Monthly link building plans, priced by what actually moves rankings
Three volume tiers, every plan is fully managed, and the price reflects publisher authority, niche difficulty, and content scope, not a fixed sticker that ignores how link building actually works. Start at 5 links per month from $600. Scale to 20 from $4,000.
Three tiers. Volume, velocity, and the right cadence for your stage.
Each tier is a price range, not a fixed price, because not all backlinks cost the same to acquire. Your strategist scopes the exact monthly cost in the kickoff call before you commit to anything.
5 links / month
Best for: Validating link building for the first time, low-to-medium difficulty niches, single-page focus.
- 5 contextual placements per month
- DA 30 – 60 publisher mix
- Content writing included
- Dedicated strategist
- Monthly placement plan + report
- Pause or cancel anytime
10 links / month
Best for: SaaS and e-commerce in growth phase, multi-page targeting, keeping pace with active competitors.
- 10 contextual placements per month
- DA 40 – 70 publisher mix
- Content writing included
- Dedicated strategist + monthly call
- Competitor backlink analysis
- Anchor text strategy + reporting
- Pause or cancel anytime
20 links / month
Best for: Competitive niches (finance, health, crypto, iGaming), market-entry pushes, enterprise sites.
- 20 contextual placements per month
- DA 50 – 80 publisher mix, tier-1 included
- Content writing included (long-form)
- Senior strategist + bi-weekly calls
- Full competitor + niche backlink audit
- Anchor diversification across topic clusters
- Priority placement queue
- Pause or cancel anytime
Custom volumes (15, 30, 50+ links per month) available for enterprise teams. Talk to a strategist.
Eight things that come standard, regardless of tier
These are the parts most agencies charge as add-ons. They're baked into every monthly plan we run.
Dedicated strategist
Single point of contact. Builds your monthly plan, reviews placements, fields your questions.
Verified publishers only
No PBNs, no link farms, no resold listings. Every site in your placement plan is verified and traffic-checked.
Content writing included
Human-written, editor-reviewed, passes Originality.ai. No surcharge unless you need long-form pillar content.
Anchor text strategy
Balanced anchor distribution across branded, generic, partial-match, and exact-match anchors based on your current profile.
White-label monthly report
Live links, ranking deltas, traffic deltas, anchor distribution, strategist commentary. Clean enough to forward to a client.
Rank tracking included
Up to 30 keywords tracked weekly. Movement reported alongside placement activity so you can see what's working.
No long-term contracts
Pause, cancel, scale up, or scale down with 30 days' notice. Month-to-month, no annual lock-in.
Replacement guarantee
If a placed link goes down within 12 months for editorial reasons, we replace it on the next month's plan at no charge.
Why our pricing is a range, not a fixed number
Every link in your plan has a different acquisition cost based on six factors. Fixed-price plans hide those factors and force the placement mix into a box that may or may not match what you actually need. Here's what shifts the price up or down within each tier.
Publisher authority (DA / DR)
A guest post on a DA 35 niche blog costs less than the same post on a DA 70 trade publication. Plans are scoped to a target authority range based on your goals.
Niche difficulty
Finance, health, legal, crypto, iGaming, and CBD niches have stricter editorial standards and fewer qualified publishers. Placement cost reflects that scarcity.
Content writing scope
A 1,500-word guest post is included at base rate. Long-form 3,000-word pillar content with original research costs more to produce and pushes the price upward in the tier.
Anchor text strategy
Branded and naked-URL anchors are easier to place than exact-match commercial anchors. Aggressive commercial anchor strategies need higher-authority publishers, which costs more.
Geo and language
English placements on US, UK, AU, or CA sites sit at the standard rate. Foreign-language placements (German, French, Spanish, Japanese) cost more because the writer pool is smaller.
Editorial standards
Some publishers run incoming guest posts through AI detectors and fact-checkers. Placements on those sites cost more because rejection rates are higher and we rework anything that doesn't pass.
Why monthly link building beats one-off campaigns
Most teams approach link building as a project. They buy 30 backlinks, watch nothing happen for a couple of months, conclude SEO is broken, and stop. Then they rebuy 30 more six months later when rankings stagnate, and the cycle repeats. The math never works because Google's algorithm doesn't respond to bursts. It responds to velocity.
Velocity is the actual ranking signal
When Google scores your domain, one of the things it weighs is the rate at which you're acquiring new referring domains over time. A site adding 5 to 20 quality backlinks every month for 12 months looks fundamentally different to the algorithm than a site that bought 50 links in week one and went dormant. The first looks like an active, growing business. The second looks like a one-time manipulation attempt.
Velocity also matters because your competitors are still building. If you stop after month two and your top three competitors keep shipping 10 backlinks a month, six months later they've put 60 fresh links between you and them. Catching back up costs more than maintaining velocity in the first place.
The math of compounding
Link equity compounds. The first link you build to a target page might move it from position 47 to position 32. The second moves it to 24. The third to 18. The fifth to 12. The eighth into the top 10. Each additional link does more than the last because the page is climbing into a band where Google's click-through-rate signals start kicking in. Stop after the third link and you never reach the band where compound effects dominate.
Monthly plans are designed around this. We size each tier so that your active target pages get enough links per month to actually clear the threshold rather than nibble around the edges.
Six months is the threshold
Across thousands of campaigns we've run, the pattern is consistent. Months 1 and 2 produce small movements: links indexed, secondary keywords climbing 5 to 10 positions, traffic ticking up single-digit percent. Months 3 and 4 produce visible movement: target keywords climbing 15 to 30 positions, traffic up 20 to 40 percent on optimized pages. Months 5 and 6 produce the wins clients actually wanted: head terms cracking the top 10, branded search volume rising, organic traffic compounding past month 1 baseline by 60 to 150 percent on most campaigns.
The teams that win are the ones who maintain cadence past month 2 when results haven't shown up yet. The teams that don't are the ones who pull the plug at month 3. Monthly plans are the commitment device that keeps the velocity going through the gap, until compounding kicks in.
Predictable spend, predictable output
The other reason marketing teams switch from project-based link buying to monthly plans: budgets get predictable. Finance approves a monthly line item once. The same number of links land every month. The strategy compounds month over month. Reporting cadence matches your internal review cadence. No more “we need $15,000 for a one-time link sprint” conversations every quarter.
From kickoff to first placements in roughly one week
Five stages. The first month sets the foundation. From month two onward, the cycle runs every 30 days.
Strategy call
30-minute kickoff with your strategist. We review your site, current rankings, target keywords, competitor backlink profile, and what's stopping you from ranking today.
Site audit + competitor backlink analysis
We pull your full backlink profile, your top 5 competitors' profiles, the link gap, and the anchor distribution. This becomes the input to month one's placement plan.
Monthly placement plan
Each month you receive a written plan: which target pages get linked, on which publishers, with which anchor text, and what content topics. You approve before anything goes live.
Outreach, writing, placement
We handle publisher outreach, content writing, editorial back-and-forth, and final placement. You only see the finished link going live.
Reporting + next month's plan
End of month: full report with placements, rankings, traffic, and the strategist's read on what to lean into next month. Loop continues.
Six types of teams who run our monthly plans
Different stages, different tier choices. The common thread: they need predictable, monthly link velocity instead of one-off purchases.
SaaS scaling past $10k MRR
You've nailed product-market fit. Now you need predictable inbound from search. The 10-link tier hits the cadence to actually move your priority keywords without overcommitting budget before you've validated SEO ROI.
E-commerce in competitive verticals
Beauty, supplements, fashion, home goods. The 20-link tier matches the link velocity of category leaders. Anything less and you're falling behind month over month.
Local businesses in capital cities
Law firms, dentists, agencies in London, NYC, Sydney, Singapore. The 5-link tier with strict local-relevance filtering moves the local pack and the geo-modified head terms.
Agencies subcontracting link building
You're a marketing agency without an in-house link team. White-label this under your brand. Most agencies run the 10 or 20 tier across multiple clients and bill at 2x markup.
B2B teams with quarterly OKRs
Marketing teams with quarterly traffic targets, board reporting, and budget approval cycles. The monthly plan gives predictable spend and predictable output for the quarterly review.
Sites in YMYL niches
Finance, health, legal. E-E-A-T signals matter more than raw link volume. The 20-link tier with tier-1 PR placements and topical clusters builds the entity authority Google looks for.
Monthly plan vs traditional agency vs in-house
The same monthly link velocity, four different ways to deliver it. Here's where each option lands.
| Dimension | Serpbays monthly | Traditional agency | In-house team | DIY marketplace |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost (10 links) | $2,000 – $4,000 | $5,000 – $15,000 | $2,500 – $5,000 | $1,000 – $3,000 |
| Strategy work included | Yes | Yes | Limited | No |
| Verified publishers | Yes, vetted network | Mixed | Mixed | Whatever you find |
| Content writing included | Yes | Yes | Sometimes | No |
| Reporting | White-label monthly | White-label monthly | Basic | DIY |
| Setup time | 1 week | 2 – 4 weeks | Variable | Months |
| Lock-in | Month-to-month | 6 – 12 month contracts | Project-based | N/A |
| Quality control | Editor + AI detector | Agency-dependent | Hit or miss | Yours |
Questions before you book a plan
Everything we get asked, answered.
Sign up, scope your plan, get the first placements live in a week
No long-term contracts. No setup fees. The kickoff call is free, and the strategist will tell you which tier actually fits before you commit a dollar.