Nobody tells you this before you fund a marketplace balance: the price on the listing is rarely the whole price.
There’s a fee on the deposit. There’s the link that disappears in week three. There’s the traffic figure that turns out to be half of what Ahrefs shows. And when something does go wrong, you get whatever the refund policy allows, which you probably never read.
So we read them. This comparison gives catalog size the least weight, since every marketplace claims a huge one. We cared more about the fees on top of the price, what each company says it will do when an order fails, and what buyers write after they’ve been through it.
How we compared them
We went through each marketplace’s homepage, FAQ and policy pages in 2027, then checked independent reviews where there were enough reviews to mean anything. We didn’t place test orders, so what follows is what each company promises in writing and what other buyers report. When a number came only from a third-party review, we say so.
A warning about Trustpilot scores: the reviewers on several of these platforms are a mix of buyers and publishers, and some companies haven’t invited customers to review recently. Treat the scores as a hint, nothing more.
Quick comparison
| Marketplace | Catalog | Fees on top of the price | If something goes wrong | Pick it if |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linkscope | 10,300+ sites | None stated; pay per link, no subscription or minimum | Refund or replacement for late delivery; removed links refunded during a 30-day tracking window | You want visible metrics and a cheap first order |
| Collaborator | 40K+ sites | 10% commission on deposits, plus a 1 to 4% payment fee (third-party review) | Free 3-month guarantee; paid 12-month guarantee costs 10% of the placement | You need other countries and languages |
| Adsy | 150K+ sites | Not stated; publishers set prices | Credits are non-refundable once bought; link lifetime shown per publisher | You will filter hard and check history yourself |
| WhitePress | 148,000+ sites | Not stated on the homepage | 36-month guarantee with daily monitoring | You care more about longevity than price |
| Bazoom | 80,000+ outlets | No subscription or entry fee; content is in the price | No guarantee stated on the homepage | You are in a hurry |
1. Linkscope: best for checking the numbers before you spend
| Catalog | 10,300+ sites across 41 niches |
|---|---|
| Price | Pay per link. Guest posts from $5 (DR 10 to 30), $20 (DR 30 to 50), $40 (DR 50 to 80) and $80 (DR 80+). Niche edits from $15, .EDU from $30 |
| Speed | 2 to 14 days for most orders |
Among the best link building marketplaces here, Linkscope is where we’d start a new buyer. Every listing shows DR, traffic, spam score, niche, country and price before you pay. There’s no subscription, no minimum and no balance to top up, so a first test order can cost $5.
On quality, Linkscope says it manually reviews publisher applications, rejects about 80% of them and doesn’t list PBNs. We can’t check that rate from the outside, but it is a specific claim sitting on the page, which is more than most competitors offer. Content is optional. Use its native English writers or send your own article.
The refund rules are plainer than most. If a publisher misses the delivery date and then misses the revised date support gives you, you choose a full refund or a replacement site of equal or higher value. You have to tell support within 7 days, and approved refunds take 5 to 10 business days. Links removed during the 30-day tracking period are refunded automatically.
The downsides are real. Most orders take 7 to 14 days, and Bazoom says its average is 4. A 30-day tracking window looks short next to WhitePress’s 36 months, so a link that vanishes in month four is your problem. And you won’t get a refund for changing your mind, or for a metric that was visible on the listing when you ordered. That’s fair, but it means reading each listing before you click.
Agencies get white-label ordering, reports with their own logo and API access. Volume pricing starts at around $5K a month, and there’s manual outreach for odd briefs the catalog can’t cover.
Pick it for a cheap first order or if you resell links. Look elsewhere if you need links live in a few days or want years of cover.
2. Collaborator: best for reaching other countries and languages
Collaborator lists 40K+ websites and 3K+ Telegram channels across 158 countries and 53 languages. If you need a placement in Polish or Spanish, there aren’t many other places to look. About 8,500 sites have Google Analytics data attached, and its help pages say sites tagged “Fast placement” average under 24 hours.
The guarantee is written out in detail. Three things trigger the extended 12-month cover: a page that isn’t indexed within two months, a page that drops out of the index and doesn’t come back within 25 days, and a deletion that isn’t restored within 7 days. Payouts go to your balance as cash. You have to buy it when you place the order, since you can’t add it later. A free 3-month guarantee comes with every publication.
Now the fees. Collaborator charges a 10% commission on deposits, and a reviewer at Xamsor reports a further 1 to 4% payment fee at checkout. Deposit $500 and $50 goes to commission, plus $5 to $20 in payment fees, leaving between $430 and $445 to spend. Refunds of unused balance only go back to the original payment method, through a support request. The same Xamsor reviewer ranked Collaborator second out of 18 marketplaces and praised support, which answered an anonymous question in about 12 hours. He also caught two data problems: a site flagged as US traffic that got over 90% of its visitors from India, and a listing showing 26.8K visits against 59.5K in Ahrefs. So check any site yourself before you order.
Trustpilot has Collaborator at 4.2 out of 5 from 228 reviews. People like the interface and the support. The complaints come mostly from publishers (the 15% withdrawal commission, held funds), though slow crypto deposits and late posts get mentioned too.
It suits international campaigns if you budget for the fees. If you want a flat price with nothing added, look at the others.
3. Adsy: best if you like doing your homework
Adsy puts something unusual on its publisher profiles: a completion rate (how often posts went live at the quoted price on the ordered site) and an average link lifetime. Anything under 70% link lifetime is flagged red. Most marketplaces make you guess at the thing buyers worry about most, so this is a real point in Adsy’s favour.
The catalog is big (150K+ sites on the homepage) and the filters go deep: Moz DA, Ahrefs DR, Google Analytics traffic and more than 20 others. You can get alerts for new sites that match your criteria, and an automatic content check runs after a guest post goes live. Prices are set by publishers and you only see them after you sign up. One reviewer paid $32 for a guest post on a DR 43 site with about 30,800 monthly visits, and most orders finished within a few days.
The refund position is the strictest on this list. Payments convert to Adsy Credits, and the company says that once credits are bought, the payment is final. The one exception is a payment made in error, within 30 days, with no credits spent. Published content can’t be edited, and a wrong anchor stays unless the publisher agrees to fix it. No link duration is guaranteed.
Trustpilot shows 4.1 from 249 reviews: 77% five-star and 16% one-star. The good reviews mention ease of use and publisher choice. The bad ones talk about balance refunds that took weeks, tickets nobody answered, and one case where the order terms (dofollow versus nofollow) changed after purchase. Adsy blamed a display issue. A reviewer also warned that low-traffic sites slip through unless you filter carefully.
Use it if you’ll only buy from publishers with strong completion and lifetime numbers. Skip it if you want an easy way out of a bad order.
4. WhitePress: best when you want the link still there in 2030
WhitePress is the slow, careful one. It has been around for 12 years, says it has served over 30,000 customers, and offers the longest written guarantee here: a link stays live for up to three years, monitored daily. The platform lists 148,000+ websites and 389,000+ offers, and you can order content in 36 languages.
It sells more than guest posts: digital PR, link insertions, brand mentions and copywriting, plus a free Backlink Manager for monitoring. It plugs into Google Analytics, Search Console and Looker Studio, and dedicated staff will help you pick sites and build an offer. You pay as you go, in one currency, across projects.
Prices aren’t on the homepage. Third-party reviews put placements at around $150 and up, and copywriting at $40 to $125 per article. Reviewers also say the offers can get complicated, that finding the right placement takes time, and that premium sites sell out.
Trustpilot gives it 4.6 from 90 reviews, 88% of them five-star. People mention responsive staff and an easy platform. The one negative review is a publisher arguing about a rejected site. Since many reviewers look like publishers, the score says more about the seller side than the buyer side.
Choose it for multilingual campaigns where the link has to survive. It’s the wrong choice for a quick, cheap test order.
5. Bazoom: best when you’re in a hurry
Bazoom’s header advertises a 4-day average publication time, roughly half of what most Linkscope orders take. It says it connects you with 80,000+ media outlets, charges no subscription or entry fee, and includes content and publication in the price. So the number on the listing is closer to what you actually pay than at marketplaces where writing is extra.
Everything sits under one login: marketplace, content engine, strategy builder, project management and API access. Filters use Ahrefs, Moz and Semrush data, and client managers are available around the clock. The company also says it will draw up an SEO strategy for you at no extra charge. One third-party roundup lists link insertions from about $20 and articles at $20 to $40, but you’ll need to confirm that inside the platform.
The homepage doesn’t mention refunds or link duration, so ask before ordering. Trustpilot shows 4.2 from 92 reviews. Buyers like named account contacts, an easy portal and well-written content. The complaints are slow email replies, a two-week publication delay with no updates and payment problems. The same roundup said the AI search assistant often needs several rounds of prompting.
Pick it when the deadline is tight. Get the guarantee in writing first.
What fees do to a $500 budget
| Setup | What you pay beyond the listing | What you end up with |
|---|---|---|
| Pay per link (Linkscope) | Nothing stated on top of the listed price | $500 of placements |
| Balance with commission (Collaborator) | About $50 commission plus $5 to $20 in payment fees | About $430 to $445 of placements |
| Non-refundable credits (Adsy) | No stated fee, but unspent credits are hard to recover | $500 of credits, so top up in small amounts |
Fees aren’t a reason to avoid a marketplace. They’re a reason to include them when you compare quotes.
Before you fund any balance
Five questions are worth five minutes. What’s the refund rule, in plain words? If you can’t find it in two minutes, assume there isn’t much of one. How long is a removed link covered, and who pays? Thirty days, three months and 36 months are different products. Can you check the traffic yourself? Look up at least one listing in Ahrefs or Semrush before you trust the rest. What do buyers say after a failed order? Read for how it was handled, not for the five-star praise. And what’s the smallest order you can place? Start there.
One more thing. Google’s spam policies treat links bought to manipulate rankings as link spam, and paid links are expected to carry rel=”sponsored” or “nofollow”. Choose sites your audience would actually read, and don’t let authority metrics make the decision for you.
Which one should you pick?
For most people, Linkscope: the entry price is $5, the metrics are visible and the refund rules are easy to follow. Use Collaborator when you need other countries and languages and can live with the fees. Adsy is for buyers who’ll study publisher history. WhitePress is for links that need to last years, and Bazoom is for deadlines.
Whichever you choose, start small. If you can’t explain in one sentence how you’d get your money back, don’t fund the account yet. And if you’re still deciding which pages deserve links before you spend anything, this breakdown of link building strategies in SEO is a useful place to plan it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which link building marketplace is best?
It depends what you’re optimising for. Linkscope is our pick for visible metrics, a $5 entry price and clear refund rules. Collaborator suits international campaigns, Adsy suits buyers who study publisher history, WhitePress suits long guarantees and Bazoom suits speed.
Do marketplaces charge fees on top of the listed price?
Some do. Collaborator takes a 10% commission on deposits and, per one review, a small payment fee on top. Linkscope lists pay-per-link prices with no subscription or minimum, and Bazoom says its prices include content and publication. Adsy and WhitePress don’t state fees on their homepages.
Can I get a refund?
It varies a lot. Linkscope offers a refund or replacement for missed deliveries and refunds removed links in its tracking window. Collaborator refunds unused balance to the original payment method on request. Adsy says credits can’t be refunded once bought, apart from payments made in error.
Can I trust the traffic numbers on a listing?
Check first. One independent review found a listing showing 26.8K visits when Ahrefs showed 59.5K, and a site flagged as US traffic that mostly drew visitors from India. Compare at least one listing against your own SEO tool.
Is a bigger catalog better?
Not really. Adsy lists 150K+ sites and WhitePress 148,000+, but a big catalog mostly means more filtering for you. A smaller catalog with visible metrics can be easier to buy from.
How long do marketplace links last?
There’s no standard. Linkscope tracks links for 30 days, Collaborator covers 3 months for free, and WhitePress advertises 36 months. Adsy shows average link lifetime per publisher instead of a fixed guarantee.
