The short answer
SEO in Hyderabad costs between roughly ₹8,000 and ₹2,50,000 a month, and that range is close to useless unless you know what sits inside it.
The spread is not mostly about quality. It is about scope: how many keywords are actually worked, whether anybody writes the pages, whether technical problems get fixed or just get listed, and whether links and citations are part of the job. Two agencies can both say “monthly SEO retainer” and be selling work that differs by a factor of ten.
So this page does three things: shows what two published Hyderabad rate cards charge, shows what we charge and where our model will not suit you, and gives you the four questions that separate any two quotes.
What published Hyderabad rate cards say
Most agencies here do not publish prices. Two that do, both checked on 14 October 2026:
upGrowth’s Hyderabad SEO cost guide (Amol Ghemud, published 15 September 2026) sets out four tiers: Starter at ₹8,000–₹20,000 for 10 to 20 keywords, on-page fixes across five to eight pages, two to four backlinks a month and a monthly report; Growth at ₹20,000–₹60,000 for 30 to 60 keywords with content production, technical audits and structured link building; Advanced at ₹60,000–₹1,00,000 adding a named strategist and a bottom-of-funnel editorial calendar; and Enterprise at ₹1,00,000–₹2,50,000+.
The Geekonomy’s Hyderabad SEO pricing guide (Rahul Dutta, published 11 March 2026) is in the same territory from a different angle: a Basic package at ₹12,000–₹25,000, a Standard package at ₹25,000–₹60,000 adding technical fixes, content and backlinks, and above ₹60,000 for comprehensive work. Its small-business table prices by page and keyword count directly — ₹12,000 for up to 10 pages and 10 keyphrases, ₹25,000 for 25, ₹45,000 for 50.
Read those two side by side and the useful pattern is not the prices. It is that both of them scale the number by keyword count, content volume and whether technical work is included — the same three levers, described in different words. That is the thing to interrogate in any quote you receive.
One caution on using any published guide, including this one: these are rate cards, not a market survey. Nobody has audited what Hyderabad agencies actually invoice. The Geekonomy page also quotes its own range as “₹12,000 up to ₹60,000” in prose while its table tops out at ₹45,000 — a small inconsistency, and a fair illustration of why you compare deliverables rather than headline ranges.
What Akvega charges — and who we are wrong for
Here is the part most agency pages leave out, so take it first: Akvega does not sell SEO on its own. There is no SEO-only retainer. SEO sits inside three monthly packages that also carry social and paid work:
| Package | Monthly | The SEO inside it |
|---|---|---|
| Ignite | ₹20,000 | Google Business Profile set-up and optimisation, local SEO across five to ten keywords |
| Momentum | ₹40,000 | Full on-page and off-page SEO across 50 keywords |
| Authority | ₹60,000 | Advanced SEO across 50+ keywords, with answer-engine (AEO) and AI-search (GEO) coverage |
Every figure excludes GST at 18%, so ₹20,000 is ₹23,600 paid. Ad spend is separate and goes directly from you to Google or Meta from accounts in your own name. Custom scopes run above Authority to ₹1,00,000 a month. The full breakdown, including what the paid and social sides contain, is on the pricing page.
This means a straight comparison with an SEO-only quote is unfair in both directions. Our ₹20,000 buys less SEO than a ₹20,000 SEO-only package would, because it is also paying for social and a managed ad campaign. If search is genuinely the only channel you want worked, an agency that sells SEO as a single line is the better buy, and we would rather say that here than on a call you paid for with an hour.
The case for the bundle is the one we make everywhere: the same team runs the campaign and ships the page it lands on, which is where the handover between two vendors usually leaks.
The four things that actually move the number
1. How many keywords are really being worked
A keyword count is the easiest number to inflate, because variations are free to list. Five to ten genuinely competitive local terms is real work for a single-location business. Fifty is real work for a brand competing across India. A proposal offering “200+ keywords” at ₹15,000 a month is counting near-duplicates.
Ask for the list before you sign, not after.
2. Whether anyone writes the content
This is the biggest hidden gap between two similar-looking quotes. A great many SEO retainers cover the audit, the keyword map and the recommendations — and stop exactly where somebody has to write the page. The recommendation is cheap; the page is the expensive part.
Ask how many pages get written each month, who writes them, and who approves them.
3. Whether technical fixes get implemented or only reported
A list of problems costs far less to produce than fixed problems, and is worth far less. This is also where the two-vendor split bites hardest: if your site is with a different company, a fix the SEO agency recommends has to survive someone else’s backlog before it exists.
Ask who makes the change, and what the agreed turnaround is.
4. Links, citations and local signals
Link building is the line where quotes diverge most in quality and least in description. “Two to four backlinks a month” and “structured link building” can mean anything from genuine placements to directory spam that you will later pay to disavow. For a local business, NAP citations and a properly maintained Google Business Profile usually matter more than volume.
Ask where the last five links an agency built for a comparable client actually sit.
How to compare two proposals in ten minutes
Put both in one table with four rows:
| Proposal A | Proposal B | |
|---|---|---|
| Keywords actually worked | ||
| Pages written per month, and by whom | ||
| Who implements technical fixes, and how fast | ||
| What you keep if you leave |
The last row is the one people skip. Your repositories, ad accounts, analytics property and domain should be in your name from the first day, so that leaving is a decision rather than an extraction. At Akvega that is how every engagement is set up; ask anyone else the question directly.
Most proposals differ more in those four rows than they do in price. If one is ₹15,000 cheaper and writes nothing, it is not cheaper.
Where to start
If you want this comparison done on your own accounts rather than in the abstract, the paid diagnostic audits your Google Business Profile, website, design, social and existing ad accounts, and prices every finding — so the audit doubles as a quote. It comes back within one to two working days and the findings are yours whether or not you continue with us.
If you would rather read first, what SEO, AEO and GEO actually cover sets out the work itself, and what digital marketing costs in Hyderabad puts SEO back alongside the other channels.