Curated data
The Angle Link Pricing Index 2026.
What does a backlink cost in 2026? We gathered the public studies that publish real numbers: BuzzStream's analysis of more than 257,000 sites listed by link vendors, two surveys of about 500 SEO professionals each, and an Ahrefs pricing test. Every number links to the study it comes from, and was read there on .
Average price SEOs consider acceptable for one high-quality backlink
Editorial.Link, Link Building Statistics (survey of 518 SEO professionals, 2026)Average guest post bought through a vendor ($295 bought directly from the site)
BuzzStream, The Cost of Guest Posts, Based on 500k Sites (updated June 2026)Average paid link insertion into an existing article
BuzzStream, Link Building Pricing and Costs (updated October 2026)of 257,267 guest-post sites listed by vendors rated low quality
BuzzStream, The Cost of Guest Posts, Based on 500k Sites (updated June 2026)Price by link type
A guest post means an article written for the site; a link insertion (niche edit) adds your link to a page that already exists. The two Ahrefs figures come from a smaller test in which Ahrefs asked sites for prices itself.
| Link type | Average price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Guest post, bought directly from the site | $295 | BuzzStream, 257,000+ vendor-listed sites |
| Guest post, through a vendor | $461 | BuzzStream, same dataset |
| Link insertion (niche edit) | $179 | BuzzStream; only about 14% of the sites offer it |
| Digital PR link | $1,250 to $1,500 | BuzzStream author's estimate from his own campaigns, not a database average |
| Niche edit, Ahrefs test | $361.44 | 450 sites asked to sell a link; 12.6% agreed |
| Paid guest post, Ahrefs test | $77.80 | 180 sites pitched with a guest post |
Sources: BuzzStream, The Cost of Guest Posts, Based on 500k Sites (updated June 2026); BuzzStream, Link Building Pricing and Costs (updated October 2026); Ahrefs, Should You Buy Backlinks? It Depends (2024)
Price by niche
Average guest post price through a vendor, by industry. Gambling sits at the bottom because most of the gambling sites listed have no organic traffic at all.
| Niche | Average guest post price |
|---|---|
| Sports | $572 |
| News & Media | $567 |
| Health & Wellness | $352 |
| Ecommerce | $341 |
| Adult and Gambling | $238 |
Source: BuzzStream, The Cost of Guest Posts, Based on 500k Sites (updated June 2026)
The pricing curve, visualized
The average guest post price climbs with a site's organic traffic, then varies again by niche.
Where the market is heading
76% of SEO professionals would pay $300 or more for one high-quality placement; the largest group (31%) would pay $500 to $1,000.
Reporter Outreach, State of Link Building 2026 (survey of 500 SEO professionals)64% spend $3,000 or more a month on link building; 38% spend $6,000 or more.
Reporter Outreach, State of Link Building 2026 (survey of 500 SEO professionals)75% expect link costs to rise over the next two years; 8% expect them to fall.
Reporter Outreach, State of Link Building 2026 (survey of 500 SEO professionals)80.9% believe link building will become more expensive over the next 2 to 3 years.
Editorial.Link, Link Building Pricing (2026)Price follows authority and real traffic. A bargain is a warning sign.
Through a vendor, a guest post averages $461 and reaches about $3,000 on DR 80+ sites, while 96.2% of the sites listed for sale are rated low quality and 39.6% get no organic traffic at all. A price far below the band for a site's authority usually means thin traffic, a link network or recycled inventory. Check the site's traffic, relevance and indexation before you pay, and read Google's link spam policies before you buy at all.
Methodology & sources
This index gathers published pricing data into one view. We did not run a survey of our own. Each figure was read in the study itself on ; when a study is rewritten, as BuzzStream's two were in 2026, the index takes the new figures and drops the old ones. Sources:
- BuzzStream, The Cost of Guest Posts, Based on 500k Sites (updated June 2026)
- BuzzStream, Link Building Pricing and Costs (updated October 2026)
- Editorial.Link, Link Building Statistics (survey of 518 SEO professionals, 2026)
- Editorial.Link, Link Building Pricing (2026)
- Reporter Outreach, State of Link Building 2026 (survey of 500 SEO professionals)
- Ahrefs, Should You Buy Backlinks? It Depends (2024)
Download the dataset (CSV) · Full methodology
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<figure style="font-family:system-ui,sans-serif;border:1px solid #e7e1d4;border-radius:14px;padding:20px;max-width:520px"><div style="font:600 12px/1 system-ui;letter-spacing:.12em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#21506b">Angle Link Pricing Index 2026</div><div style="font:700 36px/1.1 system-ui;color:#0e1116;margin:8px 0">~$500</div><div style="font:400 14px/1.5 system-ui;color:#586273">What SEOs consider an acceptable price for one quality backlink ($508.95 on average, Editorial.Link survey). Guest posts average $461 through a vendor and about $3,000 on DR 80+ sites (BuzzStream).</div><div style="font:400 12px/1.4 system-ui;color:#586273;margin-top:10px">Compiled by the <a href="https://angletutoring.com/link-pricing-index" style="color:#21506b">Angle Link Pricing Index 2026</a></div></figure>Free to cite with a link to this page. The fastest way to earn links like the studies above is to publish data worth citing, see white-hat link building and our full SEO statistics.