SEO for small businesses in the UK runs £500–£2,000 monthly for most legitimate ongoing campaigns. At the lower end (£500–£800), you're usually getting a freelancer or very small agency handling basic technical fixes, local SEO setup, and light content work. Mid-range (£1,000–£1,500) gets you a dedicated account manager, regular content production, link building, and monthly reporting. Above £1,500, you're typically paying for competitive national keywords, multi-location strategies, or agencies with specialized industry experience. One-time SEO audits or project-based work costs £2,000–£8,000 depending on site size and complexity. A local tradesperson with a 10-page site might pay £2,000–£3,500 for a technical audit and on-page optimization. An e-commerce site with 500+ products could hit £6,000–£8,000 for a comprehensive audit, category page optimization, and schema implementation. Geography matters significantly. Ranking a London-based accountant or solicitor costs more than similar work for a business in Newcastle or Cardiff because competition is fiercer and cost-per-click rates are higher. Local SEO for service-area businesses (plumbers, electricians, landscapers) sits at the lower end. National e-commerce or SaaS companies competing for high-value keywords need budgets at the upper range or beyond. Avoid anyone quoting £200–£300 monthly unless it's purely a maintenance retainer after heavy upfront work. That price point rarely covers the labor required for meaningful results. Similarly, be cautious of £5,000+ monthly quotes for genuinely small businesses unless you're in finance, legal, or another brutal vertical. At Ottawa SEO, we see the same dynamics in Canada with CAD pricing roughly 1.5–1.7x UK GBP rates. The principles transfer: realistic SEO requires consistent effort over 6–12 months, so monthly retainers generally deliver better ROI than one-off projects. Small businesses should budget what they'd pay for one part-time employee and expect that investment to compound over time rather than deliver instant rankings.