Comparison
Best Place to Buy Backlinks in 2026: Five Channels, Priced and Compared
Five places sell you a backlink. We compared their prices, who picks the site, what you can check before paying and what happens if the link drops, with every price sourced.
Backlinkcart Team
Updated · 7 min read
The best place to buy backlinks depends on one thing: whether you get to see the exact site before you pay. There are five places to buy a link in 2026, and their prices differ less than their checks do. Some show you the domain and its traffic. Some sell you a tier label and pick the site later.
Here are the five, compared, with prices taken from public sources checked on 23 October 2026.
| Where you buy | Typical price per link | Who picks the site | What you can check before paying | If the link drops |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open link marketplaces (Adsy, PressWhizz, Collaborator) | $112 median per completed placement (PressWhizz); $207 typical paid on Adsy | You | The domain and seller-supplied metrics | Up to the publisher; often nothing |
| Self-serve link vendors (FatJoe, Outreach Monks, The HOTH) | $108 (DR 30+) to $410 (DR 60+) | The vendor | The tier; domain approval at some vendors | 6 months (Outreach Monks, The HOTH) to lifetime (FatJoe) |
| Managed agencies (Editorial.Link, Stellar SEO, uSERP) | $300 to $375 (Editorial.Link) up to $600 to $1,500 (agency editorial links, per BuzzStream) | The agency, with your approval | Placement approval and a traffic floor | Varies; ask in writing |
| Direct from the publisher | $295 average (BuzzStream); $570 median sponsored post (Ranktracker) | You | Anything you ask for | Whatever you negotiate, usually nothing |
| Curated US/UK/CA marketplace (backlinkcart.com) | From about $149 per site; $179 fixed-price guest post; $249 niche edit | You, or us at the fixed price | Domain, DA, monthly organic traffic and share of US/UK/CA readers | Free replacement for 12 months |
Open link marketplaces: big inventory, mostly small sites
Open marketplaces list tens of thousands of sites and let anyone sell a placement. They are the lowest-priced channel per placement. The only transaction data we found is PressWhizz's: Whito's summary of 22,703 completed placements puts the median at $112. The same source reports that Adsy's average listed price is $929, while the typical buyer pays $207.
The catch is what sits in the inventory. BuzzStream's 2026 study of 257,267 marketplace sites found that 78% get under 1,000 visits a month. So most of what you scroll past has few readers. Freelancer gigs on Fiverr and PeoplePerHour work the same way, with even less checking.
Suits you if you will check every domain's traffic yourself before ordering. Watch for metrics supplied by the seller, and for no replacement policy.
Self-serve link vendors: you buy a tier, not a site
These vendors sell links by authority tier at a fixed price. FatJoe charges $108 at DR 30+, $302 at DR 50+ and $410 at DR 60+. Outreach Monks runs from $99 at DR 20+ to $399 at DR 70+. The HOTH lists DR 50+ at $375. Writing is included at all three.
The tier is a DR number, and DR is not readers. FatJoe is one of the few that publishes a traffic band per tier (for DR 50+, 1,000 to 30,000 visits a month).
Suits you if you want a known price and do not mind which site you get within the tier. Watch for a DR price on a site that gets little traffic.
Managed agencies: the most expensive, and the most hands-off
Agencies run outreach for you and usually sell packages or monthly plans. Editorial.Link charges $300 to $375 a link for sites averaging DR 50 to 90 with 5,000+ monthly visits, and lets you approve placements first. Stellar SEO sells $2,500 a month for 8 links, about $312 a link. At the top end, BuzzStream's pricing page quotes uSERP's agency editorial links at $600 to $1,500 each.
Suits you if you have a monthly budget and want the whole job handled. Watch for minimum terms and plans that only show prices after a sales call.
Direct from the publisher: no middleman, all the work
You can email a site in your niche and ask what a sponsored article costs. BuzzStream puts the average guest post bought direct at $295, against $461 through a vendor. Ranktracker's dataset of 16,625 publishers with DR 30+ and 2,000+ monthly visits gives a median sponsored post of $570. By reader country it was $452 for US sites, $1,040 for UK sites and $1,130 for Canadian sites.
What you skip is the margin. What you take on is the work: finding the sites, writing to each editor's standard, chasing publication and paying up front, with no recourse if the post comes down.
Suits you if you need a handful of links and have time for the emails. Watch for posts marked sponsored or nofollow, which changes what you are buying.
A curated US/UK/CA marketplace: see the site, pay a fixed price
This is the channel we run, so read it as disclosed self-interest. Every guest post and niche edit on backlinkcart.com goes on an independent US, UK or Canadian publisher we work with directly: we agree the rate with the site's owner or editor, our team writes the article, and the editor publishes it. We do not own these sites, and we do not resell other marketplaces' listings.
The marketplace lists about 30 of those publishers. Each one shows its DA, its monthly organic traffic and the share of its readers in the US, UK or Canada before you pay. Prices start at about $149. If you would rather not choose, the DA 30+ editorial guest post is $179 and we pick the site, and a niche edit on one of our US publishers (DA 40+) is $249. Every order comes with a report listing each live URL and free replacement for 12 months if a link drops.
Suits you if you want to judge the site yourself and buy one link at a time. Watch for our limits: about 30 sites is a small list, so we may not have one in your exact niche.
So which is the best place to buy backlinks?
Compare the price per live link over a year, not the price per link sold. A $112 placement that disappears after three months with no replacement bought you three months. A $179 guest post replaced free if it drops within 12 months costs $179 for a year of a live link. Run the same sum on any quote you get.
Then rank the channels by what you can verify. If you can see the domain and its traffic before paying, you are judging a site. If you can only see a tier, you are trusting a label.
When should you not buy backlinks at all?
Do not buy links yet if your site is new and its pages are thin. A link points readers and search engines at a page. If that page does not answer the search well, the link has little to work with. Fix the pages first, then buy one or two links to the pages that deserve them.
The same goes for a site with technical problems such as pages that are not indexed. Money spent on links before that is fixed is mostly wasted.
What should I ask before buying from any of them?
Five questions, in this order:
- What is the site's monthly organic traffic? Not its DA or DR. Ask which tool measured it and when.
- Will I see the exact domain before you publish? A no is fine to hear, as long as you hear it before paying.
- Is the link dofollow, in the body of the article, and meant to stay? Sidebar and footer links are a different product.
- Will the post be labeled sponsored? Some publishers only sell labeled posts, which changes the value of the link.
- What happens if the link disappears? Get the replacement policy in writing, with its length.
Is buying backlinks against Google's guidelines?
Yes. Buying links that pass ranking signals is against Google's spam policies, and every channel above carries that risk. What differs between them is what the placement looks like: an article on a site with real readers and an editor is a different object from a page made only to hold a link. We cover the risk in more detail in are paid backlinks safe.
Where is the lowest-priced place to buy backlinks?
Per placement, open marketplaces, where PressWhizz's median completed placement was $112. Per live, useful link, it depends on what you buy there: most marketplace sites get under 1,000 visits a month, and many come with no replacement. If you count your own time, buying direct from publishers is rarely the lowest-priced option either.
Method
All third-party prices were read from the sources linked in each section on 23 October 2026. PressWhizz and Adsy figures come from Whito's summary, as neither primary report was reachable. Vendor prices are list prices for single links at the tiers named. Our own prices and site count are from backlinkcart.com on the same date. Prices move, so check the date against today.