Adsy Alternatives: 6 Options Compared on Price, Fees and Refunds
Adsy is a guest posting marketplace: you top up a balance, filter a catalogue of what it says is more than 150,000 sites, pick one, and the publisher writes or places your article at a price the publisher sets. People look for an Adsy alternative for three reasons: the no-refund policy, prices they cannot compare before signing up, or wanting links they did not pay a marketplace for. This page compares six options on those three points, all checked on 27 September 2026, and adds what publishers told us when we skipped the marketplace and asked them directly.
If you like the marketplace model, Icopify is the closest swap with a partial refund rule, and WhitePress is the larger catalogue. If the refund policy is the problem, a fixed-price vendor like FATJOE fits better.
Cheapest entry: Icopify, listings from $9.99, $25 minimum top-up.
Fixed price per DR band: FATJOE, from $81 at DR10+.
No per-link price at all: MentionAgent, from $99/mo flat.
MentionAgent emailed site owners directly and logged 2,962 reply threads from 2,407 domains between 7 March and 27 September 2026. Not one publisher pointed us to Adsy or Icopify.
Marketplaces named: one publisher offered its PRNews.io listing as an option, at the same $55 it quoted directly.
Fees on top: PRNews.io told us it adds a 15 to 18% service fee to the listed price.
Direct prices move: one site quoted its guest post at $450 on 17 August and $700 a week later.
Quick comparison
Every figure below is what the vendor states on its own site, or told us in writing, as of 27 September 2026. DR is the Ahrefs Domain Rating of the vendor's own domain on the same day. "Set by publisher" means the marketplace does not fix the price; it is not a claim that the service is cheap.
| Option | DR | Model | Price | Refunds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adsy (baseline) | 73 | Marketplace, 150K+ sites stated | Set by publisher, seen after sign-up | Final and non-refundable |
| Icopify | 71 | Marketplace, 102,434+ sites stated | From $9.99, $25 minimum top-up | If the publisher broke its own rules; balance credit if the link goes within 180 days |
| WhitePress | 75 | Marketplace, 147,000+ sites in 36 languages stated | Set by publisher | Could not check |
| Collaborator | 70 | Marketplace, 40K+ sites and 3K+ Telegram channels stated | Set by publisher | Could not check |
| PRNews.io | 70 | Marketplace with a service fee | Listed price plus 15 to 18% | Could not check |
| FATJOE | 72 | Fixed price per DR band, no site choice | $81 (DR10+) to $513 (DR60+) | Money-back guarantee stated |
| MentionAgent | 24 | Outreach software, flat monthly | $99/mo, 50 free credits to start | Not a per-link purchase |
FATJOE's price list was checked on 1 October 2026 for our FATJOE alternatives page, which has the full DR-band table. PRNews.io's site blocked our fetcher, so its row is based on what its own team wrote to us in June 2026, quoted below.
How Adsy works and what it charges
Adsy has two sides. Publishers list their sites and set their own prices; advertisers sign up, top up a balance, and order from the catalogue. On the advertiser side you pick between placing content you wrote and "Writing & Placement", where the publisher writes the post. Adsy's FAQ explains that the writing price covers a base length and a longer article costs extra.
The filters are the useful part. Adsy says it has 20+ filters covering Moz DA, Ahrefs DR and Google Analytics traffic, and each publisher profile shows three numbers:
- Average completion rate: how many accepted tasks the publisher actually finished.
- Tasks with initial domain and price: how often the post went live on the site you ordered, at the price you saw. Adsy colours anything under 50% red.
- Average lifetime of links: how long placements stay up. Under 70% is red.
That second metric is telling. A marketplace only needs to measure "did the post land on the site you ordered, at the price you saw" if it sometimes does not. Filter on all three before you look at DR.
Adsy does not publish a price list outside the logged-in catalogue, so there is no honest single price to quote. What you can check before signing up is what the same type of placement costs elsewhere: our backlink cost breakdown and niche edits pricing pages both carry vendor prices and publisher quotes.
The refund question
This is the most common reason people leave. Adsy's terms, read on 27 September 2026, say every payment is converted into Adsy Credits, a prepaid balance, and that "once Adsy Credits are purchased, the payment is final and non-refundable". Adsy may refund to your card or PayPal within 30 days, but only if the payment was made in error and no credits were spent. Its FAQ repeats that all purchases are final and suggests sending the task back to the publisher with comments instead.
Two consequences are easy to miss. Credits left in an account that gets terminated are not refundable either. And changes to published, paid content are not allowed, so an article that goes live with the wrong anchor stays that way unless the publisher agrees to fix it.
Compare Icopify, which says a refund is possible if the publisher did not follow its own publication rules, and credits your balance if a link is deleted within 180 days. Neither is a cash refund once the order is done, but only one of the two gives you a documented route to money back.
1. Icopify: the closest like-for-like swap
Icopify is the same model as Adsy: a two-sided guest post marketplace where publishers set prices and buyers pay through a balance. It runs two domains, icopify.com (DR 42) for its marketing site and icopify.co (DR 71) for the platform, which states 102,434+ vetted websites and 34,236+ active publishers.
- Price: listings "from only $9.99"; top-ups start at $25 by card, PayPal or crypto.
- Listing bar: publishers need DR over 20, Moz DA over 20 with spam score under 20%, 500+ monthly visitors, 100+ indexed pages and a domain at least six months old. PBNs are not allowed.
- Refunds: possible if the publisher broke its own rules; balance credit if the link is removed within 180 days.
- Publisher side: weekly payouts with a 10% deduction, which is part of why low-priced listings exist.
Pick it over Adsy if you want a published listing floor and a written refund route. It shares the same weakness: the site decides the price and you judge quality from metrics. Our Icopify alternatives page covers it in more depth.
2. WhitePress: the larger European catalogue
WhitePress says it has publications on 147,000+ websites, 386,000+ offers and 12 years in the market, with copywriting in 36 languages. Alongside article publication it sells link insertion into existing articles, brand mentions and a digital PR product, plus a Backlink Manager for tracking what you bought.
Pick it over Adsy if you need non-English markets: its catalogue and copywriting are built around them, which Adsy's is not. Prices are set per publisher and shown after sign-up. We could not find a refund policy on the pages we loaded, so ask before you top up.
3. Collaborator: the catalogue with traffic data
Collaborator states 40K+ websites and 3K+ Telegram channels, and its public catalogue preview showed 45,109 sites on 27 September 2026, 8,500+ of them with Google Analytics data and 7,000+ verified through Search Console. It filters on 70+ parameters, and each listing shows traffic by country and source, publisher reviews and delivery speed before you order.
Pick it over Adsy if verified traffic matters more to you than catalogue size. The Telegram channels are a genuine difference if your audience is there. It ranks at #2 for "icopify alternative" with its own comparison page, which tells you it competes for exactly this buyer.
4. PRNews.io: marketplace with a stated fee
PRNews.io lists media and blogs with a published price per placement. Its team replied to one of our outreach emails in June 2026 with its own blog's rates: a guest post at $500 plus a 15 to 18% service fee, a link insertion into an existing article at $150 plus the fee, and writing at $100 per article. It declined a mention exchange, saying "any collaboration would be on a paid basis".
Pick it over Adsy if you want PR-leaning publications and a fee you can calculate up front. Budget the 15 to 18% on top of every listed price. Our digital PR costs page compares it with agency pricing.
5. FATJOE: fixed price, no browsing
FATJOE is a different model. You do not pick a site; you pick a DR band, and FATJOE finds the site and writes the post. On 1 October 2026 blogger outreach and niche edits both cost $81 at DR10+ rising to $513 at DR60+, with a money-back guarantee and a lifetime link guarantee stated on its site.
Pick it over Adsy if the refund policy and the time spent browsing listings are the problem. The trade is control: you cannot choose or approve the site before the post goes live. See our FATJOE review for the details.
6. MentionAgent: no marketplace in the middle
MentionAgent is the option that does not sell links. It finds blogs already writing about your topic, qualifies each domain, finds and verifies the editor's email, writes a pitch against the specific post and sends it from a warmed inbox on a sending domain set up for you. Replies come back to your dashboard or Telegram, where you approve what goes out.
The deal it proposes is a contextual mention exchange: they mention you in a relevant post, you mention them in one of yours. Sites that ask for a fee are turned down rather than paid, so it will not replace Adsy if paid placements are what you want. It costs $99/mo flat with 50 free credits to start, and it runs from Claude Code, Cursor or any MCP agent as well as the dashboard. See MentionAgent pricing and our backlink exchange platform comparison for how the exchange model differs from a swap pool.
What publishers say when you ask them directly
MentionAgent works the other way round from a marketplace: it finds blogs already writing about a customer's topic and emails the person who runs each one, asking for an editorial mention. Between 7 March and 27 September 2026 that produced 2,962 reply threads from 2,407 distinct domains. We searched every reply for the names of link marketplaces.
No publisher mentioned Adsy or Icopify. One, webutility.io, offered two routes to the same $55 guest post: a submission tool called EditorialFlow, or its listing on PRNews.io. The price was identical either way, which means a buyer using the marketplace route pays the marketplace's fee on top of the same $55. PRNews.io's own team told us that fee is 15 to 18%.
The other thing direct replies show is that prices move. A group running several design and marketing blogs quoted a 1,500-word guest post on one of them at $450 on 17 August 2026, and at $700 in replies on 24 August and 7 September. The same group quoted link insertions on its other sites at $200 to $450. A marketplace listing shows one price; an email thread shows the price is a starting point.
Asking directly costs time rather than a fee, and you lose the escrow a marketplace holds. For the mechanics of asking well, see our link outreach guide; for when a publisher asks for money, buying backlinks covers what you are taking on.
Method: case-insensitive search of every inbound reply body for marketplace names, excluding mail from the marketplaces' own domains. A mention counts once per replying domain. Quotes are asking prices, not completed purchases.
Reading other "Adsy alternatives" lists
Most lists of Adsy alternatives are not neutral. When we checked the first page of results for this search on 27 September 2026, four were software directories whose lists are built from category tags, which is why they suggest content marketing suites next to link marketplaces, and two were link sellers recommending themselves. Before trusting a list, check who wrote it and whether its prices carry a date.
How to choose
- You like marketplaces but hate the refund policy: Icopify, for its published refund route and listing floor.
- You need non-English markets: WhitePress.
- You want to see verified traffic before paying: Collaborator.
- You want PR-style publications and a fee you can calculate: PRNews.io, plus 15 to 18%.
- You do not want to browse at all: FATJOE's fixed DR-band prices.
- You want mentions you did not pay a marketplace for: run outreach yourself, by hand or with an outreach agent. Our blogger outreach tools comparison covers the software.
For the wider buying picture, see guest posting services, outsource link building and affordable link building.
Ask the site before you pay the marketplace
MentionAgent finds the blogs in your niche, emails the person who runs each one and brings back their answer, whether that is a yes, a no or a price. From $99/mo flat, no per-link fees.
See how MentionAgent worksFrequently asked questions
What is the best Adsy alternative?
It depends on what you want to change. For a cheaper self-serve marketplace with a partial refund policy, Icopify, which lists from $9.99. For a bigger European catalogue in 36 languages, WhitePress. For a site-by-site catalogue with traffic data, Collaborator. For a fixed price per DR band with no browsing, FATJOE from $81. For earning mentions through your own outreach instead of buying them, MentionAgent from $99/mo. Checked 27 September 2026.
Can you get a refund on Adsy?
Rarely. Adsy's terms, read on 27 September 2026, convert every payment into Adsy Credits and call the purchase final and non-refundable. Adsy may refund to the original payment method within 30 days only if the payment was made in error and no credits were used. Its FAQ says all purchases are final and asks buyers to send a task back to the publisher for improvement instead.
How much does Adsy cost?
There is no single price. Each publisher sets its own price for placement, or for writing and placement, and a longer article costs extra. Adsy does not publish a price list on a public pricing page; you see prices after signing up and filtering its catalogue of what it says is more than 150,000 sites.
Is it cheaper to contact the publisher directly instead of using Adsy?
Often, because a marketplace adds its margin or a service fee. PRNews.io told us in writing that it adds a 15 to 18 percent service fee on top of the listed price, and a publisher that lists on PRNews.io quoted us the same 55 dollar price directly. The trade-off is that direct deals have no escrow, so you carry the risk of a site taking payment and not publishing.
Is Adsy legit?
Adsy is a real, operating marketplace with a registered address in Delaware. The questions worth asking are about the product, not the company: purchases are non-refundable, the publisher sets the price, and quality depends on the site you pick. Adsy shows each publisher's completion rate, how often posts go live on the original domain at the original price, and average link lifetime, and those three numbers are the best filter it gives you.