Research Part of the how to get backlinks guide
We submitted our SaaS to dozens of directories: what actually got listed
Our first-party log: 49 SaaS directory submissions, how many went live, how many links were dofollow, and which directory lists were mostly dead or paid.
Nikunj Thakkar Published 11 min read
Short answer
Partly. In our first 48 hours, 49 submissions produced 6 live listings, 3 of them dofollow, with 5 more scheduled and most still in review. Of more than 1,000 directories on two popular public lists, only a small share were free, open and alive. Pick a short list of curated directories, check every link's rel attribute, and treat directories as a starting point, not a link strategy.
On this page
SaaS directory submissions are worth a few hours, but not much more: they get a new product indexed, listed in a few places buyers browse, and a handful of real links, while most of the long tail is dead, paid or nofollow. In our own first 48 hours, 49 submissions produced 6 live listings, of which 3 carried a dofollow link, with 5 more scheduled and the rest still in review.
We know this because we did it for BacklinkGenie in October 2026 and logged every attempt. This post is part of our guide to how to get backlinks, where directories rank last of twelve methods for a reason you will see below. All numbers here come from our own submission log and two public directory lists we triaged; nothing is borrowed from someone else’s study.
Key takeaways
- We made 49 submissions on 17 and 18 October 2026. By the 18th, 6 were live (3 dofollow, 2 nofollow, 1 registry entry) and 5 had a scheduled go-live date.
- Of 253 sites on one public startup directory list, only 35 offered a free listing without an account; 54 were closed or dead.
- Of 717 sites on a larger catalog, only 21 were free and open without an account.
- Badge requirements were common: many free launch directories list you only if you link back to them.
- Google’s spam policy names “low-quality directory or bookmark site links” as link spam. Curated directories are fine; mass submission is not a strategy.
Are SaaS directories worth it for backlinks?
SaaS directories are worth it for a short list of curated, relevant sites, and not worth it as a volume play. The useful ones send some referral traffic, help Google discover a new domain, and add a few followed links. The rest cost time and return nofollow links, paywalls, or nothing at all.
A SaaS directory is a site that lists software products by category, usually with a short description, screenshots and a link. Some are hand-curated; others accept anything. Launch platforms, where products compete for votes on a given day, are a close cousin.
The value question has three parts:
| What you might get | How likely, from our log | Worth chasing? |
|---|---|---|
| A followed link | Low: 3 of 49 submissions within 48 hours | Only from curated, relevant sites |
| Referral visitors | Depends on whether buyers browse the site | Yes, for the few that have an audience |
| Discovery and indexing | High for a brand-new domain | Yes, early on |
| Ranking lift on competitive terms | Not measured, and unlikely from directories alone | No |
That last row matters. We have not measured any ranking effect from directory links, and we would be suspicious of anyone who claims a reliable one. What directories do well is make a new product findable. What they do badly is move competitive rankings. For what does move them, see what makes a backlink high quality.
What we did, and how we counted
Here is the method so you can judge the numbers.
- Dates. Research on 17 October 2026, submissions on 17 and 18 October 2026, counts taken on 18 October 2026.
- Candidate lists. Our own list of 62 directories researched by hand, plus two public lists: the StartupOG list (253 sites) and the ScrollLaunch directory catalog (1,018 entries, or 932 unique hosts, of which 717 were left to triage after removing sites already on our other lists).
- Triage. Every submit page was fetched over plain HTTP and checked for prices, login walls, CAPTCHAs, badge requirements and whether the site still worked. The triage buckets are heuristics from page HTML, so a few may be misclassified; we checked anything borderline in a browser.
- Submission rules. Free listings only. No paid upgrades, no buying our way past a queue. Where a free listing required a badge on our site, we decided case by case.
- What counts as “live”. A public page showing our listing on 18 October 2026. “Dofollow” means our link on that page had no
nofollow,ugcorsponsoredvalue in itsrelattribute. You can check any listing yourself with our nofollow link checker.
The limits are real. Forty-eight hours is a short window, many queues run for weeks, and our product is one SEO tool, so the mix of directories reflects that category. We will update this post at 30 and 90 days with what happened next.
What actually got listed
Forty-nine submissions in two days, across directories, launch boards, awesome-lists on GitHub and one MCP registry. Here is where they stood on 18 October 2026:
| Outcome | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Submitted (form sent or badge verified) | 49 | Includes 3 GitHub list pull requests and 1 MCP registry |
| Live listing | 6 | 3 dofollow, 2 nofollow, 1 registry entry |
| Scheduled with a go-live date | 5 | Launch slots booked between 19 October and 18 December |
| In review or queued | 35 | Quoted times from 48 hours to about 90 days; several hand-reviewed sites never confirm |
| Possibly not saved | 3 | Form froze, returned a server error, or showed success while the request failed |
The three dofollow listings came from small launch and tools directories (EasyLaunch, TinyShelf and Twelve Tools). Each of the three asks for a badge or link back on our site in return. The two nofollow listings were Tiny Startups, whose listing stays gated until the founder posts on X, and AISO Tools. The registry entry is the Official MCP Registry, which matters for discovery by AI clients more than for links.
The five scheduled launches tell you something about how these sites work. Several free launch boards give free products a slot weeks out and sell earlier slots. One of ours was booked for 18 December, two months after submission.
Then there are the GitHub “awesome” lists. Of six we looked at, three got a pull request. We skipped the other three: one accepts only educational content, one had no commits since May 2025 and had never merged a pull request, and one explicitly refuses newly launched tools without users and reviews. Of the three we submitted to, one had around 100 open pull requests and its last merge was in August 2025. Activity is the first thing to check on any list.
How many directories were free, open and alive?
Far fewer than the list sizes suggest. Long directory lists circulate among founders, and they shrink fast once you check each site.
| Bucket | StartupOG list (253 sites) | ScrollLaunch catalog (717 hosts) |
|---|---|---|
| Free, no account needed | 35 (14%) | 21 (3%) |
| Needs an account | 42 | 121 |
| Paid only | 19 | 47 |
| Closed, parked or dead | 54 (21%) | 56 |
| Not relevant to a B2B SaaS | 21 | 261 |
| Launch platforms (set aside) | 0 | 85 |
| Unclear from the page | 82 | 115 |
| Email-only submission | 0 | 11 |
On the smaller list, about one in five sites was closed or dead: parked domains redirecting to ad pages, domains for sale, and submit pages returning errors. On the larger catalog, just 3% of hosts offered a free listing we could submit without an account.
Some of what we found was worse than dead. At least one site on a list had been taken over and redirected to gambling spam, and one submission page carried injected gambling links when we checked it. Those are exactly the neighbourhoods you do not want linking to you.
What stopped us submitting
Beyond the dead sites, five obstacles came up again and again:
- “Free” that ends at a checkout. Several forms advertised a free listing and then required a payment of $29 to $49 at the last step. Others made a paid option the default button, with the free tier one click away.
- Accounts. A large share needed a login, often through a third-party auth provider, before the submit form would load.
- Bot checks. reCAPTCHA, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile and Cloudflare challenge pages blocked automated access on many sites. That is fair: it is their site. It does mean a person has to do the submission by hand.
- Badge requirements. Many free launch boards list you only if you place their badge, with a link, on your homepage or footer. Some check it automatically and drop your listing if the badge disappears.
- Long free queues. Free queues quoted anywhere from about 30 to 90 days, often with a paid fast-track option alongside. Before paying to skip a queue, compare it with what backlinks cost by other methods.
None of these is unreasonable for a small directory trying to stay afloat. But they add up, and they explain why a list of 250 directories turns into a few dozen real submissions.
Do directory links help SEO?
Some do, a little. Links from curated directories that people actually use can help Google find your site and count as ordinary links. Links from low-quality directories are explicitly named in Google’s spam policies as an example of link spam, alongside bought links and link exchanges.
The difference is curation. A directory where a person reviews each submission, groups products sensibly and has real visitors is a normal website linking to you. A directory that accepts anything, lists thousands of unrelated sites and exists mainly to sell placements is what the policy describes.
Two other details from Google’s documentation are useful here:
- Many directory links are
nofollow,ugcorsponsored. Google says it treats all three as hints rather than strict rules, so they may carry some weight, but you should not count on it. (Our glossary explains nofollow in more detail.) - Paid listings are allowed when the link is marked as paid. Google says buying and selling links is acceptable “for advertising and sponsorship purposes” as long as the link uses
rel="sponsored"orrel="nofollow", according to the link spam section of its spam policies.
What about badge requirements? A directory that lists you only if you link back is asking for a reciprocal link. Google’s policy lists “excessive link exchanges” as link spam. A handful of badges for directories that matter is common and unlikely to be “excessive”; a footer with twenty of them starts to look like an exchange scheme.
What are the best SaaS directories for backlinks?
The best SaaS directories are the ones your buyers already browse, curated by a person, and alive. That usually means the big software review sites, a few well-known startup databases, and a small number of niche directories for your category. A list of names goes stale within months, so judge each site by the checks below instead.
| Check | Good sign | Bad sign |
|---|---|---|
| Is it alive? | Recent listings, working submit page | Parked domain, newest listing a year old |
| Is it curated? | Review step, rejected submissions | Instant listing, thousands of unrelated sites |
| Do buyers use it? | Ranks for “[category] software” searches, has reviews | No search presence, no reviews |
| What is the link? | Plain href, no rel qualifier |
nofollow, ugc, redirect or JavaScript button |
| What does it want back? | Nothing, or an optional badge | Mandatory badge plus a nofollow link to you |
| What does free mean? | Free listing with optional upgrades | Free form ending at a checkout |
For software, the review platforms sit in a category of their own: they usually need a vendor account, and their value is buyer visibility more than the link. Launch platforms such as Product Hunt are similar. Judge both by whether your buyers use them, not by the link alone.
Where directories list a Domain Rating, treat it as a rough guide. Domain Rating by Ahrefs estimates the strength of a site’s link profile; it does not tell you whether buyers visit the site or whether your link is followed. Two of the startup databases in our log show a Domain Rating by Ahrefs of 72 and 79, which looks impressive, but their value to us is visibility in startup research, not a ranking boost.
Are free SaaS directories worth the time?
Free SaaS directories are worth one focused session, not an ongoing project. In our case, triage and submissions for one product were spread over two days, and most of the candidate sites turned out to be dead ends. If you are short on time, cut the list to the 20 or 30 curated sites that pass the checks above and stop there.
A practical order:
- Prepare a submission kit once. Product name, one-line and 160-character descriptions, a longer description, category, pricing, logo in two sizes, a 16:9 screenshot and a founder email on your domain. Most forms reuse the same fields.
- Start with review sites and startup databases. These have audiences and are worth the account sign-ups, though the G2 and Capterra profiles we inspected gave no crawlable link.
- Add a few niche directories for your category. Check each one against the table above first.
- Decide on badges deliberately. Accept them only where the directory has real traffic or gives a followed link.
- Log everything. Date, URL, status, quoted review time and the link type once live. Check back at two weeks, one month and three months. Our guide to backlink monitoring covers what to check each time.
- Stop. Then move to methods that compound.
What to do after directories
Directories give you a floor: you are findable, indexed and listed where some buyers look. They do not put you in front of people comparing tools in your category. The pages that do that are “best X” lists, “[competitor] alternatives” posts and comparisons, which buyers read just before they choose. The fastest way to find them is to look at which sites link to your competitors, then run the prospecting search strings for your category.
Getting into those takes outreach rather than form-filling: find the posts where you belong, find the person who edits each one, and send a short, specific pitch. Our listicle link building hub explains why these pages matter more for SaaS, and the step-by-step guide to getting listed in “best X” articles shows how to do it by hand. If you’re still pre-launch, our SEO plan for a SaaS’s first 90 days shows where directories fit in the sequence.
Disclosure: BacklinkGenie sells an outreach product, so we have an interest in the conclusion that editorial lists beat directories. The directory numbers above are from our own log either way, and we will publish the 30-day and 90-day results whatever they show.
The short version
Submit to a short list of curated SaaS directories once, check every link’s rel attribute, keep badge swaps to a minimum, and log your results. Expect a few live listings and a few followed links, not a ranking change. Then spend your time on the methods higher up our list of ways to get backlinks. If you’re pre-launch or just launched, link building for startups lays out a simple first month.
What changed
- 18 October 2026: first version, with counts from the first 48 hours of submissions.
Questions people ask
How many SaaS directories should I submit to?
Fewer than most lists suggest. A short list of 20 to 30 curated, relevant directories that real buyers browse covers most of the benefit. Beyond that, you spend hours on sites that are dead, paid, nofollow or full of unrelated listings, and Google's spam policy names low-quality directory links as link spam.
Should I pay for a directory listing?
Only if the directory sends real buyers, and then treat it as advertising. Google allows paid links when they are marked rel=sponsored or nofollow. Paying a directory for a followed link mainly to improve rankings is the kind of paid link Google's policy targets.
Are directory submission services worth it?
Be cautious. Services that submit to hundreds of directories for a flat fee mostly hit the long tail we found to be dead, paid or low quality. If you use one, ask for the exact list of sites in advance and check that each is curated, alive and relevant to your buyers.
What happens if I remove a directory badge later?
On the badge-gated directories in our log, removing the badge either loses the listing or turns your link nofollow, and some sites check for it automatically. So treat each badge as a long-term commitment. Before you add one, decide whether you would still want that directory linked from your footer a year from now.
How long do directory listings take to go live?
It varies widely. In our log, some listings were live within a day, scheduled launch dates ranged from the next day to two months out, and several free queues quoted 30 to 90 days. Hand-reviewed directories often never reply, so note the date you submitted and check back.
Written by
Nikunj Thakkar · Founder, BacklinkGenie
Nikunj builds BacklinkGenie, an outreach agent that pitches editors for links you earn rather than buy. He writes about link outreach, email deliverability and how products end up in the posts people read.
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