Prefer AI? Summarize this with ChatGPT,
Claude,
Google AI Overview, or
Perplexity.
You asked a site to mention your product for free. The reply was a rate card: "Link insertion: $80. Guest post: $100."
If you search for what a link insertion is, almost every guide on the first page is written by a company that sells them. They all say the same thing: insertions are faster and cheaper than guest posts, and here is our package.
We had a different view. Mentiohunt emails sites on behalf of the businesses using it, and every email asks for a free link. When sites answer with a price instead, we record it. Here is what 75 of them asked for a link insertion, what that means for your budget, and how to get the same link without paying.
Paid link insertion offers, Jul 24 – Nov 6, 2026
These numbers come from the same outreach data behind our link building statistics, which cover reply rates, price quotes and won links across all link types.
TL;DR: A link insertion is your link added to an article that already exists. Sellers in our data asked a typical $90, and on rate cards that listed both, an insertion cost about 14% less than a guest post, not half. Where the page sits matters more than the site's DR. Almost no seller offers the rel="sponsored" marking Google requires for paid links. The free version comes from giving the editor a reason the link improves the page.
What a link insertion is
A link insertion, also called a niche edit or curated link, is a link added to an article that's already published and indexed. Nobody writes a new post. The site owner edits a sentence, or adds one, so it points to your page.
Sites agree to it because it costs them almost nothing. The page already exists, already ranks or gets traffic, and adding a link takes a minute.
That's also why it appeals to buyers. The page has history, so the link doesn't wait for a brand-new post to be crawled and indexed.
The free version and the paid version
Most guides describe only the paid version: you pay for a spot in someone's article. But a link insertion is just the format. Whether money changes hands depends on why the editor agrees.
The free version happens when your link makes the page better for its readers:
- A list that's missing you. A "best X tools" article that skips a tool readers would want.
- A dead link. The article cites a page that no longer exists, and yours covers the same thing. The broken link outreach template shows how to point it out.
- A resource page. A curated list of links built to help visitors, covered in the resource page link building guide.
- An existing mention. The article already names your brand but doesn't link to it. The unlinked brand mention finder surfaces those.
This is most of what free outreach is. Of the roughly 11,900 sites Mentiohunt has emailed since late June, 85% were asked to add a link to a page that already exists, not to publish a new post.
And it works without money more often than the rate cards suggest. Of the 31 links customers have marked as won, 15 came from sites that never mentioned a price.
What 75 sellers asked for a link insertion
Between July 24 and November 6, 2026, 75 publishers answered free outreach with a paid link insertion offer. 49 of them quoted in US dollars: a typical $90, with the middle half between $50 and $150.
On the same rate card, an insertion is barely cheaper
The common claim is that insertions cost a fraction of a guest post. 25 sellers listed both prices in the same reply, which gives a fair comparison: same site, same seller, same day.
| On the same rate card | Rate cards |
|---|---|
| Insertion cheaper than a guest post | 16 |
| Same price | 7 |
| Insertion more expensive | 2 |
The typical pair was $80 for the insertion and $100 for the guest post. Across all 25, the insertion came in about 14% below the guest post. Some sellers didn't bother pricing them separately at all and quoted "guest post or link insertion" as one line.
The practical point: if you'd write the guest post anyway, the insertion doesn't save you much money. It saves you the writing.
Where the page sits sets the price more than DR
How Mentiohunt found the site changed the asking price more than the site's strength did:
| Where the site was found | Insertion quotes | Typical price |
|---|---|---|
| An article that links to a competitor | 44 | $50 |
| A "best X tools" list | 25 | $134.50 |
A competitor's link in an article is a strong hint that the article sells spots. The good news is that those spots were the cheapest. A place in a list your buyers read is closer to advertising, and sites price it that way.
Domain rating (DR, Ahrefs' 0–100 score for link strength) showed no clear pattern. Sites at DR 40–59 asked a typical $60 (51 quotes), while sites at DR 20–39 asked $125 (14 quotes). The samples are small, but a seller who says price simply follows DR isn't describing these quotes.
Marketplace numbers run higher. BuzzStream's link building pricing data, from about 63,000 sites listed on link marketplaces, puts the average insertion at $179. Marketplaces list sites that sell links as a business, while our quotes come from sites answering an unsolicited email. The link building cost breakdown covers guest posts and sponsored listings too.
Link insertion vs guest post
| Link insertion | Guest post | |
|---|---|---|
| Who writes | Nobody new. The site edits an existing article | You write a new article |
| Time to go live | Fast. Some sellers promise 24 to 48 hours | Slower. Writing, editing and review |
| Control over the context | Low. You get a sentence in someone else's text | High. You choose the angle and the surrounding copy |
| Page history | The page is already indexed and may already rank | A new page starts from zero |
| Typical ask on the same rate card | $80 | $100 |
| Main risk | Existing articles often carry several paid links already | Sites that accept any topic tend to sell to anyone |
An insertion fits when a specific article already reaches your buyers. A guest post fits when you have something worth saying at article length, and the guest posting guide covers how to pitch one.
What insertion rate cards promise, and what to check
The 75 insertion offers tell you a lot about what you'd be buying:
- 23 of 75 promised a do-follow link, and only 4 offered to mark it
rel="sponsored"without being asked. Google's link spam policy allows a paid link only with that marking orrel="nofollow". - 17 of 75 promised a "permanent" link. Permanent lasts as long as the site, the article and the seller's goodwill.
- 20 of 75 offered to replace or update an existing link, which means someone else's link may come out to make room for yours.
- 11 of 75 mentioned casino, CBD, betting or crypto rates. That's far fewer than guest post sellers, where 84 of 181 did. Insertion sellers in our data looked less like link farms, but one in seven still sells to anyone.
Before you pay for an insertion, check:
- The exact page, not the domain. Ask for the URL. Confirm it's indexed with the Google index checker and that it gets real organic traffic.
- Topic fit. Would your buyers read this article if your link weren't in it?
- Other commercial links. If the article already links to five products, yours adds little.
- The link marking. Ask for
rel="sponsored". After it goes live, confirm it with the dofollow link checker. - What "permanent" means. Ask what happens if the article is rewritten or removed.
To estimate what a specific site should charge, the backlink price calculator gives a fair range from its authority and traffic.
How to ask for a free link insertion
A free insertion request works when it's about the editor's article, not your product. Three things make the difference:
- Name the exact spot. The section or sentence where your link fits, so the editor doesn't have to search.
- Say why it helps their reader. Missing option, dead link, outdated number.
- Make it a one-minute edit. Offer the sentence, ready to paste.
Hi Sam,
I was reading your list of project management tools for small agencies. The section on client portals mentions two tools, and both now charge per client seat, which your intro says readers want to avoid.
We built a flat-price alternative for exactly that case. If it's useful, here's a line you could drop into that section:
"For a flat monthly price with unlimited client logins, [Product] is worth a look."
No worries if it doesn't fit. Thanks for keeping the list up to date.
If the reply is a rate card, you can still answer politely and say you don't pay for links. Sometimes that turns into a free mention. If the site only works with paid placements, move on.
For the full structure of a pitch like this, from subject line to the closing line that keeps the conversation going, Ahrefs' lesson on blogger outreach is a good 13-minute walkthrough:
The takeaway
A link insertion is worth having when the article reaches your buyers. Ask for it for free first: most free outreach is already an insertion request, and in our data about half of the links customers won came from sites that never mentioned money. If you do pay, pay for a specific page with real readers, expect to spend roughly what a guest post costs, and ask for the link to be marked sponsored.
To find the articles where your link fits, start with the pages that already link to your competitors. The competitor backlink gap tool lists them. Or let Mentiohunt's automated link building tool find the existing pages where your product fits and send a free request to each one, on a flat monthly plan. When a reply quotes a price, it's flagged in your dashboard, the sequence stops, and you decide how to answer. You take over every conversation at the first reply, and the publisher still decides whether to link.
How we got these numbers
- Source: replies to first emails Mentiohunt sent on behalf of its customers between July 24 and November 6, 2026. Every email asked for a free mention or link, never a paid one.
- Price quotes: an AI check on every human reply, tuned on 431 real replies with 118 checked by hand. At the setting we use, every flagged reply in the test sample was a real quote.
- Counted per seller: each email address is counted once, with its first quote, so a seller answering for several sites doesn't count twice. The "where the site was found" and DR tables count per site (82 insertion quotes).
- Rate card pairs: we read the insertion and guest post prices from each reply and checked all 25 pairs by hand.
- Promises and warning signs: counted by matching words in the reply (do-follow, sponsored, permanent, replace, casino and similar), with a sample read by hand.
- What these are not: prices anyone paid. They are asking prices before any negotiation. No site, seller or customer is named.
- More from the same data: reply rates by site strength and how the site was found are in the link building outreach statistics.
Founder at Mentiohunt. Building distribution tools for founders and small marketing teams. Writes about backlink building and founder-led growth.
Turn this guide into a weekly opportunity queue.
Mentiohunt finds relevant backlink opportunities from your site, competitors and keywords, explains why each one fits, and runs the outreach through the first reply. The preview is free and sends nothing.
