The question I get asked most by business owners is how much SEO costs. It’s a fair question, and I think most agencies answer it badly. You either get a vague “it depends” with no numbers at all, or a cheap package price that falls apart once you look at what’s actually included.
So here’s how I price it at Astory Media, what the price depends on, and what you should expect for your money, whoever you end up working with.
How much does SEO cost in Ireland?
For most local businesses in Ireland, proper ongoing SEO costs somewhere between a few hundred and a couple of thousand euro a month. Where you land in that range depends on how competitive your market is, how many services and locations you need to rank for, and how much work your website needs before it can compete.
For my own clients, the pricing looks like this:
- From €600 a month for a smaller local business with a handful of services and not much competition.
- Around €800 a month is where most of my clients sit. It’s enough to do the work properly without cutting corners.
- €1,000 to €1,200 a month for bigger companies, busier niches, or businesses in a crowded area like Dublin where the competition is much stronger.
Those prices are based on a 12-month agreement. I explain why further down, because I think it matters more than the monthly figure.
What actually changes the cost of SEO
I can’t give everyone the same price, because the work isn’t the same. SEO for a local tradesman in a village with no real competitors is a completely different job to SEO for the very same tradesman in the middle of Dublin. It’s different again for a dentist in the city, where every competitor is already paying someone to rank.
These are the things I look at before I quote:
- How big the business is. More services and more pages mean more work to plan, write and keep up to date.
- How many keywords you need to rank for. Ranking for one service in one town is a much smaller job than ranking for ten services across a county.
- How crowded your area is. The more businesses competing for the same searches, the more effort it takes to get ahead of them and stay there.
- Your niche. Some industries, like legal, dental and trades in cities, have competitors who’ve been investing in SEO for years. Closing that gap takes longer.
- The state of your website. If the site is slow, badly structured or has technical problems, those need fixing first. Content and links won’t do much on a site Google struggles to read.
Local SEO vs e-commerce and national SEO costs
Local SEO for a single-location business in Ireland is usually the most affordable, because you’re competing with businesses in one town or county, and a lot of the work centres on your service pages, your Google Business Profile, reviews and local citations.
E-commerce and national SEO cost more because the job is bigger. An online shop can have hundreds of product and category pages that all need to be structured and optimised, and ranking nationally means competing with every Irish business in your market, not just the ones down the road. I don’t quote those without looking at the site first, because the scope varies too much.
Why I only take SEO on as a 12-month agreement
The first months of SEO are the heavy lifting. That’s when I audit the site, fix the technical problems, sort out the structure, build the main service pages and get your Google Business Profile in proper shape. A lot of that work doesn’t show up in rankings straight away. It’s the foundation everything else sits on.
For me, it’s like building a house. You put in the foundations and the structure first, and only then can you build on top of it. What I don’t want is to do all the groundwork, and then after three months the client decides that’s enough and stops right where it was about to start paying off. The result is an unfinished job, and nobody is happy with that, least of all the client.
So I’d rather be upfront about it. If you want SEO that actually moves your business forward, it needs time to be built properly and then grown on top of.
What should be included in an SEO package
Whatever you pay, and whoever you pay it to, a proper SEO service should include:
- A starting audit that shows what’s actually holding your visibility back, not a generic checklist.
- Technical SEO fixes for anything slowing the site down or stopping Google from crawling it properly.
- Keyword research based on what your customers really type into Google.
- On-page optimisation and content built around those searches, not filler written to hit a word count.
- Local SEO and Google Business Profile work if you rely on customers near you.
- Monthly reporting you can actually understand, tied to enquiries and not just traffic.
If a proposal is missing most of these, it’s worth asking what you’re really paying for.
SEO pricing models: monthly retainer, project or hourly
Most SEO companies in Ireland price in one of three ways:
- Monthly retainer. The most common model for ongoing SEO. You pay a set monthly fee for continuous work on the site, content, local search and reporting.
- Project pricing. Used for one-off jobs, like a technical audit, a website migration or building a set of location pages.
- Hourly rates. More common for consulting or small, specific fixes than for a full campaign.
A one-off project can make sense when you have one specific problem to fix. But if you want to rank against active competitors, you need ongoing work, because your competitors and Google don’t stand still.
Search engine optimisation cost vs search engine marketing cost
People often mix these up. SEO is the work that helps you rank in Google’s free, organic results. Search engine marketing usually means paid ads, like Google Ads, where you pay for every click on top of a management fee.
The two cost money in very different ways. With ads, the traffic stops the day you stop paying. With SEO, the results take longer to build, but the rankings you earn keep bringing in enquiries. Plenty of businesses use both: ads to bring in enquiries now, and SEO to build something that lasts.
Is cheap SEO worth it?
In my experience, rarely. You’ll see SEO packages in Ireland advertised for well under €500 a month. A very low monthly price usually means very little work gets done, or the work relies on shortcuts like low-quality backlinks and thin, keyword-stuffed pages. That kind of SEO can get a site penalised, and undoing the damage almost always costs more than doing it properly in the first place.
I’d also be careful comparing quotes on the monthly figure alone. Two agencies can quote the same price and deliver completely different amounts of work. Ask exactly what’s included before you compare numbers.
Is SEO worth the investment for a small business?
The question I always ask back is what one new customer is worth to your business. For some businesses one extra job a month covers the whole SEO fee. For others it would take a lot more. Think of it as a cost per lead. If SEO brings in enquiries from organic traffic month after month, the cost of each enquiry keeps dropping over time. That changes what a sensible budget looks like, and it’s a much better starting point than picking a monthly number that feels comfortable.
SEO also works best when you treat it as an investment that builds over time, not a cost you switch on and off. Rankings built over a year don’t hold their position well if the work stops suddenly, and restarting from a weaker position often costs more than keeping going would have.
SEO agency, freelancer or in-house?
An in-house SEO person makes sense for a bigger company with a lot of ongoing work, but you’re paying a full salary plus the tools. A freelancer can be a good, cheaper option if they have the skills you need, though one person rarely covers technical SEO, content, local search and link building equally well. An agency costs more than a freelancer, but you get a wider set of skills and someone accountable for the whole job. For most small and medium Irish businesses, a small agency or a strong freelancer is the most sensible fit.
Can you do SEO yourself?
Some of it, yes. You can claim and fill out your Google Business Profile, keep your business details accurate across the web, ask happy customers for reviews and make sure each service you offer has its own page. If you’re in a small town with little competition, that alone can make a real difference.
It gets harder once you’re up against competitors who are already investing in SEO, or when your site has technical problems that need development skills to fix. That’s usually the point where paying someone starts to make sense.
Frequently asked questions about SEO costs
How much do SEO agencies charge per month in Ireland?
For local businesses, most proper monthly retainers sit somewhere between a few hundred and a couple of thousand euro, depending on competition and scope. At Astory Media, SEO starts from €600 a month on a 12-month agreement, with most clients around €800 and larger or more competitive businesses at €1,000 to €1,200.
How long does SEO take to show results?
Months, not weeks. The first stretch goes into fixing the foundations, and the results build on top of that. How fast depends on your starting point and how competitive your market is, which is exactly why I work on 12-month agreements.
Why does SEO cost more in Dublin than in a small town?
Because there are far more businesses competing for the same searches, and many of them are already paying for SEO. It takes more work to overtake them and more work to hold the position once you have it.
What is the 80/20 rule in SEO?
It’s the idea that most of your results come from a small share of the work, usually your main service pages, your Google Business Profile and fixing the few technical problems that hold the whole site back. A good SEO plan gets those right first, before spending time on anything else.
Getting a price for your business
I don’t publish one flat rate because every business starts from a different place. I’d rather take a proper look at your website, your competitors and what you want to achieve, and then give you a price that reflects the real work involved. You can see what’s included on my SEO services page, or get in touch on +353 87 193 2111, at hello@astorymedia.ie or through the contact page.
