What to Do When a Blogger Asks for Money for a Backlink

You found the right blog, wrote a good pitch and got a reply. Then the reply says: "We charge $150 for a link." Now you have to decide, usually without knowing whether that is a fair ask, a scam, or the start of a negotiation.

This guide is about that moment: what to ask, what Google allows, and what to reply. It uses MentionAgent's own outreach records, where every price a site names in a reply is logged exactly as written, to show what usually comes with a price and what happens next.

Is it normal for bloggers to charge for backlinks?

Yes. Many blogs earn part of their income from sponsored posts and link placements, and an email asking for a link looks, from their side, like an advertiser asking for space. Asking for money is not rude and it is not a sign the site is bad.

Google's position is more nuanced than "paid links are banned". Its spam policies list "exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links" as link spam, and in the same section say buying and selling links "is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes" and is not a violation "as long as they are qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute value." Google's link attribute guide says to mark "advertisements or paid placements" with sponsored.

So the honest version is: paying for a placement is allowed, paying for a link that passes ranking value without a tag is what Google's rules prohibit. That matters when you read the terms, because many price replies promise a dofollow link.

Don't answer yet: get the terms first

A price on its own tells you almost nothing. "$150" can mean a permanent link in a new article written for you, or a tagged link in an old post that comes down after a year. We searched the 528 price threads for the terms the site's replies mentioned:

One in five mention a yearly or monthly term, which means some of those prices are rent, not a purchase. So before you reply yes or no, ask five questions:

1. What is the placement? A new post, or a link added to an existing article? The two are priced differently, so know which one you are being quoted. See link insertion outreach.
2. Is the link tagged? Dofollow, nofollow or sponsored, and is the post labelled as sponsored?
3. How long does it stay? Permanent, or a fixed term that renews?
4. When do you pay? Before publishing, or after you can see the live link?
5. Who writes it? If you write the article, the price covers space only; if they write, check the fee covers it.

A site that answers all five clearly is a site you can do business with. A site that won't is answering a different question for you.

Option 1: Pay, when the terms hold up

Paying is a reasonable choice for some placements. It tends to make sense when:

• the site has real readers in your market, so the placement is worth having even as a tagged link,
• the page is on-topic and the link sits where a reader would follow it,
• the placement is permanent, or the yearly fee is priced as the rent it is,
• you can pay after publication, or through a method with buyer protection.

Judge it like advertising, not like a ranking trick. If the link only has value because it passes ranking signals without a tag, you are paying for exactly what Google's policy describes as link spam. Our guide to buying backlinks covers where paid placements carry the most risk.

Option 2: Offer a relevant link back instead

Be careful here, because the usual "offer something else" ideas run straight into Google's rules. The link spam policy treats these as buying links, the same as paying cash:

• "Exchanging goods or services for links"
• "Sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link"

So a free account, a product sample or a paid-for article given in return for the link is, in Google's terms, a paid link, and should be tagged sponsored or nofollow like one.

The alternative that fits the rules is a link back: a page on your site that genuinely belongs next to theirs, linking to it. Google's list only names "excessive link exchanges", so an occasional, relevant swap between two related sites is fine; dozens of swaps, or swaps with unrelated sites, are not. Our link exchange guide covers how to keep it on the right side of that line.

It works some of the time. MentionAgent accounts set to never pay for placements had 176 threads where the site asked for money; 9 of them, 5.1%, still ended with a placed link. Not every site will take a swap, but it costs one email to ask.

One more option is not an offer at all: if your page is a better source than the one they cite, say so, and leave the decision with them. A link given because the page earns it is not an exchange.

Option 3: Decline politely

If the price is too high, the terms are unclear or the site does not fit, say no, and say it nicely. You will probably email the same blogger again some day for a different project, and a site that sells placements today may run a free roundup next year. A short "thanks, this one is outside our budget, but I'd be glad to suggest an alternative" keeps that door open. Never argue that their link is not worth the price; it changes nothing and it is what they will remember.

What to reply: three short templates

Keep each one to three or four sentences. Long negotiations by email lose momentum.

1. Ask for the terms (when you might pay):

Thanks for the quick reply, that's helpful. Before I check budget on our side, could you tell me whether this would be a new post or added to an existing article, whether the link is dofollow or tagged, and whether it stays up permanently? And do you take payment once the post is live?

2. Offer a relevant link back instead:

Thanks for the rate card. We don't pay for placements, but your [their article] would genuinely fit our guide on [topic], so I'd be glad to link to it there if you're open to linking to ours. Would that work for you?

3. Decline and keep the door open:

Thanks for letting me know. That's outside what we can spend right now, so I'll pass on this one. I really like what you publish on [topic], so if you ever put together a roundup or need a source for a post, I'd be happy to help.

For the pitches that come before this point, see our link building email templates, and for chasing a reply that went quiet, the follow-up templates.

Red flags in a price reply

Most sites asking for money are ordinary publishers. A few are not. Be careful when the reply:

• sends a list of dozens of other sites they can also place you on. That is a link seller, not the blog you pitched, and you cannot judge any of the sites on the list from the email.
• insists on full payment up front by a method with no protection, before saying what page the link will be on.
• guarantees a ranking or a DR increase. Nobody can promise that.
• comes from an address that is not on the site's domain when the site has its own contact page.
• won't tell you whether the link is tagged or how long it stays.

Our guide to link building scams covers the common patterns in more detail.

How often it happens, and what happens next

Between 20 August and 7 October 2026, MentionAgent users got human replies on 1,533 outreach threads, not counting spam and off-topic answers. In 528 of them, 34.5%, the site asked to be paid. About one reply in three.

A price does lower the odds of getting a link, and it is better to know that than to hope otherwise:

So roughly one price thread in fourteen still ended with a link, against about one in six of the others. We can't see whether users paid for some of those 25 outside MentionAgent. What we can see is the accounts that never pay: 9 of their 176 price threads still ended with a link without being paid for, which is the case for option 2.

What sites ask is covered in our guide to what backlinks cost: the median one-off quote to MentionAgent users was $150, with the middle half between $80 and $300.

Handling price asks at scale

If you send a lot of outreach, one reply in three asking for money becomes a steady stream, and answering each one by hand is where outreach campaigns stall. The fix is to decide your policy once: do you pay, never pay, or decide case by case?

MentionAgent stores that choice per site you promote. When a publisher names a price, the agent writes a holding reply that asks for the terms, offers your approved alternative if you never pay, and flags the thread with the quoted price in your inbox. It never agrees to a figure on your behalf; whether to pay, and paying, stays with you.

Method

• Source. MentionAgent's production database: outreach threads where the publisher sent a human reply between 20 August and 7 October 2026, 1,533 threads after excluding spam and off-topic replies.
• Why that window. MentionAgent's reply classifier started labelling paid offers on 19 August 2026. Before that, a price reply could be filed as a decline or a counter-offer, so earlier threads would undercount price asks.
• Price asks. A reply counts as a paid offer when money is the condition: a rate, a price list, a media kit or "we don't do free links". 528 threads.
• Placed link. The thread reached the link-placed state. We cannot see whether a user paid outside MentionAgent, except that accounts currently set to never pay say they don't.
• Terms table. Keyword matches in the site's replies on those 528 threads, for example "dofollow" or "per year". A mention is not always an offer (a reply can say "no nofollow links"), so read the shares as how often a term comes up.
• No reply text is published. The figures are counts; the templates on this page are written for it.

Frequently asked questions

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