Adsy versus a list somebody already vetted
Adsy is the closest thing to us in the market and by far the hardest comparison to write honestly, because we are the same shape: a marketplace, publishers named, prices published, you choose. The difference is scale and who checked the sites — and on scale they win outright.
How Adsy actually works
Publishers list their own sites. They set their own price, supply their own metrics, and Adsy provides the catalogue, the filtering and the transaction. You browse by domain rating, traffic, language, country and niche, and order directly.
The catalogue is enormous — their pages reference more than 150,000 sites — and entry prices start around $15. For non-English work the coverage across Europe, Latin America and Asia is far better than anything we have.
The consequence of publishers self-listing is the thing to understand. The person describing the site is the person selling the placement. Nobody independent has looked at it, and one review of the category puts it plainly: on a self-serve marketplace, vetting is your responsibility.
Where Adsy is genuinely better
Selection, and it is not remotely close. 150,000 sites against our 410. If you need placements in Portuguese, or in a niche we have four publishers in, or forty links in a fortnight, we simply cannot serve you and Adsy can. That is the single biggest reason to use them and no amount of talking about vetting changes it.
Price at the bottom of the range is lower too. Their entry is around $15; our lowest listed site is $50. Publishers selling direct to a large marketplace price competitively, and if your budget is the binding constraint that difference is real money.
Their international coverage is a genuine capability rather than a gap we are working on. Non-English link building is a different business with different publishers, and we are not in it.
And if you have an experienced SEO on your team who enjoys evaluating sites, Adsy hands them a much larger pool to work with. The vetting being your job is only a downside if nobody wants the job.
Where the difference favours us
Somebody independent looked at every site before it was listed. Not the publisher selling it — us, with no incentive to make it look better than it is. Roughly two in three sites we assess never make the list, and the ones that fail usually fail on paid-link density, an inflated domain rating unsupported by traffic, or a publishing schedule that stopped two years ago.
That matters most because of who writes the listing. On a self-listing marketplace the seller describes their own site and sets their own price, which is a straightforward conflict of interest. It does not make the data wrong, but it does mean nobody has checked it, and a domain rating can be inflated far more cheaply than traffic can.
The vetting is also checkable rather than asserted. Our publisher audit runs the seven checks we used, on any domain you like — including sites you found on Adsy. If you want to keep using them and just want a second opinion on a specific site, that tool is free and we would rather you used it than bought badly.
And a smaller list is faster to work through. Filtering 150,000 sites to a shortlist is real work; 410 already-filtered sites is an afternoon. Whether that is worth the lost selection depends entirely on your volume.
Side by side
| Adsy | The Stark SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Catalogue size | 150,000+ sites | 410 sites |
| Site listed by | The publisher | Us, after assessment |
| Vetting | Your responsibility | Done before listing |
| Entry price | ~$15 | $50 |
| Metrics supplied by | The seller | Independently checked |
| Free audit tool for any domain | No | Yes |
| International reach | Strong | Weak |
| Payment | Before delivery | After the link is live |
The two marketplaces side by side
| Adsy | The Stark SEO | |
|---|---|---|
| Sites listed | 150,000+ | 410 |
| Entry price | ~$15 | $50 |
| Upper range | $1,000+ | $1,900 |
| Median price | Not published | $203 |
| Who lists the site | The publisher, themselves | Us, after assessment |
| Who vets it | You | Us, then you can re-check |
| Rejection rate published | Not applicable | Roughly 2 in 3 assessed |
| Non-English coverage | Extensive | Limited |
| Pay before or after delivery | Before | After the link is live |
Adsy figures come from their own published pages and third-party reviews. Ours are read from the live marketplace. The comparison that actually matters is not the prices — it is the row about who vets.
Who each one actually suits
Pick Adsy if
- You need volume, or niches and languages a 410-site list cannot cover.
- You have someone experienced who will actually vet the sites properly.
- Budget is the binding constraint and $15 placements are the point.
- You work outside English-language markets.
Pick us if
- You want the vetting already done and are willing to pay a little more for it.
- You have bought from a self-listing marketplace before and been disappointed.
- Your volume is modest enough that 410 curated sites is enough.
- You want to pay after the placement is live rather than before.
So which one
If you need scale, use Adsy. We are not a substitute for a 150,000-site catalogue and pretending otherwise would waste your time.
If you have been burned by a site that looked fine in a listing and turned out to be a link farm, the difference between a marketplace where sellers describe themselves and one where somebody assessed them first is the entire thing you are paying for.
There is also a perfectly reasonable middle: keep buying on Adsy, and run our free audit on anything before you order it. We would rather you did that than bought badly somewhere else.
The usual questions
The other comparison
FATJOE versus buying the sites yourself
FATJOE is the most widely used link supplier in the agency market, and the comparison comes down to one structural difference: they sell you a metric, we sell you a named site. Both are legitimate. They suit different people, and the honest answer depends on how much you want to be involved.
The HOTH versus choosing your own publishers
The HOTH is one of the most recognised names in white label SEO and is usually where an agency starts. The model is a productised menu: fixed products at fixed prices, ordered like items in a shop. Ours is a list of named sites at individual prices. Both work; they suit different temperaments.
Loganix versus a list you can see without asking
Loganix sits at the premium, managed end of this market and is closer to a consultancy than a shop. They run a large database you can filter and an expert-selected service where their team chooses for you. The comparison is mostly about how much of the decision you want to keep.
Hiring in-house versus outsourcing link building
Whether to hire someone or buy the capacity is mostly a question about how many clients you have and how predictable they are. Here is the arithmetic, including the part where hiring wins.
Outreach tools versus buying placements
Outreach tools cost a hundred or two a month against hundreds per placement. That gap is real and worth understanding properly rather than dismissing.
Where these figures came from
- Guest post marketplace comparison — LinkForce
- Adsy review, pricing and how it works — Xamsor
- Adsy link building pricing study of 52,671 websites
Prices quoted for Adsy are their published rates or as reported by the sources above, correct at the time of writing and liable to change. Ours are read live from the marketplace. Check anything you intend to make a decision on.
Have a look at the list
Every site with its price, nothing to fill in first, and nothing to pay unless a link actually goes live. 365 days of cover on every placement.
Open the marketplace