Authors of the article examine criterions of service competitiveness paying main attention to one criterion – quality of services. Authors believe that for determination of cost of innovative services it would be useful to classify services into two groups according the result of services: services which result is material or tangible and services which result is intangible. Classification of services in such groups enable determination of the quality cost and align them with criterions of competitiveness of service enterprises. Article handles also questions related to the quality perception as well as influence of perceived risk on the cost of quality. Article offers measures to reduces the perceived risk to protect competitiveness of services. Article indicates relationships between types of services and visible and hidden parts of the quality cost. In order to protect competitiveness of services enterprises have to be able to achieve bigger increase of quality level comparing to cost increase. Due to the fact that competitiveness of services is influenced by macroeconomic situation in the country the article lists most important factors that influence services of SMEs. SMEs could be competitive not by orientating on low price and satisfactory quality, but by offering services that are high quality, innovative and responding to needs of consumers. Macroeconomic factors that are mentioned in the article influence price of innovative services, what in the time of economic crisis is one of the most important criterions of competitiveness.