In November 2026 we listed two small web products on about 40 launch sites and directories, using only the free options. Writing the listing took an hour. Getting past what each site asks for before it accepts a listing took days. Below is what we met, grouped by the kind of hurdle, so you can plan your own launch week. Prices and queue lengths are what the sites showed us at the time and will change.

Free and quick

These took one sitting each.

  • Launching Next. A plain form with a small sum as the human check. The next page offers a $99 upgrade, which you can skip.
  • TinyLaunch. You make an account with a password, create the startup, then pick the free launch. Ours went to review with a promise of under 24 hours. A $39 launch is offered.
  • Startup Stash. A form with no account. They reply by email. A later mail offered paid plans, so do not count on the free entry staying visible.
  • AlternativeTo. Free, in a normal review queue, with paid faster review at $19 or $39. You list your app as an alternative to existing ones, so pick those well.
  • SourceForge. No login, but the form asked for a phone number at the end.

Free, but you wait

The free tier is real here. It just sits at the back of a line.

  • PeerPush. Free queue, position about 12,000, which they estimated at four months.
  • Uneed. Free waiting line. Our date was seven months away, and the launch page may expect a number of upvotes on the day.
  • Smol Launch. Free slot about twelve weeks out, after we cast five upvotes on other launches and added their badge.
  • Firsto. Free slots were full, with a wait of about 180 days. Priority started at $9.90.
  • StartupBase. Free queue of ten weeks or more, and the free launch unlocks only after you upvote and comment on other launches.
  • PitchWall. Free launch after a 30-day wait.

Join these on day one. Their wait starts when you sign up, not when you are ready.

Free if you link back

Many newer sites trade a free listing for a link from your site.

  • Fazier. Their badge on your site, plus three helpful comments on other makers' products.
  • LaunchIgniter. Their badge on your homepage, and a sum to solve at submit.
  • Turbo0. A link back to them. The intro text had to be at least 1,200 characters.
  • Dang.ai. A link back, or $49.

Decide your badge policy before you start. We ended up with four badges in one footer. Keep a note of which badge belongs to which listing so you can remove it if the listing goes away.

Sign-in walls

These were the most common reason we stopped.

  • Google or X sign-in only: Indie Hackers, Microlaunch, StartupRanking, LaunchClash. PitchWall adds GitHub, Microsoft and Discord, but still no email sign-up.
  • A "verify you are human" page before the form: Peerlist, StartupTabs, Startup Buffer.
  • An invite code: OpenHunts.

Use one shared address for all launch accounts and a password manager. Several sites send a sign-in code by email, and one verification mail never arrived for us until we tried a second address on our own domain.

Paid only

  • BetaList. The submit step showed only paid plans.
  • Emoji Launch. Needs a launch code bought on Gumroad.
  • AIxploria. From $79.
  • Tiny Startups. You can save the form as a draft for free, but going live needed a £69 listing.

How to prepare

Write one kit file before you open any site, and paste from it:

  • name and URL
  • a tagline under 60 characters
  • a short description under 160 characters
  • a long description of about 600 characters, plus a 1,200-character version for sites that ask for more
  • categories and five tags
  • a square logo at 512, 256 and 128 pixels
  • screenshots at 1270x760 and 1200x630
  • a contact email that you can read from any device

Then keep a table with one row per site: URL, cost on the last page you saw, state, date, and the link to your listing or thanks page. After 40 sites you will not remember which ones are waiting on you.

Do the quick ones on the first day and join every free queue at the same time. Leave the badge deals for last, when you know which listings you really want.

What we would do again

Most of these sites send a small number of visitors. The value is that each listing is one more page on the web that names your product, and some of them link to you. Treat it as a few evenings of work, not a launch plan.

That gap is part of why we built Hatchlit (https://hatchlit.com). It lists new products every day, and makers can launch there for free.