Why Link Building Pricing Varies So Much

Link building prices vary because SEO strategies differ from one business to another. Costs can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand per month, depending on what’s included, how the work is done, and the goals of the business. Some companies need quick wins with a high volume of links, while others are focused on long-term authority through fewer, high-quality placements. The pricing reflects not just the outcome, but the process behind it—strategy, effort, content quality, and outreach approach all play a role.

No Universal Pricing in SEO

There’s no standardized rate card for link building. Every campaign is shaped by different variables: business size, target keywords, niche competitiveness, and the agency’s approach. One client may need 10 links per month to maintain consistent progress, while another might be starting from scratch and require foundational links on niche-relevant sites. Some agencies prioritize volume through cheaper tactics; others focus on personalized outreach and strong editorial links, which take more time and cost more to secure. This variety is what causes the broad pricing spectrum across the industry.

Factors That Impact Link Building Costs

Several key elements influence how much you’ll pay for link building, from industry competition to the methods and effort behind each link.

Industry & Niche Difficulty

Some industries are simply harder to build links in. Niches like finance, law, healthcare, and B2B SaaS tend to be more competitive, with stricter editorial standards. It takes more research, relationship-building, and higher-quality content to earn links in these spaces. Agencies working in tough niches often need to dedicate more time per campaign, which naturally drives up the cost.

Link Type & Quality

Not all backlinks offer the same value. A dofollow link from a well-established editorial site will do more for your SEO than a nofollow link on a personal blog. High-authority placements take more effort to land, especially if they require original content or strict editorial review. If you’re paying for quality, relevant, trusted, traffic-driving links, expect a higher price tag.

Outreach Method

The way an agency secures links also affects pricing. Personalized outreach, where each pitch is tailored to the publication and relationship-building is a priority, takes longer and requires skilled professionals. This approach tends to yield better links, but it’s more expensive than automated mass outreach or bulk email strategies, which may produce quicker results but often with lower-quality sites.

Content Creation

Content is often a core part of link building, and the level of involvement varies. Some agencies only place links in existing content, while others craft original blog posts, guest articles, or resource pages. The more hands-on the agency is with writing, editing, and optimizing content for the target site, the more value they’re providing—and the more you’ll pay for that extra work.

Average Link Building Agency Pricing in 2025

Pricing models vary across agencies, but most fall into three main categories, depending on how each agency structures and delivers its services.

Per Link Pricing

Per-link pricing remains common. In 2025, basic links may start at $100, while high-quality editorial links often cost $300 to $1000 or more. The price depends on site authority, traffic, and relevance to your niche.

Monthly Link Building Packages

Many agencies offer monthly plans with a set number of links and deliverables. These range from $1000 to $10000+ per month. Lower-tier packages usually include simpler outreach or placements on mid-tier blogs. Higher-end packages provide strategic planning, reporting, and placements on respected domains.

Custom Campaigns & Enterprise Pricing

For large brands or enterprise campaigns, pricing depends entirely on the scope. These projects may include extensive digital PR, brand mentions, and long-term outreach. Budgets here typically start at $10000 and go up based on needs and results.

Pricing Breakdown by Link Building Service Type

Different link building methods come with their own pricing structures, depending on the strategy, effort required, and the type of placement.

Digital PR link building (from $3000 to $10000 per campaign)

Digital PR campaigns focus on earning placements on major media outlets and news publications. These projects require significant effort—crafting newsworthy angles, pitching journalists, and managing follow-ups. The cost accounts for the time, labor, and strategic planning that go into each campaign.

HARO link building (from $1000 to $3000 per 5-10 backlinks)

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) relies on responding to journalists’ queries with relevant insights. Agencies that specialize in HARO manage the full process and often deliver 5 to 10 backlinks per campaign. The pricing reflects the time spent sourcing, writing, and replying to queries.

Niche Edits / Link Insertions (from $100 to $500 per link)

Niche edits involve inserting links into existing articles on relevant blogs. These are typically more affordable but vary depending on site quality. Agencies charge less for links on mid-tier blogs and more for placements on established, high-traffic sites.

Cheap Link Building vs Premium Link Building: What’s the Real Difference?

Cheap services often rely on spammy tactics, automated outreach, and low-quality content. These links may look good in a report, but they don’t help rankings and sometimes hurt them.

• Often use link farms, PBNs, or irrelevant blogs
• Rely heavily on automation and mass email templates
• Deliver content that’s spun, thin, or poorly written
• Can lead to penalties or long-term SEO damage

Premium agencies prioritize quality over quantity. They build relationships, create valuable content, and place links on trusted sites.

• Focus on high-authority, relevant placements
• Write original, well-researched content tailored to each site
• Use manual outreach and relationship-building
• Aim for long-term gains in rankings, traffic, and trust

You pay more, but the long-term results justify the cost. When evaluating price, consider the value each link brings, not just the number.

How to Budget for Link Building in 2025

Effective budgeting depends on your business model, competition level, and growth goals. Here’s what typical monthly budgets look like across different industries and business types:

Local Business: $500 – $1500 / month

Local businesses can often succeed with a modest budget due to lower competition. Strategies typically include local directory submissions, partnerships with nearby groups, community features, and niche citations. The focus is on building trust and visibility within a geographic area, with efforts aimed at relevance and authority over volume. This range also allows for some targeted outreach and content placement.

SaaS / eCommerce: $2000 – $5000 / month

These businesses compete in crowded online markets where SEO directly affects revenue. A solid budget supports ongoing outreach to relevant blogs, content marketing (such as guest posts or data pieces), and consistent performance tracking. Agencies may also assist with product roundups and influencer partnerships. The goal is to build a varied backlink profile that improves rankings and drives qualified traffic.

Competitive Niches: $5000 – $15000+ / month

Law, finance, gambling, and enterprise software require high investment due to tough competition and strict editorial standards. Budgets in this range cover digital PR, long-form content, outreach to high-authority sites, and editor relationships. Campaigns often include reputation management, scalable outreach, and detailed reporting. The cost is steep, but so is the potential ROI.

Final Tips: How to Choose a Link Building Agency Worth Paying For

Avoid agencies that promise guaranteed rankings or huge numbers of links for low prices. Instead, look for transparency, ethical strategies, and a clear focus on quality. The best link-building agency will provide examples of past work, reporting samples, and clear outreach methods. A trustworthy agency will tailor its approach to your niche and goals. Make sure they explain their process and set clear expectations from the start.

Also, assess how they handle content. Does the agency provide original, well-written articles that match the publisher’s style? Do they build relationships or simply buy placements? The best SEO link-building agency treats link building as brand development, not a numbers game. This approach may cost more upfront, but it delivers real results and protects your SEO in the long run.

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1. Hire a specialist

Try to find agencies that focus on mobile app development as their primary line of business rather than a side branch. Because mobile development is a specialized field, developers need to be familiar with the relevant programming languages, software development kits (SDKs), and particulars of chosen mobile devices (i.e., iOS or Android).

A company that is a “jack of all trades” often does not have the professional expertise to be an expert in any particular sector. For instance, if your objective is to build a native mobile application, you should get in touch with businesses that focus on developing native applications.

It is usually quite simple to determine whether or not a firm specializes in a certain technology or domain. As a general rule, multi-purposed businesses will offer you an extensive list of various platforms and technologies with which the company can work. You can find the number of native apps the vendor has in their portfolio and the number of iOS or Android developers working in the state.

2. Keep in mind that the scope of the application is not the most important factor

In many cases, consumers look for a contractor with a portfolio that includes similar projects to their own. In the minds of some, the fact that these developers have previously developed an application for a restaurant shows that they’ll be able to do the same for you. However, from the perspective of development, the fact that the potential vendor has done past comparable work does not always suggest that the contract is appropriate for you.

For instance, the same interfaces and features are used to build apps for restaurants and news sources. Dating apps will almost surely include chat features, and you may prefer the firm that developed “just another dating app” to the one that added a great conversation feature to an app for a food delivery service.

3. Inquire about estimates if your RFP is extensive enough

Requests for “an app similar to Uber” and a brief description come to us regularly. Concurrently, our prospective clients will ask us to provide them with a proposal and make an assessment. This potential client is most likely making the identical request to a number of other app development businesses to analyze the prices each is asking for the service.

Suppose you own a construction business, and a potential client approaches you with the question: “How much does it cost to construct a building?” You can now understand the way that we are feeling.

To prevent this issue from happening, be sure to include an in-depth description of your product in the request for proposal that you send. In this approach, potential vendors will better put together an accurate proposal or pricing estimate. After that, you will be able to compare firms without fearing that the recently recruited contractor would misunderstand the scope of the task.

4. Open a demo trial contract

You can spend considerable time interviewing a potential contractor, but this does not assure that they are the best company to work on your project. When you hire a mobile app developer, you’re not paying for a portfolio, a proposal, or a speech. In order to see whether you and your contractor are the right fit, you need to start working together.

At the start of a trial contract, you should first determine the project scope that will be performed for the first one to two months. After that, monitor the activities of the developer’s team.

Fortunately, it’s much simpler to switch contractors at this point. You can do your due diligence with a trial contract since minimal risks are involved. You will likely know by the time the trial is through if you are comfortable working with the vendor long-term since you will be familiar with how they work.

5. Contracts should be broken into separate sections

This recommendation is about the trial contract. If you are starting from scratch with the development of a mobile application, the first things you will need to focus on are the business analysis and the user interface, and customer experience. Create separate contracts for each activity, and use them as a benchmark to evaluate the prospective vendor.

After the process, you will be provided with a requirement specification and layouts for each of the screens in your application. You will be able to simply contact a number of mobile app development businesses with your RFP if you use these resources (which, at this stage, is as detailed as possible). This enables you to analyze your offers or estimations.
6. Choose the appropriate company size
Suppose your company requires a team of four to six mobile app developers. When you reach out to a company with more than a thousand employees, you will be put at the end of their list of customers, and your request will be prioritized based on how much money your firm makes. In this situation, predicting which projects this corporation would send to the finest software developers and C-level managers is simple.

If, on the other hand, your company is close to the next round of investment and getting ready to raise further money and one of your goals is to expand your team, then a small studio with less than twenty employees is probably not what you need. You won’t have to worry about missing out on the focus of the CEO at any point, and you can probably expect to be provided with competitive pricing. However, the progress of your team will be limited.

In this case, a small mobile studio does not have a sufficient amount of necessary resources. In the end, they will be required to provide you with all the developers they now employ, including those they have recently recruited.

We strongly suggest you get in touch with an app developer who can respond to your specific requirements. Your value as a client will increase as a result of your actions, and the business’s capacity will enable you to expand your project’s scope.

7. Transparency is key

Have you already signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA)? If this is the case, you need to make sure that you inform the prospective vendor about the present scope of work and the general intentions you have for it.

Earlier, there have been situations in which startups delayed revealing their mission until after an agreement had already been signed. The unfortunate reality is that preserving your ideas as a secret almost always results in difficulties throughout the process of development.

Clients that make it abundantly obvious that they would want to form an in-house team for additional work on the project are much appreciated by our development team. This way, our customers will benefit from our ability to help them in a team’s interviewing and hiring processes.

Ensure that potential vendor developers understand your strategic objectives and communicate them properly. For example, if you inform your vendor that you want your culinary application to expand into a full-fledged social network at some point in the future, then they will be able to adopt the appropriate strategy for development and architecture, which will save you both time and money.

8. Check testimonials and references

You most likely check reviews on Booking.com or TripAdvisor while you are searching for a hotel to stay at. The feedback of others is necessary for many aspects of life, including app development.

B2B directories such as Clutch and GoodFirms allow you to see the reviews of others on a potential vendor you are considering working with. Reviews on Clutch are put through multiple tests, making it difficult to provide fake feedback. If you use Clutch, you may go through a developer’s portfolio, choose a project that interests you, and then request the contact information of the firm representative who worked on that project.

You should be able to get all the details you want from an app development business that you can trust to have full faith in their capabilities. The developer might also boast about their past success by demonstrating their accomplishment to you by providing references. Therefore, providing references is beneficial to all parties involved.

9. Get to know the people with whom you will be collaborating

The best way to get a sense of the kinds of projects a firm can deliver is to go through the portfolio of any potential vendor you are considering working with. Furthermore, keep in mind that these projects in the portfolio were developed not by the company but by the people that work in it.

Every worker in the company will have a unique professional background and experience. Therefore, conducting interviews with app developers before beginning a project together is a recommended best practice. In addition, you can discuss your preferences with the pre-sale manager regarding the future members of your remote team.

For instance, we offered two of our app developers who are big football enthusiasts to a client who was developing a second-screen football application. Both of these app programmers are huge lovers of the sport. As a direct result of this, both the client and our developers had a positive experience throughout their time spent working together.

If you have any questions about our business, portfolios, developers, or trial contracts, please feel free to contact us.

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