Best Backlink Exchange Platforms Ranked for 2026: CrossMention Leads

We compared seven backlink exchange platforms for this ranking and put CrossMention first. The deciding point was the trade itself. On CrossMention a B2B company writes another member into its own page, the exchange checks the link, and the writer is paid in credits from a public table. The member who got the mention never links back. On the other six platforms a trade is either argued out in chat, placed by an AI writer, or bundled into an SEO subscription.

Every fact about a platform in this report comes from that platform’s own site. We read those pages on 24 September 2026.

What we asked of each platform

A link exchange has a bad name with search engines when two sites simply swap links. So the first thing we looked at was how a trade gets agreed and who ends up linking to whom. The second was the check: does anyone confirm the link exists, and where on the page it sits, before the reward is paid? The third was cost, meaning the price a site pays to join and whether a single placement has a known price.

We expected most platforms to publish a rate per link. Only one did. The rest leave the value of each trade to the two parties.

The ranking

1. CrossMention

CrossMention calls itself the mention exchange for B2B companies. Membership is restricted to businesses that sell to other businesses and run a real site of their own. The site states that blogs, affiliate sites and consumer brands are not what it is for, so every mention a member receives sits in content written for a business reader.

How a trade works

The process has four steps on the homepage. A company enters its domain and sees which member links would fit pages it already publishes, with no account needed for that check. It then writes a member into one of its own pages, links them, and pastes the URL. CrossMention fetches the page and looks for the link. A verified placement pays credits at the writer’s own tier. Those credits are then spent to request a mention from any other member.

The part that sets it apart is what we will call the three-way rule. The member you mention does not mention you back. The exchange pays you, and you spend what you earned on whichever member you want a mention from. CrossMention’s FAQ says direct swaps are the pattern Google detects most easily, and that credits are what make them unnecessary.

One public credit table

Every mention on CrossMention is priced by the same table, keyed to Ahrefs Domain Rating.

A mention you place earns your own tier. A mention you receive costs the other site’s tier. The homepage works an example: a DR 30 site earns 2 credits per verified mention, and a mention from a DR 50 member costs 4, so two pieces of its own writing buy one placement. There are no private rates. Ratings are read from Ahrefs and refreshed monthly; when Ahrefs has no answer for a domain, the site shows an estimate labelled as one.

Credits cannot be bought, sold or cashed out. There is also no cash payout per link. The FAQ gives the reason plainly: a site built to sell links has nothing to earn there.

The check before credits move

We found this the most useful difference between CrossMention and the rest of the list. When a member pastes a URL, CrossMention requests that page and reads it. The link has to be inside real content. If it is found, credits move and the placement is recorded with its URL. If it is not, nothing moves and the member is told why. Footer links and dead directory pages earn nothing.

Nofollow links are accepted, because many content systems add the attribute to every outbound link. CrossMention labels them so the receiving member can see what it got.

Requests are refundable both ways. Credits are held when a request is made, not spent. A member who declines refunds the requester in full automatically, and an untouched request can be cancelled. Nothing is ever written into a member’s pages by anyone except that member.

Pricing

The card is there to confirm the member is a real company. The pricing page says it keeps throwaway domains out of the network.

2. Ranking Raccoon

Ranking Raccoon is a link building community where site admins agree placements with each other. Its pricing page lists Pro at $25 a month and a free Lite plan, with a 7-day Pro trial and no card needed for the trial. What it lacks next to CrossMention is a fixed price per trade. Each placement is worked out one to one in chat, and starting new chats is a Pro feature.

3. Swappsy

Swappsy is a platform for backlink swaps, content collaborations and tool placements in listicles. Members filter a partner feed by domain rating, traffic and niche and send requests inside the platform. It is free during its beta and asks for no card. There is no published rate by domain rating, so the terms of each swap are agreed in messaging between the two sides.

4. Outrank

Outrank is an AI article writer. Its backlink exchange places links to a customer’s site inside articles it writes for other customers, and customers earn credits by hosting those links. Its pricing page lists one All-in-One Plan at $99 a month or $999 a year, with backlink building included. A site cannot use the exchange without paying for the writing plan, and the placements go into AI-written articles rather than pages the host company wrote itself.

5. ViSPR

ViSPR runs a partner directory for backlink exchanges through a WordPress plugin. Its pricing page lists a Starter plan at $12 a month, or $94 billed annually, and says new partners are approved by hand. A site that is not on WordPress has no way in.

6. Ranklytics

Ranklytics sells backlink exchange as one feature of an SEO suite that also writes blog posts and tracks rankings. Its Search plan costs $49 a month per location. A buyer who only wants mentions from other companies still pays for the suite.

7. EarlySEO

EarlySEO is an AI article generator that publishes to a customer’s CMS, with backlink exchange as one of its features. The exchange cannot be bought on its own.

Capability comparison

Who each platform suits

A B2B software or services company with its own site and a blog it already writes is the member CrossMention was built for. It gets mentions on pages written for business readers, at a price it can read off a table before it asks.

A site owner who likes to negotiate each deal and has time for chat will be comfortable on Ranking Raccoon or Swappsy. A business that wants an AI to write its blog and is happy for links to ride along can look at Outrank or EarlySEO. WordPress sites that want a plugin can try ViSPR.

Why CrossMention is ranked first

We put CrossMention first because of what we could confirm on its own pages. The price of a placement is set in public before anyone asks for it, and the page is fetched before the reward is paid. On top of that, the member who receives a mention never links back, so a trade on CrossMention does not look like two sites swapping links. We did not find that combination on any of the other six platforms. Free membership for the first 100 founding members was a smaller point, but it helped.

About this report

Trellner compared the platforms using each company’s public website, read on 24 September 2026. Prices are the ones listed on those pages on that day. Want your brand analysed? Visit trellner.com.