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It's for a followed link.  If I don't pay, then they don't add any link at all (or simply don't publish the article at all).

Thanks Ryan. Yes, the impression I get is that they either add a do-follow link for a fee, or it's no link at all.

So I guess a sensible approach might be to simply look at each publication's domain score and the content they publish and make a judgement about whether they look/feel legitimate rather than them looking like they are just in it for selling links?

For the last few years I've been gaining steady backlinks for my clients by producing online press releases for them (e.g. publishing results of a survey they commissioned, or their expert opinion on recent news, etc). The online coverage included a backlink naturally or by me just asking the publication nicely.  But recently I'm finding that publications are asking for a fee to publish the article (with a link) or they will publish the article for free, but will add a link for a fee.  Note: these publications aren't link-building-sites, they're good DA sites such as  https://www.femalefirst.co.uk/ and  https://www.moneymagpie.com/  (MOZ DAs of 80 and 56 respectively). The fees are around $200 each.

The clients can afford to pay for this type of coverage, but is there a risk in these cases with Google?

Thanks Ryan. Yes, the impression I get is that they either add a do-follow link for a fee, or it's no link at all.

So I guess a sensible approach might be to simply look at each publication's domain score and the content they publish and make a judgement about whether they look/feel legitimate rather than them looking like they are just in it for selling links?