linkpreneur Link Price Index / Key findings, October 2026
What publishers asked us for a link,
July to October 2026.
Every figure on this page comes from one count of our own records. The live price index keeps counting; this page stays as it was counted, so a number quoted from it today is the number here tomorrow. We sell links, so weigh the source, and read the method before you quote a figure.
- Counted
- 25 October 2026, 16:29 UTC
- Publisher quotes
- 333 from 236 sites
- Quotes recorded
- 31 July to 22 October 2026
- Verdicts
- since 19 August 2026, as recorded when counted
In short
Seven findings, each with its sample.
- 01
Publishers asked a median of $120 for a link in an existing article. 213 of 236 sites (90%) asked $150 or less.
- 02
Sites over 50,000 estimated monthly visits asked a median of $160 (11 sites, a small group); sites under 1,000 asked $110 (67 sites). Per 1,000 monthly visitors, that is $299 against $1.34.
- 03
Under 1,000 monthly visits, asks ran from $50 to $300 (67 sites); over 50,000, from $70 to $220 (11 sites, a small group). The lowest and highest are single sites.
- 04
Sites we turned down asked a median of $120 (153 sites); sites we approved asked $118 (53 sites).
- 05
We turned down 154 of the 207 sites we decided on (74%). The most common reason: an audience outside the buyer's market (61 sites).
- 06
62 of 236 priced sites (26%) get more than half of their estimated search traffic from the US. They asked a median of $110; the other 174 asked $120.
- 07
Across 11 subjects with four sites or more, the median ask ran from $100 to $130.
What a link costs
Link prices sit in a narrow band.
Each site counts once: the average of everything it asked us, then the median across sites. These are asking prices for a link in an existing article, not what was paid.
Half the sites asked less, half asked more. 236 sites.
Half of all sites asked within this range.
213 of 236 sites.
How the asks are spread
Sites per fifty-dollar step of their ask.
14 sites asked $200 or more. The cheapest site asked $50, the dearest $300; each of those is one site.
Price against audience
Traffic is not what you pay for.
Sites grouped by their estimated monthly organic visits. The median ask rises with the audience, but far less than the audience does.
| Monthly organic visits | Sites | Median ask | Middle half | Lowest to highest | Median per 1,000 visitors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 1,000 | 67 | $110 | $85 to $130 | $50 to $300 | $299 |
| 1,000 to 10,000 | 120 | $110 | $100 to $130 | $70 to $230 | $47 |
| 10,000 to 50,000 | 38 | $120 | $107 to $140 | $60 to $300 | $5.05 |
| Over 50,000 | 11 small | $160 | $120 to $200 | $70 to $220 | $1.34 |
Small: fewer than 15 sites, so one or two sites move the median.
Per 1,000 visitors: each site's ask divided by its own monthly estimate, then the median of the band.
Across all 236 sites, ten times the traffic came with about 12% more asked. That is a slope fitted on log scales, a summary rather than a law. The rank correlation between traffic and ask is 0.26, where 0 is none and 1 is a perfect match.
Lowest and highest are single sites by definition. Read them next to the medians, never on their own.
Price against our verdict
Price is not a quality signal.
We check every site before a buyer sees it. Here are the asks of the sites we turned down next to the sites we approved, and why sites were turned down.
Median ask, 153 sites. Middle half $90 to $140.
Median ask, 53 sites. Middle half $105 to $130.
Median ask, 30 sites. Middle half $100 to $130.
Verdicts as recorded on 25 October 2026 at 16:29 UTC, everything since 19 August 2026. A verdict is judged against what a buyer needs, such as the countries they sell in, so a site turned down for one buyer might suit another.
Why sites were turned down
We turned down 154 of the 207 sites we decided on (74%); 70 more were still being checked. One reason per site, the one it was turned down for.
Sites reach our checks after we found them for a buyer, so obvious spam may never have entered the count. The share of spam signals is a floor, not the spam rate of the market.
Where the readers are
Mostly-US audiences are scarce, and they do not cost more.
Country splits are DataForSEO estimates of organic search traffic only, not direct or social visits.
62 of 236 sites.
Median ask, 62 sites. Middle half $95 to $135.
Median ask, 174 sites. Middle half $100 to $130.
In our approved network, the US is the largest audience on 34 of 53 sites, and more than half of the audience on 12.
The medians do not rise for mostly-US sites. That does not show that US readers are worth less.
By subject
The subject of a site barely changes the ask.
Subjects come from our own classifier. Subjects with fewer than four sites are left out, and the sample leans to technology, so do not read this as finance or health links as a whole.
| Subject | Sites | Median ask | Middle half | Lowest to highest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| News and media | 34 | $120 | $100 to $130 | $70 to $220 |
| Hosting and infrastructure | 32 | $120 | $100 to $140 | $60 to $300 |
| Education | 31 | $110 | $90 to $140 | $70 to $200 |
| VPN and security | 25 | $130 | $110 to $140 | $80 to $250 |
| Business and finance | 21 | $110 | $100 to $140 | $80 to $160 |
| General technology | 20 | $110 | $90 to $120 | $60 to $140 |
| Marketing and SEO | 17 | $110 | $90 to $120 | $75 to $180 |
| SaaS and software reviews | 15 | $120 | $100 to $120 | $75 to $160 |
| Development and programming | 11 small | $107 | $100 to $120 | $80 to $180 |
| Ecommerce | 10 small | $100 | $90 to $120 | $70 to $200 |
| Health and wellness | 7 small | $100 | $90 to $105 | $50 to $160 |
Small: fewer than 15 sites, so one or two sites move the median.
Casino-adjacent sites (4 sites) are counted in every total above but are not a row: our vetting keeps them out for every buyer.
Method and limits
How this was counted, and what it cannot tell you.
- What is counted
- Every price a publisher named us for a link in an existing article, from our own records. Verdicts are our own vetting decisions.
- Period
- Quotes recorded 31 July to 22 October 2026; verdicts since 19 August 2026; counted 25 October 2026, 16:29 UTC. A quote recorded after 22 October 2026 is not in these figures.
- One site, one vote
- Quotes are averaged per site first. Medians, not averages; with an even count, the lower of the two middle values. No group under four sites.
- Outside estimates
- Monthly organic visits and the country split are DataForSEO estimates, used only to group sites. They are not the publishers' own analytics.
- Known bias
- These are the sites we approached for our buyers so far, which leans to technology, hosting and security. Asking prices, not what was paid.
- Who we are
- Linkpreneur sells links. We publish this because we pass publisher prices on at cost; judge the data with that in mind.
- Privacy
- No domain, no publisher, no price that points to one site, and no group small enough to identify anyone.
- Frozen
- This page, the CSV and the JSON read one stored count. The JSON file is that count byte for byte; its SHA-256 is printed below.
Take the data
The figures, as CSV and JSON.
The aggregates on this page: counts, medians and ranges per group, with the period and the moment they were counted. No domains and no single sites.
Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit Linkpreneur.
SHA-256 of the JSON: d5f55aeb6ee852ea79961a56cf2d367a3bded8ffec2e9b4db106291089660a80
Cite this
Linkpreneur, "Link Price Index: Key Findings, October 2026", 333 publisher quotes across 236 sites, https://www.linkpreneur.com/price-index/2026-10.
Source line
Source: Linkpreneur Link Price Index (own records), 236 sites, quotes 31 July to 22 October 2026.
Embed the chart
The code shows the chart with its source line. The link is on our name only and carries rel="nofollow"; you may drop the link and keep the source as text. Linking is never a condition of using the data. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: credit Linkpreneur.
<figure style="margin:0">
<img src="https://www.linkpreneur.com/price-index/2026-10/chart.png" width="1200" height="630" style="max-width:100%;height:auto" alt="Median asking price per link by estimated monthly organic visits, October 2026">
<figcaption>Source: <a href="https://www.linkpreneur.com/price-index/2026-10" rel="nofollow">Linkpreneur</a> Link Price Index (own records), 236 sites, quotes 31 July to 22 October 2026.</figcaption>
</figure>Know where every
dollar goes.
Publisher prices at cost. A fixed fee per link. A membership only if it pays off for you.