Link building course, agency or marketplace: pick with a table
Three routes, three kinds of salesperson. We compare them on what you pay, what you control and what goes wrong, and we include our own weak spots.
Another SEO Guru research team ·
The comparison, one row per question
Question
Link building course
Agency retainer
Marketplace
What do you pay for?
Lessons and access
Monthly hours
One placement at a time
Who picks the sites?
You
The agency
You, from a visible list
Can you inspect a link before paying?
Rarely, you build it later
Sometimes, in a report
Yes, row by row
What can go wrong?
You learn and never act
You pay for activity, not links
A row underperforms
How fast?
Weeks of study
Months of onboarding
About 24 hours after payment
Who is it for?
Hobbyists who enjoy outreach
Teams without time
Owners who want control
Where each route earns its keep
01
Course
Good when you enjoy the craft and have evenings to spare. Poor when you wanted links by Friday.
02
Agency
Good when you lack time and can read a monthly report. Ask for the invoice per link, because totals hide a lot.
03
Marketplace
Good when you know your niche and want to choose. Poor when you expect someone else to choose well for you.
How we would choose
Begin with your time, not your wallet. How many hours a week can you give?
If the answer is under two, a course will sit unwatched. An agency is probably wiser. If it is ten, a course plus outreach can work, and you will learn what a good link looks like, which makes you a better buyer even later. If you want to place a few links this week and review them yourself, see the price explainer.
Whatever you choose, ask for evidence that predates the sale: a dated case, a named method, a number you can test. Gurus rarely have it, which is why their pitches spend so long on mood.
The sentence gurus leave out
Every route needs a human to decide which pages deserve links. That is the part nobody can sell you.
A course does not replace that judgement, an agency borrows it, and a marketplace hands it back to you with a price tag attached. Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic and Moz can all show a donor's numbers, yet none can tell you whether your page deserves a reader.
So start from the page. If it would not impress a stranger, links will only point more strangers to a page that does not impress them.
Verdict
We sell one of the three, so discount accordingly
If you like learning and have time, a course is fine, provided you check its proof. If you want control with little overhead, a list you can sort is hard to beat. If neither fits, an agency may, but ask for line-item costs.
Check the proof, not the testimonials
Ask for a per-link price in writing
Start with something small and observable
Questions to ask each seller
Put the same four questions to all three. Silence tells you more than the answers.
To a course: what does a typical student do in the first month, and where is the proof dated? To an agency: what did each link cost, and who chose the site? To a marketplace such as ours: where is the list, and what does the article say? The seller scorecard lists the rest.
Compare answers in a spreadsheet, not in your head. A sales call is built to make comparison hard.