We opened the submit page on 50 AI directories, pulled the real Ahrefs DR for every domain, and checked which ones actually hand you a dofollow link. 25 made the list. Updated November 2026.
Six are worth submitting to whatever you built: Fazier (DR 85), Twelve Tools (84), Dang.ai (83), Toolpilot (79), Uneed (77), Toolify (73).
Free almost always means reciprocal. Twelve Tools, Fazier, Dang.ai, and Toolpilot all want a link or badge back. Paying $29–$99 is what removes the requirement.
We confirmed dofollow by hand on only five: Twelve Tools, Dang.ai, Uneed, Insidr.ai, AITopTools. Everything else is the site's own claim, or Unknown.
Approval runs from 24 hours to 60 days. Aitoolnet's free queue is 30–60 days; its $9.90 tier is 24 hours. That gap, not the price, is usually the real decision.
Three did not make the list: OpenFuture.ai (gambling link farm in the footer), Futurepedia (no longer accepts submissions), aitools.fyi (sells a submission service, not a listing).
Directory listings are still the cheapest distribution an AI product can buy. A listing costs between nothing and about $100, goes live in days, and does three things at once: it puts you in front of people actively shopping for a tool, it earns a backlink that lifts every page on your domain, and it plants a third-party reference that ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google's AI answers draw on when asked to recommend software in your category.
The lists you find when you search for this are mostly tiny or stale — a name, a sentence of praise, no numbers — leaving you to discover for yourself that a directory charges $125, or takes two months, or stopped accepting submissions a year ago. So we checked. Fifty homepages and submit pages requested, an Ahrefs Domain Rating pulled for every domain, prices and review times read off the pages themselves, and where a listing would render, the outbound link inspected for rel="nofollow". Twenty-five cleared the bar. Where a number could not be confirmed, the table says Unknown rather than a guess.
This is one of a set. If your product is not AI-specific, start with best startup directories; for launch day, see Product Hunt alternatives; and directory submission services covers the done-for-you options.
Four checks, run in the first week of November 2026.
1. Both pages had to load. We requested the homepage and the submit page, retrying through a rendering browser where a site blocked us. The handful that blocked that too are named separately rather than listed as if we had checked them.
2. DR had to come from Ahrefs, not the directory. Every figure is a same-day lookup against Ahrefs' public Domain Rating API. In one case (PitchWall) the site's claim and the real figure differ by 17 points. DR data from Ahrefs, used under their Domain Rating license.
3. Prices and times had to be stated on the page. Nothing in those columns is estimated; where pricing sits behind a login, the cell says Unknown.
4. Dofollow had to be read off a real listing where possible. For five directories we opened a published listing and inspected the outbound anchor; those say "Yes (verified)". Where a site claims dofollow but no listing would render, the cell credits the claim to the site. We also skipped link farms, mass-submission packages sold as directories, and parked domains.
Write for the search, not for yourself. Most directory traffic lands on a category page — "best AI meeting notetaker" — not your listing. Lead with the job your tool does, in the words a buyer would use.
Treat the link as the durable part. Referral traffic spikes for a week then settles near zero; a dofollow link keeps working for years. That is why the Dofollow column matters more than any traffic claim, and why a free DR 84 listing beats a paid DR 40 one.
Expect to pay with a link or with money. The 2026 norm is a reciprocal badge for a free listing. If you will not place one, budget $30–$50 per directory for the tiers that drop it.
| Directory | DR (Ahrefs) | Price | Dofollow | Approval time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85 | Free; Lite $29, Premium $49, Super $99 (one-time) | Mixed — guaranteed on Premium per the site, conditional on free | Within 30 days free; publish immediately on paid | The highest-authority domain here, plus a launch slot | |
| 84 | Free (badge or footer link required); Pro $36 one-time | Yes (verified on a live listing) | 72 hours free; 24 hours on Pro | The shortest path to a confirmed dofollow link from a DR 84 domain | |
| 83 | Free (crawlable backlink required); Basic $49; Pro $30 setup + $19/mo | Yes (verified on a live listing) | Up to 4 weeks free; ~4 days Basic; ~2 days Pro | A DR 83 dofollow link for free, if a month's wait is acceptable | |
| 79 | Free listing (link back now mandatory); paid options available | Unknown | Unknown | Trading a footer link for one of the highest-DR AI listings going | |
| 77 | Free; Skip the Line $39.99; Pro $99/year | Yes (verified; the free tier is conditional on upvotes) | ~14 days with Skip the Line; 50+ days free | A launch that genuinely sends traffic, from an independent platform | |
| 73 | $99 one-time | Yes (the site states no fewer than 6 dofollow links) | Within 48 hours, no queue | The one paid listing to buy if you only buy one | |
| 75 | Unknown (submission requires sign-in) | Unknown | Unknown | Agents, where a general AI directory is the wrong shelf | |
| 72 | Free (recommendation by email) | Unknown | Unknown | Exposure to The Rundown's 3.5m-reader AI newsletter audience | |
| 70 | Free | Unknown | Unknown (reviewed by hand) | Credibility — being in Matt Wolfe's database is itself a signal | |
| 65 | Fast Track $47 one-time; Featured $229 for 7 days | Unknown | 24–48 hours (Fast Track) | Skipping the queue entirely, with a refund if you are rejected | |
| 58 | Unknown (submission requires an account) | Unknown | Unknown | A second agent-specific shelf, with an eye on machine buyers | |
| 57 | Unknown (free and paid 'feature your tool' routes both advertised) | Unknown | Unknown | Non-English search traffic, which most AI directories ignore | |
| 57 | Free; Pro $9.90 one-time; featured $49.90 for 7 days | Yes (the site states a do-follow backlink on the free tier) | 24 hours on Pro; a 30–60 day queue on free | Buying a 24-hour review instead of a two-month wait, for pocket change | |
| 57 | Unknown (a paid package is advertised; the draft flow is free to start) | Yes (verified on a live listing) | Unknown | The least work of any entry here: paste a URL, AI drafts the listing | |
| 48 | Free | Yes (verified on a live listing) | Unknown (every submission is reviewed) | A free, hand-reviewed listing where the link is confirmed followed | |
| 81 | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Appearing on 'alternatives to X' pages that already rank for competitors | |
| 78 | Free | Unknown | Weekly — launches open every Monday, 00:00–23:59 UTC | A developer and designer audience that gives real feedback | |
| 77 | Paid (a plan is chosen after submission; price not shown beforehand) | Unknown | Unknown | Products still in beta or early access, before a public launch | |
| 70 | Free (an account is required) | Unknown | Weekly cycle | AI tools built for developers rather than end users | |
| 64 | Free; Premium $39, $79, or $149 (one-time) | Yes (the site states DR 64+ do-follow backlinks on paid tiers) | You choose the launch date | A 30-day exposure window instead of a single launch day | |
| 53 | Free (minimum 30-day wait); Pro $49; Premium $99 | Yes (the site states a do-follow backlink on every tier, including free) | Minimum 30-day wait free; as early as tomorrow on Premium | A free launch plus a newsletter mention to 50,000 subscribers | |
| 32 | Free listing; Premium $19 one-time | Yes (every plan includes a permanent dofollow backlink) | 14-day queue on free; immediate on Premium | Rounding out a campaign with a free dofollow link and a review page | |
| 73 | Not applicable | Not applicable | Not applicable | Nothing — it is here because other guides still recommend it | |
| 57 | Unknown | Unknown | Unknown | Nothing — the one site here we would actively tell you to skip | |
| 43 | $37 | Unknown | 'Several weeks or months' (their wording) | Nothing directly — the submit page sells a listing somewhere else |
Pricing and features change often. Verify current details on each provider's site. Last checked November 2026.
High DR, a working submit page, and either a verified dofollow link or the site's own commitment to one. If you do nothing else, do these six.
A daily launch board on the strongest domain we checked: free gets a review within 30 days and asks for a link back, paid tiers drop that and let you publish now.
Caveat: Only Premium states a guaranteed dofollow; on free and Lite it depends on placing in the day's top three.
The best free submission here: one dofollow link and a 72-hour review for a badge, or $36 for three links and a 24-hour review with no badge. We read a published listing — no nofollow anywhere.
Caveat: Free needs a reciprocal link; $36 Pro is the version without one.
Clearer tiers than anyone here: free needs a crawlable backlink and takes up to four weeks, $49 drops it and reviews in about four days. We confirmed no nofollow on the outbound links.
Caveat: The homepage mixes mainstream tools with NSFW companion apps; check your category first.
A large AI catalogue on a DR 79 domain; the submit page states a link back is now mandatory for free listings, both to qualify and to be prioritised.
Caveat: Its product pages would not render for our checks, so dofollow is unverified — check your own listing once live.
A daily launch platform with a loyal indie following, several of whom rate it above Product Hunt for engaged visitors. We confirmed the product link is followed — while Uneed nofollows its own links out to ChatGPT and Perplexity.
Caveat: On free the link is earned: 10 upvotes to stay published, 20 for the dofollow.
The largest AI-specific directory by its own numbers — 5.1m monthly visits — at $99 one-time with no free tier, with multi-language listing pages that rank for terms most AI directories ignore.
Caveat: No free tier, and the six-link figure is Toolify's claim, not something we verified.
Smaller AI-specific directories, well matched to a particular kind of product — agents, newsletters, or a category page that already ranks.
The highest-DR agent-specific directory we found, with a marketplace, landscape map, leaderboard and daily newsletter — so a listing sits among buyers shopping for agents.
Caveat: The submit page needs an account before it shows anything, so price and timing are unknown.
The directory arm of The Rundown AI, submitted the low-tech way: email your name, URL, category and a one-sentence description, and a human reviews it.
Caveat: No form, no price, no stated turnaround.
Matt Wolfe's AI tools database; the submit page says plainly that Matt reviews submissions himself. Free, short form, no paid tier.
Caveat: We could not find the tool's outbound link on a live listing at all — treat this as discovery, not a backlink play.
$47 puts you live within 24–48 hours with no queue and free listing edits; $229 adds seven days featured. A full refund if you are not accepted — fairer than most paid directories.
A marketplace for agents and automation agencies, unusual in aiming to be readable by AI shopping agents as well as humans, with structured price data for autonomous buyers.
Caveat: The submit page redirects to a login, so price and timing are unknown.
Running since the start of the current AI wave and publishing in 25+ languages — category pages in Spanish, Japanese, Hindi and Arabic, where almost no other AI directory competes.
Caveat: The page loads and shows submit, update and feature routes, but the form and pricing would not render for our checks.
The clearest case for why approval time beats price: free includes a do-follow backlink but the site admits a 30-to-60-day queue, while $9.90 skips it and lists you within 24 hours.
Caveat: They reserve the right to remove products even after approval.
Paste your URL and email and it drafts the listing for you to review and publish. The page claims a DR 57+ dofollow backlink; we checked a published listing and confirmed it.
Caveat: The path is /claim-your-tool/ — the obvious /submit URL 404s.
A curated directory that states it reviews every submission and adds only what it would recommend — a real editorial filter. The outbound tool links carry no rel attribute at all, meaning followed.
Generalists and launch platforms that accept AI products. Several outrank the AI-only sites, and the launch platforms bring people rather than only links.
A discovery site built around alternatives pages, and at DR 81 more authoritative than every AI-only directory here bar the top three. Listed as an alternative to an incumbent, you inherit traffic from people searching that competitor by name.
Caveat: The submit page blocked our checks, so price, timing and link type are unknown.
A network for developers and designers whose Launchpad runs as a weekly competition with a leaderboard. The audience is the point — a dev tool gets real feedback here, a consumer app gets less traction than the DR suggests.
The standard pre-launch listing for over a decade, for products seeking early adopters. One 2026 detail: BetaList now publishes an agent endpoint — point your own coding agent at their /agent page and it drafts and files the submission. The first directory we found doing that.
Caveat: The price is hidden until you create an account, and nothing publishes until you pick a plan.
A weekly launch board for developer tools; free, though the submit URL redirects to a sign-in first. Worth fifteen minutes if your product is an API, SDK or CLI.
The pitch is that a one-day launch is the wrong shape: premium packs run a 30-day campaign with featured spots, deals and relaunches. It claims DR 64+ do-follow backlinks, and the Ahrefs lookup returns exactly 64 — one of the few self-reported figures here that checks out.
Still served on betapage.co, PitchWall is one of the few platforms offering a do-follow backlink on its free tier, plus homepage visibility and a possible newsletter mention. Over 65,000 products published since 2015.
Caveat: The pricing page advertises a 'DR 70' backlink; Ahrefs returns 53 for betapage.co — respectable, but 17 points below the claim.
This is us, so weigh it accordingly. A free listing with a permanent dofollow backlink and a dedicated review page, or $19 to skip the queue.
Caveat: Our own directory, and at DR 32 the weakest domain here — which is why we are not above the free DR 80+ options. Submit to those first.
We loaded these and would not submit, or not expecting what the page implies. Each with the reason, so you can judge for yourself.
For two years the directory everyone named first, and now the clearest reason to distrust an un-rechecked round-up. The site presents itself as "Your AI Operating System for Work", and the homepage offers Discover and Register with no submit route. We tried /submit-tool, /submit-tool/ and /sponsor; all 404.
Caveat: A 2026 guide that still tells you to submit here is a sign the author did not load the page.
On paper it looks fine: DR 57, a working submit page, thousands of tools. Then you read the source — the footer carries several hundred links to unrelated offshore gambling sites in Vietnamese, the textbook signature of a link farm.
Caveat: The clearest link-farm signal in all 50 sites we checked.
aitools.fyi is a real directory at DR 43, but /submit is not a form to be listed on it — it is a $37 order form for a service that submits you to "one established AI tools directory with DR 40+". Its own disclaimers are frank: approval, backlinks, traffic and which directories are used are all not guaranteed.
Caveat: A paid third-party submission service, not a listing on this directory. You pay $37 for one unnamed DR 40+ placement.
Eight large, obviously-alive sites refused every request we made, including from a real rendering browser: Product Hunt (DR 92), SourceForge (93), G2 (91), Capterra (91), Crunchbase (91), Slashdot (88), AlternativeTo (82), and There's An AI For That (77). Those DR figures are real Ahrefs lookups; nothing else could be confirmed, so they get no rows with invented prices.
They are still worth your time, as a separate exercise. Product Hunt is a launch, not a listing; G2 and Capterra are review platforms where the value comes from weeks of asking customers. There's An AI For That is the largest AI-specific directory by audience and worth submitting to directly — we simply cannot tell you what it charges this month.
This front-loads the verified dofollow links, keeps the free ones first, and spaces submissions so the link velocity looks like a launch rather than a purchase.
Day 1 — Twelve Tools (DR 84) and Dang.ai (83). Both free, both verified dofollow, both want a reciprocal link. One badge in your footer satisfies both. The highest-value hour of the week.
Day 2 — Fazier (85) and Uneed (77). Submit both free. Fazier reviews within 30 days; Uneed assigns a slot about 50 days out unless you pay $39.99 to pick a date. Start the clocks now.
Day 3 — Toolpilot (79) and Insidr.ai (48). Toolpilot is a DR 79 listing for a link back; Insidr.ai is free, hand-reviewed, and verified dofollow.
Day 4 — the niche directory that fits you. An agent: AI Agents Directory (75) or AI Agent Store (58). A developer tool: DevHunt (70). Positioned against a named incumbent: SaaSHub (81). One well-matched listing beats five generic ones.
Day 5 — spend money once. Toolify at $99 buys the largest AI-only audience and six or more dofollow links; Aitoolnet at $9.90 turns a 30-to-60-day queue into 24 hours. On a $100 budget, those two are the best use of it.
Day 6 — the free launch platforms. Peerlist Launchpad (78) opens launches every Monday UTC and Microlaunch (64) lets you pick a date. These bring people, not just links.
Day 7 — list with us, then write it down. Submit to alternative.tools (free, dofollow, 14-day queue), then keep a sheet of every directory, the live listing URL, the login you created, and the date. You will want it when your pricing changes.
Yes, for two of the three reasons people used to list. The backlinks still work — a dofollow link from a DR 80+ domain lifts your whole site, and several directories above give one away free. The AI-search citation effect is new and real: directory and comparison pages are exactly the sources assistants reach for. What has faded is referral traffic — judge a listing by the link and the citation, not the visitors.
AI-specific directories have category pages built around AI search terms, so a listing can rank you for "best AI meeting notetaker" rather than "best meeting software". Generalists usually have higher authority and more buyer intent, but you compete against established non-AI incumbents. Do both, starting with the AI-specific ones because the category match is closer. Our startup directories guide covers the general side.
We verified five by opening a live listing and reading the outbound anchor: Twelve Tools, Dang.ai, Uneed, Insidr.ai, and AITopTools. Several others state dofollow on their own pricing pages — Toolify, Aitoolnet (free tier), Fazier (Premium), Microlaunch (paid tiers), and PitchWall. Everything else is Unknown. Check your own listing once live: view source and look for rel="nofollow" on the link to your domain.
Six to eight, not thirty. A new domain that picks up forty directory links in two days looks like a domain that bought forty, and most free tiers want a reciprocal badge on your own site anyway. Six well-chosen high-DR listings in week one, then a handful a week after, reaches the same end state without the pattern risk.
They help, indirectly and with no guarantee. Assistants answering "what's the best AI tool for X" draw on pages that compare and categorise tools, and directory category pages are a large share of that corpus. How you write the listing matters more than where: a description naming the job your tool does, in the words someone would ask, is far more quotable than a tagline. One telling detail — Uneed nofollows its own links out to ChatGPT and Perplexity, a reminder that nobody here has a privileged channel into these models.
Usually no, with two exceptions. Featured placement is typically seven days of homepage position for $50–$230, and the traffic rarely justifies it early on. Worth paying for is time and link certainty: $9.90 at Aitoolnet to turn a 30-to-60-day queue into 24 hours, or $29–$49 to remove a reciprocal-link requirement. Pay to change what you get, not to be bigger on a homepage for a week.
No, and it is a different exercise. Product Hunt is a launch — a date, assets, a plan, a day of your full attention — producing one concentrated spike. The directories above produce a durable set of links and citations for a few hours spread over a week. Run the directory list first, because it builds the backlink base that makes everything you publish afterwards rank better. Our Product Hunt alternatives guide covers launch day.
If you read nothing else: do Twelve Tools and Dang.ai today, for free, and accept the reciprocal-link requirement. That is two verified dofollow links from DR 84 and DR 83 domains for the price of a badge in your footer — the best return available in this market. Then submit free to Fazier, Uneed, Toolpilot, and Insidr.ai, and add the one niche directory that matches what you built: AI Agents Directory for an agent, DevHunt for a developer tool, SaaSHub if you are positioned against a named incumbent. With about $100 to spend, Toolify at $99 buys the largest AI-only audience and several dofollow links, and Aitoolnet at $9.90 buys a 24-hour review instead of a two-month queue. Skip OpenFuture.ai, do not expect a listing from aitools.fyi's submit page, and do not spend an afternoon on Futurepedia — it stopped taking submissions and most guides have not noticed.
Working past the twenty-five above? The fuller database of 100+ directories that accept AI and SaaS products lives at LaunchDirectories, a sister project of ours, which also offers a manual done-for-you submission service for the long tail. And when you are ready, list your tool with us — free, permanent dofollow link, about a fortnight in the queue.
Alternative.tools review team
Editorial team
We are the editorial team behind Alternative.tools, an independent platform that helps you find the best tools and their alternatives. We use AI to research and summarize newly launched websites, tools, and products, focusing on what each one does, who it's for, and which popular tools it can replace, so you can pick the right alternative faster, without the marketing spin.