Outrank backlinks: what the $99 plan includes, and what it costs you
Outrank is one of the few tools at this price that builds links as well as articles, and on the $99 Organic Growth plan the link building is included rather than sold as an upgrade. That is a genuine advantage and it is the reason to look at it.
One thing to understand before you buy, and to Outrank’s credit it is on their own pricing page rather than buried: the links are paid for in credits, and"you earn the credits that pay for it by hosting a relevant link in your own articles". Links in, links out. Most vendors selling link building do not tell you where the inventory comes from. This one does.
By the end of this page you will know exactly what the base plan includes, what the three backlink tiers cost, how the credit exchange works, and what Google publishes about this shape of link building. Every figure was read off the vendor’s own pages on.
The open question is not whether the feature works. It is one line neither the pricing page nor the FAQ contains, and it decides whether Google’s policy applies to you at all.
Quick verdict
- You already want 30 articles a month: take it. The link building costs you nothing extra on the $99 plan, and buying equivalent placements separately would cost more than the whole subscription.
- You run a site where outbound links are cheap to you: the exchange is a fair trade. A relevant link inside one of your own articles is the price, and if your content can carry that without harming the reader, you are getting links for editorial space you were not using.
- You cannot host outbound links: look elsewhere. Client sites, regulated industries and anyone with a strict editorial policy should read the credit mechanism carefully before signing up, because hosting links is how the system is funded.
- You want links and nothing else: this is a content tool first. You would be paying $99 a month for an article engine to get at the links.
What you actually get at $99 a month
The Organic Growth plan is $99 a month, or $83.25 a month if you pay $$999 for the year, which the page calls a $$189 saving. Automated backlink building is included in it. Outrank’s FAQ states it plainly: "Every Organic Growth subscription includes automated backlink building."
The marketing line above it is "High DR Backlinks built for you on auto-pilot". The page gives no DR threshold behind that phrase and no monthly link count, which is worth knowing before you set expectations. What it does describe is the mechanism: Outrank places links to your site inside relevant articles on other blogs, and says it verifies every placement.
Compare that against the category. OnThe SEO Agent vs Outrank the rival at the same $99 price does not mention backlinks on its pricing page at all. Getting link building bundled with your content at this price is not common.
How the credits work, in their words
This is the part worth reading twice, and it is the part most reviews of this tool skip. The placements are bought with credits, and the FAQ says where the credits come from:
You earn the credits that pay for it by hosting a relevant link in your own articles.
So it is an exchange. Outrank finds you placements on other sites in the network, and your own published articles carry links to other members in return. The higher tiers buy extra credits so you can receive more than you host.
Two honest observations about that. First, it is disclosed on the pricing page, in the FAQ, in one sentence, without euphemism. A great many link vendors never explain where their inventory comes from, and that silence is worse than this disclosure. Second, it means the real price of the feature is not only money. It is editorial space on your own site, and you should decide whether you have any to spare before the card comes out.
What Google publishes about this
Anyone buying a link product should read the policy that covers it, and it is short. Google defines link spam as "the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings", and three of its listed examples touch what is described above:
- "Using automated programs or services to create links to your site"
- "Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking"
- "Exchanging goods or services for links"
That is not an accusation, and the same policy is careful about this. Google says that "buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes" and that it is "not a violation of our policies to have such links as long as they are" qualified with rel="nofollow" orrel="sponsored".
Which is exactly where the question lands, and where both pages stop. Whether a placement Outrank makes for you carries one of those attributes is the single line that decides whether any of the clauses above apply to your site, and neither the pricing page nor the FAQ says. If you are considering the $199 tier or above, that is the question to put to their sales team before you pay, and the answer takes them one sentence.
Read it yourself:Google Search spam policies. We cover what automated link building means across two tools onBaby Love Growth vs Distribb.
What the tiers cost
Read off the vendor’s own pricing page on , with both billing options checked. Only the base plan publishes an annual rate.
| Plan | Billed monthly | Billed annually | Backlinks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic Growth | $99/mo | $83.25/mo | Automated link building included |
| Backlink Premium | $199/mo | none published | Extra monthly backlink credits. The page shows no annual price for this tier. |
| Backlink Scale | $899/mo | none published | High-volume credits and marketplace placements. No annual price shown. |
| Backlink Enterprise | $1,899/mo | none published | Highest credit volume and top marketplace priority. No annual price shown. |
Check them yourself:Outrank pricing. Tell us if anything has moved.What these tools used to cost records the figures that already did, with the date we caught each one.
What we could not confirm
- Whether placed links carry
rel="sponsored"orrel="nofollow". This is the one that matters, because Google's own policy turns on it. Neither the pricing page nor the FAQ states it. - How many links you get. No plan states a monthly count. The upper tiers are described as "more", "high-volume" and "highest" credit volume, with no number against any of them.
- What a credit is worth. The page never says how many credits a placement costs, or how many you earn for hosting one, so the exchange rate of the whole system is unstated.
- What "High DR" means here. No DR threshold is published, and we have seen no list of the sites in the network.
- Whether the backlink tiers replace the $99 plan or add to it. The page presents them as separate plans while describing them as extra credits on top.
- Link quality. We have received no links from Outrank, we run no testing, and nothing here is a judgement about the sites it places on.
Where to go next
If the articles are the real reason you are here, the comparison to read isThe SEO Agent vs Outrank, because both are $99 a month for 30 articles and they make opposite promises about checking them. If you are weighing Outrank against a full SEO suite instead, that isSearch Atlas vs Outrank. And if you have not settled on a category at all, our comparison by business situationstarts from the situation rather than the software.
Questions people ask
- Does Outrank include backlinks in its $99 plan?
- Yes. Its pricing page FAQ says "Every Organic Growth subscription includes automated backlink building", on the $99 a month plan, read 17 October 2026. Most tools that write articles at this price do not include link building at all, so this is a real difference rather than a marketing one.
- How do Outrank backlink credits work?
- Outrank places links to your site inside articles on other blogs and says it verifies every placement. You pay for those placements with credits, and its FAQ states how you get them: "You earn the credits that pay for it by hosting a relevant link in your own articles." So the links you receive are funded by links you publish.
- What do the Outrank backlink tiers cost?
- Backlink Premium is $199 a month, Backlink Scale $899 and Backlink Enterprise $1,899, each described as adding more monthly credits on top of the base plan. None of the three shows an annual price. Read 17 October 2026.
- Is automated link building against Google policy?
- Google’s spam policies name "using automated programs or services to create links to your site" and "excessive link exchanges" as link spam. They also say buying and selling links is "a normal part of the economy of the web" and not a violation when the links carry rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". Whether that applies here depends on how Outrank marks the links it places, which neither its pricing page nor its FAQ states.
- Is Outrank worth it just for the backlinks?
- If you already want 30 articles a month, the link building arrives at no extra cost and that is good value. If you want links alone, you are paying $99 a month for a content tool to get them, and you are agreeing to host other people’s links on your site. Decide on the articles first.
- Did RankJudge test Outrank’s backlinks?
- No. RankJudge runs no testing and never claims to. We read Outrank’s pricing page, its plan table and its FAQ on 17 October 2026, and we read Google’s published spam policies. We have not received a single link from Outrank and make no claim about the quality of the sites it places on.