13 submission sites compared on what they cost, whether they need an account, what kind of link the listing gives you and how long the review takes. Listed alphabetically, not ranked. We are in the table too, near the bottom of it.
Short answer
Free with no payment required: AlternativeTo, PeerPush, Product Hunt, SaaSHub, Uneed, yourhack.ai. Paid only: BetaList, There's An AI For That, Toolify. Of the 12 external directories below we inspected a live listing on 9 and found 6 serving a followed outbound link, 2 using nofollow and 1 using ugc. Every figure here was read off the live sites on 31 July 2026.
Most "best directories to submit your startup" posts are a list of names with invented numbers next to them, usually written by someone selling a bulk submission service. This one is built the boring way: we opened every submit page and at least one live listing on each site, read what they actually say, and wrote down only that. Where a site blocked us or rendered its terms in JavaScript we could not read, the cell says unverified rather than a guess. The full list of URLs we opened is at the bottom, with the date.
Submission directories compared on cost, account requirement, link type and stated review time
Followed no nofollow, sponsored or ugc on the anchor we inspected. nofollow and ugc are what we found in the markup. Unverified means we could not read it and are not guessing.
The sites in detail
AlternativeTo
nofollow
Best for: Anyone whose product replaces a well known paid tool. The "X alternatives" pages are the whole point, and they are what people actually search.
Cost
No fee stated anywhere in the submission flow.
Account
And new accounts have to wait: "New users must wait a week after the creation of their account to submit a new app page."
Link on the listing
On the listing we opened, the official website link carried rel="nofollow noopener". A partner slot on the same page carried rel="sponsored".
Stated review time
Their FAQ: "Usually, it takes between a couple of days and up to a week."
What it lists
Software and apps of any kind, framed as an alternative to something people already use. Must support English.
Worth knowing
There is no /submit URL. You add an app from the "Suggest new application" item in the account menu; the obvious guesses like /manage/software/new/ return 404.
Best for: A pre-launch product that looks good and needs early adopters, if you are willing to pay for the review and can absorb a rejection.
Cost
Their FAQ is blunt about it: "All submissions are paid. There is no free submission option." Prices are only shown at the end of the submission form, so we could not read the number without paying. Full automatic refund if your startup is not selected.
Account
Requesting /submit turbo-redirects straight to /sign_in.
Link on the listing
Their FAQ claims a do-follow link, and the page backs it up: the main "Visit Site" anchor had no rel attribute at all, and /startups/{slug}/visit answered 301 to the product site. The thumbnail links beside it did carry rel="noopener nofollow".
Stated review time
Not published as a fixed number: "The expected timeline is shown when you choose a plan and in your confirmation email."
What it lists
Pre-launch and recently launched startups with a real landing page.
Worth knowing
Your product needs its own domain. They state they do not accept vercel.app, netlify.app or herokuapp.com subdomains, or direct app store links.
Best for: Makers who are happy to trade a footer link for a free listing and are not in a hurry.
Cost
The free "Basic" tier requires you to link back: "A backlink to our site is required (on your homepage or footer)." Paid tiers listed on the same page: Lite $39 struck through to $29, Premium $69 struck through to $49, Super shown as $119 and $149. Paid tiers state "No backlink required".
Account
The page has Sign In and Join controls, but they open in-page rather than at a URL we could follow, so we could not confirm whether the free submission itself requires an account.
Link on the listing
The paid tiers advertise a dofollow backlink; the free tier does not say. We could not confirm either way: the product link on the launch pages we opened is rendered client-side and is not in the served HTML.
Stated review time
Stated on the free tier card: "Reviewed & listed within 30 days."
What it lists
General product launches, similar shape to Product Hunt.
Worth knowing
Read the free tier carefully. It is free in money and not free in links: you put a link to Fazier on your own site.
Best for: Founders who will actually post, comment and share revenue numbers. It rewards participation, not submission.
Cost
We could not verify anything about the submission terms this session. See the note below.
Link on the listing
Could not be inspected: no server-rendered listing HTML to read a rel attribute from.
What it lists
A community of founders first, a product directory second.
Worth knowing
Everything in this row is marked unverified on purpose. The site is a client-rendered app: /products returned only the app shell, one product URL we tried returned 502, and /robots.txt sat behind a Cloudflare challenge. We could not read any of its stated terms, so we are not going to invent them.
Best for: Cannot say honestly without seeing the current terms.
Cost
We could not load the page. See the note below.
Link on the listing
Not checked: we never reached a page.
What it lists
Historically new startups and side projects.
Worth knowing
Two independent fetches of the submit page returned a bot-verification interstitial ("Please wait while your request is being verified...") and never resolved to content. Every field here is therefore unverified. Open it in a normal browser and judge it yourself.
Best for: A polished launch you have prepared for, with people you can genuinely ask to show up. It is a one-day event, not a listing.
Cost
Their launch guide answers it directly: "Is Product Hunt free? Yes. It’s 100% free to use."
Account
/posts/new redirects to the login page. Their guide adds that company accounts are prohibited, so it has to be a personal account.
Link on the listing
On the product page we opened, the website link carried rel="noreferrer noopener ugc". Search engines treat ugc as a hint about user-generated content rather than a plain endorsement, so do not plan a launch around the link.
Stated review time
No published review window.
What it lists
Anything you would call a product launch. The biggest audience on this list by a distance.
Worth knowing
You cannot ask people to upvote. Their guide says to ask people to visit and comment instead, and accounts get flagged for the usual growth-hacking behaviour.
Best for: Established-enough software that can name its competitors and wants to sit in comparison and alternatives pages.
Cost
Their own nav describes it as "Our free tool that helps you to promote your product." A separate "Feature My Product" option sells premium placement.
Account
The submit form is served to logged-out visitors: paste a URL and continue.
Link on the listing
On the listing we opened, the main site button carried rel="nofollow". A duplicate variant of the same button had an empty rel, which looks like a template inconsistency rather than a policy.
Stated review time
They confirm there is one: "Please note that all submitted products go through an approval process."
What it lists
SaaS, IaaS and PaaS, most software products and apps, mobile apps with a decent website.
Worth knowing
They publish the rejection list: no agencies, no waitlist landing pages, nothing unreleased, no free subdomains, English only. They also warn that leaving the competitors field empty pushes you to the bottom of the queue, and that verifying with an email on your product’s own domain raises your priority.
Best for: An AI product with budget. If your tool is not AI, this is not your directory.
Cost
Two tiers on the launch page and no free option shown: "Website only" at $49 described as a one-time review fee with a permanent listing, and a $347 one-time package.
Account
Their form states edit access is granted on email verification.
Link on the listing
On both tool pages we opened, the main website link had no rel attribute at all. Secondary promoted slots on the same pages carried rel="nofollow noopener", so the followed link is the listing itself, not every link on the page.
Stated review time
They confirm a human reads it: "All submissions are manually reviewed by our staff." The higher tier advertises priority review.
What it lists
Their form is explicit: "We accept: AI tools, GPTs and AI influencers (non-human)."
Worth knowing
The $49 is described as a review fee. Read that as paying for the review, not for a guaranteed outcome.
Best for: An AI product that wants a fast paid listing and can justify $99 against expected referral traffic.
Cost
One option on the submit page: "Total: $99", described as "No queue, listed within 48 hours". No free tier appears anywhere on that page.
Account
The page shows a Login control, but the submit form itself is reachable without one.
Link on the listing
On the listing we opened, the product link literally carried rel="dofollow". That is not a real HTML value and browsers ignore it, but what matters is what is absent: no nofollow, sponsored or ugc, so the link is followed.
Stated review time
Sold as part of the fee: "listed within 48 hours, no queue".
What it lists
AI tools and GPTs.
Worth knowing
They advertise "no less than 6 quality dofollow links". We verified one followed link on one listing page and did not count six, so treat the number as their claim rather than ours.
Best for: A maker who wants a real launch day with a followed link and cannot or will not pay Product Hunt-scale attention costs.
Cost
The pricing page lists "Join the line" at Free, which gets you an automatic launch date at the next available slot. Paying is for control and speed: "Skip the line" to choose your date is $29.99, a relaunch of an existing product is $15, and a separate Uneed Pro subscription is listed at $99 a year on an early-bird price against $139.
Account
The form is honest about the order: "No account needed to start, we’ll scrape your page first, then ask you to sign up to save it."
Link on the listing
On the listing we opened, the product link carried rel="noopener" and no nofollow, which matches the do-follow claim on their pricing page.
Stated review time
No review window published. Free launches are queued to the next open date rather than reviewed on a clock.
Best for: Small free tools and side projects that want to be listed and cited rather than launched. Be realistic: we are a young site with far less traffic than most names above, so treat us as a long-term listing, not a traffic event.
Cost
Free to submit and free to stay listed. There is no paid tier, no featured slot for sale and no way to pay to skip the review, which also means we cannot promise you a faster one.
Account
A verified email and nothing else: continue with Google, or have a six-digit code sent to you once. No password, no profile, no newsletter.
Link on the listing
Your listing link is rel="nofollow" by default. Put our badge, or any link to yourhack.ai, on your own site and press Verify, and the listing upgrades to a followed link plus a verified-maker mark. A cron re-checks every three hours, so if you remove the link the listing drops back.
Stated review time
We open every submission in a real browser and actually use it. You get an email either way.
What it lists
Free browser tools go in the tools directory; any other real, live, free-to-try project goes in the showcase.
Worth knowing
The followed link is conditional on you linking back, and that is deliberate. If a reciprocal link is a dealbreaker for you, take the nofollow listing; it costs nothing and stays up.
Rejections cluster around the same handful of causes, and most of them are fixable in an afternoon. Every point below comes from a rule one of these directories publishes, not from folklore.
Ship it first, and give it its own domain
This is the single most common hard rejection on the list. SaaSHub says products that are not released yet "will be rejected immediately" and rejects free subdomains outright. BetaList says your startup must have its own domain and names vercel.app, netlify.app and herokuapp.com as disqualifying. A $10 domain removes two rejections before you write a word.
Put the value proposition in one line, above the fold
Reviewers are giving you seconds, not minutes. BetaList states it prioritises submissions with a clear value proposition, an idea it has not seen before and a well designed landing page, and SaaSHub rejects landing pages that are just an email form for a waiting list. Write the sentence that says what the thing does and who it is for, and put it where a reviewer lands.
Do not put a login in front of the value
If a reviewer has to create an account to see anything work, many will close the tab and mark it unclear rather than fight through your onboarding. Make at least one real thing usable, or visible in a working demo, without signing in.
Use real screenshots of the real product
Mockups on gradient backgrounds tell a reviewer nothing about whether the product exists. A plain screenshot of the actual interface doing the actual job is more persuasive and takes less effort.
Name your competitors
Directories are built on comparison pages, so this is help, not a weakness. SaaSHub says outright that a submission will be "slowed down and put to the bottom of the queue" if competitors are not listed, and AlternativeTo is built entirely on the alternative-to relationship. Fill that field in.
Submit from an email on your product’s own domain
It is the cheapest proof of ownership there is. SaaSHub says verifying gives your submission higher priority and requires an address on the product domain, and There’s An AI For That grants edit access on email verification.
Write in English and match the shape of the directory
AlternativeTo requires apps to support English and SaaSHub rejects products that are not in English. Beyond language, read what a directory actually lists: There’s An AI For That states it accepts AI tools, GPTs and AI influencers, so a non-AI product submitted there is a wasted evening.
Pick five and do them properly
Blasting fifty directories in an afternoon produces fifty thin listings and a pile of rejections. Choosing the handful that genuinely match your product, and writing a real description for each, beats volume on every measure that matters.
Frequently asked questions
Do directory backlinks still help SEO?
Less than the pitches suggest, and it depends on the site. We opened one live listing page on each of the 12 external directories in this table and could read the outbound link markup on 9 of them: 6 served a followed link, 2 used rel="nofollow" and 1 used rel="ugc". So a followed link is real but far from guaranteed. Treat a listing as referral traffic, discovery and a source AI assistants can quote, and take the link as a bonus when it happens.
Which submission sites are free?
Free with no payment and no strings attached at the point of submission, as of 31 July 2026: AlternativeTo, PeerPush, Product Hunt, SaaSHub, Uneed, yourhack.ai. Fazier has a free tier but it requires you to put a link to Fazier on your own homepage or footer. Paid only: BetaList, There's An AI For That, Toolify. Startup Stash states no price on its public page, so we cannot call it either way.
How long do reviews take?
Most sites do not publish a number. The ones that did, when we checked, were AlternativeTo at "a couple of days and up to a week", Fazier at "reviewed and listed within 30 days" on its free tier, Toolify at 48 hours as part of its $99 fee, and yourhack.ai at 48 hours. Everywhere else, assume it is measured in weeks and plan accordingly.
What is the difference between a nofollow, ugc and followed link?
A followed link is a plain link that search engines may treat as an endorsement. rel="nofollow" and rel="ugc" are hints that tell a search engine not to treat the link as an endorsement, with ugc specifically flagging user-generated content. All three send you exactly the same human traffic when someone clicks. If a directory pitches its links as an SEO product, check the markup on a live listing yourself before you pay: it takes about ten seconds in view-source.
Is it worth submitting to a lot of directories at once?
Rarely. A directory listing works when the audience of that directory overlaps with the people who need your product, and most bulk submission services optimise for count instead of overlap. Five listings that match your product and are written properly will beat fifty that are not, and you will not spend the next month answering rejection emails.
Methodology and sources
Everything above was checked on by requesting the live pages listed below and reading what came back. Directories change their terms often, so verify anything that matters to your decision before you pay for it.
What we did: for each site we opened the submission or pricing page and recorded the cost, account requirement and any published review time in the site’s own words. To classify the link, we opened one live listing page and read the rel attribute on the anchor pointing at the listed product.
What we did not do: we did not measure traffic, we did not calculate or copy any domain authority or domain rating score, and we did not pay for a submission. Where a directory advertises a metric of its own, we have attributed it to them rather than repeating it as fact. A link classification is a spot check of a single page on a single day, not a site-wide guarantee, and a site can change its markup at any time.
Where we failed: Launching Next served a bot-verification interstitial to two independent requests and never resolved to content. Indie Hackers renders client-side and returned only an application shell, with a Cloudflare challenge on robots.txt. Fazier renders its outbound product link client-side, so we could read its pricing but not its link markup. Those rows are marked unverified rather than filled in from memory.