Free startup directories, tested: which ones are really free

What is on the list, counted on 3 October 2026

The list is public on GitHub at https://github.com/mmmmingos/where-to-submit-your-startup, and this website is built from it. On 3 October 2026 it had 72 entries: 34 directories and submission services, 16 Reddit communities, 6 places that only take some startups (a region, an audience, or members with an invitation), and 16 reported problems, which are sites that are gone, broken, or no longer a place to list a product.

Of the 34 directories, 6 are marked Free, 18 are marked Free* (a free path with a catch you should know about first), and 10 are paid only. New sites join the list only after I have tried them, with what I found rather than what the site advertises, so these numbers grow. Treat them as a dated snapshot: the GitHub page has the current count, and every row has a Last checked date.

How I tested them

Between 25 September and 3 October 2026 I tried 40 of the places on the list with my own project, SubmitMyStartup, a free website that lists places to submit a startup. I took the free path every time and bought nothing. For each site I kept screenshots of the confirmation, the queue, and any prices, and copied the site's own wording into a dated record.

By 3 October the 40 attempts stood like this: 3 listings live, 16 waiting in a queue or a review, 1 rejected, 11 blocked before I could submit, 4 with no free path at all, and 5 sites that were gone. The live, waiting, rejected, and blocked ones each have a My experience note on their entry on this website. The paid and dead ones are recorded on the list itself.

One caveat matters. My project is a free website, not a paid app or a SaaS product, and some sites treat that differently. StartupBase rejected it because it does not feature free online tools, and the G2 family of review sites lists only B2B software. A product like yours may pass where mine was blocked, or the other way round.

The 6 free directories with no catch I found

These are the six marked Free. The label means I found no material catch. It doesn't promise that a site will approve you, or that it will send anyone your way.

Two went live the same day. Indie Hackers put my product page up as soon as I finished setting it up on 25 September, after I signed in with Google. Crunchbase published my company profile the moment I saved it on 26 September, although the free flow wouldn't let me upload a logo. With F6S, covered below, those are the only 3 of my 40 attempts that went live the same day.

The other four review by hand, so they take longer. Side Projectors lists a project in its showcase after a review it says typically takes 2 to 3 business days; when I submitted on 3 October, its form's "open to discussing a sale" box was ticked by default, so check it. App Rater has a public form and needs no account; my submission from 25 September was still in its review queue on 3 October, and the site gives no wait estimate. All My Faves has no form at all, only a suggestion email that its editors consider; mine went out on 26 September with no reply yet. Wellfound gives a free company profile from a personal account; in my case a page for my project already existed, made by someone else, and my claim on it is still pending.

The 18 that are free with a catch

Free* covers four kinds of catch. The most common, by far, is waiting. Twelve of the 18 made the free listing wait, and every one of those twelve sold a way to skip ahead.

The longest wait I saw was at 10words, which put my estimated feature date 2,519 days away, about 7 years, and offered to skip the line for $19. Awesome Indie showed 2,766 products ahead of me and an estimated launch of 11 to 18 February 2027. Uneed assigned me a launch date of 10 January 2027, about 100 days out. Open Launch had no free slot to give: free launches were fully booked into 2027, and the only free option was an email alert for when they reopen. I go through the launch sites one by one, with every price, in a separate post: https://submitmystartup.com/blog/product-hunt-alternatives-tested/

The second kind is work on your side. LaunchIgniter and StartupBase both want their badge on your homepage for the free path. Launch Llama asked me to upvote 5 tools, visit one, and leave a star rating with at least 20 characters of feedback before it would take my free submission, and StartupBase asked for 3 upvotes and 1 comment on other products. Uneed's free line ends with a test: on launch day the product needs an upvote score of 10 to stay published.

The third kind is eligibility, which you often learn only at the end. Capterra and GetApp send their free "get listed" paths to G2, and the G2 family lists B2B software only. Beta Bound is for unreleased or beta products, so a product that is already live doesn't qualify.

The fourth is a listing that isn't quite public. Gust saved my company profile but kept its overview unpublished until its own review finished, and that review was still pending when I last checked, on 29 September. F6S went live the same day, but only after I created the page under a different name, because a page with my project's name already existed and could only be claimed, not created again.

Where I would start

Start with the free entries that take an afternoon and don't depend on a queue. Indie Hackers, Crunchbase, and F6S went live the day I made them. Then send the ones that review by hand: Side Projectors, App Rater, All My Faves, and Wellfound if you have a company to profile. The six Free entries are together in the Free bundle, with their notes: https://submitmystartup.com/bundles/free-directories-no-catches/

Join a long queue only if its date suits your launch. A slot in February 2027 is still a listing, but it won't help a launch next month. Check what the free listing includes when it finally appears, too: Pitchwall's free plan, for example, gives 1 day of homepage visibility. All the Free* entries, with their catches, are in the catch bundle: https://submitmystartup.com/bundles/free-startup-directories-with-catches/

Read the eligibility notes first. They take a minute, and they would have saved me the time I spent on the G2 family and on three regional sites, Arctic Startup, Built In Chicago, and GeekWire, that only cover companies from their own region.

How complete is this list?

Complete is a big word, so here is what it means here. Every place I have tried is on the list, including the failures. Paid-only sites stay in the directory table marked No, and dead ones stay under reported problems, so the next person who suggests one finds it already checked. It doesn't mean every directory on the internet.

Other lists can be much longer. The two I read closely after searching for free startup directories on 4 October counted 21 and 627 sites. Neither showed a queue length or a skip price from a dated submission, and both still listed BetaList as free, which it no longer is. My list is shorter than the longest ones because a new site joins it only after I've tried it.

If you know a place that should be on it, open an issue or a pull request on GitHub and I'll try it myself.

What I don't know yet

I can't tell you yet which of these directories sends visitors. Only a few of my listings are live so far. I measure the sessions each listing sends over its first 7, 30, and 90 days, and record a number only once that window has closed. None has a recorded number yet, and until one does, the traffic from a listing is unknown, not zero.

I also can't tell you what any listing does for search rankings, and I won't guess. Many directories advertise a domain rating or the kind of link they give; I haven't checked those claims, and what I record is visits.

I'll add the numbers to each entry's My experience note as they come in, and update this post when they change the picture.