Marketing and mobile app directories, in short
Marketing directories are read by people comparing tools with a budget already approved. Lead with the outcome your tool produces rather than the features it ships with, because that is what the listing gets judged on.
What counts as a marketing directory
A marketing directory indexes the software marketing teams buy: SEO platforms, email tools, analytics, CRM add-ons, content and social schedulers. The audience is practitioners with a budget line, comparing options against a shortlist they have already narrowed once. Many of these sites overlap with general business directory listings, which is worth knowing because the general ones send a different and much less useful visitor.
The distinction to check is whether the directory serves marketers or serves businesses looking for marketing services. The second kind indexes agencies, not software, and a tool listing on one will sit in a category nobody reads.
By the numbers
These 8 directories have a median rating of DR 46. The strongest is Product Hunt at DR 91, the weakest at DR 12. 5 of them accept a submission for nothing, and 1 charge for every listing. 3 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 1 rated 80 or above, 2 rated 60 to 79, 3 rated 40 to 59 and 2 rated below 40. 3 of them have no traffic estimate at all, which usually means too little to measure rather than none.
What a listing actually gets you
App directories will not move your store ranking, which is driven by installs, retention and reviews. What they do is create indexable web pages about an app that is otherwise invisible to search engines, which is the single biggest discovery problem mobile products have.
They also reach the people who research on a laptop and install later, a larger group than most app teams expect, and one that store optimisation cannot touch at all.
Submitting without wasting the evening
Submit the store link, not a landing page, and check which stores the directory covers before you start: several accept iOS only. Screenshots from the store listing usually transfer over, so get those right in the store first and the directory work becomes copy and paste. Include the size, the minimum OS version and whether there is a free tier, because those are the three filters app directories most often expose.
Common mistakes
Writing for the buyer instead of the user, then finding the trial conversion is terrible because the person who clicked was never going to be the one using it. Submitting to business directory sites that index companies rather than tools. And leaving pricing off, which quietly removes you from most of the pages that would have sent traffic.
Where to start
By audience size, the biggest here are Product Hunt, TrustMRR and Micro SaaS Examples, led by 4.84M visits a month. The highest-rated one you can use without paying is Product Hunt at DR 91. 3 approve quickly, Dofollow Tools, Productivity Directory and Startup.sx among them.
Questions people ask
How many are there, and what do they cost?
8 directories match on this page. 5 take a submission for nothing, 2 run a free tier with paid upgrades, and 1 charge for every listing.
Which should I submit to first?
By rating, Product Hunt (DR 91), Dofollow Tools (DR 73) and TrustMRR (DR 72). By audience, Product Hunt is the largest at 4.84M visits a month. Relevance beats both: a directory that actually covers what you built will do more than a stronger one that does not.
What is a business directory listing?
An entry describing a company or product in a curated index, usually with a category, a description and a link. For software the useful ones index tools by what they do; the general business ones index companies by location and industry, and send a very different kind of visitor.
Are marketing directories worth paying for?
Sometimes, because the audience arrives with intent and a budget. Check the traffic column first: a paid listing on a directory with no measurable traffic is an advert nobody will see.
Is there a free business directory worth using?
Several, and the free tiers on the marketing-specific ones are usually enough to test whether the audience matches yours before you pay for placement.
What is an app directory?
A curated index of mobile applications, usually linking to the App Store or Play Store and organised by platform and category. Most carry store screenshots and a short description rather than a full review.
Why are there so few app directories here?
Because most of the larger directories assume a web product with a visitable URL. Anything that only exists behind a store link is out of scope for them, which leaves a much shorter list than the main table suggests.
Do app directories help with App Store ranking?
Not directly. Store ranking responds to installs and retention. What a directory gives you is a web page about your app that search engines can index, which is where most of an app's discoverable surface area otherwise does not exist.
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.