Guide

How to price link building for your clients

Most agencies resell a link at roughly double what it costs them, and price by the link or by a monthly package rather than by the hour. As a floor, work out your wholesale cost first: on our list today the median guest post costs $140 to $225 depending on DR band. Across the wider market, BuzzStream puts the average at $295 bought direct from a site and $461 through a vendor. Charge enough above your cost to cover the placements that fail, the replacements you owe, and the reporting.

By Muhammad Tayyab · Updated 19 September 2026 · 11 minute read · 6 sources cited

What agencies charge for a link right now

There is no list price for a backlink, but there are three reference points worth knowing before you quote anything.

BuzzStream's guest post study, updated in June 2026 and drawn from a vendor database of over 500,000 sites, found that a guest post costs $295 on average when you buy direct from the site, and $461 when you buy through a vendor. Adsy's own analysis of 52,671 sites landed in almost the same place: an average of $459 in 2026, up 7.5% from $427 a year earlier.

Those are averages across everything, including a great deal of low-quality inventory. BuzzStream's broader statistics put 98% of guest-posting sites below DR 40 and 10,000 monthly visits, and when they priced only the sites above that line, the average climbed to $3,130 or more. So an agency quoting $450 a link is not overcharging. It is charging the market average for a placement that may or may not be any good.

Published guest post price benchmarks, 2026
Source	What it measured	Average
BuzzStream	Bought direct from the site	$295
BuzzStream	Bought through a vendor	$461
Adsy	52,671 marketplace sites	$459
BuzzStream	High-quality sites only (DR 40+, 10k+ traffic)	$3,130+

Start from what the link costs you

Your price should be built up from your cost, not guessed down from a competitor's. Here is what the 408 priced sites on our marketplace cost by domain rating band, read from the database on 19 September 2026. Prices are in each publisher's listed currency; 351 of the 408 are in US dollars.

Two things stand out. Price barely moves between DR 20 and DR 49, so paying for DR 45 over DR 30 costs you almost nothing. And the jump from the middle to the top of the list is small: the median DR 70+ site costs $225, only $25 more than DR 50 to 69. The spread inside each band matters far more than the band itself, which is why the table shows the middle half of prices, not just the median.

Guest post cost on The Stark SEO marketplace by DR band, 19 Sep 2026
DR band	Sites	Median	Middle half of prices
DR 20–39	112	$150	$100–$200
DR 40–49	79	$140	$100–$200
DR 50–59	81	$200	$140–$250
DR 60–69	57	$200	$125–$260
DR 70+	64	$225	$150–$300

Three ways to price it, and which one fits your client

Per link means the client pays a fixed price for each placement. It is the easiest to explain and the easiest to defend, because every line on the invoice is a named site. It suits clients who want to approve sites one by one, and it is the model where you are least exposed if a placement falls through, since you only bill what went live.

A package bundles a set number of links at a DR band for one price, for example five links at DR 50+. It lifts your average order and is easy to sell, but you have promised a count, so you carry the risk if good sites in that band dry up in the client's niche.

A retainer is a monthly fee for ongoing link building, usually with a number of links attached. BuzzStream's 2025 agency survey found guest-posting agencies averaged a $2,500 monthly contract. Retainers give you predictable revenue and give the client a steady pace, which matters because links compound over months. The catch is that clients start judging you on rankings rather than links, so your reporting has to show movement or the retainer ends at month three.

Client wants control and sign-off on every site: price per link.
Client wants a simple number for a quarter's work: sell a package.
Client wants to rank for competitive terms over six months or more: retainer, with links as one line in it.

Worked markup examples

Take a mid-range placement costing you $200, the DR 50–59 median above. Here is what three common markups leave you with, per link and across a typical month of four links.

The number that catches agencies out is not the markup, it is the misses. Stan Ventures, which sells white-label links to agencies, says small agencies typically resell at about 2x. At 2x on a $200 link you keep $200, which sounds comfortable until one placement in five needs replacing or goes to a site the client rejects. Price for the month you actually have, not the month where everything goes live first time.

Markup on a $200 wholesale placement
Markup	Client pays per link	You keep per link	You keep on 4 links a month
1.5x	$300	$100	$400
2x	$400	$200	$800
2.5x	$500	$300	$1,200

What your price has to cover beyond the link

The wholesale price is only part of what a link costs you. Before settling on a markup, account for the work and risk the client never sees.

Price for the month where one placement needs replacing, not the month where everything goes live first time.

Site selection and vetting, which is real hours per client and grows with how picky they are.
Anchor text and target page decisions, including pushing back when a client wants exact-match anchors on every link.
Replacements when a link comes down. Our placements carry a 365-day replacement guarantee, but if you buy elsewhere, check who pays when a link disappears in month four.
Reporting: turning a list of URLs into something a client understands and renews on.
Payment timing. If your supplier bills on order and your client pays on net-30, you are financing the gap.

Named sites or DR bands: what to show the client

Most packages sell a count and a DR band, and the actual sites turn up afterwards. It is quicker to sell, and it is the reason clients get suspicious: they cannot tell a DR 55 magazine from a DR 55 link farm until the link is live.

Showing named sites and their prices before the client commits takes longer and invites questions. It also removes the single biggest cause of churn, which is a client finding out later what their money bought. If you resell from a marketplace where every site and price is public, as ours is, you can send the shortlist itself. Some agencies prefer not to, because the client can then see the wholesale price. That is a real trade-off. The honest answer is to charge for the work around the link, which the client cannot see on a price list, rather than relying on them not knowing what the link costs.

When reselling links is the wrong call

Reselling is not always worth it, and saying so will save you a bad client.

If a client's whole budget is a few hundred dollars a month, two links will not move a competitive term, and they will judge you on a result the budget cannot buy. Point them at on-page and technical fixes first. If the site has thin content or indexing problems, links will be wasted on pages Google does not rank anyway. And if you cannot explain to the client why a particular site was chosen, you are not reselling a service, you are reselling a risk, and you will own it when the client asks.

A pricing process you can use this week

Pick the DR band and niche the client actually needs, not the highest one they will pay for.
Shortlist real sites in that band and note each price. Our marketplace shows every price without an account.
Take the middle of those prices as your cost, not the cheapest.
Add your markup, then check the result against the $295 to $461 market averages so you know where you sit.
Decide per link, package or retainer based on how much control the client wants.
Write the replacement guarantee and reporting into the quote, so the client sees what the margin pays for.

Sources

Figures are quoted as the studies above report them. Where they disagree, the text gives the range.

Questions people ask

Start from your wholesale cost and add a markup that covers vetting, replacements and reporting. Around 2x is common for small agencies. On a $200 mid-DR placement that means about $400 to the client, which sits close to the $461 market average for links bought through a vendor.

How much should I charge a client per backlink?

Per link suits clients who want to approve each site and keeps your risk low, because you bill only what went live. A retainer suits longer campaigns and gives you steady revenue, but the client will judge it on rankings, so it needs reporting that shows movement.

Is it better to charge per link or a monthly retainer?

Yes, eventually, because they will see the links anyway. The real question is whether to show sites before or after purchase. Showing them before takes longer but prevents the most common reason clients leave, which is discovering later what the budget bought.

Should I tell my client which sites their links are on?

Because price follows demand in a niche, not authority on its own. On our list the median DR 70+ guest post is $225 against $200 for DR 50 to 69. The spread within a band is far wider than the gap between bands, so compare individual sites rather than relying on DR alone.

Why does a DR 70 link cost barely more than a DR 50 one?

Publications, not placements

Every site on our marketplace was assessed as a publication first: real readers, a real editor, a real publishing schedule. That is the distinction this page is about, and you can check it yourself before you buy.

Browse the marketplace