There are 18 free online directories for startups worth your time, out of the 126 startup directories, launch platforms and review sites we track. Free here means no listing fee and no paid tier at all, not a free tier next to a paid one. Seven of the 18 have a Domain Rating by Ahrefs (DR) of 70 or more, 5 give a followed link on an ordinary listing, and 7 review every submission by hand. Figures were checked 22 September 2026.
Most pages that rank for “free online directories” list Google Business Profile, Yelp, Bing Places and Yellow Pages. Those are local business citations. They help a dentist appear on a map and do nothing for a product with no street address. The “300+ free directory submission sites” lists are general web directories from an older era of SEO, with no audience for a software product. Neither kind is on this page.
The 18 free startup directories, ranked by Domain Rating
The table below is every directory in our dataset with no listing fee and no paid option, ordered by DR. The link column matters as much as the DR: a nofollow link on a DR 91 site sends visitors and no authority, while a followed link on a DR 40 site moves your DR. The same list with visits and approval time for each is on the free directories page.
| # | Directory | DR | Link | Approval |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Crunchbase | 91 | Nofollow | Saves at once; new accounts reviewed within a business day |
| 2 | Hacker News (Show HN) | 91 | Nofollow, followed once the post earns points | Instant, no review |
| 3 | Product Hunt | 91 | Nofollow (ugc) | Live on the day you pick |
| 4 | Indie Hackers | 81 | Nofollow on profile, followed in update posts | Self-serve |
| 5 | Peerlist Launchpad | 77 | Nofollow (ugc) | Self-serve, weekly |
| 6 | Alternative.me | 75 | Nofollow | Not stated |
| 7 | SideProjectors | 71 | Nofollow (ugc) | Reviewed, no timeframe |
| 8 | Future Tools | 69 | Nofollow (redirect) | Reviewed within 7 days |
| 9 | Promote Project | 50 | Dofollow | Live within minutes |
| 10 | BuildVoyage | 43 | Nofollow | Reviewed within 48 hours |
| 11 | Awesome Tools | 42 | Nofollow | Not stated; DR 30+ required |
| 12 | ProductBurst | 41 | No crawlable link | Self-scheduled, Mondays |
| 13 | Startup Listing | 40 | Dofollow | Not stated |
| 14 | LLM Relevance | 37 | Nofollow, followed with badge | Reviewed within 48 hours |
| 15 | Tech Trendin’ | 37 | Dofollow | Not stated |
| 16 | Resource.fyi | 31 | Nofollow (ugc) | Reviewed, no timeframe |
| 17 | Tulimoa | 30 | Dofollow | Reviewed within 24 hours |
| 18 | Made with Bolt | 21 | Dofollow | Reviewed, no timeframe |
The median DR across these 18 is 46.5, against a median of 58 across all 126 directories we track. Free directories sit at both ends: the biggest community platforms on the web never charged for a listing, and neither do the one-person lists at the bottom of the table.
What each free directory wants from you
Each of the 18 has its own rules on who qualifies and what the link is worth. Same order as the table.
1. Crunchbase, DR 91
Crunchbase is a database of private companies, funding rounds and people, and any signed-in user can add a free company profile. The website link is nofollow, so it passes no authority. Add the profile anyway: it is an entity record that search engines and AI answer engines read when they describe your company, and it takes a few minutes. Connect a LinkedIn or Google login, check the company is not already there, then add a logo, founded date, website, descriptions, headquarters and founders. The profile saves straight away, though a new account can wait up to one business day before it may contribute.
2. Hacker News (Show HN), DR 91
Post a Show HN of something people can try; the link goes followed only once the story earns points. Posts go live at once with no review. Landing pages, waitlists and newsletters are off topic, and asking friends for upvotes gets the post penalised. Build it yourself and stay for the thread.
3. Product Hunt, DR 91
Product Hunt is free to launch on from a personal account, but the product page link is tagged ugc, so count on traffic and the badge, not link equity. Company accounts cannot submit. A top finish needs a prepared launch kit and people ready to visit and comment on the day.
4. Indie Hackers, DR 81
The Indie Hackers product directory is free with an account; the profile’s website button is nofollow, but links inside your own product update posts are followed. Adding a product takes minutes: name, tagline, website, logo, category and a self-reported monthly revenue, which can be zero. Post progress on the listing to get the followed link.
5. Peerlist Launchpad, DR 77
Peerlist runs weekly project launches from personal developer profiles, free, with the visit link tagged ugc. Company profiles cannot launch. Add the project with a name, tagline, cover image and demo link, then pick a week. The value is the developer audience and a project page that ranks.
6. Alternative.me, DR 75
Alternative.me lists your product next to the incumbents people search for, free, with a nofollow homepage link. Anyone with an account can submit from the dashboard. No approval time or review rules are published, so treat it as a comparison placement rather than a backlink.
7. SideProjectors, DR 71
SideProjectors is a free marketplace to sell, showcase or find a co-founder for a side project, and a showcase listing is the route for a live product you are not selling. Links carry rel nofollow ugc. Listings are reviewed, and complete projects with screenshots and a working demo get approved.
8. Future Tools, DR 69
Future Tools is Matt Wolfe’s hand-picked AI tool list, free to submit and with over 75 percent of submissions declined. You will not hear back either way; if you are not listed within a week, resubmit. Waitlist-only products, custom GPTs and near-duplicates are turned down, and tool pages link through an internal redirect. AI tools only.
9. Promote Project, DR 50
Promote Project is a free startup list whose listing links straight to your domain with no nofollow. New startups appear within minutes of being sent, which suggests no review. Paid featuring at 0.99 dollars a day pins you to the top, but the listing itself has no paid tier.
10. BuildVoyage, DR 43
BuildVoyage is a curated micro-SaaS directory organised by tech stack, free, with a 48-hour manual review and a nofollow link. No account needed: name, tagline, a description of at least 50 characters, website, category and at least two technologies, then confirm by email.
11. Awesome Tools, DR 42
Awesome Tools has a free submit form but only accepts sites with a DR of 30 or more, or 1,000 monthly visitors, so a brand new domain does not qualify yet. Listing pages link out with nofollow. Check your number on the Domain Rating checker first.
12. ProductBurst, DR 41
ProductBurst runs free Monday launches with points-based ranking, and its Visit Website button is a script-driven link with no href, so search engines get no backlink at all. Products stay on the homepage for 30 days. Ranking comes from votes, comments and points earned by engaging with other makers.
13. Startup Listing, DR 40
Startup Listing is a free directory of SaaS tools, micro-SaaS and side projects with a followed link on every product page and no badge condition published. Sign in and add a name, description, logo, URL, category and tags. The only upsell is a featured homepage spot from 3 dollars a day.
14. LLM Relevance, DR 37
LLM Relevance is a free directory of AI, SEO, CRM, marketing and productivity tools for small business owners, reviewed by hand within 48 hours. The profile link is nofollow by default and switches to dofollow once their badge is on your website.
15. Tech Trendin’, DR 37
Tech Trendin’ is a weekly launch feed for SaaS where the Visit Website button is a plain followed link. Joining is free with an email or Google account. Sponsorship exists from 30 dollars a month for a sidebar slot, but the listing and its link cost nothing.
16. Resource.fyi, DR 31
Resource.fyi is a free curated catalogue of tools for developers, designers and marketers, with outbound links tagged rel=ugc. Sign in with Google or GitHub and submit a URL, name, description and image. The team approves submissions as soon as it can, with no time stated.
17. Tulimoa, DR 30
Tulimoa takes only AI and MCP software, reviews by hand in around 24 hours, and gives a direct followed link with no tracking redirect. Only your own product on its own website qualifies, with a cap of two listings per account. The badge is optional and affects ranking only.
18. Made with Bolt, DR 21
Made with Bolt is a one-person showcase for apps built with Bolt.new, and every profile carries a plain followed link with no badge or payment required. Only Bolt-built projects are accepted, and the owner reviews each one.
Free vs freemium: what “free” means on this page
A free directory has no listing fee and no paid tier, while a freemium directory has a free listing and sells something on top of it. That distinction is why this list has 18 entries and not 96. Across the 126 directories we track, 18 are free, 78 are freemium, 20 are paid only and 10 do not publish a price.
The freemium group is where the upsell lives. Of the 78 freemium directories, 38 only give a followed link once their badge is on your site, and the priced ones charge a median of 15 dollars to skip the queue or get featured. Some have a free tier as good as anything here, such as AI Tools Directory at DR 67 with a followed link and no charge. They are all on the full list and in every rank plan; they are just not on this page.
Two of the free directories sell an optional pinned spot, Promote Project at 0.99 dollars a day and Startup Listing from 3 dollars a day. Both stayed on the list because the listing and its followed link cost nothing.
How to work the free list
Sort by what the link is worth, then by whether the readers are yours. A free followed link from a DR 50 site is the best deal on this page. A free nofollow listing on a DR 30 site is a form to skip unless its audience is exactly your customer.
- The 5 followed links first. Promote Project (DR 50), Startup Listing (40), Tech Trendin’ (37), Tulimoa (30, AI and MCP only) and Made with Bolt (21, Bolt-built only). None needs a badge and none charges. They sit on the dofollow list with the 35 other directories that follow the link.
- The 3 conditional followed links. Hacker News if you have something people can try and are around for the thread. Indie Hackers, where the followed link is in your own update posts. LLM Relevance if you will put a badge on your site.
- Crunchbase for the record, not the link. The nofollow link moves nothing, but the company profile is what search engines and AI answer engines read about you. Do it once.
- The DR 70+ nofollow platforms for traffic. Product Hunt, Peerlist, Alternative.me and SideProjectors do not move DR but send visitors and give you a page that ranks for your product name.
- The niche lists if you fit. Future Tools for AI tools, BuildVoyage for micro-SaaS, Resource.fyi for developer tools. Skip Awesome Tools until you are at DR 30.
- ProductBurst last or not at all. No crawlable link, so it is only worth it for the indie community on the day.
Fit decides more than DR. Four of the 18 are launch platforms that need a crowd on the day: Product Hunt, Peerlist, ProductBurst and Tech Trendin’. Submitting to those with nobody lined up gets a page with zero votes. The permanent directories can be done alone in a sitting.
What to have ready before you start
Every free directory on this list asks for the same six things, so prepare them once and paste. The stated effort across all 18 adds up to 450 minutes, most of it Product Hunt and Hacker News.
- A name and a tagline of 10 to 80 characters. BuildVoyage enforces that range and the rest fit inside it.
- A short description and a long one. BuildVoyage wants 50 to 1,000 characters; Made with Bolt asks for both lengths. Original text only, since Peerlist rejects plagiarised descriptions.
- A square logo at 256 pixels or larger and two or three screenshots. SideProjectors and BuildVoyage ask for screenshots outright.
- A category and a pricing model. Future Tools, Tulimoa and LLM Relevance ask for the pricing model on the form.
- Accounts where needed. Product Hunt and Peerlist require a personal profile, not a company one. Crunchbase wants a LinkedIn or Google login connected to the account. Resource.fyi and SideProjectors accept Google or GitHub login. Only BuildVoyage, Future Tools, LLM Relevance, Awesome Tools and Made with Bolt take a plain form with no account.
- A product that is live. Future Tools and Tulimoa decline waitlist-only products, and Hacker News wants something people can run without signing up.
What to expect after you submit
Seven of the 18 review by hand and only four of those state a window: Tulimoa around 24 hours, BuildVoyage and LLM Relevance within 48 hours, and Future Tools within a week. SideProjectors, Resource.fyi and Made with Bolt review with no timeframe. The other eleven either publish at once or describe no review step at all. Future Tools does not send a decision either way.
Acceptance varies as much. Future Tools declines over 75 percent of submissions and Awesome Tools has a hard DR threshold, while the self-serve directories accept everything. That is why a followed link from a self-serve list is worth something but not everything: Ahrefs discounts a linking domain by how many sites it links out to.
The DR effect arrives with a lag of one to three weeks, because directories are crawled often but not daily. Five followed links from DR 21 to 50 domains will not take a new site into double digits on their own. They are the free part of a first round that should also include the freemium directories with a followed link, and the free rank plan orders all 126 by fit with your product and puts the ten to do this week at the top.
What to do next
- Check your DR on the Domain Rating checker so you know the starting point and whether Awesome Tools is open to you yet.
- Prepare the six assets above in one document and submit to the 5 followed-link directories in a sitting.
- Post a product update on Indie Hackers with your URL in the body, and add the LLM Relevance badge if you want that link followed.
- Plan Product Hunt and Hacker News as launches with people lined up, then pick up the freemium directories that follow the link without conditions from the no badge required list.