SaaS Link Building: Where a SaaS Gets Links and What Each Costs

Link building for SaaS: the sources, what each costs and who decides

A SaaS has more places to earn a link than a blog does, because the product itself gets listed: in directories, in the marketplaces of the tools it connects to, on the alternatives pages for its rivals. Here every source sits side by side.

The top rows carry counts because their links sit in page templates, so reading the live listings shows how the site links. The rows below them turn on one person's yes per link, so they come with a price in hours and no count. Review sites such as G2 and Capterra are a channel of their own, built from what customers write rather than from a submission, and they sit outside this table.

Backlinks for SaaS companies from app marketplaces

An integration earns a listing, and the listing's link is the store's decision. On ten listings of well-known apps per store, read on 5 November 2026, the Shopify App Store linked the developer's website from a Website line on nine of them, all nine followed, while the 11 pricing links beside them carried nofollow. On Zapier's pages every developer link, a “Learn more”, carried nofollow (20 of 20), and on the Chrome Web Store all 30 developer links carried ugc nofollow. A nofollow listing still brings the buyers who install from it, which is the reason to be there.

The entry price is a working integration and a review. Zapier's publishing guide is plain about it: “To publish your integration, you need to submit your app for review by Zapier.” Shopify charges a one-time $19 per Partner account to register, the Chrome Web Store a one-time registration fee, HubSpot asks for at least three active installs before a listing and Slack's guidelines turn away apps on fewer than 10 active workspaces and with fewer than 20 monthly active users.

Alternatives and comparison pages

Buyers search for a rival's name plus alternative, and alternatives sites answer with a page per product. Startup Alternatives is free, asks for no badge and linked out followed on all 3,654 links across its 269 listing pages when our guide read them. AlternativeTo is free as well, with a review queue its own terms call “usually months long”, and its 25 newest listings linked with nofollow: it is there for the buyers comparing tools, not for the link. Your own comparison pages are the other half, and the pages a new SaaS builds before it asks for links have a post of their own.

Product-led links: badges, embeds and free tools

A product can earn links by being used. A made-with or powered-by badge on pages customers build with it, an embeddable widget, a free tool that does one job on a page: each puts your link on a site you do not run, and your own code sets its rel. The customer can still edit that code, so the link lasts as long as they keep it. This site's version is three free tools: a Domain Rating lookup that reads Ahrefs' figure for any domain, a link preview checker that shows the card a shared URL turns into and a domain age lookup that returns when a domain was registered.

SaaS backlinks from directories: the layer to build first

Directories are the source a new SaaS can work through on published rules. A directory prints what its form asks and, often, whether its badge is the price, and its newest listings show what yours will link with. Our catalog records a followed link for 40 of the 59 SaaS and software directories we submit to. 16 of those 40 are rated DR 50 or higher and 25 need no badge on your site; across all 59, the median Domain Rating is 44. Launch sites take a SaaS as well, and the catalog records a followed link for 40 of the 76 we submit to.

Price is what puts this layer first. A directory asks nothing, a badge or a small fee per listing, and the listing goes up on the directory's schedule rather than an editor's. It is also what the later links stand on: by the time an editor or an agency links to you, the domain has its first referring domains, and for a new SaaS those most often come from here. Where a directory sells its followed link outright, the prices directories put on a followed link are compared in a post of their own.

A badge is the price on 15 of the 40 SaaS directories recorded as followed, and a badge that disappears in a redesign can take the followed link with it. Every name, with its rating, link type and badge rule, is on our list of SaaS directories; if you came for a list of free SaaS directories for backlinks, start there and read the badge column. The whole catalog, launch sites included, is in the startup directories table.

SaaS link building services: what agencies sell and charge

Rankings of the best link building services for SaaS fill page one; the table below is prices instead. SaaS link building services come in two shapes: a monthly package with a count of links, or a price per placed link. Of the ten agency pages selling SaaS link building in Google's results for the three searches we read, five print a price on their own site; the other five send you to a call, a demo or a contact form. Add SaaSLinks, whose guide to link building costs ranks for SaaS link building services and whose site prints its packages, and six prices sit side by side.

At the entry plans a link costs $175 or less at SaaS Link Builder ($699 a month for 4+ links) and up to $440 at LinkPanda ($4,400 a month for 10 links). Volume brings the rate down, to $130 a link on SaaSLinks' 30-link card, while NON.agency skips packages: $275 for each approved placement. Their own pages name what the fee buys: guest posts, niche edits, link insertions, listicle placements and brand mentions. Most of it is people's time, the SaaS link building experts who find the sites, write the pieces and chase each yes.

A B2B SaaS link building agency is the same offer aimed at software sold to businesses: One Little Web pitches its Growth plan as “Ideal for scaling B2B companies”. For agencies that resell directory submissions to clients of their own, the route with us is our white label tier.

How to choose a SaaS link building agency

A link building agency for SaaS sells one editor's yes at a time, so the questions that matter are about the sites where those editors work. There is no best link building agency for SaaS in the abstract, just answers you can check, and these are the questions to put in writing before the first invoice:

1. Which sites, and who runs them? Ask for the domains up front, read a few articles on each and ask whether the agency owns or runs any of them.
2. Do you approve each site first? SaaS Link Builder's home page reads “You’ll review and approve each potential publisher site before any backlinks go live”, and One Little Web lists “Prior domain approval” on every plan.
3. Will the link be followed? Three of the six cards put dofollow in writing. Open a live placement and read its rel, as our post on dofollow and nofollow shows.
4. What if a link disappears? NON.agency lists a “12-month replacement guarantee”, and SaaS Link Builder lists “Lost link reclamation” on its Growth plan. Ask how long each link is watched and what replaces it.
5. What does the report show? The live URL, the anchor, the page it points to and the date, for every link; SaaSLinks' packages promise a “Monthly report: live URL, anchor, DR, and traffic”.
6. Per link or per month? A monthly card buys a count and a per-placement price buys a site you saw. Divide either way, as the table does, and compare by the link.

Asked of Submitator, the same questions have plain answers. The sites: our catalog names every directory we submit to with its Domain Rating, its badge rule and the link type on our record, and marks the two that are ours, AlterBase and AffyList. Approval: you pick each directory yourself in the dashboard, its DR on screen. A link that hangs on a badge lasts as long as the badge, and the badge is ours to keep live. The report: our plans list real-time tracking and a detailed report. The price: $29 for 30 directories, under a dollar a directory.

A directory page that lists your product and an editor's link inside an article are different products, and the gap between under a dollar and about $175 to $440 a link says so. What to ask of both stays the same: which site, which link and which page it points to.

A SaaS link building strategy for a new product, in order

SaaS link building strategies, as the guides on page one write them, run to as many as 36 practices. The order matters more than the count: the links from each step make the next step easier to win, and the cheap steps come first.

1. Directories and launch sites, in the first weeks. Choose the SaaS directories and launch sites your buyers browse, check what each listing links with and whether a badge is asked for, then file them. Where a directory's link hangs on its badge, the badge has to stay on your site from then on.
2. Your integrations and the alternatives sites. Every platform you connect to that keeps an app directory is a listing to apply for, and every rival your buyers name is a page on an alternatives site you can join.
3. Content that earns links. A number from your own product, a free tool or a comparison page someone will want to cite.
4. Outreach, then an agency, when the budget allows. Unlinked mentions and partner pages cost an email each. Buy article links last, for the pages that already convert, at the per-link prices above.

The general strategies, from journalist requests to broken links, are compared by cost and by who decides in our post on where backlinks come from. Software that takes over parts of the work is sorted stage by stage in our post on automating link building, and the tools link builders pay for, each with its price, in our post on the software behind outreach.

B2B SaaS link building: where buyers shortlist

B2B buyers draw up a shortlist before they talk to sales, and they draw it on pages other sites own: app directories, alternatives sites, review sites. B2B SaaS link building starts on those pages, because a listing there can carry a link and put you on the shortlist at the same time. The order above holds; the second step simply weighs more.

SaaS link building tips

• Point links at the pages that convert (pricing, integrations, comparisons), not at the home page alone.
• List every integration you ship on both sides: in the partner's directory and on a page of your own.
• Publish your product's own numbers. A count nobody else has is the easiest thing for a writer to cite.
• Open each live listing and read its rel; where a directory's link depends on its badge, leave the badge up.
• Date every number you publish, the way this page does, so the people citing it know when it was true.

The directory layer of SaaS link building, done for you

The first step of that order is the part Submitator does, across 59 SaaS directories and 76 launch sites among the 189 we submit to. Each of them earned its place the same way, with a submission of ours to it running end to end before it was added.

From there the work is ours. We write the description for each directory you pick, to that directory's own limits, and complete every form; CAPTCHAs never reach you. Badge directories ask your site for one change, made once: a component that holds every badge your picks require. From then on each badge staying live is our responsibility, and no directory ever needs a commit of yours. Live listing pages are pushed through IndexMachine by us, which is what the free indexing ($25 value) on Starter, Growth and Scale means: nothing to connect on your side, and Google still decides what it indexes.

Our terms put the timing in writing: most directories are delivered in 24 to 48 hours, every directory within 21 days at most. A rejection by a directory is credited back by default: you pick another directory in its place. All Directories is the exception, since it already spans the whole catalog. A refund can be requested within 30 days of purchase, on the conditions in our terms.

Every plan is one payment: 30 directories for $29 on Starter, 60 for $49 on Growth and 100 for $79 on Scale, or All Directories at $149 for the whole catalog and each directory added to it later. SaaSGrow's Basic is $9 for one listing without its badge; $29 with us covers 30 directories, SaaSGrow among them if you pick it, filed the way SaaSGrow asks, with its badge on your site.