Using HeyLinks without an Ahrefs key
Bring your own CSV of prospects, skip straight to Review Leads with verified emails, and run the rest of the pipeline normally.
Updated July 15, 2026
The CSV route
You do not need Ahrefs to use HeyLinks. Link Discovery and Link Extraction are one way to find prospects; Import CSV (in the sidebar) is the bring-your-own-data alternative. A CSV is just a plain spreadsheet file, the format every spreadsheet tool can export. If you have a list of sites or pages you want links from, from any source at all, you can upload it and run the rest of the pipeline exactly as normal: qualify, review, draft, send, follow up, track.
What your CSV needs
The bar is low on purpose: any CSV with a URL column works. Plain domains are fine as URLs, so a column of entries like retroarcadefinder.com, with no https:// in front, imports without complaint. An Ahrefs export works as-is too, if you ever get your hands on one.
If you would rather start from a known-good file, there is a downloadable template in the CSV guide (linked at the end of this article) that you can fill in with your own rows.
The Email column superpower
Here is the trick that makes the CSV route genuinely fast: include an Email column. Rows that come with an email address can skip qualification entirely and go straight to Review leads, ready for you to approve. You already did the hard part (finding a contact), so HeyLinks does not spend a qualification credit re-doing it.
On the way in, those addresses are verified automatically, so you are not sending into dead inboxes. Every address gets a free check, and on top of that a premium verification runs within a generous monthly allowance that scales with your plan.
Rows without emails
Rows that arrive without an email address go through normal qualification on the Qualify sites page: each site is vetted, a contact email is discovered and verified, and the site gets a score, just as if the prospect had come from Link Extraction. So a mixed CSV is fine; each row simply takes the path that fits it.
Skips qualification. Email verified automatically. Lands in Review leads, costing no qualification credits.
Goes through normal qualification, which vets the site and finds a contact email for you.
The deep dive
This article covers the why; for the full how, including column-by-column details, the downloadable template, and bringing in data from other SEO tools, read "The CSV import guide: get your prospects in clean" in the Importing prospects section of this help center.