How much does an SEO audit cost? Real price ranges, and what you should get for the money

SEO audit prices at a glance

An SEO audit is a review of your website and your Google presence that tells you why you are not showing up for the searches your customers make, and what to fix first. Prices vary more than for almost any other service an owner buys. Here is what the published figures say.

The US figures come from AgencyAnalytics, SEOSLY and a WebFX survey; the UK figures come from Clickslice, Josh Willett and published agency prices. All sources are listed at the end of this guide. UK prices are usually quoted before VAT, so check whether 20% needs adding.

Why the published prices disagree

If you read several pricing guides, you will see numbers that do not line up. That is not because someone is wrong. They are measuring different things.

• What people actually paid. A WebFX survey of 250 US businesses found that 43% paid between $101 and $750 for their audit. About 6% paid more than $9,000.
• What specialists say a proper audit costs. SEOSLY, run by an independent auditor, says a quality expert audit usually starts at $2,500 to $3,000, and a technical-only audit might cost $1,500.
• What agencies charge for their own audit. WebFX, the same company that ran the survey, prices its own audit from $8,600, well above what most survey respondents paid.
• UK ranges. Clickslice gave £400 to £10,000 for a full audit (2022). Josh Willett, a UK consultant, gives £800 to £3,000 (2026). One agency, Whitehat, lists its essential website audit at £2,500 before VAT.

The honest reading: a lot of small businesses buy audits in the low hundreds, and a lot of experienced auditors think a useful audit needs at least a few days of work. Both can be true. A $300 audit of a 10-page site for a local plumber can be perfectly good. A $300 audit of a 2,000-page online store cannot be thorough.

What drives the price

When two quotes for "an SEO audit" differ by a factor of ten, one or more of these is usually the reason.

1. Size of the site. This is the biggest factor. AgencyAnalytics puts a site under 20 pages at $500 to $1,000 and a site over 1,000 pages at $10,000 to $15,000.
2. Depth. A technical check (can Google find and read your pages?) is the cheapest part. Adding content review, competitor comparison, links from other websites and your Google Business Profile adds days of work.
3. Manual review or tool output. Tools find hundreds of minor warnings in minutes. Deciding which three matter for your business takes a person, and that is what you are paying for.
4. Who does it. The Ahrefs survey of 439 SEO providers found an average of $111 an hour, with freelancers around $72, agencies around $99 and consultancies around $171. A UK consultant quotes £150 to £400 an hour for senior work, which is well above the Ahrefs average. Rates differ a lot by country and experience.
5. Speed. Rush jobs cost more. WebFX says a standard professional audit takes 30 to 45 days and an expedited one costs extra.
6. Extras. A walkthrough call, a keyword study, a link clean-up plan or help for your developer are often priced separately.

Almost no audit price includes doing the fixes. Ask for the implementation to be quoted at the same time, so you know the full cost before you start. Our guide on one-time SEO versus a monthly retainer covers what fixing usually costs.

Freelancer, agency or do it yourself?

What you can check yourself for free

Before paying anyone, spend an hour with two free Google tools. You will either fix the basics yourself or arrive at a paid audit with better questions.

• Google Search Console is a free service from Google. It shows which of your pages are in Google, which searches you appear for, how often people click, and any problems Google found when reading your site.
• Your Google Business Profile performance shows the searches people used to find your profile, plus calls, website clicks and direction requests. It is only available for verified profiles.
• A plain Google search. Search for your main service and your town, the way a customer would (for example "family solicitor Leeds" or "emergency plumber Austin"). Note who appears in the map and on page one. Searching your own business name tells you very little.
• Your phone. Open your site on a phone. Can you see what you do, where, and how to call, without scrolling?

What a good SEO audit contains

Whatever you pay, a useful audit answers five questions. If it does not, you have bought a list of tool warnings, not an audit. You can see the format we use in our one-page SEO audit example.

1. Where do you stand today? Your position on Google and Google Maps for the searches your customers actually make, not for your business name.
2. Who gets found instead? The competitors that win those searches, and what they have that you do not: a page per service, more reviews, a faster site.
3. What is broken? Problems that stop Google or visitors: pages Google cannot find, missing service or location pages, no call button on phones, a slow site.
4. What should you fix first? Three to ten fixes in order of impact, each with who should do it (you, your web designer or a specialist).
5. How will you know it worked? The searches and numbers to check again in three and six months, written down so the comparison is fair.

A longer report is not a better report. For a small business, a clear five-page document with ten prioritised fixes is worth more than a 60-page export from a tool. A walkthrough call, where you can ask questions, is worth asking for.

Red flags when buying an SEO audit

• A guarantee of first place. Google's own advice says no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google, and that if someone promises it, you should find someone else.
• No sample report. A confident auditor will show you what you will receive before you pay.
• Hundreds of issues, no priorities. If every item has the same weight, nobody has thought about your business.
• Rankings only for your business name. You probably already rank for your own name. The audit should look at the searches new customers make.
• A partial audit sold as a full one. Reviewing 50 pages of a 5,000-page site is not a full audit. Ask how many pages are covered.
• Open-ended hourly billing. Ask for a fixed price, or at least a cap on hours.
• Unsolicited emails. Google advises being wary of SEO firms that email you out of the blue.
• Link schemes. If the fix list includes buying links, walk away. Google's spam policies treat exchanging money for links as spam.
• Secrecy. Google advises caution if a company will not clearly explain what it intends to do.

How to get your money's worth from a paid audit

A few things make a cheaper audit more useful, and a more expensive one worth the price.

• Give read access to Search Console and your Business Profile. Real data beats guesses. You can add someone as a user and remove them afterwards; you never need to share a password.
• List your services and areas. Write down what you most want more of (for example "conveyancing in Cork", "Invisalign in Manchester", "kitchen remodels in Denver") and your three main competitors.
• Agree the deliverable in writing. Page count covered, searches checked, competitors compared, format of the report, and whether a call is included.
• Ask for the fixes to be priced. Even if you plan to do them yourself, an estimate tells you how big the job is.
• Book the re-check. Put a date in your calendar three months after the fixes to look at the same searches again.

For reference, our Visibility audit is a fixed $490, which sits inside the range most surveyed businesses paid and below what specialists charge for large sites. It is built for small business and professional firm websites, not for thousand-page online stores. If you are still deciding whether search is worth spending on at all, read is SEO worth it for a small business first.

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