Is paying someone to do SEO worth it?

Depends on what you're paying for. If you're paying someone to "do SEO" with no clear deliverables and no agreed outcome, probably not. If you're paying for a specific job, say a one-time setup, a technical fix, or a content plan, it can pay back many times over.

I built a barbershop site for €400 one-time and six months later it sends 80–100 booking clicks a month with zero monthly spend. That's not magic, that's a properly scoped project.

The worst SEO deals are the open-ended monthly retainers where nothing visible happens. The best ones are specific, measurable, and honest about how long results take.