It's the first question any owner asks, and almost nobody answers it straight.
You request three quotes and get 600 €, 1,800 € and 4,500 € a month for line items that read almost identically. There's no way to tell whether the first is a bargain or a scam, or whether the third is genuinely worth five times more.
Here are the real market numbers, what each budget level buys, and how to compare two quotes.
What the market charges
La Fabrique du Net's French barometer, built on 683 real SEO project budgets, puts the median project at 5,000 €.
Close to six agencies in ten offer a recurring monthly retainer. Search work suits that format: positions move, competitors publish, and an audit delivered once goes stale quickly.
On day rates, La Fabrique du Net's 2024 figures for France put a junior consultant with under three years' experience at 350 to 500 € excl. VAT a day, and a senior or expert consultant with over seven years at 850 to 1,500 €.
What each level buys
Under 300 € a month. You are paying to receive a PDF. If that is your ceiling, spend it once on a serious audit and apply the recommendations yourself. I set out what you get at each price in my article on what an SEO audit costs.
600 to 1,200 € a month. The experienced independent consultant working a defined scope. Technical fixes, optimising the pages that matter, some content, tracking. Realistic for a local business or an SMB already producing its own content. My Essentials plan, at 1,200 € a month, sits at the top of this bracket.
1,500 to 2,500 € a month. Regular production: several pieces of content monthly, active link building, continuous technical work. The format for SMBs genuinely competing on national queries. My Growth plan, at 2,400 € a month, is built for this level.
Above 3,000 €. Large-catalogue ecommerce, multiple markets, highly competitive sectors, where a multi-skilled team becomes necessary.
The GEO question, and why I don't bill it separately
A new line has appeared on quotes over the past year: visibility in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI answers.
I don't charge that line. Here's why.
A site that loads fast, serves its content as HTML, has structured data, and answers questions directly satisfies Google and the generative engines at the same time. Same work. I have a client cited first by Google's AI Overview and by ChatGPT in three languages, and that came out of the same work as their conventional search visibility, not a separate service.
Billing GEO as a separate product means charging you twice for one job. Be sceptical of any quote that splits the two lines without explaining precisely what changes in the execution.
How to compare two quotes
Four questions settle most cases.
Who does the work? Not who sells it. Ask for the first name of the person who will open your Search Console. With a freelancer that's simple. With an agency the answer can be a junior who appears after the sales phase.
What exactly is in scope, in writing? How many pieces of content monthly, how many technical hours, link building or not. A quote saying "SEO support" with no detail leaves you with no recourse.
Which metrics get tracked? If the answer is "traffic", push harder. Traffic rises beautifully on articles nobody buys from. I know because my own blog did exactly that for a year. Ask to track positions on your commercial queries and inbound enquiries.
What commitment length? A 24 month commitment with no exit clause is a signal.
What I charge
Two plans, GEO included in both and no long lock-in: Essentials at 1,200 € a month, Growth at 2,400 € a month. My prices are public: see pricing.
Essentials sits in the lower half of the French range, and I'd rather say so than dress it up as a promotion. It works because I work alone with no structure to fund, and because I build the technical fixes myself instead of subcontracting them.
Month one exists to check there's anything to win: I test your real queries on Google, ChatGPT and Perplexity, check whether AI crawlers can read your site, and tell you honestly what I think. If your sector isn't affected yet, I say so and we don't start. What each month contains after that is set out in my article on what a GEO retainer includes.
Detail of the service: SEO and GEO services. Examples of work: my case studies.
Before you commit a monthly budget, check that you actually have a problem to solve. I set out the method in a separate article on diagnosing a traffic drop, and it takes ten minutes inside Search Console.
Sources
Price ranges gathered in September 2026 from published French market barometers, including a barometer built on 683 real SEO project budgets. Prices move: check with each provider.
- La Fabrique du Net, Tarif agence SEO 2026 : combien ça coûte (683 budgets réels), 2026
- Studio à Table, Combien coûte une prestation SEO en agence ? Les vrais prix 2026, March 2026
Got a quote and don't know what to make of it? Send it to me with your site address. I'll tell you honestly whether it's fair, underpriced or inflated, even if you don't work with me. Write to me here, I reply within 24 hours.
