Most small businesses in India pay SEO charges of Rs 10,000 to 30,000 a month, while online stores and national B2B firms pay more. Our retainers start from Rs 12,000 a month, and overseas plans are $800 or $1,600. A quote is best judged by the enquiries it produces.
SEO quotes in India vary widely because agencies sell very different work under the same name. We sell SEO ourselves, so read the figures with that in mind.
What is the average SEO cost in India per month?
The ranges below come from quotes clients share with us, so treat them as a guide.
| Business type | Typical quotes (per month) | What decides the price |
|---|---|---|
| Local shop, clinic or one-branch service business | Rs 10,000 to 25,000 | One Google Business Profile, 5 to 15 service pages, customers within a few kilometres |
| Multi-location business (3 to 10 branches) | Rs 25,000 to 60,000 | A profile and page for each branch, reviews at every location, more old listings to clean up |
| Ecommerce store | Rs 30,000 to 1 lakh or more | Category and product pages, filter URLs, duplicate content, copied product descriptions |
| National B2B (manufacturer, exporter, software firm) | Rs 40,000 to 1.5 lakh | Competitive national keywords, technical content, industry links, long sales cycles |
Our SEO retainers start from Rs 12,000 a month, and most local clients sit between that and Rs 40,000. Online stores and national B2B sites are quoted after a site review. For businesses in Australia, the UK, the USA or the UAE, SEO Starter is $800 a month and SEO Growth is $1,600, as listed on our pricing page.
SEO packages in India: what agencies publish
Few agencies print their prices. A few do, and they make a useful benchmark. These are the monthly packages listed on three Indian agency websites on 7 November 2026.
| Agency (as listed on its website) | Entry package | Middle package | Top package |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rankon Technologies | Rs 25,000 (up to 10 keywords) | Rs 40,000 (up to 20 keywords) | Rs 55,000 ecommerce (up to 40 keywords) |
| Noir and Blanco | Rs 35,000 | Rs 45,000 | Rs 65,000 ecommerce |
| Matebiz | $250 (10 keywords) | $400 (20 keywords) | $550 (30 or more keywords) |
Most of these packages are sold by keyword count. That is easy to compare, but it tells you little. Ten keywords for a clinic in Bopal and ten keywords for a national online store are very different amounts of work.
When you compare SEO charges, ask three things instead. How many pages will be written or fixed each month? Who makes the technical changes on the site? How will calls, WhatsApp clicks and form enquiries be tracked? Our retainers start from Rs 12,000 a month, and the page count is written into the proposal.
What pushes SEO charges per month up or down?
Competition matters most. A dentist in Satellite competes with a dozen clinics within two kilometres, while a packaging machine maker may have four serious national competitors.
A slow site with pages missing from Google needs repairs in the first two months, which raises the price. Content volume is the other lever: four researched pages a month cost more than one blog post, so check how many pages a quote covers.
Freelancer, agency or in-house: which costs less?
A freelancer is usually cheapest on paper, but code fixes and cover for absence add real cost.
| Freelancer | Agency | In-house SEO hire | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical monthly cost | Rs 5,000 to 20,000 | From Rs 12,000 with us; varies elsewhere | Rs 25,000 to 50,000 salary, plus tools |
| Paid SEO tools | Sometimes | Usually included | Paid separately |
| Website code fixes | Rarely | Depends on in-house developers | Needs a developer |
| If the person leaves or falls ill | Work stops | Team continues | Work stops until you rehire |
| Suits | One-off jobs, a profile cleanup | Most small and mid-sized firms | Large sites publishing every week |
Good freelancers often identify technical problems and pass them to a web developer, where they can stall. Businesses publishing twenty pages a month are better served by an in-house hire.
How much does a one-off SEO audit cost?
Anything from free to Rs 50,000 or more. An automated report costs very little (ours is free) but cannot assess strategy. A manual audit of a small business site typically costs Rs 5,000 to 20,000, and large ecommerce sites cost more.
Our free audit covers a crawl, Search Console indexing checks, a mobile speed test, a Business Profile review and a prioritised list of problems.
What should a monthly SEO package include?
A fair proposal should list:
- an audit and keyword map, with each main keyword assigned its own page
- technical fixes (speed, indexing, redirects, schema), with a clear owner
- on-page work on titles, headings, internal links and FAQs
- a stated number of new or rewritten pages each month
- Google Business Profile and listing cleanup for local businesses
- links from associations, suppliers and local press
- call, WhatsApp and form tracking in your own accounts
- a monthly report that leads with enquiries
Our SEO services page lists what our retainers include.
Why Rs 3,000 to 5,000 SEO packages are risky
An SEO executive in India earns around Rs 25,000 to 50,000 a month, so Rs 4,000 buys a few hours of work. These packages tend to rely on automated reports, spun articles and bought links. Rankings may rise briefly, then fall after a Google spam update. We have cleaned up after such packages more than once, and the cleanup cost more than the retainer.
Red flags in an SEO proposal
Guaranteed rankings are the clearest warning. Google states that no one can guarantee a top position, so ask which keywords a "page one" promise covers. Other warning signs:
- link packages such as "200 high DA backlinks a month"
- annual lock-ins or a year paid in advance (our retainers run month to month)
- Search Console, GA4 or Business Profile owned by the agency
- reports showing only rankings
- "secret methods" the agency will not explain
How long before SEO shows results?
Local searches usually show movement in 2 to 3 months, with steadier leads around months 4 to 6. Competitive national keywords take 6 to 12 months. A new website starts further back than an established one, so allow six months before judging results.
How to judge whether SEO is worth the money
Measure leads, not rankings. Set up call tracking, WhatsApp click tracking and GA4 form conversions in your own accounts before work begins.
For a physiotherapy clinic where a new patient is worth about Rs 6,000, a Rs 15,000 retainer pays for itself with three extra patients a month from search.
We also include optimisation for ChatGPT and Google's AI answers in standard SEO. Our guide to AI search optimisation in India explains the work.
Frequently asked questions
How much does SEO cost per month in India?+
For most small businesses, around Rs 10,000 to 30,000 a month. Multi-branch firms, online stores and national B2B companies usually pay more. Our retainers start from Rs 12,000 a month, quoted after a free audit.
What do you get in a Rs 25,000 SEO package?+
In the packages Indian agencies publish, about Rs 25,000 a month usually covers around 10 keywords, on-page fixes, Google Business Profile setup, a few local listings, one or two blog posts and a monthly report. The number of pages written each month matters more than the keyword count, so ask for it in writing.
Is Rs 5,000 a month enough for SEO?+
Rarely. That buys only a few hours of work a month, so packages lean on automated reports and bought links. A one-off audit with a fixed list of repairs is a better use of a small budget.
What does local SEO cost for a small business?+
Usually Rs 10,000 to 25,000 a month, as it covers one area and one Business Profile; ours start from Rs 12,000. Our local SEO services page has the detail.
Do SEO packages in India include content writing?+
Good ones do. Ask how many pages a month the price covers, who writes them and whether you approve them first. We state the page count in writing.
Can I pay for SEO once instead of every month?+
Partly. A one-off audit and fix project suits a mostly sound site with some technical problems. New pages, reviews and links are ongoing work, so most SEO is sold monthly.
Do SEO agencies guarantee first-page rankings?+
Reputable agencies do not, because no one controls Google's results. An agency can commit to agreed monthly deliverables and a report you can check in your own Search Console.
Is AI search optimisation charged separately?+
Not with us. It is included in every SEO retainer, as it relies on the same groundwork as standard SEO.