Search and Marketing for Qatar, With the Prices Published
Rankly is an SEO agency working with businesses in Qatar. Search, paid, web and creative, run by one senior specialist rather than sold by a director and handed to a junior.
Three things are true here that are rare in this market. The prices are published, in QAR, on the site. There is no lock-in, just thirty days' notice. And the person who scopes your work is the person who does it.
Everything else on this page is detail.
“Every price on this site is published. If a quote has to be explained before you can compare it, it was designed not to be compared.”
What usually happened before you got here
Most people arrive having already spoken to two or three agencies. The pattern repeats.
Three quotes came back at wildly different prices for the same brief, and none of the three would explain how they reached the number. One came with a twelve-month commitment attached. The monthly report arrived as a dashboard showing green arrows next to keywords nobody in Qatar actually searches, and no line anywhere for enquiries received.
If that is roughly your experience, the pricing page will feel unusual and the reporting will feel blunt. Both are deliberate.
What Rankly does
SEO services
The core retainer. Technical fixes, content, local signals and links, with the deliverable counts written down.Local SEO
Getting into the three map results, which is where the phone call comes from for most Qatar SMEs.SEO in Doha
Doha is compact enough that one well-built profile covers most of it, which is the opposite of the advice a London business gets.Ecommerce SEO
Qatar ecommerce runs at $4.96bn in 2026 and grows 18% a year. Category pages are where that money is won.Real estate SEO
The portals own listing search. Agencies win on listing acquisition, area guides and agent reputation.Google Ads and web design
Flat management fees with no markup on spend, and sites built to rank instead of to photograph well.
The prices, on the homepage
| Plan | QAR / month | Built for |
|---|---|---|
| Local | 2,900 | One location, one service area |
| Growth | 5,900 | Multi-service or competitive categories |
| Authority | 9,900 | Ecommerce, property, multi-branch |
Those are monthly retainers with countable deliverables behind them. A 5% withholding tax applies to cross-border invoices in Qatar, so a QAR 2,900 retainer invoices at QAR 3,053 and the extra QAR 153 goes to the General Tax Authority instead of to Rankly. Both numbers are shown rather than one.
Web, ads, social and creative are priced just as openly on the full pricing page.
What Rankly will not do
Guarantee a ranking
Nobody controls Google's results, and a provider offering a guarantee is choosing a keyword nobody searches.Lock you into twelve months
If the work is good you will stay because it is working.Report on vanity keywords
Reporting covers enquiries, calls and direction requests, and says plainly when a month was flat.Claim Arabic copywriting
Arabic design, typesetting and layout are delivered. Arabic writing needs a native writer and that hire has not been made.Shoot photography or video in Qatar
That needs someone in Doha with a camera. Rankly works alongside a local shooter when a job needs one.Sell you a retainer you do not need
Some businesses do not have enough search demand to justify one, and hearing that in the first conversation is cheaper than hearing it in month six.
How the work runs
Month one is setup-heavy and looks quiet. The audit and roadmap land in the first fortnight, technical fixes follow, then content and local signals.
The profile usually moves inside four to eight weeks. Long-tail terms follow across months two to four, and the geo-modified commercial ones across months four to eight. The generic head terms sit a year out, if they come at all. Anyone offering the whole category in a quarter is guessing.
You get a report every month, a call to go with it, and direct access to the person doing the work, not an account manager relaying questions.
Who runs this
Arbaz, a senior SEO specialist with ten years across local and international search. He is contactable through the Qatar working day, and the person who scopes your work is the person who does it. How the practice is run, and what it does and does not take on, is set out on the about page.
Thirteen client projects are documented on the case studies page, each with the Ahrefs panel it came from and the dates it covers, including the two that did not work. The reasoning behind each one is written out rather than summarised into a claim.
Things that matter here and get missed
The working week runs Sunday to Thursday, and businesses close for Friday prayers around midday. Ramadan shortens hours, pushes browsing to late night and spikes ecommerce, with Eid as the commercial peak of the year. A large share of the expatriate population leaves between June and August, which is the right window to build rankings for the autumn return, not the wrong time to cut budget.
WhatsApp, not email, is how business conversations actually start in Qatar. That is why it sits on every page.
Questions we get asked
How much does SEO cost in Qatar?
QAR 2,900, 5,900 or 9,900 a month depending on how many locations and services you are competing across, plus a 5% withholding tax that goes to the government. One-off projects start at QAR 2,200 for a Google Business Profile clean-up. All of it is published on the pricing page.
How is this different from the other agencies in Doha?
Published prices, no lock-in, and one named senior person doing the work. Most agencies here sell SEO as one of eight services, which means nobody on the team does it all day. What Rankly lacks in return is a Qatar commercial registration, a local address and Arabic delivery, so government-adjacent work is out of reach for now.
Do I need SEO or Google Ads?
Ads buy results immediately and stop the day you stop paying. SEO compounds and takes months. Needing enquiries this week points to Ads. Wanting a business that still generates them in two years points to search. Most businesses eventually want both, in that order.
What happens if I want to leave?
Thirty days' notice, in writing, any month. You keep everything: the content, the profile, the tracking setup and the access. No exit fee and nothing held hostage.
Can you work with my existing developer?
Yes, and that is usually cheaper than a rebuild. Fixes get specified precisely enough for a developer to implement without a second meeting, then checked afterwards.
The first step
Send your website, what you sell, and who you think you are competing with. Somebody reads it properly and replies inside two working days: what is wrong, what you can fix without paying anyone, and what you cannot.
No automated PDF, no obligation, and no sales call unless you ask. Three questions, under a minute, on the free audit form.
What a retainer actually costs, after Qatar’s withholding tax
Qatar applies a 5% withholding tax to invoices paid to a provider outside the country. It is deducted by you and paid to the General Tax Authority, so the published retainer and the figure on the invoice are not the same number. Both are shown here.
Local
per monthOne location, one service area
2,900
QAR published
- You invoice at
- 3,053
- Withheld, paid to the GTA
- 153
- Twelve months, invoiced
- 36,632
Growth
per monthMulti-service or competitive categories
5,900
QAR published
- You invoice at
- 6,211
- Withheld, paid to the GTA
- 311
- Twelve months, invoiced
- 74,526
Authority
per monthEcommerce, property, multi-branch
9,900
QAR published
- You invoice at
- 10,421
- Withheld, paid to the GTA
- 521
- Twelve months, invoiced
- 125,053
Rankly receives the published figure either way. The 5% is not a margin, a surcharge or something negotiable, and any provider outside Qatar is subject to it whether or not they mention it before you sign.
Every other priceWhat is different here, stated as plainly as possible
Every line in the right-hand column is published somewhere else on this site, on the page that would have to honour it.
| What you are comparing | How it usually works | Rankly |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Quoted privately, and a different number for each enquiry. | Published in QAR on the site. The same figure for everyone who asks. |
| Commitment | Twelve-month contracts, with an exit clause you have to argue about. | None. Thirty days' notice, and the work has to keep earning the renewal. |
| Who does the work | Scoped by a director in the pitch, delivered by whoever is free. | Arbaz scopes it and Arbaz does it. Ten years, no account manager in between. |
| Reporting | A dashboard of green arrows against keywords nobody in Qatar searches. | Enquiries, calls and direction requests. A flat month is reported as a flat month. |
| Arabic delivery | Sold as a capability, delivered by a translation plugin. | Not offered yet. The Arabic page says so instead of you finding out in month two. |
| Photography and video | Implied to be in-house, then quietly subcontracted. | Not shot in Qatar at all. A local shooter is brought in and named. |
What clients said, word for word
Left at the end of a finished contract, unedited, with the project and the month each one was written.
Names are withheld. The work was under contract and nobody agreed to appear in Rankly’s marketing.
Start with the free audit
Three questions, two working days, and a written answer from the person who would do the work. No sales call, no mailing list, nothing automated.
- Prices published in QAR
- No lock-in, thirty days’ notice
- Sunday to Thursday, Qatar hours