Small traffic is not automatically a problem at 42 DA, but it removes the argument for a premium price, and it is why we push buyers towards the budget end for sites in this band.
There is a second job these placements do that is worth naming: they make a young or thin profile look normal. A domain that acquires 42-level links from a spread of ordinary publications, in drips, over months, looks like a business that has been around. A domain that acquires forty links from aggressive networks in a fortnight looks like a campaign, and it is the pattern rather than the individual link that gets noticed.
sadamagazine.co.uk has 53 DR against an index median of 51, 2k monthly visits against a median of 5.5k, and a placement price of $65 against $70. Where those three numbers point in different directions, the traffic figure is usually the honest one: it is what a publisher has to protect, and it is what decays first when a site starts selling too much inventory.
General-interest publications are the workhorses of a link profile and the easiest place to overpay. The article shape that works is boringly specific: a problem, the method used, what happened, what it cost. A general title with 2k monthly visits survives because it answers questions well, not because it loves contributors, so a piece with nothing verifiable in it gets edited down to a bio link.
The index lists this property's editorial links as followed. Availability of a followed link changes with the site's monetisation decisions, so we confirm the tag on the live URL before counting delivery.