Exam-prep link budgets: what $100 and $1,000 could cover
Revision traffic comes in waves, so money should too. Here are labelled examples of how a tutoring site might spread a link budget over a school year.
ExamArticles editorial team ·
Prices on the marketplace run from $1 per link up to about $500 for top domains, and depend on the donor. The splits are planning sketches, not results or quotes.
Three example plans
| Budget | Example split | What it leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| $100 | A handful of low-priced placements, plus money kept for one new guide | A small test you can judge in a month |
| $300 | A few mid-priced links to the homepage and one to the best lesson | Spread across two or three donor topics |
| $1,000 | Several mid-range links and one stronger donor, over two months | Room to repeat what worked |
How we would spend $100 first
- 1
Hold back $30
Keep it for fixing the page you are linking to. A link to a slow, confusing homepage wastes the other $70.
- 2
Buy the cheapest rows that still pass the scorecard
Cheap is fine when the site is real, in your language and about study. Skip anything that mixes in gambling.
- 3
Wait four weeks
Check Search Console for impressions on your brand name and on the page you linked. Google needs time to find and weigh the new links.
- 4
Decide on the next $100
If the page moved, repeat with a slightly stronger row. If it did not, look at the page before buying more.
Why price follows authority, traffic and niche
Cost rises with Domain Rating, organic traffic and how competitive the donor's niche is. That is the whole logic.
A site with a long history and many referring domains costs more than a new blog, and an education donor with real monthly visitors sits above a blank-traffic one. The row tells you all of it before you add anything to the basket.
So, to buy SEO backlinks cheap, you filter in the opposite direction from vanity: modest Domain Rating, a real topic, a steady audience. A $5 row on a genuine study blog can be more sensible than a $60 row on a site that sells everything.
Timing a term: exams, not months
Teachers plan backwards from exam day. Do the same with links.
Placements usually go live within about 24 hours of payment, but Google may need weeks to recrawl and weigh them. Order in September for a May exam run, not in April for a May exam run.
Keep a cash line for January, when mock-exam searches rise. Our homepage link guide and the mistakes list help you avoid spending it twice on the same page.
Remember to leave one week of slack for tracking; Google Search Console data lags by a day or two.
When to hold money back
Skip the purchase if the target page is broken. A link to a slow lesson with a pop-up wall just delivers a bad first minute.
Skip it too if you cannot say, in one sentence, who the page is for. Donor sites choose their readers carefully, and the article they write about you will be as vague as your own page.
Budget questions we hear
Is there a minimum order?
You pay per link, and the lowest price is $1. You can start with one placement. A subscription is not required, which suits a seasonal tutoring business.
Can I split one budget between a homepage and a lesson page?
Yes. Each placement has one target page, so you can send some to the homepage and some to a lesson or guide. We would keep the homepage share modest.
Does the budget widget quote real prices?
No. The budget widget is a local estimate that runs in your browser. Real prices are in the donor rows, so always read the row before paying.