Listicle placement prices: what 30 sellers charge in 2026 (index)
One listicle placement paid once has a median published price of $250 (18 rate cards, $110 to $1,499). Directories rent list spots for a median $99 a month. 9 of 30 sellers say paid spots are labeled.
A spot in a "best X" list article costs a median of $250 when you pay once, across 18 public rate cards priced in US dollars (range $110 to $1,499). Directories that rent a list spot by the month charge a median of $99 a month. None of the 17 placement services says on its page that the spot is labeled as paid.
$250
is the median published price for one listicle placement paid once. Directories rent a list spot for a median of $99 a month; monthly service plans cost a median of $1,625 a month.
This index collects the prices that 30 sellers publish on their own pages: placement services, publishers that sell spots in their own list articles, and directories that sell positions in their lists. Every row was opened on its live page on 1 November 2026 and links to that page. We never estimate a price. We update the index every month.
What do sellers charge for a listicle placement?
In short: most sellers charge per placement, and the typical published price for one spot paid once is $250.
Medians and ranges, November 2026
What you buy
Rate cards
Median
Range
One placement, paid once (all sellers in US dollars)
18
$250
$110 to $1,499
One placement, paid once, placement services
11
$250
$120 to $520
One placement, paid once, publishers' own lists
7
$250
$110 to $1,499
One list spot rented by the month, directories
5
$99 a month
$49 to $349 a month (GoodFirms #1: $1,200)
Monthly service plan that buys new placements
6
$1,625 a month
$222 to $2,000 a month
Computed only from the rows below, using each seller's lowest published price for that way of buying. Package prices are divided by the number of placements they include. Left out of the medians: prices in pounds or euros (Bulldog, LinkVista, IdeaProof), Noble's figure, which is a stated average, Listicle Outreach's per-placement cost, which its page does not give, SERPsGrowth's $400 per placement, which it sells only in monthly tiers, and eSearchLogix's monthly retainer, which mixes listicles with links and PR. GoodFirms counts at its lowest position ($300). Five of the seven publishers belong to one publisher group (AK Internet Consulting).
Placement services: spots in other sites' lists
These sellers find a list on someone else's site and get you into it. Price mostly follows the site's domain authority tier: Rhino Rank runs from $135 (DA30+) to $450 (DA60+), SERPninja from $125 to $400 and LinksThatRank from $247 to $397.
$247 (DR 20 to 34), $317 (DR 35 to 49) or $397 (DR 50+) per listicle; $222 to $357 a month for one a month
Per listicle, or a monthly plan at 10% off
No long-term contract
1-year replacement guarantee
Not stated (1 dofollow link)
Prices as published on each seller's own page, opened on 1 November 2026. "Not stated" means we could not find it on the page we link. "Paid label stated" means the seller's page says the paid spot is marked as paid; it is not a check of the live articles. Noble's per-mention figures are its own stated averages, not fixed prices. Listicle Outreach sells "placement opportunities" and says it does not guarantee publication.
Publishers: spots in their own list articles
Some publishers sell a place in their own list articles directly. Five tech sites in the AK Internet Consulting group publish the same model: a sponsored section in an existing article for $110 to $400 for 12 months, with the #1 position for 50% more. Coinranking sells a permanent #1 spot once. MonetizeBetter sells a feature once ($399 in an existing listicle, $599 in a new one), does not guarantee the #1 spot and says the article will never be deleted.
Publishers' own list articles, checked 1 November 2026
$130 for a sponsored section; $195 with the #1 position
Once per term
12-month standard term; 6-month and permanent options
12 months
Yes: covered by the article's sponsored-links disclosure line; the #1 entry is marked "Sponsored"
Prices as published on each seller's own page, opened on 1 November 2026. "Not stated" means we could not find it on the page we link. "Paid label stated" means the seller's page says the paid spot is marked as paid; it is not a check of the live articles. Help Desk Geek, Online Tech Tips, Switching to Mac, The Back Room Tech and Xbox Advisor are part of the AK Internet Consulting publishing family. Coinranking is a crypto data site, so its lists are about crypto; its label wording is from its guide to best-of lists.
Directories: positions in their own lists
Directories and list sites rent positions in their best-of lists, category pages and alternatives pages. They are the only sellers here that charge rent for one spot while it is shown. Prices start at $49 a month; GoodFirms charges $1,200 a month for #1 and $300 for #15 on the same page.
Directories and list sites, checked 1 November 2026
Prices as published on each seller's own page, opened on 1 November 2026. "Not stated" means we could not find it on the page we link. "Paid label stated" means the seller's page says the paid spot is marked as paid; it is not a check of the live articles. GoodFirms rates differ by page and region; the figures shown are its booking tool's Software Development, United States page.
Which sellers have list spots but no public price?
These sellers offer list positions but ask you to contact them. They are not part of the medians.
Toolradar sells positions in its "best of" buyer guides, billed monthly and ranked by spot, with a 3-month minimum. Its revenue page says a placement never changes a tool's ranking score. Its pricing page says rates are in its media kit.
ToolJunction offers a category takeover: your tool pinned as #1 on a full category page, with a sponsored badge. Contact for pricing.
OutreachDesk adds brands to existing listicles. Prices come in a proposal; the page sets a 3-month minimum and replaces placements that drop within 6 months.
Are listicle placements one-off or monthly?
In short: most are paid per placement, and most monthly prices buy new placements rather than rent for one spot.
Paid per placement or per term only: 17 of 30 (Rhino Rank, PressHERO, Loganix, Stan Ventures, Growth Backlinks, LinkPanda, LinkVista, SERPninja, eSearchLogix, SubmitShop, Coinranking, MonetizeBetter and the five AK Internet Consulting sites).
Both a one-off price and a published monthly price: 4 (SaaSy Links, Bulldog Digital Media, LinksThatRank and IdeaProof).
Monthly only: 9. Four are services whose monthly plan buys new placements (Noble, Listicle Outreach, SERPsGrowth, Quoleady). Five are directories that rent a spot while it is shown (GoodFirms, TopBestAlternatives, AI Tools HQ, Softwares.com, iTechGuides).
Only 6 of 30 charge rent for one spot while it is shown: those five directories plus IdeaProof's Featured plan. PressHERO, Stan Ventures, LinkPanda and eSearchLogix also offer monthly work without a separate monthly listicle price, and each month buys new placements.
One-off sellers protect the buyer with a promise instead: replacement within 6 months at Loganix and LinkPanda, 12 months at Rhino Rank, PressHERO, SaaSy Links, Growth Backlinks and LinksThatRank, and lifetime or permanent at LinkVista, Coinranking and MonetizeBetter. Nine services state no period at all.
How many sellers say paid spots are labeled?
Nine of 30, and five of those nine are sites in one publisher group. The other four are directories: GoodFirms, IdeaProof, AI Tools HQ and Softwares.com. None of the 17 placement services says on its page whether the spot is labeled. Eight sellers describe dofollow links, and Coinranking says its #1 spot gets a Contributor tag, not a sponsored label.
That matters because Google's spam policies list buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam. Google allows paid links for advertising and sponsorship when they carry rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". Our guide to listicle placements explains what to check before you buy.
Why does the price of a listicle spot vary so much?
Site authority. Rhino Rank, SERPninja, SubmitShop, Loganix and LinksThatRank all price by DA or DR tier.
Position. GoodFirms charges $1,200 a month for #1 and $300 for #15; the AK Internet Consulting sites add 50% for #1.
Existing list or new article. MonetizeBetter charges $399 for an existing listicle and $599 for a new one.
Who writes it. Coinranking adds $299 for writing.
How long it stays. The same fee buys 6 months, 12 months or "permanent" depending on the seller; Help Desk Geek charges 65% of the price for 6 months and 50% more for permanent.
Link or no link. SaaSy Links charges from $500 for a linked placement and from $350 for an unlinked one.
None of the prices tell you how many people read the list or whether AI assistants cite it. Those two things decide what the spot is worth to you. The free route still exists: pitch the author of a list with a better product story. Our guide covers how to judge a list before you buy.
What changed since the October edition?
The index grew from 8 to 30 public rate cards, and the October seller types are now split into three tables.
New rows: SaaSy Links, Growth Backlinks, Bulldog Digital Media, LinkPanda, Listicle Outreach, LinkVista, SERPninja, eSearchLogix, SERPsGrowth, SubmitShop, Quoleady, LinksThatRank, MonetizeBetter, five AK Internet Consulting sites, TopBestAlternatives, AI Tools HQ, Softwares.com and iTechGuides.
All 8 October rows were re-read on 1 November 2026. Prices are unchanged. IdeaProof now also shows a €149 a month Featured plan that includes a sponsored slot on a Top-10 list.
New figures: medians and ranges per way of buying, and a split between monthly rent for a spot and monthly service plans.
October said 2 of 8 sellers state a paid label; with 30 rows it is 9 of 30.
How we collected these prices
We started from sellers that rank for "listicle placement", "listicle placement cost" and "pay to be featured in best of lists", from roundups of listicle services, and from the sellers already in the October edition.
We opened each seller's own pricing or product page on 1 November 2026 and copied the published price and terms.
We kept a row only when the seller's own page shows a price for a spot in a list. Prices quoted in third-party roundups were used only as leads, never as sources.
Medians use only fixed prices in US dollars, one figure per seller for each way of buying, as the summary table says.
Where a detail was not on the page, we wrote "Not stated" instead of guessing.
What we left out:
The Hoth and Anchorial. The Hoth's listicle product page returned a 404 error, and Anchorial's site did not load, so we could not confirm their prices.
Directory listings that are not positions in a list, such as paid tiers that give "priority" or "top" placement in a directory category, and link insertions in articles that are not lists.
ToolJunction's listing plans, which include list placement but which its page describes as "Curated, not pay-to-play".
Megri Outreach, whose listicle page shows the same tiers and prices as SubmitShop's; we list that rate card once.
Prices shown only on one buyer's invoice or quote, marketplaces where the price is only visible after sign-up, and individual creators' private rates.
Rank Monthly. We run this index, so we don't rank ourselves in it. Pricing is on request.
Next update: December 2026. If you sell list spots with a public price and want to be included, or see a price that changed, email hello@rankmonthly.com.
Can I reuse this data?
Yes. This is original research you can copy into your own article, report or spreadsheet. Please cite "Rank Monthly, Listicle placement price index, November 2026" and link to this page: https://rankmonthly.com/research/listicle-placement-prices. The columns are seller, existing list or new article, price, how you pay, minimum term, how long it stays and paid label stated, so the tables paste cleanly into a CSV. These are published rate cards, not transaction prices. Check the seller's page before you quote a single price.
The median published price for one placement paid once is $250, across 18 rate cards in US dollars checked on 1 November 2026. The range is $110 to $1,499. Directories that rent a list spot by the month charge a median of $99 a month. Price depends mainly on site authority, the position in the list and how long the spot stays.
What is the cheapest way to get into a best-of list?
The lowest one-off prices in this index are $110 for a 12-month sponsored section on The Back Room Tech and $120 per placement from SubmitShop. Directory spots start at $49 a month on TopBestAlternatives. Earning a spot for free, by pitching the author with a better product story, costs nothing but time.
Is sponsored listicle pricing usually monthly or one-off?
Mostly one-off. In this index 17 of 30 sellers publish only a per-placement or per-term price, 4 publish both, and 9 charge only monthly. Most monthly plans buy new placements each month. Only 6 sellers, all directories or list sites, charge rent for one spot while it is shown.
Do listicle placement sellers label paid spots?
9 of the 30 sellers say on their pages that paid spots are labeled: five tech sites in one publisher group and four directories. None of the 17 placement services says so. Google's spam policies allow paid links for advertising when they carry rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored".
How often is this price index updated?
Every month. This edition was checked on 1 November 2026 and the next update is in December 2026. Each row links to the seller's own page, so you can check a price yourself before you quote it.
Does a listicle placement guarantee that ChatGPT or Google mentions my brand?
No. None of the sellers can decide what Google or the AI assistants show, and Stan Ventures says on its page that it does not guarantee AI citation. A placement puts you on a page that may be read and cited; whether it is cited is up to the search engine or assistant.