Teardown
Link building firms and a bootstrapped SaaS: one offer, taken apart
Below is an invented but typical proposal, the kind that lands in a founder's inbox after launch. We mark what to question, then give you a decision tree.
No real company wrote the proposal below. It is a composite of the pattern founders describe: a monthly fee, a link count, and very little about which pages get the links.
The proposal, line by line
| Line in the offer | The question to ask | A good answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| 10 premium links monthly | Can I see the list of sites before you publish? | Yes, with Domain Rating, traffic and niche per site |
| Six-month minimum | What do I get if month three shows no movement? | A clear exit, or a smaller first month |
| Natural anchor mix | Which URLs will receive the links? | A short plan of the pages, agreed in writing |
| Monthly report | Does the report show the live URL of each link? | Yes, every link with its date |
| Rankings uplift expected | What do you promise? | Nothing. Nobody can promise rankings |
The per-link sum
Do the division. Here, $1,500 over ten links comes to $150 a link in the invented numbers, which is a figure you can set against any other quote. Not outrageous for strong domains, though you did not choose them. Ahrefs or Semrush can check a few of the donors afterwards. On a marketplace you could see 10 rows between $10 and $100 and pick the pages yourself.
Retainers are not a scam. Good firms bring research, outreach and editorial work that a self-serve list does not. The question for a pre-revenue SaaS is simply whether you can afford six months of that before you know which page converts.
A decision tree for the founder with the proposal open
- 1
Does the SaaS already have paying customers?
No: skip the retainer, run the launch checklist and spend small. Yes: go to the next question.
- 2
Can you name the page that should get the links?
No: a firm will guess for you, so fix that first. Yes: continue.
- 3
Will the firm show every donor before it publishes?
No: walk away. Yes: continue.
- 4
Is the contract shorter than six months or cancellable?
No: ask for a pilot month. Yes: a retainer is a fair experiment.
- 5
None of the above fit?
Buy single placements and keep the retainer for later. The first order walkthrough shows how small that can be.
What a firm gives you that a list does not
Outreach. A firm can pitch a journalist or a niche blog with a story, which is slower and costlier than picking a row. If your product has a real news hook, that matters.
Judgement. An experienced strategist spots a toxic neighbourhood or a bad anchor plan before you do. That is worth money when the stakes are a large site, and less so when your whole domain is six weeks old.
The price ranges guide puts both routes on the same per-link scale.
Plain questions about agencies
- Should a pre-launch SaaS hire an agency?
- Rarely. Before launch there is little to link to and no data to judge by. Free listings and a clean comparison page cost less, and you learn more from doing them yourself for a month.
- What is the biggest red flag in a proposal?
- Promises about rankings. No firm controls Google. A second red flag is a list of sites that the firm refuses to show before publishing.
- Do I have to choose between a firm and a marketplace?
- No. Some founders buy single placements for a few months, then hire a firm once one page converts. The two can also run side by side on different URLs.