What are the rates for an SEO agency in 2026?

The same website might receive an SEO quote for €500 per month and another for €8,000. When reading them line by line, it is almost always clear that the two agencies are not proposing the same work: the volume of content, links, technical tasks, and reporting vary significantly. Companies often send us a competitor's quote, asking if the price seems reasonable. We have therefore compiled the price ranges published in 2026 by sources based on actual billed budgets, in addition to our own experience asSEO agency for B2B SMEs and scale-ups.

Key takeaways

• In France, SEO agency support typically costs between €600 and €5,000 per month in 2026.
• For a national SME with a website of 50 to 500 pages, the observed range is €1,500 to €3,500 per month.
• A comprehensive SEO audit for an SME generally costs between €1,500 and €3,500.
• According to the Malt barometer, an experienced freelance SEO consultant charges around €500 per day.
• The price varies primarily based on content volume, netlinking, industry competition, and work on AI-generated answers.

How much does an SEO agency cost per month in 2026?

Most agencies charge a monthly flat fee. The ranges published by the agency Deux.io, based on their current mandates, provide a good benchmark.

Actual billed budgets

La Fabrique du Net has compiled 683 SEO project budgets billed in France. The median is €5,000 per project, and engagements of at least six months cost approximately €800 to €1,700 (excl. tax) per month.

Studio à Table tracked twelve mandates for small businesses and SMEs between 2024 and 2026, with a median monthly budget of €980 (excl. tax) for comprehensive support. These figures primarily concern smaller structures. A B2B scale-up operating nationwide and facing well-positioned competitors will pay more.

How much does an SEO audit cost?

We often start with an SEO audit : technical, content, links, and competition, resulting in an actionable plan.

• For an SME, a comprehensive audit generally costs between €1,500 and €3,500 according to Deux.io.
• A freelancer can perform a technical audit starting at €500 for a small business.
• With an agency, auditing a complex site can exceed €5,000.

Some agencies include the audit in the first month of support, while others charge for it separately. Check this before comparing prices.

Agency, freelancer, or in-house team: what are the costs?

Sources: Malt barometer for the daily rate of freelancers, Studio à Table for monthly packages.

Malt reports an average daily rate of €497 for an experienced SEO consultant. This ranges from €281 per day for a profile with 0–2 years of experience to €592 for those with over 15 years.

For a limited scope, a freelancer is often cheaper. An agency can handle technical work, copywriting, link building, and monitoring with a single team. We compare both options in the article agency or freelancer for your acquisition in 2026.

How do SEO agencies charge?

The monthly retainer

You pay the same amount each month for a fixed scope: number of content pieces, optimizations, and reporting. Ask for a list of what is planned month by month, rather than just a general description.

Time-based billing

The agency charges for days worked based on a daily rate. This method is well-suited for site migrations, technical audits, or supporting an in-house team. In time-based billing, the final amount depends on the number of days actually spent.

Performance-based compensation

Part of the price is tied to results: rankings, traffic, or leads. This model requires precise tracking and a clear agreement on what counts as a result. No agency can guarantee a top spot on Google, regardless of the billing method.

What causes SEO agency rates to vary?

• Site size: 30 pages and 3,000 pages do not require the same amount of technical work.
• Thecompetition on your keywords: the stronger the competition, the more content and links you need to make progress.
• The number of content pieces to be produced each month, and their level of expertise.
• Thenetlinking : links obtained from other sites may be included in the package or billed separately, sometimes with a dedicated budget for purchases.
• The initial technical state of the site: speed, indexing, and recent migrations.
• The number of languages or countries targeted.
• Work on visibility in Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Perplexity, which is increasingly being integrated into SEO support services.

Costs often missing from some quotes

• writing beyond the planned number of articles;
• purchasing links on partner sites;
• technical development, often handled by your own team or web agency;
• subscriptions to SEO tools, which are sometimes rebilled.

What SEO budget should a B2B SME or scale-up plan for?

For a B2B SME targeting the entire French market, the sources cited above place comprehensive support (strategy, content, technical, and some link building) between €1,500 and €3,500 per month. Below €1,000 per month, you generally get basic monitoring and a few pieces of content.

SEO effects take time. Like most agencies, we recommend evaluating results over a minimum of six months. With a three-month commitment , content and links rarely have enough time to produce results.

Our SEO pricing at Growth Room

[To be completed with your pricing grid] Audit price, monthly package by tier, included content (articles, technical, netlinking, GEO), and contract duration. Add your SEO case study here: industry, starting point, actions taken, quantified results, and timeframe.

Our proposals begin with an audit covering both SEO and visibility within AI responses. Since the arrival of AI Overviews and Google’s AI Mode in France in July 2026, we have integrated GEO into our support services: a well-ranked page can lose clicks when a generated response appears above it. Our method is described in our GEO Playbook, which over 4,000 people have requested.

How do you know if SEO is profitable?

A good benchmark is the cost of acquiring the same leads through advertising. For Déménager Facile, a moving quote comparison platform, our Google Ads campaigns generated 425 leads in two months for a budget of €15,304, with an cost per lead average of €29. In advertising, every lead is paid for by the click, and the flow stops when the campaign ends. Read the Déménager Facile case study

In SEO, the expense is spread over several months, and published pages continue to drive traffic afterward. To compare the two, track:

• the number of leads or sales generated from organic traffic each month;
• the cost of SEO divided by that number of leads;
• the evolution of this cost at 6 and 12 months;
• your brand's presence in AI responses for your core topics.

We detail how to make both levers work together in the article SEO vs. SEA: which strategy to boost your visibility.

What should you check in an SEO agency quote?

• The number of content pieces produced each month, their length, and the name of the writer.
• Netlinking details: number of links, types of sites, and any potential purchase budget.
• Technical deliverables: a simple list of recommendations versus corrections actually implemented by the agency.
• The frequency of check-ins and reporting content.
• Accounting for Google AI Overviews and AI search engines.
• Contract duration and exit terms.
• Recent results for sites similar to yours.