Pricing: what SEO and Google Ads cost at TheSEO
Marketing is an investment, not a cost line: get it right and the turnover follows. This page lists every rate for Google Ads, SEO, AI visibility, social media and branding, with the monthly amount and the one-off amount next to each other, so you can do your own sum.
You cancel by email, and that email counts as the official cancellation. You pay out the current month and then it stops. We send you the content of your site, because that is yours. The domain name is already in your name, since you bought it yourself. The site itself does not come with you. You cannot simply stop within those first two years.
If you do want to leave earlier, you buy off the remainder: you pay the remaining months in one go, and after that we send you the content just as with a normal cancellation. It works that way because we do not invoice the build up front while we keep paying for the site; those costs run on if you leave early.
Read this before the numbers: currency, tax and what is not in the price
Why there is no price in pounds
We invoice in euro, because the agreement is in euro, and the euro amount is the only binding one. Next to a price of ours you will find no pound figure, and that is a deliberate refusal rather than an omission.
Two reasons, and both are about you rather than about us. A converted amount without a dated source for the exchange rate is an invented figure, and our own rule is that a figure carries a source and a link or it does not appear. And a fixed pound price on a monthly contract quietly moves the exchange rate risk to whichever of us is not watching it; on a twelve month engagement that is real money moving on a number nobody agreed. If you want to know what a month costs in your own currency today, your bank's rate at the moment of payment is the honest answer, and your bank will tell you for free.
Pounds do appear elsewhere on this site, and it is worth saying where. On the Google Ads pages the example accounts reckon in pounds: a daily budget, a cost per enquiry, a bid in an example auction. That is the advertising money you pay Google yourself, in your own currency, and we never take a cut of it. Our own fee is the amount on this page, and that one stays in euro.
Who pays the tax, per situation
| Who you are | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Business in the United Kingdom | The place of supply is where you are. You account for the VAT yourself under the reverse charge, and we invoice without Dutch VAT. So the amount on this page is what leaves your account, and the tax runs through your own return. | HMRC, VAT Notice 741A |
| Business in Ireland or elsewhere in the European Union, with a valid VAT number | Reverse charge. We invoice without Dutch VAT and state your number on the invoice. | Your Europe, cross-border VAT |
| Business without a valid VAT number | No reverse charge. We settle the treatment with you in writing before any quotation goes out, rather than guessing at it on the invoice. | see the call |
| Consumer | Consumers can buy. This row used to say these services were a business offer not sold to consumers; that decision was reversed on 25 August 2026, and everything below is for sale to a private individual as well. Two tax rules apply and they land in different places, so it is worth reading which one you are in. The hands-on services on this page are ordinary services to a private consumer, and there the place of taxation is where the supplier is established, so the Dutch general rate of 21 per cent is added to the euro amount below. A software subscription such as Jarvis is a digital service and is taxed where you live instead, which is why those amounts are quoted with the tax already inside them and the ones on this page are not. That second rule has a step under it: while our combined turnover from digital services to private individuals in other EU countries and from intra-EU distance sales stays below 10,000 euro in a calendar year, Dutch VAT may still be charged. What is not arranged, said plainly: a business not established in the United Kingdom has no VAT registration threshold there, so a supply that is taxable in the UK creates an obligation from the very first sale. That registration does not exist yet, so until it does the self-service order screen for Jarvis stays shut for a UK consumer. It does not shut this page: HMRC states the general B2C rule in section 6.2 of Notice 741A as the place of supply being where the supplier belongs, irrespective of where the customer is, so the hands-on services here are supplied from the Netherlands and carry Dutch tax rather than UK VAT. | European Commission, place of taxation · Belastingdienst, btw-tarieven (NL) · HMRC, VAT Notice 700/1, updated 5 August 2026 · HMRC, VAT Notice 741A section 6.2. All checked on 25 August 2026 |
| Anyone outside the European Union and the United Kingdom, the United States included | There is no VAT in the United States. Sales tax is set state by state, and a seller with no premises in a state can still become liable through that state's own economic nexus threshold. New York, to take one that publishes its figures, sets that at more than 500,000 dollars of gross receipts from sales of property delivered into the state and more than 100 such sales, measured over the four preceding sales tax quarters. We hold no sales tax registration in any US state, so nothing is charged and nothing is remitted there. Where a state rule turns out to apply to a sale, you hear it before you order and not on the invoice afterwards. For other countries outside the EU and the UK we do not claim to know the local rule; we establish it in writing with you first rather than guess at it. | New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, nexus for sales tax, checked on 25 August 2026 |
Nothing is added later, and in the United Kingdom that is now law
The prices below are complete. There is no activation fee, no platform fee and no percentage of your ad spend. Work outside the agreement happens only with your prior agreement, at €65 per hour excluding VAT, so no line ever appears on your invoice that you did not say yes to first.
One thing sits outside our rate and always will: the advertising budget you pay Google or a social platform yourself. That is your money going straight to them, we never take a cut of it, and it is stated in the same breath as the management fee everywhere on this page rather than in a footnote.
We would run it that way anyway, and since 6 April 2025 it is also the law where you may be sitting: drip pricing, showing a price and adding charges during the ordering process, is a banned practice in the United Kingdom under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, enforced by the Competition and Markets Authority. Source: GOV.UK on the new consumer protection regime.
First month against every month after
You pay the setup once and the management every month. Anyone who adds those two together and calls the result a monthly amount is talking themselves poor. So here they are on the same scale, one under the other, with the advertising budget separate underneath.
Ads setup, one-off €500
SEO upkeep €250
SEO upkeep €250
SEO upkeep €250
SEO upkeep €250
# A worked example using the rates on this page, not a quotation. All amounts excluding VAT.
# The marker stepping through the months is what the figure is about: the setup sits in month one only, so anyone reading the monthly amount off the first bar counts double.
With us you work with fixed, transparent rates, published in full on this page. You know in advance what a service costs. Work outside the agreement we only do once you have agreed to it beforehand, at €65 per hour excluding VAT. That fits how we have worked since 2017: many of our clients are small businesses and specialist trades with a limited budget, so we keep the entry low and expand once the return allows it.
You can take services separately, such as advertising only or an SEO check only, or combine them into a full approach that grows with your business.
Google Ads: what you pay
Six amounts, and the shape of them matters: the monthly rate follows the number of locations, while the one-off setup is always €500. Work outside the agreed scope, such as extra research or a full restructure, we invoice at €65 per hour excluding VAT.
What we cannot sell you, depending on your trade and your country
Google does not allow the same advertising everywhere, and we check that before quoting rather than after. Two examples from the same policy page, because they are the ones that catch people out: advertisements for locksmiths cannot run in the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Sweden and Belgium, and in the United States and Canada they run only after advanced verification. In the United Kingdom and Ireland there is no such restriction in the policy, so a British or Irish locksmith can advertise normally. For plumbers the ban applies in the Netherlands only. Source: Google Ads Help, other restricted businesses: local services.
Financial services need a separate verification per country before a campaign can run. In the United Kingdom that has been enforced since 6 September 2021 and runs through authorisation by the Financial Conduct Authority; in Ireland since 7 November 2024, through the Central Bank of Ireland among others. If you are in a financial trade, that verification is the first item on the plan and not a surprise in month two. Source: Google Ads Help, financial services verification: regulators and enforcement dates.
If you are in a regulated trade, tell us which country you advertise in and we look up what applies there before we take the work. A management fee for a campaign that cannot legally run is not a service.
SEO: check and monthly upkeep
Want to know where your site stands first? There are three ways, and only the third one costs anything.
The first two are not a trial subscription: no invoice follows them. Choose the third only once you have done the first two and want to know where it is really stuck.
Want us to maintain and improve your site structurally after that? That is €250 per month, excluding VAT.
Link building is part of that monthly amount: we make our best effort to achieve one or two good placements per month, as an effort and without a guarantee. Separate link building help is €65 per hour excluding VAT. You can also build it yourself for free through our exchange platform LinkLoop: Starter is free with 10 credits per month, and the paid tiers are Growth €29, Pro €79 and Agency €149 per month, all excluding VAT.
Need extra content, such as new articles or pages? We invoice that at €65 per hour excluding VAT. Note: articles are not part of the audit, that is separate bespoke work.
AI visibility: are you named or not
Searching no longer happens only in Google. With an AI assistant there is no list of ten results but one answer, and you are either in it or you are not. What a language model says about your sector we measure continuously in the AI Index, and the dataset is published openly so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Want a free impression first? The AI brand checker puts your company name, sector and city to a language model and shows at once whether it recognises you.
What a score from the index is not: it is a snapshot with methodological limits, not an official market standard, not a certification and not a promise about your visibility. Every score carries its measurement date, sample, method, limitations and version number, and without those five a score means nothing.
How that measurement is put together, what comes back in the report and what we do afterwards to improve it, is on the service page AI visibility.
Social media management: frequency, and who does the replying
For organic social media you pay by the frequency you choose, and at the top of the ladder by whether we also do the replying. Organic management means the planning, the posts themselves and the publishing.
How the work is actually made, said plainly, because it is the reason the amounts read the way they do. The production runs mostly on AI: we generate the posts rather than putting a camera crew behind every idea. Around that we record together with you, since a channel that never shows the actual business stops sounding like one, so we plan those sessions with you and draw on the material in the weeks that follow. And what gets made follows the trends running on the platform at that moment, rather than a calendar written far in advance and then left alone.
Advertising on social is priced on its own, by how many platforms you run. As everywhere on this page, the advertising budget itself is not in the amount: that is your money going straight to Facebook or TikTok, and we take no cut of it.
Three organic packages and two advertising amounts, and no others: no cheaper tier under the three a week, nothing above the full management package, and no bespoke ladder invented per client. The advertising amounts are their own monthly line, separate from the organic ladder. What lands in a post, how it gets made and what you see before it goes out, is on the service page social media management.
Branding, website and advice
| What | Price | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Logo design | €500 one-off, excluding VAT | not applicable |
| Brand identity design | €1,000 one-off, excluding VAT | not applicable |
| Website | €75 per month, excluding VAT | Building, hosting, maintenance and further development are all in the monthly amount. There is no build fee up front. The term is two years fixed, monthly cancellable after that |
| Website with a webshop (e-commerce) | €150 per month, excluding VAT | The same arrangement as the line above, for a site that sells |
| Advice or consultancy | €65 per hour, excluding VAT | The same rate as work outside an agreed scope |
| AI employee | from €950 per month, excluding VAT | Depends on the set of tasks |
A website here is not a project with a build sum up front. There is no build fee: you start on the monthly amount straight away, €75 per month for a website and €150 per month when it sells through a webshop. That amount covers building the site, hosting it, maintaining it and developing it further, so an update or an extra page does not arrive as a separate invoice.
The term is the first two years fixed, and monthly cancellable after that. Those two years are there for a reason you can check yourself: because we do not invoice the build up front, that work earns itself back over the period. A site that is finished in month one and gone again in month three does not add up at €75 per month.
You cancel in writing, by email to sales@theseo.nl or through the contact page. After those first two years the agreement runs on month by month until you end it. What the monthly amount does not cover is set out elsewhere on this page: SEO, Google Ads and social media are separate services with their own rates, the advertising budget goes straight to Google, and work outside the agreement is only done with your approval beforehand, at €65 per hour. All amounts exclude VAT, and the cross-border tax treatment at the top of this page applies to the monthly amount in the same way as to every other rate here.
What sits behind the website line, from the order of the work to what a site has to be able to do today, is on the service page WordPress specialist. The AI employee line runs through AI and automation, where the skills and the way of working are described.
Adding up your own investment
There is no calculator on this page and no quotation form. There does not need to be: every amount is written out above, so you make the sum in two lines yourself. Add the monthly amounts of the services you want, add the one-off amounts separately, and you know what the first month costs and what every month after that costs.
A worked example with the rates on this page. Google Ads for one location, at €250 per month with a €500 setup, plus SEO upkeep at €250 per month, comes to €500 per month with €500 one-off in the first month. Start with a full technical SEO audit at €750 and that is added once on top.
Want a website with it, then €75 per month is added, or €150 per month with a webshop, and there is no one-off amount under that line because the build sits inside the monthly amount. All amounts excluding VAT, and for a business customer in the United Kingdom, Ireland or elsewhere in the EU with a valid VAT number, the tax is reverse charged as set out at the top of this page.
Want it on paper? We send a quotation after a call, because in that call we work out together which services you actually need. That saves you a quotation for a package that does not fit you. Book a call or email your question to sales@theseo.nl.
The rates above are our rates and they do not change with the country you read them in. What we deliberately do not do is present them as a market price: what an agency in London or Dublin charges is a different figure, we have no sourced dataset for it, and a comparison without a source is exactly the kind of claim this site refuses to make.
Who this is for, and what to do next
These rates are made for small businesses and specialist trades that want to grow but do not want to free up a large marketing budget blindly. You pay for what you take and expand once you notice it works.
Not sure which combination fits your situation? Then a short call helps more than a long list of prices. You now know roughly what the investment is. The next step is simple: add up the services you want using the amounts above, or book a call so we translate what you want into a concrete plan with clear steps and realistic results.
Written by Gianluca, founder of TheSEO. Building visibility since 2017, in Google and in AI answers. More about the institute on about us.