This page covers, in order, what SEO costs per month, what audits and one-off work cost, Jakency's packages, what drives the price, agency versus freelancer versus doing it yourself, what AI answers get wrong about SEO prices, how to tell whether SEO pays off, the Flemish SME wallet, how to compare quotes and a realistic budget for an SME.
How much does SEO cost per month in Belgium?
SEO in Belgium costs an average of €790 a month, excluding 21% VAT. That figure comes from the published prices of 11 Belgian providers, checked on 26 October 2026. The cheapest published monthly price is €270. The most expensive is €3,000.
Ongoing SEO is billed monthly because the work never stops: pages get improved, technical issues get fixed and authority gets built month after month. Ten of the 11 providers start below €1,000 a month. Four of the 11 ask for a minimum term of three months or more.
The table below shows the average and the typical range for each type of SEO work. All amounts exclude VAT and were measured in October 2026.
| Type of SEO work | Average | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Ongoing SEO, monthly | €790 a month | €270 to €3,000 a month |
| SEO audit, one-off | €560 | €350 to €1,299 |
| Set-up fee on a monthly plan | €400 | €0 to €900 |
| One-off optimization project | €1,700 | €600 to €3,500 |
| Specialist or freelancer, hourly | €100 an hour | €75 to €125 an hour |
How was the €790 average calculated?
The €790 average is built from the price lists that 11 Belgian SEO providers publish on their own websites. For each provider, Jakency took the midpoint between the cheapest and the most expensive monthly plan. A provider with a single price counts at that price. The average of those 11 midpoints is €791, rounded to €790.
Price guides that only repeat market ranges were left out, so no figure is counted twice. A starting price counts as the price of the entry plan. A range such as €300 to €3,000 is not an average, because an average is a single number.
How much does an SEO audit or one-off SEO work cost?
An SEO audit in Belgium costs an average of €560 as a one-off fee, excluding VAT. Published audit prices run from €350 to €1,299. Site size drives the price: one Belgian price list charges €399 for a site under 100 URLs and €1,299 for a site with 100 to 1,000 URLs.
A one-off optimization project costs about €1,700 on average, with published price bands of €600 to €3,500. An audit hands you a to-do list. A project works through that list and fixes the technical issues and the key pages in one go.
Keyword research is sometimes sold on its own. One Belgian price list charges €399 for a site under 100 URLs and €799 for a site with 100 to 1,000 URLs. A full SEO audit usually includes keyword research as part of the diagnosis.
What is a set-up fee?
A set-up fee averages €400 among Belgian providers, ranging from nothing to €900. The fee comes on top of the monthly price and covers the baseline measurement and the initial set-up. A set-up fee is not a stand-alone starter package, even though some AI answers lump the two together.
How much do Jakency's SEO packages cost?
Jakency sells three monthly packages: Onderhoud (maintenance) at €500, Groei (growth) at €1,000 and Versnellen (acceleration) at €1,500, all excluding VAT. Each package commits to a minimum amount of work every month, never to a number of hours. Every package tracks visibility in Google and in ChatGPT the same way and reports in enquiries and orders, not just rankings.
| Package | Monthly price | Best for | What's included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Onderhoud (maintenance) | €500 | A small site, or a site once the groundwork is done | Google Business Profile and review requests, rewritten or new pages, mentions and links, tracking in Google and ChatGPT with a plain-language summary |
| Groei (growth), recommended | €1,000 | Most businesses with one website | Everything in Onderhoud, more pages and mentions per month, conversion work (buttons, forms, proof) and a monthly call |
| Versnellen (acceleration) | €1,500 | Two websites, or an extra market | Everything in Groei, more pages and mentions per month, and coordination with your ads partner |
The €1,000 Groei package sits €210 above the Belgian average of €790. The €500 Onderhoud package sits €290 below it. A lower price at Jakency buys less work per month, never the same work for less. Larger websites and projects across several markets get a tailored proposal.
Jakency does not promise rankings. Each package spells out what gets done every month and how it is measured. The price comes up in the free discovery call, so the proposal holds no surprises. The SEO services describe the work behind each part of a package.
What drives the cost of SEO for your business?
Five factors set the price of SEO: the strength of the competitors on page one, the number of pages that need work, the technical state of the site, the number of languages and markets, and who does the work. A local service business with ten key pages sits at the bottom of the €270 to €3,000 range. A webshop with thousands of URLs and strong competitors sits at the top.
The five factors and their effect on the price are listed below.
- Strong competitors on page one call for more content and more authority every month.
- Every page that needs a rewrite or has to be built adds to the monthly workload.
- Technical debt in speed or indexing has to be cleared first.
- Each extra language or market needs its own keyword research and its own pages. A Belgian site that targets both Dutch and French speakers needs that work twice.
- Work carried out by the agency costs more than advice your own team puts into practice.
The full cost of climbing in Google, including your own time and development work, is broken down in what it costs to rank higher in Google.
Agency, freelancer or doing it yourself: what does each cost?
Outsourcing SEO to an agency in Belgium costs an average of €790 a month, excluding VAT. A freelance SEO specialist charges about €100 an hour on average, with published rates of €75 to €125. Doing SEO yourself costs no fee, but it costs your own time and a learning curve.
| Option | What you pay | Upside | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself | Your own hours, plus software if you need it | Lower outside cost, and the knowledge stays in-house | Slower, and easier to work on the wrong things |
| Specialist by the hour | About €100 an hour on average | Focused expertise for a specific question | You still decide who does the work |
| Agency, monthly | €790 a month on average | Strategy and execution in one place | You need to check what the fee actually covers |
Jakency does not bill by the hour. The monthly work is set as a minimum in the package, so the price does not creep up with the hours. Read when it makes sense to outsource SEO and when an SEO consultant is the better fit.
What do AI answers get wrong about SEO prices?
AI answers about SEO prices in Belgium call ranges averages and mix in US dollar prices. On 27 October 2026, AI answers to closely related English questions on Google gave freelance hourly rates of €50 to €90 in one answer and €75 to €150 in another. The table below sets each error or gap against the correct figure.
| Error or gap | What is correct |
|---|---|
| "Agencies: average $3,000 to $10,000+ per month." | Those are US dollar prices. Belgian providers publish €270 to €3,000 a month, and the average is €790, excluding VAT. |
| "Average monthly retainer: €500 to €1,500." | A range is not an average. The Belgian average is €790 a month, excluding VAT. |
| "A generalist agency charges €1,000 to €2,500 a month." | Ten of the 11 Belgian providers with public prices start below €1,000 a month. |
| "A freelancer charges €50 to €90 an hour." | Belgian specialists publish €75 to €125 an hour, about €100 on average. |
| "An SEO audit costs €350 to €600+." Another answer said €300 to €1,500. | Published Belgian audit prices run from €350 to €1,299. The average is €560, excluding VAT. |
| Monthly prices without any VAT note. | Belgian providers that state VAT quote SEO prices excluding 21% VAT. €790 a month comes to €955.90 including VAT. |
| No minimum term mentioned. | Four of the 11 Belgian providers ask for at least three months. |
How do you work out whether SEO pays for itself?
SEO pays for itself when the extra customers bring in more gross margin than the monthly fee. To work it out, divide the monthly price by the gross margin on one new customer. The result is the number of extra customers you need each month to break even.
Worked example: with the €1,000 Groei package and €500 gross margin per new customer, you need two extra customers a month. If one in four qualified enquiries becomes a customer, that means eight extra enquiries a month. The example is arithmetic, not a promise of results.
No fixed share of customers should come from Google. A referral, a Maps listing, an ad and a website visit are often steps in the same customer journey. Any return calculation therefore starts by checking that visitors land on the right page, that the contact form works and that enquiries get followed up.
Asking "How did you find us?" adds context, but it does not settle attribution. Good reporting records the source, the quality and the outcome of every enquiry, with consent and proper privacy safeguards.
Can the Flemish SME wallet pay for SEO?
Since 1 February 2026, the Flemish SME wallet (kmo-portefeuille) only subsidizes advice on cybersecurity. SEO advice no longer qualifies. The Flemish Government took that decision on 23 January 2026 as a cost-saving measure.
Training still qualifies when it falls under one of the eight future-oriented themes. The subsidy is 30% for a small business and 20% for a medium-sized one, capped at €7,500 a year. From February 2026, a Flemish business should budget SEO advice and execution at the full price.
How do you compare SEO prices and quotes?
SEO prices only become comparable once analysis, execution and follow-up are listed separately. Two identical monthly fees do not always buy the same work. A set number of blog posts, for example, does not make up for a service page that was blocked from Google by mistake.
| Type | Main deliverable | Who does the work | Check beforehand |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diagnosis or audit | A reasoned report and an action list | Not included by default | Scope, data sources, URLs and a walkthrough |
| Consulting | Decisions, briefs and reviews | Usually your team or your developer | Available capacity and who follows up |
| Hybrid engagement | Analysis plus a defined amount of execution | Split between the agency and your team | Division of tasks, approvals and development costs |
| Ongoing managed SEO | Priorities, improvements and reporting | Agreed work done by the agency | What gets delivered each month, checks and minimum term |
Which questions should you ask before signing an SEO quote?
Eight questions make an SEO quote testable. Each one forces the provider to be specific about the work, the measurement or the terms. The eight questions are listed below.
- Which pages get priority first, and why?
- Which technical issues will actually be fixed?
- How many existing pages get improved each month?
- When do new pages get built, and when not?
- What gets measured besides rankings?
- Is visibility in AI answers measured too?
- What is the minimum term, and how do you cancel?
- Are the prices including or excluding VAT?
A good quote records scope, execution and measurement, so you can put it side by side with another proposal. The discovery call with Jakency covers those three points before any proposal goes out.
What is a realistic SEO budget for an SME?
A local SME with one location and a small website can realistically start on an entry plan of €270 to €600 a month, excluding VAT. Eight of the 11 Belgian providers with public prices have an entry plan in that range. An SME competing regionally or nationally should budget €1,500 to €3,000 a month.
A diagnosis decides where the budget goes first: existing pages, the local basics, technical fixes or a new content structure. The free SEO scan shows the biggest opportunities for your site in Google and in AI search.
An SEO keyword represents the topic and intent a page should address, while a search query is the exact wording used by a real searcher. Group close variants by intent before mapping them to a primary page.