Best free startup directories: the ones that actually listed me

What I mean by best

Two things I can check. The directory is marked Free on my list, which means I found no material catch on its free path: no long queue, no badge on your homepage, no paid skip you need, no gate on who can apply. And it actually published my listing.

It doesn't mean traffic. I measure the visits each listing sends, but so far that covers one week and the numbers are small; I come back to them at the end. It doesn't mean Domain Rating or backlinks either. I don't record those claims, and I can't tell you what any listing does for your search rankings.

The list, counted on 25 October 2026

My list is public on GitHub at https://github.com/mmmmingos/where-to-submit-your-startup, and this website is built from it. On 25 October 2026 it had 749 entries: 271 directories and submission services, 272 places that only take some startups (AI tools, a region, a kind of product, or verified revenue), 16 Reddit communities, and 190 reported problems, which are sites that are gone, broken, or no longer a place to list a product.

Of the 271 directories, 36 are marked Free, 177 are Free* (a free path with a catch to know about first), and 58 are paid only. Of the 272 limited ones, 182 have a free path with that gate as its catch, 65 are paid, and 25 aren't confirmed yet. That makes 395 places with a free path, not counting Reddit.

A place joins the list only after I've tried it, so the list grows as places are tried, and these counts describe one day. 426 of the places I've tried have a My experience note on this website: 115 published my listing (two have removed it since), 194 are still waiting in a queue or a review, 5 rejected it, and 112 stopped me before I could submit. The paid-only and dead sites are recorded on the list itself.

Live within a day: 15

Five went up between 25 September and 7 October. Indie Hackers put my product page up as soon as I finished it on 25 September, after a Google sign-in, and my tracking link survived on it. Crunchbase published my company profile the moment I saved it on 26 September, although its free flow wouldn't take a logo. GreenRocket made my launch page public as soon as I scheduled it on 4 October, for the next day. Lifto approved and published my listing about 2 hours after I submitted on 4 October; it wants a demo video or a picture carousel, and its sign-in screen ticks a newsletter box by default. StarTap, on 7 October, put me straight onto the bottom of its leaderboard.

Eight went live on 8 October with no review at all. Cloudfindr, Open Makers, Startup Europe, Tools NoCode, Votekicker, Make.rs, and LaunchBert each published my page as soon as I saved it. Clapstorm doesn't review either; I queued my launch for its next round so it would get a full week, and that round opened about 8 hours later. Details worth knowing: Cloudfindr's Google sign-in failed, so I used its emailed code; Open Makers signs you up as the maker, a person, before the product; Startup Europe lists startups from any country despite its name; Votekicker asks you to confirm you own the project and whether it has AI-generated content; Make.rs signs you in with a magic link and no password; and LaunchBert's free plan allows one product, because it is mainly a paid tool for submitting to other directories (€9 or €29).

The last two came on 14 October. Devpost's project page was public as soon as I saved it, after a reCAPTCHA on the first step and a short story about the project. Tech Directory's company profile was live as soon as my account was active, after a reCAPTCHA and an email check; its plans page says the free Basic plan has no website link, but my profile shows one.

Where I timed them, each of these took me between 2 and 7 minutes, and most started with a Google sign-in.

Live, but slower: 4

SaaS Page reviews within 24 to 48 hours, and mine was approved two days after I submitted on 4 October; its free launches join a weekly board of up to 200 spots. Startup.sx states a manual review of 24 to 72 hours; I submitted on 4 October and the listing was live when I checked on 25 October, so I can't tell you which day it went up.

IndexFlow needs no account, and its form said my listing was published at once, but it wasn't in the catalogue 20 minutes later. I saw it there on 24 October, five days after I submitted, with a description the site wrote instead of mine. Active Search Results is a small search engine rather than a directory: you add a URL and an email address, it indexes new sites within 24 hours, and there's no listing page to look at.

Still waiting, and one no

Sixteen of the 36 hadn't listed me by 25 October. Some state a review time that hasn't held, at least for me. Side Projectors says review typically takes 2 to 3 business days; I submitted on 3 October. BuildVoyage says a person reads every submission, usually within 48 hours; I submitted on 4 October. BuildHop says it usually approves within an hour; I submitted on 4 October too. App Rater gives no estimate, and my submission from 25 September is still in its queue. All My Faves has no form, only a suggestion email; mine went on 26 September and has had no reply. Wellfound already had a page for my project, made by someone else, and my claim on it is still pending.

The other ten are still in review, most with no time stated: Business Tool Vault, FindThatSoftware, Index by Dodo Payments, Indie-Builds, Indiehacker Tools, SaaS Place, SaaSolution, StrictSeal, Tracxn, and Unloc.tools.

One said no. WebCatalog rejected my submission on the day I sent it, 8 October, with the feedback "Not web app". My project is a website with a planner rather than an app, so that's a fair reading of its rule, and a web app may well pass.

Free with a catch, but quick

Outside those 36, a few Free* directories were just as quick once their catch was dealt with. F6S went live the same day, 26 September, but only under a different page name, because a page with my project's name already existed and could only be claimed. PromoteProject listed me straight away on 4 October, after I earned the 5 credits it needs by voting for 5 other startups. Twelve Tools and Uno Directory went live the moment each had verified its badge on my homepage. AISO Tools, a directory for AI tools, needs no account and published my listing straight after its automatic checks on 7 October.

The catch is the price in each case: a badge that has to stay on your site, votes for other products, or a page name you didn't choose. How long all the others take, shortest first, is in a separate post: https://submitmystartup.com/blog/how-long-startup-directories-take/

Why the lists that rank for this get it wrong

When I searched for the best free startup directories on 25 October, the pages that came up were lists of 20 to 300 names, several with a Domain Rating beside each. None I looked at said which ones had actually published the author's own listing. Several still describe BetaList as free, with a paid upgrade. When I tried BetaList on 2 October there was no free option at the submit step, and its support page said the same day: "All submissions are paid. There is no free submission option." Some still include Killer Startups, whose submit form showed only an email box and a Get Started button when I checked it on 26 September, and GeekWire, whose startup list takes only Pacific Northwest companies.

That isn't a knock on the people who wrote them. A list is right on the day it's written, and then directories change their terms, fill their queues, and close. The only fix I know is to try each place and date what you find, which is why every row on my list has a Last checked date and why failures stay on it.

How I'd use this

Send the 15 that went up within a day in one sitting. Have a logo, a screenshot, a one-line tagline, and a short description ready, and keep your tracking link short: several sites cut or refused a link over 100 characters

Then send the ones that review by hand, and don't plan your launch around them. All 36 Free directories are in the Free bundle with their current notes: https://submitmystartup.com/bundles/free-directories-no-catches/

For the rest of the list, the planner at https://submitmystartup.com/planner/ asks what you're launching, your budget, and whether you can add a badge, and shows the places that fit. If you build with Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor, the same list is a free skill: npx skills add mmmmingos/where-to-submit-your-startup. In Claude or ChatGPT, add the free MCP server instead: https://submitmystartup.com/mcp-server/

What I don't know yet

Whether any of these sends visitors worth having. I give each site a tagged link and count the sessions it brings in its first 7, 30, and 90 days, recording a number only once a window has closed. Fourteen of the 19 have a first-week number so far. Clapstorm brought 8 tagged sessions in its first week (8 to 14 October) and Tools NoCode 2; the other twelve recorded 0.

Four of those zeros mean little. GreenRocket and StarTap replace my tracking tags with their own, Votekicker's 120-character link field dropped them, and Startup Europe garbles the last one, so a visit from any of them can't be counted the way I count. One week is short, my own visits aren't filtered out yet, and the 30-day windows close in early November. Until then, the traffic from each of these is unknown, not zero.