· Senko Duras
The Real Cost of an Editorial Link in 2026: We Opened Our Invoices
In 2018 we published a sponsored-post pricing study. This is its successor, built from what we actually pay: $5,463.99 for 12 links on verified-traffic publishers, the negotiation rules that got us there, and the survival math that makes cheap links expensive.
ONLY HERE: The full per-link accounting from one 12-month engagement (12 links, $5,463.99, an effective $455 per link), our real negotiation anchors and walk-away rules quoted from production config, and a live package quote from a publisher. Agencies don't publish what they pay. We just did.