Startup and marketing directories, in short
The general startup directories have the largest audiences and the shortest attention spans. A listing here is worth most on the day it goes live, so line them up around a launch rather than drip-feeding them over months.
What counts as a startup directory
Startup directories index companies rather than products: what you are building, who is building it, roughly how far along you are. Some are launch platforms where everything is ordered by date and votes, others are permanent indexes where your entry sits until you update it. The two behave completely differently and reward completely different tactics.
On the launch platforms, the day is everything. On the permanent indexes, the day does not matter at all and the category page does. Working out which kind you are submitting to takes thirty seconds and changes how you should spend the effort.
By the numbers
These 13 directories have a median rating of DR 43. The strongest is F6S at DR 83, the weakest at DR 12. 4 of them accept a submission for nothing, and 3 charge for every listing. 6 pass a dofollow link.
That is 15 points below the median for the full list of 175 directories, which sits at DR 58. By band that is 2 rated 80 or above, 2 rated 60 to 79, 4 rated 40 to 59 and 5 rated below 40. 5 of them have no traffic estimate at all, which usually means too little to measure rather than none.
What a listing actually gets you
Marketing buyers research in public, on comparison pages and in listicles, and a directory listing is how you get into the pool those articles are written from. Writers assembling a "best email tools" piece start from directories more often than they start from search.
The listings also rank for the long-tail comparisons you would never build yourself, the "X vs Y for small teams" pages that convert at the point of decision.
Submitting without wasting the evening
Lead with the outcome and the number attached to it. Marketing directories are read by people comparing three tools with a budget already signed off, and the listing that says what changes after you buy it wins over the one that lists integrations. Visible pricing helps more than it hurts here, because the alternative is being filtered out of every comparison table the directory builds. Name the integrations that matter, because integration is the most common filter on these sites.
Common mistakes
Spreading submissions over a month, so you are never more than mildly visible on any single day. Submitting to the big platforms without warming anyone up first, then wondering why the launch died at rank forty. And treating a permanent index like a launch platform by submitting the day before you have anything to show, which gets you a dead entry you cannot easily update.
Where to start
By audience size, the biggest here are F6S, Toolfolio and Turbo0, led by 1.6M visits a month. The highest-rated one you can use without paying is F6S at DR 83. 3 approve quickly, Dofollow Tools, Productivity Directory and Startup.sx among them.
Questions people ask
How many are there, and what do they cost?
13 directories match on this page. 4 take a submission for nothing, 6 run a free tier with paid upgrades, and 2 charge for every listing.
Which should I submit to first?
By rating, F6S (DR 83), Turbo0 (DR 81) and Dofollow Tools (DR 73). By audience, F6S is the largest at 1.6M 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 are the best startup directories?
By reach, Product Hunt, Hacker News and Indie Hackers are still the three that matter most, and all three are free. By durability, the permanent indexes such as F6S, BetaList and Startup Stash keep sending small amounts of traffic for years. The table above lets you sort by either.
Should I submit to all of them at once?
To the launch platforms, yes, within the same week. To the permanent indexes it makes no difference, so those can be worked through whenever you have a spare evening.
Do startup directories help with funding?
Indirectly. Investors do not browse them, but they do search for you, and a directory entry with a coherent description is one more page saying the same clear thing about what you do.
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.
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.