Startup and mobile app 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 7 directories have a median rating of DR 41. The strongest is Dofollow Tools at DR 73, the weakest at DR 12. 3 of them accept a submission for nothing, and 1 charge for every listing. 4 pass a dofollow link.
That is 17 points below the median for the full list of 175 directories, which sits at DR 58. By band that is 1 rated 60 to 79, 4 rated 40 to 59 and 2 rated below 40. 4 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
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 Micro SaaS Examples, Waildworld and BuildVoyage, led by 23K visits a month. The highest-rated one you can use without paying is Micro SaaS Examples at DR 49. 3 approve quickly, Dofollow Tools, Productivity Directory and Startup.sx among them.
Questions people ask
How many are there, and what do they cost?
7 directories match on this page. 3 take a submission for nothing, 3 run a free tier with paid upgrades, and 1 charge for every listing.
Which should I submit to first?
By rating, Dofollow Tools (DR 73), Micro SaaS Examples (DR 49) and BuildVoyage (DR 43). By audience, Micro SaaS Examples is the largest at 23K 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 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.