Original research · July 2026 · refreshed as the data moves

What marketing actually
costs in the UK.

Most of this industry answers pricing questions with “book a call” · our research found 88% of the UK's top 50 agencies publish nothing. So here is the guide we think should exist: every published price we could collect and date, benchmark-survey economics for everything hidden, honest derivations labelled as derivations, and Mode's own prices exact · because ours are all public anyway.

The guide · published and collected prices, July 2026

Website · DIY platform

From roughly £10–30/month plus your own time

Platform subscription pricing; varies by plan and promotion

Website · productised studio build

£150–£800 fixed (published prices we monitor)

Mode: one page £249 · 5-page £495 · 8-page £795, all inc VAT

Website · custom agency build

≈£2,000–£8,000 typical (derived from benchmark hourly rates × senior build time)

Rarely published; quote-only is the norm

Website · premium/B2B agency

From £16,000+ (published floor we captured, June 2026)

Multi-week discovery-led builds

Agency hourly rate

£104/hr blended (smaller agencies) · £122/hr (£1m+ agencies)

BenchPress 2026, the UK’s largest agency benchmark · senior tiers £119–£189, top decile to £317

SEO · monthly retainer

≈£500/month local · £750–£1,500 broader · several £000s at scale (collected published prices + benchmark rates)

Mode: marketing support incl. SEO foundations from £295/month, cancel anytime

PPC / paid media management

≈£500–£4,500/month (published range we captured, 2026)

Mode: campaign build £295 one-off

Logo & brand identity

Marketplace from under £50 · freelancers £150–£800 · agencies £3,000+ (derived)

Mode: logo & identity £795 · brand + website £1,250

AI visibility / GEO · productised

£95–£600 one-off checks/audits/setups (published productised lane, incl. ~£300–£350 tool-led audits)

Mode: Check £95 · Audit £295 · Setup £595

AI visibility / GEO · retainers

£195–£995/month productised · £1,500–£15,000/month quoted in agency guides · enterprise tools ~$300–5,000/month

A young market with the widest spread in this guide

Multi-channel marketing retainer

≈£750–£5,000+/month depending on scope and seniority (collected published floors + benchmark economics)

Mode: from £295/month · larger scopes from £750/month

Reading the ranges: “published prices we monitor” are dated captures from provider pricing pages in Mode's ongoing market research; benchmark figures are named to their surveys; anything marked “derived” is our calculation from benchmark hourly rates and typical senior build time, shown as an estimate, not a promise. UK prices include VAT where providers state it; Mode's always do.

How to use these numbers

Three things the price bands can't tell you.

Scope decides everything. A £495 build and a £16,000 build are different products: page count, custom design depth, content production, integrations. Cheap is only expensive when the scope was wrong · which is why fixed, written scope matters more than the number.

Hourly economics explain most quotes. When an unpublished quote arrives, it was almost certainly assembled from £104-122/hr benchmark economics times estimated hours. Asking “how many hours is this, and whose?” translates any quote back into comparable terms.

Rates just did something unprecedented. UK agency hourly rates fell in 2024 for the first time in the 14-year history of the benchmark survey, then partially recovered in 2025 (BenchPress). AI is deflating routine production while senior judgment holds its price · which is why productised fixed prices are spreading from the bottom of the market up.

Questions this guide answers

How much does a website cost in the UK in 2026?

Across published prices: DIY platforms run roughly £10-30 a month plus your time; productised fixed-price studio builds run £150-£800 (Mode: £249 one-page, £495 five-page, £795 eight-page, inc VAT); custom agency builds typically land around £2,000-£8,000 though prices are rarely published; premium B2B agency builds start from £16,000+ at the published floors we have captured. The honest headline: 88% of the UK’s top 50 agencies publish no pricing at all, so most quotes are built from ~£104-122/hr benchmark hourly economics.

How much do marketing agencies charge per month in the UK?

The UK’s largest agency benchmark (BenchPress 2026) puts average blended rates at £104/hr for smaller agencies and £122/hr for larger ones. Collected published retainers run from around £500 a month for local SEO through £750-£1,500 for broader programmes to several thousand monthly for multi-channel scopes. Most agencies publish nothing; quotes are assembled from those hourly economics.

How much does SEO cost per month in the UK?

Among providers who publish: roughly £500 a month for local SEO, £750-£1,500 for broader campaigns, and audits from around £400. Larger engagements reach several thousand monthly. The underlying economics: agency hours at £104-122 blended (BenchPress 2026).

What does AI visibility / GEO cost in the UK?

The widest spread in marketing right now. Productised one-off work runs £95-£600 (Mode: £95 Check, £295 Audit, £595 Setup); tool-led audits we monitor sit around £300-£350; productised monitoring retainers run £195-£995 a month; agency pricing guides quote £1,500-£15,000 a month; enterprise platforms run roughly $300-5,000 monthly. Treat any GEO price with a guarantee attached as a red flag: nobody controls what AI systems say.

Why do so few UK agencies publish their prices?

Because most sell open-ended hours rather than defined outcomes, which makes a public fixed number risky for them. Mode’s July 2026 research found 88% of the UK’s top 50 digital agencies show no pricing on their homepage. This guide exists because buyers deserve the numbers anyway: it collects what IS published, dated, alongside benchmark-survey economics for everything that isn’t.

Method & sources

Published prices collected and dated from provider pricing pages in Mode's ongoing competitive research (captures June-July 2026; refreshed monthly; ranges shown as aggregates rather than named comparisons, deliberately). Benchmark economics: The Wow Company BenchPress 2025 & 2026 (the UK's largest independent-agency survey) · Moore Kingston Smith Financial Performance of Marketing Services Companies 2025. Transparency context: Mode's pricing-transparency study and top-50 readability study, July 2026. Derived figures are labelled as derived. Prices move; this page carries its last-updated date and we correct fast: hello@modemarketing.ai.

Our prices are the easy part of this research.

Everything Mode charges is published, VAT included, most of it buyable online without a call: builds from £249, marketing support from £295 a month, AI visibility from £95. The rest of the market made us collect theirs the hard way.

SEE EVERY MODE PRICE

Companion research: The State of the UK Agency Market 2026.