Free AI directories, in short
Free almost never means free of conditions. Expect to be asked for a badge in your footer, a link back from your site, or a longer wait than the paying submissions. Read the submission page before you start typing.
Free directory submission sites, defined
A free directory submission site accepts your listing without payment. That is the whole definition, and it hides a lot: free almost always carries a condition. The three most common are a badge or return link on your own site, a review queue that paid submissions skip, and a nofollow link where paying would make it dofollow.
None of those conditions are unreasonable. Directories cost money to run and moderate, and asking for a link back is a fair trade for a page that sends you visitors. The mistake is discovering the condition after you have written the listing rather than before.
By the numbers
These 16 directories have a median rating of DR 46. The strongest is DEV Community at DR 91, the weakest at DR 10. 7 pass a dofollow link.
That is 12 points below the median for the full list of 175 directories, which sits at DR 58. By band that is 4 rated 80 or above, 3 rated 60 to 79, 3 rated 40 to 59 and 6 rated below 40.
What a listing actually gets you
On the directories that still get traffic, a listing does three things. It puts your tool in front of people already in the market for one, which is a better audience than any social post reaches. It creates a page that can rank for your product name plus a modifier, so "yourtool alternatives" or "yourtool pricing" has somewhere to land that you did not have to build. And it adds a mention in the places that language models now read when they answer questions about software, which is becoming its own reason to be listed.
What a listing does not do is move your rankings on its own. One directory link, dofollow or not, is a rounding error. The value accumulates across a dozen relevant listings over months, alongside everything else you are doing, and anyone promising otherwise is selling submissions.
Submitting without wasting the evening
Write the listing for someone who has already seen forty AI tools this week. Say what it does in the first line, name the model or the method if it is a differentiator, and skip the words "revolutionary" and "powered by AI" entirely. The directories that still get traffic are moderated by people who read hundreds of these, and a vague submission is the easiest rejection they make all day. Have a square logo, one screenshot and a 200-character summary ready before you open the first form.
Common mistakes
Agreeing to a badge requirement and then never adding the badge, which gets the listing quietly removed a month later. Submitting to every free directory in one sitting because they are free, which is the exact pattern that makes a link profile look manufactured. And skipping the categories field, which is what decides whether anyone ever sees the entry.
Where to start
By audience size, the biggest here are Hacker News, DEV Community and Product Hunt, led by 13.53M visits a month. Only SideProjectors is quick to approve, so start there if you are launching this week.
Questions people ask
How many are there, and what do they cost?
16 directories match on this page. 16 take a submission for nothing, 0 run a free tier with paid upgrades, and 0 charge for every listing.
Which should I submit to first?
By rating, DEV Community (DR 91), Hacker News (DR 91) and Product Hunt (DR 91). By audience, Hacker News is the largest at 13.53M visits a month. Relevance beats both: a directory that actually covers what you built will do more than a stronger one that does not.
Where can I submit my website for free?
The table above lists every free option we track, sorted so you can start with the strongest. The free tier on the larger launch platforms is usually worth more than any number of small free-only directories.
Are online directories free?
Many are, and many more run a free tier alongside paid upgrades. What you usually give up on the free path is speed and placement, not the listing itself.
Is a free listing worth less than a paid one?
Not inherently. Several of the highest-rated sites here take free submissions. Paying typically buys position and a faster queue rather than a fundamentally better link.
What is an AI tool directory?
A curated index of AI software, usually organised by what the tool does rather than which model it runs on. Most let you filter by category and pricing, and the better ones write their own descriptions instead of reprinting your marketing copy.
What is the best AI tool directory?
There is no single best one, but the table above orders them by the two things that matter: how strong the domain is and how many people actually visit. There's An AI For That and Dang.ai are the two most people start with, and Product Hunt still sends more launch-day traffic than any AI-specific site.
Are free AI directories worth submitting to?
The ones with traffic are. The ones without are a link on a page nobody visits, which is worth roughly nothing whatever the domain rating says. Sort by the traffic column before you sort by anything else.
Every figure quoted above is read off the table on this page, so it moves as the list does. Domain rating and traffic are third-party estimates captured in September 2026: useful for ordering a shortlist, not precise figures.