expert direction and doing the legwork yourself.
How long before an SEO package shows results?
Six to twelve months for significant movement is the honest range, with local campaigns sometimes quicker because the competition is thinner. Early months should still show visible work, fixes shipped, content published, profile activity, even while rankings lag. Guaranteed rankings on a fixed timeline is a red flag, not a selling point.
Is a monthly package better than a one-off SEO project?
It depends on whether the problem is ongoing. Sites with a backlog of fixable issues often get more from a one-off audit and implementation project first, then a lighter retainer to maintain momentum. Ongoing content and link competition is where monthly packages earn their keep. Buying a retainer to fix a one-time problem is paying twelve times for something you needed once.