SEO and marketing decision
Backlinks List
A small, searchable paywalled catalog of backlinks is realistic for one technical person to build and maintain; most of the product’s value is curated data rather than proprietary infrastructure.
Visit website↗Not priced
No pricing page we fetched carried a figure, so there is nothing to compare against. The build side is still real.
$50one-off28 h to build
$40/mo3 h/mo upkeep
No published price to break even against.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Backlinks List alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Search and filter a curated backlink catalog, open backlink details (DA, type, instructions), copy/export target link info, and optionally submit new backlinks for listing.
What it still won’t have
- Manually curated, regularly verified premium list maintained by the vendor team
- Lifetime updates promised by the vendor
- Any implicit brand trust / community of paying users
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
No published price
Backlinks List does not publish a price we could read, so there is nothing to compare against. What building costs is below.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a single-developer searchable backlink catalog web app using Node.js + Express, Postgres, and React. Core features in scope: (1) backend CRUD and Postgres schema for backlink records (url, domain_authority, link_type, price_info, propensity, instructions, premium flag), (2) full-text search and multi-facet filtering API with pagination, (3) React UI to browse, filter, view backlink detail cards, and export CSV, (4) Stripe integration to unlock premium entries (one-time purchase) and simple auth, (5) admin CSV import and entry verification UI, (6) tests for API endpoints and basic UI flows, and error handling for network/db/payment failures. Out of scope: crawling/extracting DA automatically or training models to predict propensity. Deliver runnable Docker compose for app + Postgres, basic monitoring logs, and deployment instructions for a single VPS.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Build verdict base78
- An open-source build was found+5
- 4 cited sources+3
- Evidence score86
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 4
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productBacklinks List — homepage
- official pricingBacklinks List — pricing
- official docsBacklinks List — features
- open sourceevery-app/open-seo
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
