Tool catalog · Updated October 2026 · 56 prices checked October 18, 2026

Link building tools, sorted by the job they do

A link campaign has seven jobs: find pages worth a link, measure them, find the right person, pitch and follow up (or hand that to an AI agent), check the links you win stay live, and answer journalists. Buy one tool for each job you actually do. A working stack costs $0 on free plans, $78 a month for one person, and about $847 a month for an agency team. We read every price below on the vendor's own site on October 18, 2026.

56tools, prices checked
$78solo kit a month
$0free kit

One tool per job. An empty outline is a job nobody is doing.

The short answer

What is the best link building tool in 2026?

There isn't one, because no tool does every job: Ahrefs doesn't send email and Hunter doesn't find pages. For most people the answer is a stack: Ahrefs to see who links to competitors, Hunter to find the right address, BuzzStream (solo) or Pitchbox (agency) to send and follow up, and Search Console to watch the links you win. An AI agent can replace the middle of that stack. One pick per job:

Job	Our pick	Price checked	Cheaper or free start
01 Find pages	BuzzSumo for content and writers, after your suite's link gap report	$199/mo	Search operators and Check My Links: free
02 Measure	Ahrefs Lite	$129/mo, $108 billed yearly	Ahrefs Free for your own site; Moz: 10 free queries a month
03 Find the person	Hunter	$49/mo	Hunter's free plan: 50 credits a month
04 Pitch & follow up	BuzzStream alone, Pitchbox for an agency	$49/mo; $300/mo on a 1-year commitment	Hunter's sequences, included in its free plan
05 AI agents	Pick by whose inbox sends and who approves	$29 to $199/mo to start	MentionAgent: 50 free credits; Blazly: 14-day trial
06 Monitor	LinkChecker Pro or Linkody for daily checks	$25/mo; €13.90/mo	Google Search Console and Ahrefs Free: free
07 Get quoted	HARO and Qwoted	Free	Featured.com free plan for every feed in one place

Catalog index

What do all 56 tools cost?

Every tool on one sheet, with the entry price on the vendor's own pricing page on October 18, 2026. Filter by job, or show only tools you can start for free. Each name jumps to its spec card.

What the entry plan costs a month, by job

One tool, entry plan billed monthly
Free

01 Find pages

Free (Check My Links) to $199 (BuzzSumo)

02 Measure

$29 (Ahrefs) to $129 (SE Ranking)

03 Find the person

$39 (Snov.io) to $69 (RocketReach)

04 Pitch & follow up

$29 (Mailshake) to $300 (Pitchbox)

05 AI agents

$29 (Blazly Backlinker) to $199 (Uprankly Link Builder)

06 Monitor

Free (Google Search Console) to $25 (LinkChecker Pro)

07 Get quoted

Free (HARO) to $300 (Backlinker AI)

46 tools with a monthly price in US dollars; tools priced in euros, per check or per year only are left out. Source: each vendor's pricing page, read October 18, 2026 (links on every card below).

Tool	Part	Job	Entry price	Free option	Best for
BuzzSumo	LBT-01-01	Find pages	$199/mo	50-search trial	Content that already earned links
SparkToro	LBT-01-02	Find pages	$38/mo	Free plan	Sites your audience reads
Screaming Frog	LBT-01-03	Find pages	$279/yr	Free to 500 URLs	Broken links on prospect sites
Citation Labs Link Prospector	LBT-01-04	Find pages	$5 per credit	None	Resource-page and guest-post lists
Dibz	LBT-01-05	Find pages	$25/mo	15-day trial	Footprint searches, spam filtered
Check My Links	LBT-01-06	Find pages	Free	Free	Broken links on one page
Ahrefs	LBT-02-01	Measure	$29/mo	Free for own sites	The link gap and Domain Rating
Semrush	LBT-02-02	Measure	€134/mo	Free plan	Backlinks plus all of SEO
Majestic	LBT-02-03	Measure	$49.99/mo	Free plugin	Vetting sites by Trust Flow
Moz Pro	LBT-02-04	Measure	$49/mo	10 free queries	Reporting Domain Authority
SE Ranking	LBT-02-05	Measure	$129/mo	14-day trial	A cheaper all-in-one with monitoring
Mangools	LBT-02-06	Measure	$61/mo	Free plan	Cheap lookups on Majestic data
Ubersuggest	LBT-02-07	Measure	€29/mo	7-day trial	A cheap lifetime licence
Hunter	LBT-03-01	Find the person	$49/mo	Free plan	Finding and checking editors' emails
Snov.io	LBT-03-02	Find the person	$39/mo	Free plan	Finder, verifier and sequences
Voila Norbert	LBT-03-03	Find the person	$49/mo	50 free credits	Occasional lookups that roll over
Skrapp	LBT-03-04	Find the person	$39/mo	Free plan	LinkedIn-based contact finding
Apollo.io	LBT-03-05	Find the person	$65/seat/mo	Free plan	Finding people at companies
RocketReach	LBT-03-06	Find the person	$69/mo	Free lookups	Specific journalists and editors
MillionVerifier	LBT-03-07	Find the person	$39 per 10,000	100 free checks	Cheapest bulk verification
NeverBounce	LBT-03-08	Find the person	$8 per 1,000	Free test	List cleaning with integrations
ZeroBounce	LBT-03-09	Find the person	$39 per 2,000	100 free a month	Verification plus deliverability tests
Pitchbox	LBT-04-01	Pitch & follow up	$300/mo	Trial after demo	Agencies running outreach daily
BuzzStream	LBT-04-02	Pitch & follow up	$49/mo	14-day trial	A relationship CRM for outreach
Linkee AI	LBT-04-03	Pitch & follow up	$97/mo	14-day trial	Link campaigns on a budget
AI Backlink Builder (Semrush app)	LBT-04-04	Pitch & follow up	$169/mo	7-day trial	Content-led outreach inside Semrush
Semrush AI PR Toolkit	LBT-04-05	Pitch & follow up	$149/mo	7-day trial	Digital PR pitching in Semrush
Mailshake	LBT-04-06	Pitch & follow up	$29/mo	None	Simple sending for one person
GMass	LBT-04-07	Pitch & follow up	€26/mo	7-day trial	Mail merge inside Gmail
Woodpecker	LBT-04-08	Pitch & follow up	$35/mo	14-day trial	Small, personal sequences
Instantly	LBT-04-09	Pitch & follow up	$47/mo	14-day trial	High-volume sending
lemlist	LBT-04-10	Pitch & follow up	$69/mo	14-day trial	Email plus LinkedIn steps
Blazly Backlinker	LBT-05-01	AI agents	$29/mo	14-day trial	Trying AI outreach cheaply
AutoBacklinks	LBT-05-02	AI agents	$49/mo	7-day trial	Own mailboxes, review or auto-send
Mentiohunt	LBT-05-03	AI agents	$49/mo	7-day trial	Cheap hands-off first emails
Outlink AI	LBT-05-04	AI agents	$88/mo	7-day trial	Hands-off outreach with caps
MentionAgent	LBT-05-05	AI agents	$99/mo	50 free credits	Mutual mentions, approval first
ElvixAI	LBT-05-06	AI agents	$99/mo	$19 trial	Autopilot from your own inbox
LinkIntel	LBT-05-07	AI agents	$99/mo	Money-back	Negotiating paid placements
BacklinkGPT	LBT-05-08	AI agents	$149/mo	Free preview	Pitching in your own name
Uprankly Link Builder	LBT-05-09	AI agents	$199/mo	$37 test drive	Agencies with client portals
Google Search Console	LBT-06-01	Monitor	Free	Free	What Google itself has seen
Ahrefs Free	LBT-06-02	Monitor	Free	Free	Your own links in Ahrefs' index
Backlink Monitor	LBT-06-03	Monitor	$15/mo	20 free links	Most links per dollar
Linkody	LBT-06-04	Monitor	€13.90/mo	30-day trial	Daily checks of links you built
LinkChecker Pro	LBT-06-05	Monitor	$25/mo	7-day refund	Daily checks with team seats
BacklinkManager.io	LBT-06-06	Monitor	$39/mo	50 free links	A CRM around link deals
HARO	LBT-07-01	Get quoted	Free	Free	Free daily journalist requests
Featured.com	LBT-07-02	Get quoted	Free	Free plan	Watching every request feed
Connectively	LBT-07-03	Get quoted	Free	Free plan	Cheap Q&A answers and bylines
Qwoted	LBT-07-04	Get quoted	Free	Free plan	Pitching journalists in-platform
MentionMatch	LBT-07-05	Get quoted	Free	Free	B2B, SaaS and marketing topics
Source of Sources	LBT-07-06	Get quoted	Free	Free	A no-frills request list
SourceBottle	LBT-07-07	Get quoted	Free	Free plan	Pay-per-pitch call-outs
ResponseSource	LBT-07-08	Get quoted	From £625/yr	1-week trial	UK press requests
Backlinker AI	LBT-07-09	Get quoted	$300/mo	None	Quote links without writing

Showing all 56 tools. Entry plan, billed monthly, unless the price says otherwise.

Job 01 · Find pages that could link to you6 tools

What are the best link prospecting tools?

Prospecting builds the list of pages worth pitching: roundups and “best X” lists in your niche, resource pages, articles that mention a competitor, pages with broken links you could replace. The link gap report in a backlink suite (job 02) is the fastest first list. The tools here find what that report misses: content that earned links, the sites your audience reads, and dead links on pages that still get visits.

Check before you buy

It finds the exact page you would pitch, not only the domain
It shows why the page fits: the list, the topic, the competitor it names
It exports to CSV or straight into your outreach tool
Free search operators cover a lot of this; pay only for what saves real hours

Part LBT-01-01

BuzzSumo

$199/moContent Creation, 1 user. $159/mo billed yearly. PR & Comms ($299) adds the journalist database.

What it does: Finds the most-shared content on a topic, the writers behind it and, on PR & Comms, journalists. Its Backlink Analyzer tracks the links a URL earns over time.
Free option: A trial limited to 50 searches. No free plan.
Fits: Digital PR and content-led link building: find what earned links, then build something better.
Skip if: You want a backlink index for audits; BuzzSumo tracks links to content, it isn't a link database.

Part LBT-01-02

SparkToro

$38/moPersonal, billed yearly only ($450). Business $150/mo ($112 billed yearly).

What it does: Audience research: enter a topic or a website and see the sites, publications, podcasts and YouTube channels that audience follows, a target list for outreach.
Free option: Free plan: 3 previews a month.
AI: MCP access on paid plans.
Fits: PR-style link builders who choose targets by audience, not by metrics.
Skip if: You need backlink metrics or contact emails.

Part LBT-01-03

Screaming Frog

$279/yrPer user licence, per year. $265 each from 5 licences.

What it does: A desktop crawler: finds broken links on a site, crawls a list of prospect URLs, and pulls contact pages or outbound links with custom extraction.
Free option: Free version crawls up to 500 URLs.
Fits: Technical link builders running broken-link campaigns or checking prospect lists at scale.
Skip if: You want a ready-made prospect database: it only crawls what you give it.

Part LBT-01-04

Citation Labs Link Prospector

Changed in 2026

$5 per creditPay as you go; most reports cost 1 credit. Consultant $47/mo (20 credits), Agency $127/mo (75).

What it does: Turns your keywords into footprint searches for 16 kinds of prospects (guest posts, resource pages, reviews, donations, interviews and more) and exports the results to CSV or BuzzStream.
Free option: No free plan. Credit purchases are refundable within 30 days.
Fits: Link builders who want footprint prospect lists without paying for a suite.
Skip if: You want an actively developed product: its pages still carry a 2015 footer.
What changed: The old linkprospector.com domain no longer answers; it's sold on citationlabs.com. Broken Link Builder says it's under construction.

Part LBT-01-05

Dibz

$25/moStarter: 25 credits at $1 each. Pro 110 credits ($110), Enterprise 270 ($270).

What it does: Preset search footprints (resource pages, guest posts, giveaways, reviews and more) with 17 spam metrics, contact-email grouping and CSV export. Extra data such as DR costs extra credits.
Free option: 15-day free trial, no card.
Fits: Agencies that prospect by footprints and want obvious spam filtered out.
Skip if: You already pay for a suite with prospecting built in.

Part LBT-01-06

Check My Links

Changed in 2026

FreeChrome extension. An optional $29 lifetime key removes the product tips.

What it does: Highlights the working, broken and redirected links on the page you're viewing and exports the broken ones, so you can offer a replacement on a resource page.
Free option: Free.
Fits: Quick checks of a single prospect page while you browse.
Skip if: You need to check whole sites: use a crawler.
What changed: The original Chrome Web Store listing is gone. The listing today is published by SelectorsHub, updated October 10, 2026.

Free first: Google search operators find most roundups and resource pages. Our free link building tools page has a list of operators to copy.

Job 02 · Measure sites, backlinks and the link gap7 tools

Which backlink data tool is worth paying for?

A backlink suite answers three questions: who links to your competitors but not to you (the link gap), how strong a site is before you pitch it, and which of your own links are new, lost or spammy. You need one suite, not three. Pick by the authority score your clients or link sellers quote (Domain Rating, Authority Score, Domain Authority or Trust Flow) and by the rest of the SEO work you want in the same subscription.

Check before you buy

A link gap report on the plan you can afford (sites that link to two or more competitors)
Row limits per report and projects on the entry plan
A fresh index: new and lost links within days
Extra users priced per seat, if a team shares it

Part LBT-02-01

Ahrefs

$29/moStarter, monthly only, 200 credits. Link work starts at Lite: $129/mo ($108 billed yearly). Standard $249, Advanced $449.

What it does: Site Explorer shows every link to any site; Link Intersect (in Competitive Analysis, from Lite) lists sites linking to your competitors but not you. Standard adds Content Explorer and broken backlinks for broken-link campaigns.
Free option: Ahrefs Free covers sites you verify. No trial of paid plans.
Plan limits: Lite: 2,500 rows per report, 6 months of history, 1,000 credits per user. Extra users $40 to $100/mo.
AI: API and MCP access from Lite, so ChatGPT or Claude can query it.
Fits: Anyone doing link building every week. Domain Rating is the score most link sellers price by.
Skip if: You only check your own links: Ahrefs Free or Search Console covers that. Its FAQ says Ahrefs doesn't issue refunds in general.

Part LBT-02-02

Semrush

Changed in 2026

€134/moSEO plan, shown to us in euros. Semrush's own blog lists Semrush One Starter at $199/mo and Pro+ at $299/mo.

What it does: Backlink Analytics, Backlink Gap (you against up to five competitors) and Backlink Audit (toxic links, removal emails, a disavow file, lost and found links), plus keyword research, rank tracking and AI visibility.
Free option: Free plan: 10 reports a day, no card. 7-day trial of paid plans.
AI: MCP access on every paid plan; AI visibility tracking from Starter.
Fits: Teams that want backlinks, keywords and rank tracking in one subscription.
Skip if: You only need backlink data, or you relied on the Link Building Tool for outreach.
What changed: Plans are now SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced (Semrush One). The old Link Building Tool page redirects to Backlink Analytics.

Part LBT-02-03

Majestic

$49.99/moLite: Fresh Index, 5,000 rows per search. $499.99 a year. Pro $99.99 adds the Historic Index and alerts. Prices exclude VAT.

What it does: A links-only index: referring domains, new and lost links, anchor text, Trust Flow, Citation Flow and Topical Trust Flow. Clique Hunter on Pro finds sites that link to several competitors.
Free option: Free account with a demo backlink checker and free browser plugins. 7-day money-back for new customers.
Fits: Link builders who vet prospects by Trust Flow and want link data without paying for a full suite.
Skip if: You need keyword or traffic data, or link history after March 2024: its Historic Index ends there.

Part LBT-02-04

Moz Pro

$49/moStarter: 1 site, 75 backlink queries a month. Standard $99 ($79 billed yearly), Medium $179, Large $299.

What it does: Link Explorer with Domain Authority, Page Authority, Spam Score, discovered and lost linking domains, and Link Intersect across up to five backlink profiles. Link tracking lists start at Standard.
Free option: Free account: 10 Link Explorer queries a month, plus the free MozBar. Trial on Medium only, card required.
AI: AI visibility tracking across ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Mode and Perplexity.
Fits: Teams whose clients or bosses ask for Domain Authority by name.
Skip if: You may want a refund: “Moz does not offer refunds of any kind.”

Part LBT-02-05

SE Ranking

$129/moCore, billed monthly ($103.20 billed yearly). Growth $279. Dollar prices from its FAQ.

What it does: Backlink checker, new and lost referring domains, toxicity score, Backlink Gap against up to five competitors, a broken link checker and a backlink tracker that tells you when links go missing, plus rank tracking and audits.
Free option: 14-day trial, no card. Its backlink checker page gives a few free checks a day.
AI: MCP access on both plans; AI search tracking as an add-on.
Fits: Small teams and agencies who want backlink research and monitoring in one cheaper suite.
Skip if: Several people need access on Core: it has one seat, extra seats from $16/mo.

Part LBT-02-06

Mangools

$61/moBasic, billed monthly ($37.70 billed yearly). Premium $81, Agency $141.

What it does: LinkMiner shows backlinks from Majestic's index (100,000 rows a month on Basic) with a link strength score; SiteProfiler shows Moz and Majestic metrics for any domain. Keyword tools are included.
Free option: Free plan without a card (limits not stated). 48-hour money-back.
AI: API and MCP on every paid plan.
Fits: Solo SEOs and small sites that want backlink lookups and keyword tools at a low price.
Skip if: You need link monitoring or big competitor gap reports.

Part LBT-02-07

Ubersuggest

€29/moShown to us in euros. €16/mo billed yearly, or €290 once for a lifetime licence.

What it does: Backlink lists with 3 years of history and 30 days of new and lost links, capped at 2,000 rows on Individual, plus keyword and audit tools.
Free option: 7-day trial on monthly plans, and a limited free account.
Fits: Beginners who'd rather pay once than every month.
Skip if: You need deep exports or an API (it has none). Lifetime purchases are final.

Ahrefs' own help center disagrees on whether Link Intersect starts at Lite or Standard; its pricing page lists Competitive Analysis, which contains it, from Lite.

Job 03 · Find and verify the right email9 tools

How do you find and verify an editor's email?

A good pitch to the wrong address goes nowhere: an info@ inbox nobody reads, or a guessed address that bounces. Email finders turn a domain or an author's name into an address; verifiers check it before you send. Bounced emails hurt your sending reputation, so verify every address you didn't get from the person themselves.

Check before you buy

Search by domain and by author name
Verification included in each lookup
Credits that fit your volume: a search and a verification often cost a credit each
A browser extension, so you can look people up while you read their page

Part LBT-03-01

Hunter

$49/moStarter: 2,000 credits a month, 3 email accounts. $34/mo billed yearly. Growth $149, Scale $299.

What it does: Domain search and email finder (1 credit per email found), verifier (half a credit per check), a Chrome extension and simple sequences with follow-ups, even on the free plan.
Free option: Free plan: 50 credits a month, no card.
Sends from: Your own Gmail or Outlook; SMTP/IMAP on paid plans.
AI: AI writing assistant on paid plans, AI search in its Discover database, MCP and API.
Fits: Anyone who knows which site to pitch and needs the right person's address.
Skip if: You expect refunds: its help center says subscriptions are non-refundable.

Part LBT-03-02

Snov.io

$39/moStarter: 1,000 credits, 5,000 recipients. $29.25/mo billed yearly. Pro from $99.

What it does: Email finder, domain search, a 7-tier verifier (1 credit per check) and drip campaigns with unlimited follow-ups and warm-up, with unlimited seats on every plan.
Free option: A free plan it calls Trial that renews every month: 50 credits, 100 recipients.
Sends from: Your own mailboxes, unlimited senders on paid plans. LinkedIn steps are $69/mo per slot.
AI: MCP access on every paid plan.
Fits: Budget teams that want finding, verifying and sending on one bill.
Skip if: You want LinkedIn steps cheaply, or a tool that knows anything about links.

Part LBT-03-03

Voila Norbert

$49/moValet: up to 1,000 leads a month. $39/mo billed yearly. Verification pay as you go at $0.003 an email.

What it does: Finds an email from a name and a domain, one at a time, in bulk or with a Chrome extension, and verifies or enriches lists pay as you go.
Free option: 50 free credits once you sign up; only successful finds use a credit.
Fits: Occasional editor lookups, with unused credits rolling over.
Skip if: You need a database to search, or sending built in (sequences are a separate per-user plan).

Part LBT-03-04

Skrapp

$39/moProfessional: 2,000 credits, 2 users. $29/mo billed yearly. 5,000 credits $99.

What it does: Finds and verifies emails from LinkedIn, Sales Navigator and company websites. Only valid or catch-all results use a credit, and unused credits roll over.
Free option: Free plan: 50 credits.
Fits: Finding editors and marketers through their LinkedIn profiles at a low cost.
Skip if: You want to send from the same tool: Skrapp doesn't send email.

Part LBT-03-05

Apollo.io

$65/seat/moBasic: 2,500 credits a seat. $49/seat billed yearly. Professional $99.

What it does: A B2B people database with filters, email credits (1 per email), a Chrome extension and sequences, with 250 emails a day on the Free and Basic plans.
Free option: Free plan: 75 credits a seat a month. 14-day trial of paid plans.
Sends from: Your own Gmail on Free; Google, Microsoft and SMTP mailboxes on higher plans.
Fits: Pitching marketing people at companies when a site's contact page leads nowhere.
Skip if: Your targets are independent bloggers: its database is built around companies.

Part LBT-03-06

RocketReach

$69/moEssentials: 100 lookups a month. $399 a year buys “unlimited” email lookups, with a fair-use cap of 10,000 a month.

What it does: Looks up a named person's work email (and phone on Pro), with a browser extension and bulk lookups. Lookups that find nothing are refunded.
Free option: A free account includes some lookups with no card; the number isn't shown.
AI: MCP and API access on every paid plan.
Fits: Low-volume lookups of specific people you already know you want to reach.
Skip if: You need to find contacts site by site in bulk.

Part LBT-03-07

MillionVerifier

$39 per 10,000One-time credits that never expire: 100,000 checks $149, 1 million $449.

What it does: Checks a list of emails before you send, by CSV upload or API, and refunds credits for risky addresses it can't verify.
Free option: 100 free credits, no card.
Fits: Cleaning bigger lists you gathered yourself.
Skip if: You verify a few hundred emails a month: most finders include verification.

Part LBT-03-08

NeverBounce

$8 per 1,000Pay as you go: 10,000 checks $50, 100,000 $400. A $49/mo Growth plan covers up to 10,000.

What it does: Cleans email lists in bulk or by real-time API, with integrations for Zapier, n8n, HubSpot and Mailchimp. It is now part of ZoomInfo.
Free option: Free test credits; no card needed to check your first list.
Fits: Teams already working in HubSpot or ZoomInfo.
Skip if: Credits expiring bothers you: they expire 12 months after purchase.

Part LBT-03-09

ZeroBounce

$39 per 2,000Pay as you go: 10,000 checks $129, 100,000 $649. ZeroBounce ONE subscription $99/mo.

What it does: Validates emails in bulk or by API and scores them; its subscription adds inbox placement tests, warm-up and blacklist and DMARC monitoring.
Free option: 100 free checks a month when you sign up with a business email domain.
Fits: Teams who want verification and deliverability checks in one place.
Skip if: You only need cheap one-off cleaning.

Job 04 · Send pitches and follow up yourself10 tools

What is the best outreach software for link building?

Outreach software keeps hundreds of conversations in order: a personal first email, follow-ups that stop when someone replies, and a history of who you already pitched so nobody hears from you twice. Link-building CRMs also track whether the link went live. Cold-email tools only send, which is fine if you build the list elsewhere.

Check before you buy

It sends from your own inbox (Gmail, Outlook or SMTP)
Follow-ups stop automatically on a reply
Contact history across campaigns
Monthly billing, or know the commitment before the demo

Part LBT-04-01

Pitchbox

$300/moPro, billed monthly on a one-year commitment ($210/mo billed yearly). Advanced $600, Scale $1,200.

What it does: Prospecting in Google with operators and SEO metrics, contact finding and verification, sequences with conditional follow-ups, an SEO inbox, monitoring of up to 1,000 won links on Pro, and reports. Campaign types cover guest posts, resource pages, broken links and link reclamation.
Free option: Trials for teams after a demo; no self-serve trial.
Sends from: Your own mailboxes: Gmail, Microsoft 365, Exchange or IMAP/SMTP.
AI: AI personalization, an AI Reply Agent, and AI campaign and template assistants.
Fits: Agencies and in-house teams with people doing outreach every day.
Skip if: You can't commit for a year: “all plans require a commitment of one year, regardless of billing frequency.” Setup costs $2,000 extra on monthly billing.

Part LBT-04-02

BuzzStream

$49/moStarter: 1 user, 500 contacts, 1,000 links monitored. Growth $174 adds bulk sending and automated follow-ups. No minimum term.

What it does: Keeps every contact and conversation in one place, finds contact info, tracks opens and replies, and re-checks the links you win. Prospecting searches and a journalist database are included.
Free option: 14-day free trial.
Fits: Digital PR and relationship-style link building, where the history with each editor matters.
Skip if: You need automated follow-ups on the cheapest plan: they start at Growth ($174).

Part LBT-04-03

Linkee AI

$97/moEssential: 10,000 credits, 1 project. $80.83/mo billed yearly. Pro $197, Agency $358.

What it does: A prospect database and finder with AI relevance checks and Ahrefs metrics, an email finder and verifier, and automated sequences for guest post and link insertion campaigns.
Free option: 14-day trial with 500 credits, no card.
Sends from: Your own Gmail, Outlook or SMTP.
Fits: SEO specialists who want a tool built for link campaigns at a third of Pitchbox's entry price.
Skip if: You need several inboxes on the entry plan: its pricing page gives three different numbers, so ask first.

Part LBT-04-04

AI Backlink Builder (Semrush app)

Changed in 2026

$169/moOne plan: 2 email accounts, 10,000 data credits, 30,000 contacts. 5,000 extra credits $50/mo.

What it does: Campaign templates that find opportunities in Google, Google News, Semrush competitor backlinks and podcasts, find and verify contacts, personalize with AI and send sequences. Built by Respona.
Free option: 7-day free trial; you need a Semrush login.
Sends from: Your own Gmail or Google Workspace, or other mailboxes over IMAP/SMTP.
Fits: Semrush users who want Respona-style outreach without leaving Semrush.
Skip if: You don't use Semrush. Whether you also need a paid Semrush plan isn't stated on the app page.
What changed: This is where Respona's outreach software lives now; respona.com sells finished links.

Part LBT-04-05

Semrush AI PR Toolkit

Changed in 2026

$149/moBase: find media and send emails. Follow-ups start at Pro, $279. Business $499.

What it does: A media database for finding journalists and the outlets AI answers cite, pitches sent from your own domain, open tracking and coverage monitoring.
Free option: 7-day trial, but trial accounts can't send emails or export contacts.
Sends from: Your own authenticated domain.
Fits: Teams already on Semrush doing digital PR.
Skip if: You pitch bloggers and resource pages one by one rather than journalists.
What changed: Semrush's old Link Building Tool URL now redirects to Backlink Analytics, and its features page sends outreach here.

Part LBT-04-06

Mailshake

$29/moStarter: 1 email address, 1,500 sends a month. $25/mo billed yearly. Email Outreach $49 removes the send cap.

What it does: Sends personalized emails with follow-ups triggered by opens, clicks or replies, with templates for broken links, guest posts and link requests.
Free option: No free trial: “we collect payment up front.”
Sends from: Your own Gmail, Office 365, Outlook or any SMTP/IMAP account.
Fits: One person who already has a prospect list and wants it sent reliably.
Skip if: You want to try it first or need prospecting. Its terms say fees are non-refundable.

Part LBT-04-07

GMass

€26/moShown to us in euros (regional pricing for Germany); US prices may differ. Follow-up sequences start at Premium, €35.

What it does: Mail merge and campaigns from inside Gmail, with free email verification; follow-up sequences on Premium and up.
Free option: 7-day trial, 50 emails a day.
Sends from: Your own Gmail or Google Workspace account.
Fits: Solo link builders who live in Gmail.
Skip if: You use Outlook, or need a shared CRM for a team.

Part LBT-04-08

Woodpecker

$35/mo500 prospects contacted a month. $24/mo billed yearly. 2,000 prospects $67. Prices exclude VAT.

What it does: Cold email sequences of up to 16 steps, unlimited verification, warm-up, and unlimited inboxes and team members, priced by prospects contacted.
Free option: 14-day free trial.
Sends from: Your own mailboxes; LinkedIn steps cost $29/mo per account.
Fits: Small teams sending a few hundred personal pitches a month.
Skip if: You need link prospecting or link monitoring in the same tool.

Part LBT-04-09

Instantly

$47/moOutreach Growth: 1,000 contacts, 5,000 emails a month. $37.60/mo billed yearly. Lead data is a separate plan.

What it does: Cold email at volume with unlimited inboxes, warm-up and a shared inbox; an AI Reply Agent can answer replies.
Free option: 14-day trial, no card.
Sends from: Your own Google, Microsoft or SMTP mailboxes, unlimited.
Fits: Agencies sending large volumes from many inboxes.
Skip if: Your outreach is low volume and personal.

Part LBT-04-10

lemlist

$69/moEmail plan: 50,000 emails a month, unlimited users and senders. $55/mo billed yearly. LinkedIn steps need Multichannel, $109 per user.

What it does: Sequences with follow-ups, a lead database with an email finder, warm-up, and LinkedIn invites and messages on the Multichannel plan.
Free option: 14-day free trial with 200 credits.
Sends from: Your own mailboxes; LinkedIn on Multichannel.
AI: AI agents for research and messages; MCP and CLI.
Fits: Pitching founders and editors where a LinkedIn touch helps.
Skip if: You need link data or link tracking.

Job 05 · Hand the outreach to an AI agent9 tools

Which AI link building agents actually do outreach?

An AI link-building agent runs the whole loop for you: finds pages, picks the person, writes a pitch around that page, sends it, follows up and drafts replies. Most launched in 2025 or 2026, so compare how they work rather than how long they've existed. Four questions separate them: whose inbox sends, whether each pitch waits for your approval, what kind of links it gets you, and who pays any fee a site asks for.

Check before you buy

Whose inbox sends: yours (replies and relationships stay with you) or one the vendor sets up
Approval: every pitch waits for you by default, or it runs on autopilot
Links: outreach to editors, swaps between customers, or paid placements
Fees: who approves and pays a site's fee, and whether the plan has a contract

Who does each step: you, software, or an agent

The tool does it
It helps, you finish
You do it

Setup	Find pages	Judge each page	Find the person	Write the pitch	Send and follow up	Answer replies	Approve fees
Free toolsSearch operators, Hunter Free, Gmail	You search	You	Finder helps	You	Sequences follow up	You	You
Outreach softwarePitchbox, BuzzStream, Linkee AI	Search built in	Shows metrics	Finds emails	Templates, AI help	Sends and follows up	Some draft replies	You
AI agentJob 05, nine agents	Finds pages	Scores or judges	Finds the person	Writes per page	Sends and follows up	Most draft replies	Depends on the agent

Summarized from the vendors' own pages listed on each card. Whether an agent waits for your approval before sending is in the comparison table below.

The four questions, answered by each agent's own site

Agent	Sends from	Waits for approval	Links	Entry
Blazly Backlinker	Your Gmail or SMTP (Growth and up)	Sites yes; emails send automatically	Guest posts, resource pages	$29/mo
AutoBacklinks	Your own mailboxes	Your choice: review queue or auto-send	Outreach; deal board prices paid posts	$49/mo
Mentiohunt	Mentiohunt's sending pool	None before sending	Guest posts, roundups, resource pages	$49/mo
Outlink AI	Your Gmail or Outlook	Not on every send (guardrails)	Outreach; spend cap covers paid placements	$88/mo
MentionAgent	A separate domain it runs	Yes, auto-send optional	Mostly mutual mentions	$99/mo
ElvixAI	Your inbox, or a $39 separate domain	No, autopilot by default	Mentions, exchanges, guest posts	$99/mo
LinkIntel	Lookalike domains it runs	Every final deal	Mostly paid placements	$99/mo
BacklinkGPT	Your inbox or LinkedIn profile	Every fee; every pitch until auto-send is earned	Outreach; fees only if you approve	$149/mo
Uprankly Link Builder	Your Gmail, Outlook or SMTP	Placements yes; emails not stated	Outreach plus its site inventory	$199/mo

Part LBT-05-01

Blazly Backlinker

$29/moStarter: 1 campaign, 50 opportunities and 50 emails a month. Growth $99, Scale $199.

What it does: You enter a keyword, it finds guest post, resource and competitor-backlink opportunities in Google, you pick the sites, and it finds contacts, writes and sends the emails and tracks replies. It also drafts guest posts.
Free option: Its pricing hub lists a 14-day free trial; the product page says no card is needed to explore.
Sends from: Your own Gmail or SMTP on Growth and Scale. Its docs list Starter as a CSV export you send yourself.
Approval: You approve the sites; the emails then go out automatically. Per-email approval isn't stated.
Links: Outreach for guest posts, resource pages and competitors' backlinks.
Fits: Testing whether AI-written outreach works in your niche before paying more.
Skip if: You need the $29 plan to send for you (its docs and pricing page disagree), or you want a refund option: its terms list none.

Part LBT-05-02

AutoBacklinks

$49/moStarter launch offer (regular $79): 2 sites, 2 mailboxes, about 1,500 emails a month. Growth $179, Scale $399.

What it does: Scans for competitor backlinks, pages ChatGPT cites, guest posts, listicles, reviews and directories, scores them, verifies emails, writes sequences, sorts replies and keeps deals on a board. Campaigns can repeat weekly or monthly.
Free option: 7-day trial with 120 credits. A card is required.
Sends from: Your own Gmail, Google Workspace, Outlook or SMTP mailboxes, not a shared pool.
Approval: Your choice per automation: “Review before sending” holds drafts in a queue, or it sends automatically.
Links: Outreach for guest posts, listicle inclusions, reviews, link insertions and directories. Its deal board also prices paid placements.
AI: MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor.
Fits: SEOs and small agencies who want an agent on their own mailboxes, with a switch between review and auto-send.
Skip if: You don't want a card on file for the trial, or you need an annual price up front (it says yearly billing gives a month free but shows no price).

Part LBT-05-03

Mentiohunt

$49/moPro (regular $79): 1 site, about 25 opportunities a day. Agency $99 for up to 5 sites.

What it does: Finds sites where your articles fit every day, checks the fit, finds the contact and sends a personal email plus follow-ups until the first reply, then forwards the thread to you.
Free option: You see your opportunities without a card. A card starts a 7-day trial at $0 before outreach begins.
Sends from: Mentiohunt's own warmed sending pool, not your domain. Replies are forwarded to you.
Approval: None before sending: “There's no approval step before each email goes out.” You can cancel queued emails.
Links: Outreach for guest posts, resource pages, product roundups and listicles.
Fits: Very small teams who want cheap first-touch outreach and will handle every reply themselves.
Skip if: You want to approve each email or send from your own domain. Its terms say fees are non-refundable once billed.

Part LBT-05-04

Outlink AI

$88/moStarter: 150 outreach a day, 3 inboxes. $70/mo billed yearly. Growth $195, Scale $625.

What it does: Finds and qualifies prospects (relevance, authority, spam filter), personalizes from each page, sends, follows up, sorts and negotiates replies, and checks the live link. It can also prepare Qwoted pitches.
Free option: 7-day free trial, card required, no charge until day 7. You can see prospects and sample pitches without a card.
Sends from: Your own Gmail or Outlook over OAuth, rotating across connected inboxes.
Approval: Runs inside guardrails: “it is not approval-gated on every send by default.” Drafts that fail its checks wait for you.
Links: Guest posts, resource and broken-link pages, unlinked mentions and niche edits. A monthly spend cap ($25 on Starter) covers “paid placements and the data it uses.”
AI: MCP server and a Chrome extension.
Fits: In-house SEO teams and agencies who want a hands-off loop from their own inboxes, with volume and spend limits.
Skip if: You want every email approved before it goes out.

Part LBT-05-05

MentionAgent

$99/moStarter: 1 site, 1 sending inbox, up to 40 emails a day once warmed. Growth $179, Scale $329, Agency $629. Monthly only.

What it does: Reads your site, finds blog posts in your niche, finds the editor, writes a pitch about that post, sends, follows up, drafts replies and proposes the exact sentence for the mention. It also tracks AI visibility twice a month.
Free option: 50 free credits with no card (drafts only). 14-day money-back on paid plans.
Sends from: A separate domain and Gmail inbox that MentionAgent registers and runs for you, never your own domain.
Approval: Approval by default: you approve each batch, or turn on auto-send.
Links: Mostly mutual mentions: you add a line about their post on one of yours. It turns down sites that ask for a fee.
Fits: Founders with no sending setup who are happy to trade mentions with other blogs.
Skip if: You want one-way links, LinkedIn outreach, outreach from your own domain, or yearly billing.

Part LBT-05-06

ElvixAI

$99/moPro, the only plan: 1 site, 1 inbox, 30 emails a day. $83/mo billed yearly. Extra inbox $49/mo.

What it does: Picks keywords, searches Google for pages worth pitching, finds verified contacts, writes and sends personal emails, follows up until a reply and drafts your answers. You close each deal.
Free option: $19 for a 14-day trial, then $99 a month.
Sends from: Your own business inbox, or a separate domain and inbox it sets up for a one-off $39.
Approval: “By default it runs on full autopilot.” Approval for sites or single emails is optional.
Links: Editorial mentions, link exchanges and guest posts. You place exchange links and write guest posts yourself.
Fits: Solo founders who want hands-off outreach from their own inbox at a low monthly price.
Skip if: You want approval before every send by default. Its terms say fees are non-refundable.

Part LBT-05-07

LinkIntel

$99/moSolo: 2,000 credits, 1 project, 3 managed inboxes. $79/mo billed yearly. Growth $299, Agency $799.

What it does: Finds and scores prospects, verifies the editor's email, pitches, answers replies and counters prices within your budget rules, writes guest posts and checks links at 30, 60 and 90 days.
Free option: No trial. 30-day money-back on the first purchase if you used under 30% of the plan.
Sends from: Managed mailboxes on separate lookalike domains it sets up: “Your domain sends nothing.”
Approval: Set per project. Every final deal pauses for “Approve & Pay.”
Links: Mostly paid placements it negotiates (link insertions, guest posts), paid by you to the publisher, plus relationship outreach.
Fits: Teams that budget for paid placements and want an agent to negotiate and verify them.
Skip if: You don't pay sites for links, or you want outreach to come from your own domain.

Part LBT-05-08

BacklinkGPT

$149/moStarter: 1 site, up to 6 pitches a day, about 2,000 pages checked a month. Growth $399, Scale $999. Monthly, cancel anytime.

What it does: Finds pages where your site belongs (lists, roundups, resource pages, articles that mention competitors), judges each page, finds the right person, writes a pitch around that page, sends it, follows up and drafts replies and counter-offers.
Free option: Free preview of your first prospects and a sample pitch, no card. No free trial.
Sends from: Your own inbox or LinkedIn profile: 1 on Starter, up to 3 on Growth, up to 6 on Scale. Extra ones $19/mo.
Approval: You approve every fee, and every pitch until the agent earns auto-send.
Links: Outreach to the people who run each page. A fee only when a site asks and you approve it; it goes to the publisher on top of the plan.
AI: Works in ChatGPT and Claude (MCP); API on every plan.
Fits: Business owners and founders promoting their own site who want links pitched in their name without doing the outreach.
Skip if: You build links for client sites (its pricing page says it isn't built for agencies or resellers), or you want to write every pitch yourself.

Part LBT-05-09

Uprankly Link Builder

$199/moStarter: 8,400 credits, 3 campaigns. $169/mo billed yearly. Pro $399, Agency $799. A one-time $37 Test Drive gets 1,500 credits.

What it does: Prospects by keyword, competitor gap and lookalikes plus its own inventory of 50,000+ vetted sites, enriches contacts, writes openers, runs sequences, sorts replies and monitors won links. An “AI Link Agent” switch runs a campaign daily.
Free option: No free plan or trial on the pricing page. The $37 Test Drive is the cheapest way in.
Sends from: Your own Gmail, Outlook or SMTP accounts, unlimited on every plan.
Approval: “You set the strategy and approve every placement.” Whether each email waits for approval isn't stated.
Links: Outreach to found prospects and its vetted site inventory, with recovery emails when a link drops.
Fits: Agencies and in-house teams who want a full outreach suite on their own inboxes, with client portals.
Skip if: You want a cheap monthly entry or a free trial.

Some products sold as AI link building make links through a member exchange instead of outreach: Outrank (backlinks in its $99/mo plan), Distribb ($97/mo) and BabyLoveGrowth (€99/mo) describe members linking to each other on their own pages. For how AI performs at each step of link building and how to judge an AI link builder, see ai-link-builder.com.

Job 06 · Check that won links stay live6 tools

How do you check that your backlinks are still live?

Won links disappear: the page gets deleted or rewritten, the link turns nofollow, the site redirects. A monitor re-checks every link you won on a schedule and alerts you when one changes, so you can ask for it back while the editor still remembers your email. Search Console and Ahrefs' free plan cover your own sites at no cost; paid monitors add per-link checks and alerts.

Check before you buy

It checks the exact page, anchor and rel attribute, not just the domain
Alerts for removed, nofollow, redirected and noindexed links
How often it re-checks, and how many links the plan covers
Import from a CSV or your outreach tool

Part LBT-06-01

Google Search Console

FreeFor sites you verify.

What it does: The Links report lists your top linking sites, most-linked pages and anchor text from Google's own data, and exports up to 100,000 recently discovered links.
Free option: Free.
Fits: Every site owner, as the baseline list of who links to you, and the file to feed a real monitor.
Skip if: You need alerts or nofollow status: the report is a sample, doesn't say which links are nofollow, and may include links that were removed since.

Part LBT-06-02

Ahrefs Free

Changed in 2026

FreeFor sites you verify. New and lost link alerts are listed from the Lite plan ($129/mo).

What it does: Ahrefs' backlink data for your own verified sites (1,000 backlinks visible at once) plus Site Audit.
Free option: Free, no card, no expiry.
Fits: Site owners who want a fuller second view of their own links at no cost.
Skip if: You want an alert the day a link disappears.
What changed: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is now called Ahrefs Free; same account.

Part LBT-06-03

Backlink Monitor

$15/moStarter: 2,500 links, 20 domains; $150 a year. Pro $49 for 11,000 links.

What it does: Checks that each linking page still links to you, with rel tag, anchor text, robots.txt and Google index status, on a weekly or monthly schedule, and emails you when a link goes missing. Lists can be shared with clients.
Free option: 20 backlinks crawled free.
Fits: Agencies and freelancers proving placements to clients on a small budget.
Skip if: You need daily checks. Not to be confused with SEOptimer's Monitor Backlinks.

Part LBT-06-04

Linkody

€13.90/moWebmaster: 2 sites, 500 links, shown in euros. €10.50/mo billed yearly. Advanced €22.90 (2,000 links), Pro €45.90 (5,000).

What it does: Re-checks every link about every 24 hours for removal, wrong rel (nofollow, sponsored, ugc), wrong anchor, noindex and errors, finds new links for you and competitors weekly, and emails daily or weekly reports.
Free option: 30-day trial, no card.
Fits: Freelancers and agencies watching links they built or paid for.
Skip if: You want Slack alerts (email only), or your outreach tool already checks your links.

Part LBT-06-05

LinkChecker Pro

$25/moLite: 400 links, 1 user. $20.80/mo billed yearly. Standard $50 (1,000 links, 5 users).

What it does: Checks links daily and Google's index every 5 days, and flags deleted links, nofollow changes, index drops, redirects and competitor links inserted into your article.
Free option: Free Chrome extension; refund within 7 days of subscribing.
Fits: Link builders and agencies tracking bought or built links at volume, with several people.
Skip if: You watch a few dozen links, or want a free trial first.

Part LBT-06-06

BacklinkManager.io

$39/moStarter, billed yearly: 200 links, 3 users. Growth $99 (1,000 links), Scale $249 (5,000).

What it does: Watches for removed links, nofollow, 404s and index status, rendering JavaScript pages when a plain fetch can't see the link, and tracks partnerships, targets and client dashboards around them.
Free option: Monitor 50 links free, no card.
Fits: Teams juggling many vendor deals or partnerships who want a CRM, not only alerts.
Skip if: You only need monitoring: per link it's the priciest dedicated tool here.

More monitors, with how often each re-checks and how many links each plan covers: backlink monitoring tools compared.

Job 07 · Answer journalists' requests for sources9 tools

Which journalist request platforms still work for links?

Journalists and bloggers post requests for expert sources every day. Answer fast with something quotable and the article often links to you. For small companies it is the most common way to get links from news sites, and it costs time more than money. Expect many answers per published quote.

Check before you buy

Request volume in your topic and region
How fast requests reach you (free plans often delay them)
Pitch limits on the free plan
Whether published quotes include a link (many don't)

Part LBT-07-01

HARO

Changed in 2026

FreeNo paid tiers. Up to three email digests each weekday.

What it does: Journalists send requests for expert sources; you reply by email, and if they use your answer they credit you, often with a link.
Free option: Free for journalists and sources.
Fits: Anyone with real expertise who can answer within a few hours.
Skip if: You can't answer the same day, or you'd paste AI answers: HARO says it checks for AI-generated content and bans rule breakers for life.
What changed: Cision shut HARO down in December 2024. Featured.com bought it in April 2025, and it's free again.

Part LBT-07-02

Featured.com

Changed in 2026

FreeLite $39/mo ($29 billed yearly), Pro $99, Pro+ $299. Team plans from $199/mo.

What it does: An AI PR assistant that watches journalist requests “from HARO, LinkedIn, and more”, plus podcasts, bylines and awards, and drafts your pitches.
Free option: Free forever plan, no card. Every plan has every tool; paid plans raise the daily AI usage.
Fits: Founders and PR people who want one place to watch request feeds and draft answers.
Skip if: You only want the HARO emails, which are free on their own.
What changed: Now sells usage-based AI plans. Terkel's old domain redirects here.

Part LBT-07-03

Connectively

Changed in 2026

Free3 answers a month free. Lite $19/mo ($11 billed yearly), Pro $49, Business $99. Single answers from $4.99.

What it does: Publishers post questions; experts answer, submit Q&A articles and bylines. Paid plans suggest answers from your own knowledge base.
Free option: Free forever plan: 3 answers and 1 bylined article a month.
Fits: Experts who want a cheap, structured question feed with byline options.
Skip if: You need a link with every mention: its terms say publishers aren't required to link. Payments are non-refundable.
What changed: Cision closed the original Connectively in December 2024. The name is live again; its terms name Terkel Inc. as the trademark owner.

Part LBT-07-04

Qwoted

FreeBasic: 2 pitches a month, 2-hour delay. Pro is $149/mo on its pricing page and $1,188 a year in its app.

What it does: Journalists post source requests inside the platform and you pitch them there, with real-time alerts and a daily email. Pro removes the delay and allows 35 pitches a month.
Free option: Free Basic plan.
Fits: Experts and PR people who'll pitch more than twice a month.
Skip if: You pitch rarely, since Basic covers 2 pitches. Its terms say payments are final and non-refundable.

Part LBT-07-05

MentionMatch

Changed in 2026

FreeFree for sources and writers. An API for agencies and tools costs $500/mo.

What it does: B2B writers post requests and matching sources get them by email. Writers are asked to credit sources with a link.
Free option: Free.
Fits: B2B SaaS founders and marketers with something to say about their field.
Skip if: Your expertise is outside B2B marketing and tech.
What changed: Help a B2B Writer is now MentionMatch (“Same platform, new name!”), with a “launching soon” banner.

Part LBT-07-06

Source of Sources

FreeNo paid plans. It asks you to donate to animal charities instead.

What it does: Up to three emails a day with journalists' requests; you reply to the journalist directly. Run by HARO's original founder.
Free option: Free.
Fits: Anyone who answers requests by email and doesn't need a dashboard.
Skip if: You want filters, keyword alerts or a dashboard. Off-topic pitches get you removed.

Part LBT-07-07

SourceBottle

Free$25 per pitch, or unlimited for $65/mo ($650 a year). Its terms say fees are generally in Australian dollars.

What it does: Emails you journalists' call-outs to answer yourself. On paid plans its own team pitches your profile.
Free option: Free plan with call-outs by email.
Fits: Experts who'd rather have a person pitch their profile for a fee per pitch.
Skip if: You'd rather pay in US dollars, or write every pitch yourself (the free plan covers that).

Part LBT-07-08

ResponseSource

From £625/yrJournalist Enquiry Service, billed yearly per topic category; the price varies by category.

What it does: Emails UK journalists' requests to subscribers in the categories they pay for. Part of Vuelio.
Free option: Free one-week trial of the enquiry service.
Fits: UK brands and PR agencies who want the UK press specifically.
Skip if: You're outside the UK or want monthly billing.

Part LBT-07-09

Backlinker AI

$300/moOne plan: 1 site, 150+ pitches a month, month to month.

What it does: A done-for-you service: AI writes expert answers in your name and submits them to journalist-request platforms for you.
Free option: No free option. Its pricing card promises “3+ DR 30+ Backlinks GUARANTEED or Money Back.”
Fits: Founders who want links from expert quotes without writing the answers.
Skip if: You don't want AI-written quotes under your name. Its pricing card promises money back while its FAQ promises more pitches instead, so ask which applies.

#JournoRequest on X is free too: journalists post requests with the hashtag. Media databases such as Muck Rack sell through sales calls with no public price.

Kits by budget

What does a link building tool stack cost per month?

Three kits, priced from the cards above with monthly billing; yearly billing is cheaper for most of these tools. Link fees, paid placements and your own time aren't included. For what links themselves cost, see link-building-pricing.com.

Kit LBT-K0

The $0 kit

$0 a month

One site, a few pitches a week, more time than budget.

Search operators + Check My Links$0
Ahrefs Free (your own site)$0
Hunter Free: 50 credits + sequences$0
Search Console$0
HARO + Qwoted Basic$0

What it costs is time: 50 Hunter credits find up to 50 emails a month, and you can't see competitors' links in depth.

Kit LBT-K1

The solo kit

$78 a month

One person pitching every week, under $100 a month.

Ahrefs Starter (competitor links)$29
Hunter Starter: 2,000 credits + sequences$49
Search operators + Check My Links$0
Search Console$0
HARO + Qwoted Basic$0

Ahrefs Starter is thin (200 credits a month); when you outgrow it, Lite at $129 brings Link Intersect. Hunter's sequences send follow-ups from your own Gmail or Outlook.

Kit LBT-K2

The team kit

$847 a month

An agency or in-house team with people on outreach every day.

Ahrefs Standard$249
Pitchbox Pro (1-year commitment)$300
Hunter Growth$149
Qwoted Pro$149
Search Console$0

Pitchbox also monitors 1,000 won links. Swap it for BuzzStream Growth ($174) to avoid the one-year commitment: $721 a month.

Build your own stack

Pick one tool per job, or leave a job empty if you do it by hand. The total uses the same monthly prices as the cards.

01 Find pages02 Measure03 Find the person04 Pitch & follow up05 AI agents06 Monitor07 Get quoted

Parts list

Search operators + Check My Links$0
Ahrefs Starter$29
Hunter Starter$49
Hunter's sequences (in your Hunter plan)$0
Not covered$0
Search Console$0
HARO + Qwoted Basic$0

Per month$78

Per year, paid monthly$936

Entry plans billed monthly, as listed on each vendor's site on October 18, 2026. Yearly billing is cheaper for most of them. Link fees and paid placements are not included.

Automation

Do automated link building tools work?

It depends on what gets automated. Tools that automate asking (finding pages, writing, sending, following up) leave the decision to link with a person on the other site. Tools that create links themselves, or swap them inside a network, are what Google's spam policy names: it lists “using automated programs or services to create links to your site” and “excessive link exchanges” as link spam, alongside buying links that pass ranking credit. A fee you pay a site makes that link a paid link whichever tool found the site; Google asks for those to be marked rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Read the policy.

What gets automated	Examples on this page	Google's spam policy
Asking: finding pages and people, writing, sending, following up	Outreach software (job 04) and AI agents (job 05)	Outreach isn't named. A person on the other side still decides to link. If a site charges for the link, the paid-link rule applies.
Swapping: members link to each other	Link exchange networks sold with AI SEO tools, such as Outrank, Distribb and BabyLoveGrowth, by their own descriptions	“Excessive link exchanges” are named.
Creating links itself: posting to forums, wikis, directories and comments	Not listed on this page	“Using automated programs or services to create links to your site” is named.

Policy text: Google Search spam policies, link spam (page last updated August 28, 2026), read October 18, 2026.

Recalls and replacements

Which link building tools changed or shut down in 2026?

Most lists that rank for this search still describe these tools as they were a year or two ago. What we found on the vendors' own sites on October 18, 2026:

Respona
Sells finished links now, $100 (DR 20+) to $500 (DR 60+) per placement, with no software plan on its own site. Its outreach software lives on as the AI Backlink Builder app in Semrush, $169/mo.
Semrush Link Building Tool
Its page now redirects to Backlink Analytics, and Semrush points outreach to the AI PR Toolkit ($149/mo). Plans were renamed to SEO, Starter, Pro+ and Advanced.
Postaga
Offline: every Postaga address showed a hosting “Site Not Configured” page on October 18, 2026. Lists still recommend it.
NinjaOutreach
Every page returned a server error (Cloudflare 522) on October 18, 2026. It may be an outage, so we left it out.
HARO
Cision shut it down in December 2024; Featured.com bought it in April 2025 and HARO is free again.
Connectively
The Cision version closed with HARO. The name is live again with a free plan; its terms name Terkel Inc., whose old domain now redirects to Featured.com.
Help a B2B Writer
Renamed MentionMatch: “Same platform, new name!”
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools
Now called Ahrefs Free, same account.
Monitor Backlinks
Its site now redirects to SEOptimer, which blocked our checks, so we couldn't confirm a price.
Check My Links
The original Chrome Web Store listing is gone; the one listed today is published by SelectorsHub.
Citation Labs
linkprospector.com no longer answers; Link Prospector is sold on a citationlabs.com address, and Broken Link Builder says it's under construction.
BuzzSumo
No free plan any more: the trial is capped at 50 searches.

Not on this wall

What if you'd rather buy links than run tools?

Done-for-you link services, marketplaces and agencies sell finished links, not software. You pay per link or per month, and in exchange you give up choosing every site and owning the conversations with editors. That's a different purchase, so they aren't on this wall.

If that's what you want: link-building-service.com explains each kind of service and what it delivers, link-building-pricing.com collects published per-link prices and packages, and link-building-agencies.com keeps a sourced shortlist of agencies.

Respona is the clearest example of a tool turning into a service: it now sells placements from $100 to $500 per link.

Method

How were these tools picked and checked?

We started from the tools named on the pages that rank for “link building tools”, “link building software” and “best link building tools” in Google US, and in Google's AI Overviews for those searches, on October 18, 2026. Then we added what those lists miss: the AI outreach agents launched in 2025 and 2026, email verifiers, dedicated link monitors and the journalist-request platforms that are live today.

Every price, plan limit and free option comes from the vendor's own pricing page, help center or terms, read on October 18, 2026. Each card links the pages behind it. Prices are in US dollars, entry plan billed monthly, unless the card says otherwise; where a site only showed us euros, the card says so. Where a vendor's own pages contradict each other, the card says that too.

Tools are sorted by job, not ranked against each other: a backlink index and an email finder don't compete. Within a job, tools built for link building come first, general sales tools after them, and the AI agents run by price because none has a long track record yet. We left out tools whose sites were down or didn't load on the check date.

FAQ

Questions people ask about link building tools

What is the best link building tool in 2026?

No single tool does every job. The usual stack is Ahrefs (Lite, $129/mo) to see who links to your competitors, Hunter ($49/mo, or free for 50 credits) for emails, BuzzStream ($49/mo) or Pitchbox ($300/mo on a one-year commitment) for outreach, and Google Search Console (free) to watch the links you win. An AI agent ($29 to $199/mo to start) can take over the outreach.

What are the best free link building tools?

Google search operators for prospecting, Ahrefs Free and Search Console for your own backlinks, Hunter's free plan (50 credits a month, sequences included), Moz's 10 free Link Explorer queries a month, Screaming Frog's free version (500 URLs), Check My Links, and HARO, Qwoted Basic and Featured.com's free plan for journalist requests. See free link building tools for a $0 workflow.

What is the best link building software for agencies?

Pitchbox (Pro $300/mo billed monthly on a one-year commitment; Advanced $600 adds unlimited users) plus Ahrefs Standard ($249/mo) is the usual agency pair: Pitchbox runs prospecting, outreach, follow-ups, link monitoring and client reports. BuzzStream Growth ($174/mo, 3 users, no minimum term) is the option without a contract.

What are some effective automated link building tools?

Tools that automate asking for links: outreach software such as Pitchbox and BuzzStream, and AI agents that find pages, write and send pitches and follow up (from $29/mo). Check whose inbox sends and whether pitches wait for your approval. Software that creates links by itself, or swaps them inside a network, is a different thing: Google's spam policy names both.

Can AI build backlinks for you?

AI can find the pages, pick the person, write the pitch, follow up and draft replies; a site owner still decides to link. BacklinkGPT published results from running its agent on its own sites: 17% of pitched contacts replied, 26% accepted its LinkedIn invite, and the fastest link went live 2 days and 9 hours after the first email (case study).

Does link building still work in 2026?

Yes. Google's own documentation says it “uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl” (Link best practices). Links you earn from relevant pages are what the tools on this page help with.

How much do link building tools cost per month?

$0 with free plans, $78 a month for a solo kit (Ahrefs Starter and Hunter Starter), and about $847 a month for an agency team (Ahrefs Standard, Pitchbox Pro, Hunter Growth, Qwoted Pro). AI agents start at $29 to $199 a month. Link fees come on top of any of these.

Is Ahrefs or Semrush better for link building?

For link work alone, Ahrefs: Domain Rating is the score most sellers price by, and Link Intersect lists sites linking to your competitors (Lite, $129/mo). Semrush (Semrush One Starter $199/mo per its blog) is the better buy if you also want keyword research, rank tracking and AI visibility in one subscription, and it has a free plan and a 7-day trial.

Is buying backlinks illegal?

It isn't a crime in itself. The rule that matters for rankings is Google's spam policy, which counts links bought for ranking as link spam unless they're marked rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" (policy). For what links cost, see link-building-pricing.com.

What's the difference between a link building tool and a link building service?

A tool does part of the work while you run the campaign; a service delivers finished links for a fee per link or per month. Respona shows the shift: it used to sell outreach software and now sells placements from $100 to $500. link-building-service.com compares service types.