What a Link Building Agency Does

An agency sells a managed service. You give them a budget and a target. They use their staff, their tools, and their relationships to execute a campaign. The deliverable is usually a report showing the links they acquired.

The work happens in three stages. First, they research opportunities, which means finding websites that could link to you. Second, they conduct outreach, which means sending emails or messages to the site owners. Third, they handle the placement, which means negotiating the link's inclusion, often providing content or payment.

Most agencies operate on a monthly retainer. You might pay two thousand dollars a month for a set number of links. Some sell on a per-placement basis, where you pay a fixed price for each confirmed link, often several hundred dollars each. A few offer hybrid models with a lower retainer plus placement fees.

Pricing is not standardized. A small agency might charge $800 a month for two links. A larger one might charge $5,000 a month for a broader campaign. Per-link fees often range from $200 to $500, depending on the perceived authority of the linking site.

The cost reflects labor and risk. Research and outreach are time-intensive. Many pitches are ignored. An agency prices its service to cover the hours spent on emails that get no reply. They also factor in the risk that a promised placement falls through.

You can check published prices. Many agencies list their retainers or per-link fees on their websites. Look for phrases like 'starting at' or 'packages'. Be aware that the final invoice can include extras for content creation or premium placements.

The primary risk is that you pay for links that violate search engine guidelines. Google's link spam policy prohibits buying or selling links that pass ranking signals. If an agency pays for links on your behalf and Google detects it, the penalty lands on your site, not the agency's.

Another risk is opacity. You may receive a report listing acquired links, but you cannot see the outreach that failed or the emails that were sent. It is difficult to audit the quality of the work or the authenticity of the relationships used.

There is also a trade-off of control. The agency uses its own email accounts and domain reputation for outreach. Replies go to them. You do not own the communication thread or the developing relationship with the website owner.

Ask for a sample report from a past client, with the domain names redacted. Look for the types of websites linked, the anchor text used, and whether the links are in relevant content. A report showing only directory submissions or low-quality guest posts is a warning sign.

Ask how they vet opportunities. Do they check if a site already links to a competitor? Do they verify that a page is actually open for contributions? A credible provider should describe a filtering process, not just a volume target.

Ask about their policy on paid placements. A direct answer is required. If they say they never pay for links, ask how they handle requests for payment. If they say they sometimes pay, ask how they ensure those links do not violate search engine policies.

Check their own website's backlink profile using a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush. An agency that cannot acquire solid links for its own site may struggle to do it for yours.

Mentionry is not an agency. It is a tool that finds specific opportunities for a backlink and drafts the pitch you need to send. You give it your domain. It finds pages that link to your competitors but not to you, plus resource pages, journalist queries, and other public openings.

Every opportunity is judged individually. A model reads the page and decides if your business can honestly answer the request or fit the list. It is allowed to say no. In a measured run for one domain, 110 openings were read, 40 were judged viable, and 14 were kept for pitching.

The drafting happens in your browser. The email is sent from your own connected mailbox, using your address, your domain, and your sending reputation. Replies land in your inbox, in a thread you own. Mentionry sends the pitch, but it does not place or publish anything. Nothing here is promised.

The tool verifies outcomes. Every opening that was pitched is checked later to see if a link appeared, on which page, and with what anchor. A link that is later removed or turned nofollow shows as a change on your dashboard. This reports what was earned, not just what was sent.