An SEO retainerthat plans for AI search
The SEO retainer in short.
An ongoing SEO retainer grows your visibility month by month: content, technology, authority and monitoring - because SEO is a process, not a one-off campaign. A serious monthly retainer costs between €700 and €3,000 per month across the market, and with us from €1,790 per month (Growth) after a one-off setup from €3,900. The difference at INSYNC: we do not only optimise for Google, we optimise for AI search like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google AI from day one, with clear deliverables every month instead of vague ongoing optimisation.
What your case needs depends on your starting point, your competition and your goals: in a first call you get an honest assessment within 20 minutes, including the answer to whether an ongoing retainer is worth it for you yet. Sometimes a one-off SEO consulting engagement is enough for now.
SEO, GEO and delivery all in-house.
from €1,790
per month (Growth), excluding VAT
€3,900
one-off setup: audit, strategy, foundational fixes
€700–3,000
market range for a serious retainer per month
An SEO retainer without AI visibility is incomplete in 2026.
Most SEO retainers still work like it is 2020: keywords, copy, backlinks, Google. What is missing: a growing share of your customers no longer googles, they ask AI assistants. Even above this search result there is often an AI answer today instead of the classic links.
And the overlap between top Google rankings and AI citations is below 20 per cent - down from around 70 % to under 20 % (Source: 5W Research, State of AI Citations 2026).
That is why generative engine optimization is a fixed part of the retainer here, not an add-on: your content is built to be citable, your website is kept AI-readable, and the reporting shows you both - Google rankings AND mention rates in AI answers. One engagement, two worlds of visibility. No competitor in this field builds GEO into the ongoing retainer: everywhere else it is a separate product or missing entirely.
What our SEO service covers every month
Our SEO service covers six building blocks that together carry your visibility, from the roadmap to the reporting.
Strategy and keyword roadmap
Data-led prioritisation: where are the winnable keywords with real lead value? Exactly the method that makes this page rank.
Content production
Citable pages and articles, written for people, structured for Google and AI. No SEO filler.
Technology and on-page
Load time, structure, schema, internal linking, indexation. As a web agency we implement it directly instead of sending ticket lists to somebody else's developers.
Authority and signals
A clean linking and mention strategy, no bought link packages.
AI visibility monitoring
Share of model, citation rate, mention context: we track how AI systems talk about you.
Monthly reporting
What was done, what it achieved, what comes next. In plain language, not agency folklore.
What you actually get, month by month
No other provider in this field shows you what you get month by month, only cycles and process diagrams. We do:
Month 1 (setup): full audit (SEO plus AI readability), keyword roadmap, quick fixes, tracking baseline. What you hold in your hand: an audit report, a prioritised roadmap and a working measurement system.
Months 2 to 3: technical fixes implemented, first content wave, llms.txt and schema, indexation. What you hold in your hand: new and optimised pages live, first movement in the rankings.
From month 4: an ongoing content rhythm, authority building, AI monitoring, monthly iteration. What you hold in your hand: growing rankings and mentions, plus a monthly plain-language report.
An honest expectation: first organic enquiries arrive after 2 to 6 months depending on where you start. Anyone promising you position one in four weeks is selling you something other than SEO.
What does an SEO retainer cost?
A monthly SEO retainer costs from €1,790 per month with us (Growth), after a one-off setup from €3,900 (audit, strategy and foundational fixes). The market sits between €700 and €3,000 per month, and below that you usually get reporting PDFs instead of work. If you first need a dedicated web team for maintenance and further development but no SEO engagement yet, start with Care from €1,290 per month. All prices exclude VAT. Paying annually costs 10 monthly instalments instead of 12. We recommend allowing 6 months of ramp-up: SEO compounds.
You will find every package in detail on our pricing page.
Our best case study is this website
You are reading this because our method works: this page ranks for exactly the terms we sell as a service, built with the same system of keyword prioritisation, citable content and AI-readable technology that you get in the retainer.
Not agency folklore, but an ongoing live test: every rule we recommend to you sits on our own website, ready to be checked.
See for yourself: view our llms.txt
Further reading: Technical SEO · Building backlinks · On-page SEO · What does SEO cost?
If you want clarity before a retainer, the one-off SEO consulting from €1,500 is the right way in.
How working together works.
Four steps, one fixed point of contact, a monthly rhythm. At every point you know what we are working on and why.
First call and quick check
An honest assessment, no commitment. When: 20 minutes, free
Setup month
Audit, roadmap, baseline. After that you know exactly what we are working on and why. When: month 1
Monthly rhythm
Fixed deliverables, a fixed point of contact, an update call. When: from month 2
Quarterly review
Sharpening the strategy: what works gets scaled, what does not gets dropped. When: every 3 months
Websites we keep developing
Visibility is not created at launch, it is created afterwards. This is what B2B sites look like when we build them, run them and expand them month by month. A selection of our projects.
FRAMEN
INVENTRY
Theraletik
SONIQ
SEO, GEO and delivery all in-house.
Pure SEO agencies write tickets for your developers. We are the developers. Content, technology and AI readability all come from one team here.
250+
projects delivered
4.9 ★
134 reviews
SEO + GEO
plus delivery, all in-house
Monthly
plain-language reporting: rankings and AI mentions
What clients say about us
We could talk about roadmaps and rankings all day. It is more convincing to hear it from the companies we work with.
“Our new website is a complete game changer. In terms of look it holds its own against the websites of major corporations - and that's exactly the league we want to compare ourselves with. If you're looking for a design agency that doesn't feel like a traditional agency, INSYNC is exactly right for you.”
Pure SEO agencies write tickets for your developers. We are the developers. Content, technical delivery and AI readability all come from one team here.
200+ B2B companies have built with us
B2B companies that built their visibility with us.
Our software
What we use every day
Featured resources
Common questions about SEO retainers
Costs, terms, reporting, results: everything companies want to know before an ongoing SEO retainer, answered honestly.
At INSYNC from €1,790 per month (Growth) plus a one-off setup from €3,900; Growth Max is €3,390 per month plus €4,900 setup, and the maintenance entry point Care, without an SEO engagement, is €1,290 per month. Across the market, serious retainers sit between €700 and €3,000 per month depending on scope, competition and goals. In a first call you get an honest assessment for your case.
Ongoing monthly SEO sits between €700 and €3,000 across the market, and with us from €1,790 per month after a one-off setup from €3,900. If you do not want an ongoing engagement but simply a plan and an analysis, SEO consulting from €1,500 is the right way in. AI visibility (GEO) is included in both, and for pure AI projects there is our GEO agency service.
Strategy, content production, technical delivery, authority building, AI visibility monitoring and monthly reporting, with fixed deliverables each month (see the roadmap above). Delivery included: we do not write recommendation PDFs, we build.
We recommend allowing 6 months of ramp-up, because SEO compounds and nothing reliable happens in four weeks. Contractually we do not tie you in longer than necessary, and we go through the details transparently in the first call.
First movement after 4 to 8 weeks, first organic enquiries after 2 to 6 months depending on where you start. SEO is an investment with a ramp-up and compound interest. If you need immediate results, we will honestly point you to ads plus landing pages.
Yes, built in: AI-readable technology, citable content and monitoring of your mentions in ChatGPT, Perplexity and the rest are part of the engagement. For pure GEO projects there is our GEO agency service.
Monthly, in plain language: completed work, ranking and mention development, next steps. You understand every point without an SEO dictionary, and you also see what is not working yet.
Consulting is the way in: audit, strategy, roadmap, and then you (or we) implement it. A retainer is the ongoing engagement where we stay on it. Many clients start with consulting and then move into a retainer.
Yes, all of it. We are a web agency first. Technical fixes, new pages, schema and performance we implement ourselves: in Next.js or Astro with Sanity, in Webflow, or directly in your own system.
Everything built is yours: content, rankings, access, documentation. SEO effects carry on for a while, so you do not drop to zero, nothing new simply grows on top.
Because visibility in 2026 rests on three things we all have in-house: content, technical delivery and AI readability. Pure SEO agencies write tickets for your developers. We are the developers.
Let us talk about your visibility
A 20-minute call, no sales pressure. We look at your starting point live and tell you honestly whether a retainer is worth it - and what it costs.