How much does SEO cost in 2026: 7 real contracts and what they include

A 3-person foundation pays €6,000 a year excluding VAT for website maintenance and hosting, SEO, 4 articles a month and management of its Google Ads campaigns. It is 1 of the 7 public contracts from 2024 to 2026 you will see below. With more than 20 companies competing on hourly rates, the rate came out at €16.32 with maintenance and server included, and at €21.58 for the SEO profile. With just 1 bid, the SEO hourly rate was budgeted at €55.

And the timescale matters as much as the price: Google warns that some changes take several months and that nobody can guarantee you first place.

Below you will find the contracts with their links, the items a quote should break down and a template to compare 2 quotes line by line. Our own interpretations are marked as cautious approach, and our own method as our approach. Data checked on 2 October 2026.

We only use prices you can check

We have not found any official statistics on SEO prices in Spain, and the price ranges in the top-ranking guides do not link to a primary source. That is why we use 2 public references:

• Public contracts. Each public body publishes on the Public Sector Procurement Platform (Plataforma de Contratación del Sector Público) what it is contracting, under which specifications and for how much. We looked for contracts from 2024 onwards with SEO or a Google Business Profile in the subject matter of the contract, already awarded and with the specifications available.
• The Kit Digital. The ministerial order setting out its rules fixed how much the State paid for 12 months of SEO work and what that service had to include.

We gave priority to the Valencian Community, but only 1 of the 7 contracts is Valencian. The others were chosen because they had SEO or a Google Business Profile in the specifications and a published price. It is not a statistical sample: it serves to show orders of magnitude, hours and what goes into each price.

7 public SEO and Google Business Profile contracts, from €6,000 to €60,125

Amounts exclude VAT. The base budget is the maximum the public body set; the awarded amount is the price agreed with the winner. Each name links to its file, and the scope comes from its technical specifications. Durations vary: compare per year.

At Andalucía TRADE, bidders quoted an hourly rate for each profile, and the work is commissioned through orders with estimated hours. The prices are in the bid opening record. The specifications for Gestió Integral d’Aigües are on Catalonia’s Public Procurement Platform, linked from its file.

More bids, cheaper hours: 4 takeaways from the table

• With more than 20 bids, the hourly rate fell by more than 40%. Salamanca set a maximum of €27.53 and received 27 bids between €13.76 and €27.38 an hour. TRADE set €37.23 for the SEO profile and awarded it at €21.58 out of 22 bids.
• With 1 bid, the price barely moves. The Palau de les Arts budgeted €61,925 and awarded the contract for €60,125, 2.9% less. The whole discount came from the software: the cap on the hours did not move.
• The lowest bid does not always win. The law requires bids that appear abnormally low to be justified (Law 9/2017 (Ley 9/2017), art. 149). Salamanca asked 5 bidders for a justification: the cheapest, at €13.76, justified its price but did not provide a certificate from the Tax Agency (Hacienda). TRADE excluded 4 that did not justify their prices.
• Nobody buys SEO on its own. The 6 contracts with SEO combine it with maintenance, content, social media or software. Only 2 separate out its hours: the Palau, 130 a year up to €7,150, and TRADE, 12 a year at a maximum of €37.23.

A public contract is not your quote

Salamanca awarded the contract on a single criterion, price. Cautious approach: an SME rarely chooses that way. Google says an SEO should take an interest in what makes your business unique and in how your clients find you (Google’s guide to hiring an SEO).

Cautious approach: use the table as an order of magnitude, not as the price of your SEO. It helps you spot a quote that is out of proportion and know which items to ask about. If you also need a new website, see how much a website costs.

The Kit Digital paid up to €2,000 for 12 months of basic SEO

The other official reference is the “Advanced internet presence” (Presencia avanzada en Internet) category of the Kit Digital. It paid up to €2,000 for 12 months of service to companies with 0 to 49 employees, and €5,000 to those with 50 to 249 (Order TDF/435/2024 (Orden TDF/435/2024), art. 18.2). In return, the service had to include at least:

• Basic presence: the business details in the main business directories.
• Keyword analysis and monthly competitor analysis.
• On-page SEO for at least 2 pages and off-page actions to improve rankings.
• Monthly reports with the results of the work done.
• Structured data, only in the 50 to 249 employee bands.

2 caveats. The €2,000 was the maximum grant, not a market price. And the application period closed on 31 October 2025: what is still open is in grants for websites.

A serious SEO quote breaks down 8 items

They all appear in the specifications in the table. If one is missing from yours, ask whether it is included or charged separately.

1. Initial audit. The Palau asks for one covering technical errors, current position and competitors. According to Google’s guide to hiring an SEO, it should give you a realistic estimate of the work. At that stage, give only read access to Search Console: the restricted user level.
2. Target searches. Which keywords are worked on, with what volume and why. It was a Kit Digital minimum, and both the Palau and the Fundación Felipe II ask for it.
3. Technical SEO. Speed, mobile, sitemap, robots.txt, crawling and indexing. Gestió Integral d’Aigües adds broken links and heavy images.
4. Content. How many pieces a month, who writes them and who reviews them: Felipe II asks for 4 articles a month, and Salamanca, 1. Google considers it spam to generate many pages to manipulate rankings. Our approach: what matters is which search each piece answers, not how many pieces there are, as we explain in SEO content.
5. Google Business Profile and local SEO. Creating or claiming a Business Profile is free, and Google does not let you pay for a better local ranking; ads on Maps are a different product. You pay for the work: Gestió Integral d’Aigües included it in its 15 monthly hours of SEO and maintenance. The step-by-step plan is in how to get on Google Maps.
6. Links. The Palau asks for a link strategy and collaborations with other websites. For Google, buying links to rank is link spam. Ask in writing where the links will come from and whether anything will be paid.
7. Reports. Salamanca requires a monthly report and an annual report, and the Kit Digital required monthly reports. They should come from Search Console, which is free, and from your real enquiries, as we explain in how to measure your website’s enquiries.
8. What is not SEO, but goes on the invoice. Maintenance, hosting, social media or Google Ads. Each item should have its own line and its own price.

If they offer to ask your clients for reviews, it should be within 30 days of the service. The Consumer Protection Law (Ley de Consumidores) has required this (art. 20.4) since Law 10/2025, and how to ask for them is in getting Google reviews.

The Palau adds a GEO item, so that its content is cited in AI answers. For Google, optimising for generative AI “is still SEO”. We explain it in what GEO is.

By the hour, with a fixed fee or by project: 3 ways to pay for the same work

The price takes a different shape depending on how it is paid. These are the 3 ways that appear in the specifications:

There is a fourth way, which is mostly software: the licence for a tool. FREMAP paid €16,000 for 1 year of a platform to manage social media, monitor the press and reply to reviews on about 250 profiles.

Cautious approach: it makes sense with many locations. With just 1 profile, the Business Profile, which is free, already lets you reply to reviews.

Look at the duration too. Gestió Integral d’Aigües contracted 2 years with 2 extensions of 1 year, and Salamanca, 2 years with an extension of 2 plus 1. How to negotiate the minimum term and the exit is in how to choose an agency.

Google talks about weeks to assess and months for some changes

Google’s SEO Starter Guide puts it like this: some changes take hours to be reflected and others, several months. In general, you need to wait a few weeks to assess whether the work has had an effect. And not every change will have a significant impact.

Its guide to hiring an SEO tells you to ask what results they expect, within what timeframe and how they measure them. And none of the contracts in the table lasts less than 1 year.

Cautious approach: assess by quarter. Signals come first, such as indexed pages and impressions in Search Console; enquiries come later. A week-by-week plan for a law firm is in SEO for lawyers.

Google tells you to ask about timescales and rule out guarantees

Its guide to hiring an SEO sums up what to ask and what to rule out. To compare prices, keep 3 things in mind. Nobody can guarantee you first place, buying links is link spam and the audit is done with read access. Google Ads policy also prohibits agencies from guaranteeing top positions for their ads.

The 20 questions and the red flags, with the answer that should worry you in each case, are in how to choose an SEO agency.

Google Ads: the ad spend goes to Google and the fees to the agency

They are 2 different budgets. You pay the ad spend to Google for the clicks; you pay the fees to whoever manages the account. And advertising does not affect your organic results.

The Google Ads third-party policy requires agencies to do 3 things:

• Tell you about their fee. If they charge a management fee, they must tell you in writing before the first sale and show it on their invoices.
• Separate out Google’s cost. If they report spend to you, it must be the exact amount Google charges, without their fees.
• Give you your account ID when you ask for it, so that you can talk to Google directly.

And if at least 80% of their clients spend less than US$1,000 a month, they must give you Google’s guide to working with third parties.

This is how the Fundación Felipe II put it in writing: its contract includes managing the search campaigns, but “does not include investment in campaigns”. How much to invest and how to start is in how much to invest in Google Ads.

Template: compare 2 SEO quotes line by line

Send this table to each provider and ask them to answer row by row. Columns A and B are for their answers. The last column shows how one of the tenders in the contracts table spelled it out.

Compare the annual cost including VAT and the real hourly rate

1. Convert everything to an annual cost including VAT. A monthly fee and a project can only be compared in the same unit.
2. Work out the real hourly rate. Divide the cost by the hours included. For example, Gestió Integral d’Aigües pays €8,130.48 for 2 years of 15 hours a month: about €22.58 an hour, by our calculation.
3. Match the scope. If one includes content and the other does not, add to the second what it would cost you to have it written.
4. If it is not in writing, it is not included. Ask in writing about every empty cell before you decide.
5. Ask them to explain a very low price. In a public contract, justifying it is mandatory (art. 149 of Law 9/2017). In a private quote, ask for it yourself.

How much it makes sense to invest depends on what a client is worth

The price of SEO only means something when compared with what each client who comes from Google is worth to you. To work it out, use the customer value calculator.

Let’s say a family law firm in Castellón charges €1,500 per case, with a 60% margin and 1 case per client. Each client is worth €900 to the firm. If it takes on 1 in every 4 people who write to it, each enquiry is worth €225.

If it invests €6,000 a year, the same amount the Fundación Felipe II awarded, it needs 7 clients to recoup it. With its closing rate, that is 28 enquiries a year: just over 2 a month.

The question changes. It is no longer whether €500 a month is expensive, but whether SEO can bring in 28 more enquiries a year.

The reverse calculation sets the ceiling: the extra enquiries you expect multiplied by what each one is worth. If the firm expects 2 more a month, that is 24 at €225: €5,400 a year.

Cautious approach: if you do not know today how many enquiries reach you from Google, measure it before you hire anyone. Without that figure, you will not be able to tell whether SEO is working.

What to do on Monday

1. Open Search Console and note how many clicks you get today and which searches bring them. If you do not have it, it is free.
2. Do the calculation in the customer value calculator with your real figures.
3. Copy the template and send it to 2 or 3 providers. Insist on an answer row by row.
4. Give read-only access to whoever prepares your audit, never owner access.
5. Split Google Ads into 2 lines: the ad spend and the fees.
6. Rule out any quote with ranking guarantees or link packages.
7. Check the audit they present against our free SEO audit.

At NOR studio we do not publish rates: we prefer to give a fixed price after seeing your case. We explain how we work on visibility in your area in local SEO.