Startup Directories: 61 Places to Submit Your Startup, Ranked

How we built and ranked this list

Most lists of startup directories copy each other and add a Domain Rating column. We started from the 61 launchpads, directories and communities we track on our launch platforms page, all checked by hand for pricing and audience. Then we pulled two numbers for every domain:

• Rank (0–100). DataForSEO’s backlink rank, based on the domains that link to a site. It is comparable to Ahrefs DR or Moz DA, but not identical, so expect differences of a few points.
• US organic traffic per month. DataForSEO Labs’ estimate of Google visits from the United States to the whole domain. It is not the traffic your listing page will get, and it misses visitors from social media, newsletters and other countries.

Both numbers were fetched on 2026-11-02 and are stored with their source in the site’s data, so the tables below are built from the data rather than typed by hand. The do-follow column only shows what we have confirmed: “Yes” or “No” where we checked, and “—” where we haven’t. Across all 80 platforms we track, 10 are confirmed do-follow, 17 are confirmed no-follow and 53 are unconfirmed.

Within each group, directories are ranked by domain rank, then by traffic. Newsletters and marketplaces such as AppSumo or the Chrome Web Store are left out here. You’ll find them on the launch page.

Launchpads: where to launch your startup

Launchpads give you a day or a week at the top of a list, plus a listing page that stays up afterwards. They are the closest thing to a launch event. Product Hunt is still the largest by traffic (about 124K US Google visits a month), but its outbound links are no-follow, so count it for exposure, not for SEO. Launches there have worked for makers in our directory: Pieter Levels’s Nomad List reached #1 on both Hacker News and Product Hunt in 2014, and Brett Williams says his first Designjoy client came from Product Hunt. (sources: levels.io, indiehackers.com)

The smaller launchpads, such as Uneed, Microlaunch, Tiny Startups and TinyLaunch, are mostly run by indie makers. Many of them offer a do-follow link, either for free after a waiting line or for a fee to skip it.

Tip: BetaList works best before launch day, to collect a waitlist. For the launch-day playbook, read our guide on how to launch your product.

AI directories: where to submit an AI tool

AI tool directories get real search traffic because people search for “AI tool for X” every day. There's An AI For That leads with about 158K estimated US Google visits a month. The big ones charge a submission fee and review listings, so a free listing can take a long time or never happen.

If your product isn’t really an AI product, skip this group. A note-taking app with a summarise button will get little from these directories, and the audience can tell.

SaaS and startup directories

This group mixes three kinds of site, and they do different jobs:

• Alternatives sites (AlternativeTo, SaaSHub) catch people searching for “X alternative”, who are close to buying. List yourself next to the tool you replace.
• Review sites (G2, Capterra, TrustRadius, SaaSworthy) have huge traffic, but a profile with no reviews does little. They are worth the effort once you have customers who will review you. Their paid plans are aimed at bigger budgets than most indie makers have.
• Startup databases (Crunchbase, F6S, TrustMRR, Open Startup List) give you credibility with investors, journalists and acquirers more than they bring users.

Developer tool directories

Developers ignore marketing, so the best channels for dev tools are the ones they already use to choose tools: StackShare to see what other companies run, LibHunt for open-source libraries, and OpenSourceAlternative.to if you have an open-source version. For a launch moment, DevHunt runs weekly launches voted on by developers. Votes come from GitHub logins and listings are submitted as pull requests. (source: github.com)

Disclosure: DevHunt is run by John Rush, who also runs IndieMakerList. It is ranked here by the same data as every other row.

Communities: Show HN, Reddit, Indie Hackers and DEV

Communities are not directories. You don’t get a permanent listing, and links in posts are usually no-follow. But they bring the most honest feedback and often the first real users. Tony Dinh earned his first DevUtils sales from a single Show HN post. (source: indiehackers.com) Read each community’s self-promotion rules before you post. Most of them remove or ban pure announcement posts.

The Reddit row covers r/SideProject, r/indiehackers, r/SaaS, r/microsaas, r/alphaandbetausers, r/roastmystartup, r/InternetIsBeautiful, r/macapps, r/iosapps, r/chrome_extensions, r/selfhosted, r/buildinpublic, r/EntrepreneurRideAlong, r/nocode, r/webdev.

For more places to talk with other makers, see our list of indie maker communities.

Domain rank is not traffic: the directories to check twice

When we joined the two numbers, one pattern stood out. 9 directories in our list have a domain rank of 65 or more but fewer than 2,000 estimated US Google visits a month:

Most of these are newer launchpads that ask makers to put a badge on their site in exchange for a listing or a do-follow link. Thousands of badges create thousands of linking domains, which lifts the rank quickly. That doesn’t make them scams. Their visitors come from X, newsletters and the makers themselves, which a Google traffic estimate doesn’t capture, and our estimate only counts the US. But it does mean the rank alone overstates how much a link from them is worth.

The practical rule is to treat a high rank with low traffic as a cheap link, not a channel. Before you pay to skip a queue, look for at least one of these: real organic traffic, an engaged audience that comments, or a newsletter with readers in your niche.

Many startup directories are run by indie makers

Running a directory is a classic indie business, and it helps to know who is on the other side of the submit form. These directories from the tables above are built by makers with a profile on IndieMakerList:

• BetaList: Marc Köhlbrugge has run BetaList since 2010. It also powers Submit.co, a filterable list of several hundred places to submit a startup. (sources: marc.io, submit.co)
• Uneed: Thomas Sanlis started Uneed as a simple directory for front-end developers and turned it into a curated launch platform with a free waiting line and a paid option to skip it. (source: solos.ventures)
• Tiny Startups: Jaisal Rathee runs Tiny Startups as a pay-what-you-want launch list: paying more ranks you higher, and every listing gets a do-follow link. TrustMRR shows about $180K in lifetime revenue. (sources: tinystartups.com, trustmrr.com)
• Microlaunch: Saïd Aitmbarek built Microlaunch around longer launch windows than a single day, so a product can collect reviews and first sales. (source: microlaunch.net)
• IndieHunt: Praneet Brar runs IndieHunt, a weekly launch competition with do-follow links, next to his paid launch service Aura++. (sources: indiehunt.io, trustmrr.com)
• Twelve Tools: Samuel Pigny runs twelve.tools under Amphibian Digital, along with FrogDR, a free Domain Rating tracker. (sources: amphibiandigital.com, frogdr.com)
• Startup Stash: Bram Kanstein built Startup Stash in 2015 from his own bookmarks, using a stripped-down WordPress directory theme. It became one of the most upvoted launches in Product Hunt history. (source: medium.com)
• Future Tools: Matt Wolfe turned the spreadsheet of AI tools he tested for his YouTube videos into Future Tools in December 2022, and documented the build in public. (source: mattwolfe.com)
• TrustMRR: Marc Lou built TrustMRR, a startup database where revenue is verified through Stripe. It is useful when your numbers are part of the pitch. (source: trustmrr.com)
• DevHunt: Sidi Jeddou built DevHunt in 2023. Listings are submitted as GitHub pull requests and votes come from GitHub logins. It is part of the MarsX portfolio run by IndieMakerList's curator. (source: github.com)

Most of them reply to messages from makers, and many feature products they like in their newsletters or on X. A short, personal note after you submit often does more than a paid upgrade. If you want to build one yourself, read our directory business playbook.

Where to submit your startup: a plan by goal

You don’t need all 61. Pick by what you want from the listings:

Regional startup databases, such as EU-Startups’ directory or The Hub in the Nordics, are worth a profile if you are based there. Accelerator directories such as Y Combinator’s only list portfolio companies, so you can’t submit to them.

Before submitting, prepare one asset kit (name, tagline, a short and a long description, logo, screenshots, pricing, categories) and write a slightly different description for each directory. Our guide to directory submission walks through the whole process, including how to track which listings went live and got indexed.

Other ways to do it: work through a free list such as Submit.co (powered by BetaList) or our launch page yourself, or use one of the other submission services run by makers, such as Danny Takacs’s Quicklisting or Aleksandar Jovanovic’s LaunchRepo, which lets an AI coding agent do the submitting. (sources: quicklist.ing, trustmrr.com)