Linkova vs Bazoom: what you can see before you pay

Let's be accurate up front: Bazoom is a genuine marketplace, not just an agency. It runs a hybrid model — a self-serve "Intelligent Marketplace" plus a managed, people-powered service — with content written and included in every link price. This post is written by Linkova, so read it with that in mind. But we are not going to pretend Bazoom has no platform. The real difference is narrower and more useful than that: it is about how much you can see before you commit.

The core difference is what you can see before you pay

Bazoom keeps per-site prices behind signup. What it publishes openly are DR-tier ranges: by their own blog, roughly DR20–39 at $60–150, DR40–54 at $150–350, DR55–69 at $300–650, and DR70+ from $500 to $1,200+ [Reported], with niche premiums on top for verticals like iGaming. That is useful for a rough budget, but you cannot see the exact price of an exact publisher, and there is no market median to tell you whether that price is fair.

Linkova prints the price and the context next to it: the tracked market median from other marketplaces for the same kind of publisher, the real metrics on the domain, and where the money goes once you pay — all before you create an account. That matters because backlink pricing is opaque by design. When you see one number, you cannot separate the publisher's rate from the reseller's margin. When the price sits next to a tracked median, the margin becomes visible: 168,000+ of our listings sit below that median (72% of the catalogue), at an average saving of $112 against it — $165 on placements over $100.

What Linkova shows you before signup that Bazoom shows after

• 225,000+ publishers across 152 countries, each row with a live price — versus Bazoom's 80,000+ media outlets (their homepage claim).
• A transparent per-placement price shown next to the tracked market median from 50+ marketplaces, so you see the markup you are not paying. Bazoom shows no median.
• Real metrics on every listing from four providers — Ahrefs, Moz, Majestic and DataForSEO — visible per row. Bazoom leads on Ahrefs DR plus Moz and Semrush, but per-row depth sits behind login, and one G2 review flagged a faulty Ahrefs integration [Reported].
• 88,654 listings under $100 and 138,449 under $200; the median placement is $124 and the cheapest genuine listing is $30.
• LinkRadar — a scored, self-serve competitor backlink-gap tool. Bazoom does analyse competitor backlinks, but through its Strategy Builder, which is a human, consultative service rather than a scored tool you run yourself.
• Scout AI — brief-based publisher discovery. Bazoom markets "AI-powered recommendations," but its flagship discovery is human-led.
• Linkprofile — weekly backlink monitoring after placement.
• An inbuilt content module. Fair to concede: Bazoom includes content in every price too, so this is near-parity, not an edge.
• DR bands you can budget around: DR 30–49 runs $70–$220, DR 50–69 $180–$600, DR 70+ $500–$5,000+. 35,000+ domains are DR 50+, and 11,000+ are DR 70+.
• Pay-per-placement, no subscription, a flat 1.9% service fee, and an agency project-per-client workspace. 5% off your first order with code FIRST5 (minimum $300).

Where Bazoom may be the better call

Bazoom has real strengths, and they are worth naming plainly. It runs a large, award-winning network with deep coverage in iGaming, crypto and finance — verticals where placements are genuinely hard to source. Content is written and included in every price, so you are not managing a separate writing step. Its white-label managed service is a core offering, not an afterthought, and support gets good marks (G2 4.9). There is no subscription lock-in. If you want deep iGaming or crypto inventory, or you would rather brief once and let a people-powered team run outreach, writing and placement end to end, Bazoom fits that better than a self-serve catalogue does.

One honest caveat on the reviews: alongside that G2 4.9, Bazoom's Trustpilot sits around 3.6, with some complaints about cost and delays. Ratings vary by platform for most companies, so weigh both rather than either alone. Linkova is built for buyers who want to see and choose each placement against a visible benchmark; if you genuinely do not want to open a catalogue at all, that control is overhead rather than a benefit.