How much does SEO cost in Poland, CE & Balkan markets

Hourly cost of an SEO specialist in Central Europe varies in most cases from 50 to 99 USD. You can find cheaper services but most of experienced specialists and SEO agencies with proper software stack will charge you this much. You can order a quality sponsored article with links for ~100-200 USD. Publications with a dofollow link in bigger news magazine or industry media costs around 750-1000 USD. The cost of writing an article of approximately 1,000 words costs ~50-100 USD, depending on the expected quality of the content and the copywriter’s expertise. Prices may vary by market.

We (me and my agency team takaoto.pro) operate mostly in Poland and other CE markets like Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria. Polish market is most developed (read about SEO & e-commerce in Poland and CEE markets) but there are many similarities that allow us to run our projects internationally. All prices below are based on my experience, prices from Clutch and link building marketplaces.

How much do SEO services cost in general?

For most agencies and freelance experts minimum project size starts from 1000 USD, according to Clutch. But what does it mean? Let’s dive into some details.

SEO costs depend mostly on scale of the project, the starting point and competition, but the market you operate on also plays an important role. I will show you how we calculate SEO costs in a simple way and then we will proceed to prices for certain services on different CE markets. I use prices in USD to make it easier to understand for users worldwide.

Main price components of SEO project

When preparing a project estimate at my agency, we take into account factors such as:

• The content gap compared to key competitors targeting the keywords we are interested in; we consider companies with a similar business model.
• The estimated number of man-hours needed to launch the project, configure tools, prepare a strategy, perform preliminary analyses, and implement the conclusions from the audit.
• The estimated number of man-hours required for managing the project (we work based on open-ended contracts in monthly sprints; KPIs are set for the year).
• The link profile of close competitors (links to establish authority and superiority including 2nd tier + link pillowing).

Representative examples of price ranges according to each section are presented in the table later in the article.

How to estimate link building cost

We conduct research on the necessary link sources for the project based on competitors, identify potential seed pages, and compare offers from bloggers and news magazines. This way, we determine the amount needed for link building.

How to estimate content creation cost

The content department finds suitable copywriters proficient in the relevant topics. Based on their rates and the expected amount of content for the project, we establish the cost of copywriting – for both on-site and off-site SEO purposes.

How to estimate labor cost

Experience in conducting projects in Poland, CE and globally with companies operating in different business models, especially e-commerce, which can be technically demanding, allow us to plan labor costs quite precisely. Thanks to this and the current assessment of the website’s condition, we are able to estimate the working time for a given project.

The PM makes a projection of the man-hours needed and, based on this, prepares the average monthly scope of work for SEO specialists. This way, we know what the labor costs will be.

Final calculation

We sum up the man-hours, copywriting costs, and link costs, and thanks to this, based on the data we have, we know how much the project should cost.

Final pricing includes our fee which covers project management, tools etc. Each project is calculated individually. Don’t hesitate to contact me for proposal.

How much does SEO audit cost?

The cost of an SEO audit directly depends on the number of man-hours necessary to analyze a given website. To analyze a local service company’s website built on WordPress, it might be sufficient to allocate 20-25 man-hours. Of course, there are specialists who may offer 10-15 man-hours. Everything depends on what you expect, how comprehensive and detailed the report you will receive is, and whether consultations to discuss the action plan are included.

In my agency, takaoto.pro, we generally do not go below 20-25 man-hours. In our audits, we strive to cover not only on-site/technical SEO errors but also to establish a development plan that includes restructuring the information architecture, updating content, and utilizing solutions employed by the competition. Therefore, it is important to consider off-site SEO perspectives, examine the domain’s history, and analyze the competition.

A thorough SEO audit, including an in-depth content analysis, greater engagement with UX factors, investigation through past issues and penalties, must last longer. If we analyze an e-commerce website with international/multilingual reach, we must assume a minimum (sic!) of 40-50 man-hours.

Considering an average rate of 75 USD per hour, this amounts to a cost of approximately 3000 – 3750 USD. When we work for very developed e-commerce sites, we sometimes quote audits up to 5000 USD.

The cost of the audit can also be influenced by the client’s industry, as some niches require a much more detailed approach, while in others it would be an unnecessary increase in costs.

SEO consulting cost in Poland and CE

When it comes to consulting, a lot also depends on the nature of the advice and the consultant’s experience. You can find offers ranging from 25-49 USD per hour, but most are in the 50-99 USD range. For more experienced consultants with established reputations, the cost of hourly consultations (usually conducted in the form of an online call + email exchange) can range from 175 to 250 dollars or more.

Top-tier specialists often run their own agencies or other projects (e.g., affiliate ones), so they usually have less time available, leading them to offer consultations infrequently and at higher rates.

Link building prices in Poland and Central Europe

The vast majority of SEO links on our market is acquired through some kind of sponsored content. Prices vary depending on niche type of publication, marketplace or number of publications you order directly from the publisher.

Links in Sponsored Articles – Examples (Poland)

Buying sponsored articles is on of the most popular ways to gain SEO visibility and also to establish brand and acquire extra (small) referral traffic sources. Just to give you some idea of prices I checked top magazines/portals in Poland in certain categories. I skipped the most (like extremely) expensive ones in each category and presented average, minimum and maximum prices below. In most cases I calculated average on scope of 100 pages. The nationwide portals are exception, obviously, the scope is smaller. For the local portals (there are dozens of hundreds of them) scope equals ~250. Their price depends mostly on city / region size. Prices in USD.

All this numbers refer to Polish market. Treat these values as indicative. The price of publication depends very much on your SEO strategy and scope of portals you take into the consideration. There are many small vendors who offer a lifetime link for $30, as well as those that cost $3,000 or more per 12 months.

As you can see, the price range varies significantly. It’s possible to buy hundreds of links on the Polish market for 100-200 dollars, but if you plan to systematically purchase links from a specific theme (and you should select links contextually), you’ll need to reach for more expensive media.

The advantage of this tactic is that large news magazines, specialist portals, or popular blogs have significant organic traffic, high visibility in search results, and often promote posts on social media on fan pages and groups.

Prices don’t include copywriting costs, however some publishers and most marketplaces offer copywriting as an extra service. Costs of copywriting will be presented in the section below.

If you’re looking for more precise offer aligned to your goals, contact me for a quotation.

WOMM & Web 2.0 Links in Poland

On the Polish market, you can also find WOMM services aimed at acquiring links from advertisements, comments, forums (profiles, signatures, posts), and other Web 2.0 services. Unfortunately, the number of sites from which you can acquire links (especially without the UGC parameter), which do not emit thousands of outgoing links, index properly, and generate any traffic, is drastically decreasing. However, links of this type are still used in 2nd tier linking, link pillowing and in promoting niche projects with little competition. Their price usually ranges from 1-2 USD each.

PBN’s Prices in Poland

You can also find many PBN (Private Blog Network) links vendors. PBN’s quality and prices vary greatly. Both lifetime for 12 months links are available. There are also offers for building “turnkey” PBNs for clients. In such cases, you can benefit from a dedicated infrastructure on an expired domain and direct all its power to your own website. While this practice significantly violates Google’s guidelines, it is still used – especially in challenging industries such as cannabis/CBD, loans, adult/erotica, or supplements. It’s important to note that promoting gambling on the internet is officially prohibited by Polish law.

Price range is approximately 50-100 USD, while a dedicated infrastructure can be obtained from around 250 USD.

SEO Copywriting & Content Marketing Costs in Poland, CE & Balkan states

Copywriting, of course, is a broad term that refers to everything from naming and crafting slogans to writing sales texts. In SEO, we mainly talk about copywriting in the context of web writing and content marketing. The texts used in our activities are applied both on the promoted pages and beyond them – in link building.

In Poland, the unit for pricing copywriting services is 1,000 characters of text (including spaces). This is quite a specific measure, as globally, the pricing is more commonly based on the number of words per article. Regardless of whether it makes sense to approach content valuation in this way, it is the dominant method, and I will present further data in this manner.

The price for 1,000 characters of text depends on whether you order text detailed for keywords, intentions, and a broader SEO strategy. The topic and the expected quality and style are also crucial. Providing content written by an expert or professional journalist will usually be several times more expensive than content written by a student. For financial, technical, industrial, or health-related texts, we use copywriters who are specialists. In practice, the cost of writing 1,000 characters (about 150 words) is around 12 USD. An article of 6-7 thousand characters, or about 1,000 words, costs on average between 80-100 USD. However, an article of the same length but on a specialized subject may cost up to 150 USD.

On the other hand, you can find offers from freelance copywriters writing for less than 5 dollars per 1,000 characters, which amounts to 20 USD or less for an article of 1,000 words. However, from experience, I can say that the quality of this kind of content (in terms of expertise, language, and adherence to the SEO brief) often falls short of expectations. Texts of similar value can be generated en masse using AI/LLM, and for far less money.

In international campaigns, translations are also used (specialized translations by translation offices and experts, as well as by AI), but for texts published on the client’s website and in more expensive link building, writing by native speakers is preferred.

SEO Services Costs – Real Life Examples

Here is a table presenting the prices and values you can use to estimate your SEO costs range. It’s based in the first place on the campaigns we have actually conducted (copywriting + link building costs – lifestyle but competetive nich). Man-hour prices to be more accurate are taken from Clutch.

You can visit our profile here: https://clutch.co/profile/takaotopro

I took the median values of the prices ranges and number of the profiles in each range and then, calculated the weighted average. I know that it’s just a simplification, but it’s the best I could do for now.

From my own experience, I can say that in practice, market prices may be lower than those listed on Clutch. On the other hand, companies that are showcased there are usually those that have already surpassed a certain level of professionalism, maturity, have developed marketing processes, and customer service. Moreover, since they present themselves in an international directory, their employees probably can communicate in English. And that is rather an essential trait for collaboration within international SEO campaigns.

Let’s consider a hypothetical campaign for an e-commerce website that requires 25 hours of work, 10 articles for the website, and 10 articles for link building (+ cost of media for publishing the articles). Let’s see how much it would cost in different markets.

Does this mean that the costs of running campaigns in Germany will be about 32% (6540 vs. 4950) higher than in Poland? Absolutely not. This should not be interpreted that way. In practice, SEO in Germany, in most cases, will be far more expensive, considering the local competition in most industries. The translation into effects on less saturated markets (CE) will be much greater, even if they have a smaller population and GDP.

Summary

To sum up, SEO pricing in Central Europe, particularly Poland, is multifaceted and depends on factors like the specialist’s expertise, service complexity, and project size.

• Typically, the hourly rate for an SEO specialist ranges between $50 to $99.
• The costs for quality sponsored articles with links hover around $100-$200 (cost of media without copywriting), while securing dofollow links in reputable publications can set you back $750 to $1000.
• Writing a 1,000-word article generally costs between $50 to $100, varying with the required quality and the copywriter’s expertise.

At takaoto.pro, catering mainly to the Polish and Central European markets, we price SEO projects by considering elements like content gap with competitors, estimated man-hours for strategy development and implementation, competitor link profile analysis, and content creation requirements. Our comprehensive pricing strategy integrates these costs with our management fee, ensuring clients receive a transparent and detailed understanding of their investments.

SEO audit pricing reflects the time required, typically 20-50 hours, costing $3000 to $3750 based on the analysis depth. Consulting fees in the region vary widely from $25 to over $250 per hour, based on the consultant’s expertise, availability and the topic.

Our experiences highlight the diverse SEO service costs across Central Europe, emphasizing the need to understand local market specifics for effective SEO planning and budgeting.

If you’re looking for an experienced SEO guide in our region, do not hesitate to contact me!