What SEO and GEO cost per month depends on the pricing model and above all on the work included. The deciding factors are the number of pages created or improved, the technical work, what gets measured and how much contact you have with the specialists. So compare SEO (visibility in search engines) and GEO (visibility in AI answers) on what is delivered, not only on the monthly fee.
Why are there no market prices here?
There is no official source with reliable average prices for SEO or GEO in the Netherlands. Figures that circulate online say little without knowing what happens for that money. A monthly fee that pays for four new pages written and reviewed every month is something different from the same fee for a report alone.
On top of that, SEO and GEO are not a fixed product. One agency includes writing content, another does not. One agency makes technical changes itself, another delivers a list for your developer to work through. An average price would hide those differences. So this article is about what you can ask and compare, so that you can judge a fee yourself.
Which pricing models will you come across?
Four pricing models side by side
| How it works | Suits | |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly rate | You pay for hours spent | Individual questions, small jobs, support for your own team |
| Monthly retainer | A fixed fee for an agreed amount of work each month | Ongoing work on content, technical issues and measurement |
| Project | A fixed price for a defined assignment | A migration, a new section, a technical clean-up |
| Audit | One-off research with a plan and priorities | Knowing first what is needed, or a plan for your own team |
An hourly rate looks flexible, but gives little insight into what you get each month. A monthly retainer only gives that insight if the proposal makes the deliverables concrete.
What sets the price?
- The size and condition of your website. An online shop with thousands of products and technical problems needs more than a service business with twenty pages.
- The amount of new and reworked content. Writing, having it reviewed and processing feedback is often the largest part of the work.
- Your competition. In a market where many providers have strong pages, it takes more work to stand out.
- Languages and countries. Each language needs its own research and its own pages.
- Measurement. Reporting from Google Search Console takes little time. Checking AI answers for agreed questions takes more, especially when it is done by hand.
- Who carries out the work. Does the agency make the changes itself, or do you get recommendations your own team has to implement?
What belongs in a proposal?
A proposal you can compare answers these questions. Hold them up against every proposal you receive and note where an answer is missing.
Questions a proposal should answer
- How many pages are created or thoroughly reworked per month or per period?
- What counts as a page? An edited title is not the same as a new explanation.
- Which technical work is included, and who carries it out?
- Who writes the content, and who reviews it before publication?
- What is measured, in which environment and how often?
- For GEO: which questions and which AI assistants are researched, and how?
- How often are you in contact, and with whom?
- What is the term and the notice period, and what happens to content and accounts if you stop?
If the proposal includes a guarantee on rankings or AI mentions, be careful. Google writes in Do you need an SEO? that no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google. More questions to ask are in choosing an SEO and GEO agency.
How do you recognise a proposal you can compare?
The difference often comes down to one line. A vague description makes it impossible to put two proposals side by side, because you don’t know what happens each month. A concrete description names the work, who does it and how you can see it.
The same line in a proposal, vague and concrete
VoorMonthly SEO and GEO optimisation, including reporting and strategic advice.
NaEach month we write two new pages and rework one existing page, after you approve the briefing. We make technical changes in the CMS ourselves. Each month we record the answers of two AI assistants to ten agreed questions, with screenshots.
With the concrete version, you can check after a few months whether the agreed work has been done. With the vague version you can’t, however polished the report looks. So if a proposal is vague, ask for the same line in numbers and names: how much, what, who and when.
When do you see a return on your investment?
That differs per website, subject and level of competition. Google writes in its SEO Starter Guide that some changes can take effect within a few hours and others only after several months. So allow a period of several months before you judge a programme. How long does SEO take? explains what influences that timeframe.
Do it yourself or outsource?
You can do part of the work yourself, such as collecting customer questions and keeping your business details up to date. That lowers the cost. Keeping your Google Business Profile up to date, answering reviews and giving feedback on drafts also rely mainly on your own knowledge of the business. Technical work, such as a migration or fixing indexing errors, and systematically recording AI answers take more experience and time. When you outsource, agree clearly which part stays with you, so you don’t pay for work you already do yourself. Where a specialist adds more is covered in doing SEO and GEO yourself or outsourcing it.
How Outseen offers it
Outseen works with three plans, Rise, Scale and Lead, each with an increasing amount of work, and Enterprise, tailored to your organisation. The prices and what each plan includes are on the plans page. A writer creates content from a briefing and sources, a reviewer checks it, and you give feedback before publication. We currently check AI answers by hand, once a month, in the assistants included in your plan, for agreed questions, in an agreed environment and at an agreed measurement moment. If you first want to know what is needed, an audit gives you a plan with priorities. What an audit involves is explained in the glossary entry SEO and GEO audit.
What does this mean for your business?
First decide what you want to achieve and which work you can do yourself. Then ask each agency for a proposal that makes the monthly deliverables concrete, and compare those proposals on work, review and measurement method before you look at the fee. A lower monthly fee with less work is not a saving.
If you don’t yet know what your website needs, start small: with an audit or a smaller plan, and with the pages closest to enquiries or revenue. After a few months you will know better what works and where more work makes sense. What GEO involves is explained in what is GEO?