Link building consultant

A research-grade link building plan without the consultant's retainer

You want the expert research a good consultant would bring — the exact who, what, and when for your niche — without paying a retainer month after month. In 5 business days we hand you a flat-fee, strategy-grade plan: verified target publications, linkable angles, three ready-to-send templates, and a 30-day sequence you execute yourself. No placements, no promises, no retainer.

One-time $149, delivered within 5 business days

See a sample plan

Your plan is emailed to you within 5 business days of payment.

Secure checkout via Stripe. Use the same email you submitted with, so we can match your payment to your site.

No placement is ever guaranteed: every outlet and angle in your plan is real and verifiable, but links are earned, not promised.

Delivery, revisions & guarantee

What do I receive?
A hand-researched plan built around your website and niche: an overview of your site, the linkable content you already have and the gaps worth building, 8–15 verified target publications and journalists with real, checkable contact paths, three outreach templates pre-adapted to your business, a 30-day action sequence, and how to track results. Full delivery policy →
When will I get it?
Within 5 business days of payment. At checkout and on your order-status page we show your exact expected delivery date; the plan is emailed to the address you ordered with. If we're ever late, we email you the new date before it's due — you never have to chase us. Full delivery policy →
What does a revision cover?
One free round within 14 days of delivery: if a listed target is a genuine mismatch for your business or proves dead or expired, we replace that entry with a comparable, freshly verified one at no extra charge. It's not a rewrite service, and routine outreach results (no response, no link yet) aren't revision grounds — your plan is a path, not an outcome. Full revision policy →
What's your guarantee?
We never guarantee links, placements, or rankings — no honest service can. What we do guarantee is the quality and truthfulness of the work: it's researched for you, delivered on time (within 5 business days of payment), and every target is real and verifiable on the day we deliver. Full satisfaction policy →

No placement is ever guaranteed — links are earned, not promised.

Run the free snapshot first — it's free

Get consultant-level research at a flat $149 — the strategy layer, without the monthly retainer. See inclusions and terms on /plans, and start with the free snapshot to check your site is linkable.

See the actual plan before you buy

Don't take our word for it — read a fully written outreach plan in the exact format you receive, using a sample plan for a fictional business. It shows the structure, depth, and honesty of the $149 deliverable end to end.

What's in the plan

The same inclusions as our full plan— built for your site and niche specifically.

  • 8–15 verified target publications & journalists

    The outlets and reporters actually covering your niche, each with a working contact path and a note on why they'd care about your site — the same research standard a good consultant would bring, delivered as a document you keep.

  • Linkable content angles

    Which of your pages, data, or stories an editor would genuinely want to link to — the reason your first pitch exists, not just 'here is my business'.

  • Three outreach templates pre-adapted to your site

    Ready-to-personalize outreach emails written the way editors expect — short, specific, and respectful of their inbox and their beat.

  • A 30-day action sequence

    Whom to contact, in what order, and when — with follow-up timing and what to change in each follow-up so you never just resend the same pitch.

  • Tracking setup

    How to log pitches and replies with free tools, and what to watch — so you know which targets and angles are working as you go.

  • Delivered within 5 business days

    Emailed to the address you paid with within 5 business days of payment — one flat fee, no retainer and no minimum commitment.

How this compares to the alternatives for your site

We sell strategy and research — verified targets, angles, templates, and a sequence. We don't sell placements or links, and we don't claim to be a tool. Here's an honest read on each option:

Agency

A full-service agency runs your link building month over month on a retainer.

Powerful if you want it completely handled and you have the budget — verified industry entry retainers cluster around $425–$5,500/mo, and you'd be paying for ongoing execution of work a flat-fee plan lets you run yourself once. Outcomes are still never guaranteed.

Right when you want full execution and have budget to spare.

Consultant

A retained link building consultant who advises you on strategy over time.

Genuinely valuable if you want an ongoing strategic partner who reviews your work month over month — but that's a recurring retainer for ongoing engagement. If what you need is a researched, ready-to-execute plan for your niche, the flat-fee deliverable is the strategy layer without the retainer.

Right when you want an ongoing advisor, not a one-time plan.

Freelancer

A link-building or outreach freelancer you hire to run your outreach.

Quality and availability vary person to person, and a good one usually commands a recurring fee. If you'd rather hand the sending off entirely, a freelancer may remain the right call.

Right when you want someone else to do the sending.

Software (Ahrefs, Semrush, Respona…)

Powerful tools for research, qualification, outreach, and monitoring — each usually a separate subscription you operate yourself.

They solve different components of the same workflow, and those components are commonly separate tools used together. We produce the strategy layer on top: who to contact, what angle, what to say. Tools and a plan complement each other — an outreach or monitoring tool still needs the right targets and copy to send.

Right for the research and sending operations — and they don't write your outreach strategy.

DIY

Do the research and outreach yourself, free.

Viable and genuinely free — our published guide covers the whole method. But it costs hours of research, target qualification, and writing, and outreach fails most often not from bad sending but from wrong targets and weak angles. The plan removes exactly that bottleneck.

Right when your time is free and progress can be slow.

No path here guarantees rankings — ours included. And a warning: we never sell, buy, or broker links, and many "cheap backlinks" sellers traffic in paid placements and link farms that can hurt your site. This plan targets earned editorial placements — genuine, and never guaranteed. For the full method, see our small-business link building guide.

Proof is forming — and it's consent-first

We're building our first founding-customer cohort now: they pay a reduced rate in exchange for candid feedback and, with explicit, revocable consent, an anonymized case study of how a plan plays out in practice. To be clear: this is an early, forming program — we don't yet have completed case studies or validated results to show, and we never will until real customers have agreed to share them.

Until real consented data exists, the strongest proof we can show you is the sample deliverable itself — inspect the actual plan you'd receive, end to end.

Frequently asked

Is this the same as hiring a link building consultant?

No — and we won't blur it. A retained consultant typically advises you month over month, reviews your ongoing strategy, and stays in your corner as your situation changes. This is a flat-fee research deliverable: one personalized plan of verified targets, angles, and ready-to-send templates, delivered in 5 business days. You buy the strategy layer once, without the retainer or the ongoing engagement. Neither option guarantees placements or rankings.

How personalized is the plan to my site and niche?

Built specifically for your site and niche — not a template. The 8–15 targets are drawn from the publications and journalists actually covering your space, with working contact paths and a note on why each would care about you; the content angles come from your own pages; the three outreach templates are pre-adapted to your site. The closer and more specific the research, the more useful the plan is — that's the whole point of paying for research rather than guessing.

What if my niche is unusual or nothing mainstream covers it?

That's exactly the case where flat-fee research earns its keep. A specialist consultant in an obscure niche is hard to find and expensive to retain; we research the actual outlets, communities, and journalists who cover what you do — trade press, niche newsletters, industry roundups, relevant directories — and hand you the ones that are genuinely reachable. If a niche truly has thin coverage, the plan says so honestly instead of padding with irrelevant targets. No link is ever guaranteed either way.

Do you advise on my current link building strategy or audit existing work?

The plan is forward-looking: a researched set of targets, angles, templates, and a 30-day sequence to execute. It's not a review of work you've already done. If you're mid-strategy and want an audit or ongoing advisory, that's a different, recurring engagement — the kind a retained consultant provides. For starting or resetting your outreach with a verified plan, this flat-fee deliverable is the layer you buy once.

How is this different from a retained consultant's ongoing retainer — and cheaper?

A retained consultant charges you every month to stay engaged. Verified industry pricing shows entry retainers clustering around $425–$5,500/mo and single links around $99–$900 (a single HOTH DR20+ link is $175) — and those are delivery/execution fees, not strategy. $149 buys you the whole strategy and research layer as a one-time fee: less than one agency link, and a fraction of a single month of a retainer. It does not buy placements, and we never claim it does.

What if I can't execute the outreach myself?

This plan assumes you run the outreach — it's the strategy layer, not a managed service. If you'd rather hand the sending to someone, a freelancer or an agency may be the right call, and we'd rather you decide that honestly than we pretend to do work we don't. The plan is built so a focused founder can execute it themselves an hour at a time, with free tracking tools.

The consultant-level research layer, for a flat fee

Run the free snapshot to check your site is linkable, then get the full researched outreach plan for your niche — verified targets, angles, templates, and a 30-day sequence you execute on your own schedule. Explore the link building plan hub for every audience we cover, and see how a researched plan scales to resell on the link building for agencies page.

One-time $149, delivered within 5 business days

See a sample plan

Your plan is emailed to you within 5 business days of payment.

Secure checkout via Stripe. Use the same email you submitted with, so we can match your payment to your site.

No placement is ever guaranteed: every outlet and angle in your plan is real and verifiable, but links are earned, not promised.

Delivery, revisions & guarantee

What do I receive?
A hand-researched plan built around your website and niche: an overview of your site, the linkable content you already have and the gaps worth building, 8–15 verified target publications and journalists with real, checkable contact paths, three outreach templates pre-adapted to your business, a 30-day action sequence, and how to track results. Full delivery policy →
When will I get it?
Within 5 business days of payment. At checkout and on your order-status page we show your exact expected delivery date; the plan is emailed to the address you ordered with. If we're ever late, we email you the new date before it's due — you never have to chase us. Full delivery policy →
What does a revision cover?
One free round within 14 days of delivery: if a listed target is a genuine mismatch for your business or proves dead or expired, we replace that entry with a comparable, freshly verified one at no extra charge. It's not a rewrite service, and routine outreach results (no response, no link yet) aren't revision grounds — your plan is a path, not an outcome. Full revision policy →
What's your guarantee?
We never guarantee links, placements, or rankings — no honest service can. What we do guarantee is the quality and truthfulness of the work: it's researched for you, delivered on time (within 5 business days of payment), and every target is real and verifiable on the day we deliver. Full satisfaction policy →

No placement is ever guaranteed — links are earned, not promised.

Run the free backlink audit

No placement is ever guaranteed — we guarantee the research and the plan, never the outcome.