How to Get Listed on Startup Stash for Free

What Startup Stash is

Startup Stash is a startup tools directory at startupstash.com. Our directory has it at DR 65 with about 370,000 visits a month.

It's changed shape over the last couple of years. It used to be the old kind of directory — a category page with forty tool logos on it. Now most of what the homepage links to looks like this: /best-ai-recruiting-tools/, /backlink-checker-tools/, /top-vcs/, /top-startups-by-country/, /alternatives/. They're roundup articles.

That difference matters a lot. The traffic lives on those roundup pages now. Someone googles "best AI recruiting tools", lands there, and reads a ranked list. That's the page you actually want to be on. Not a listing sitting by itself.

There are other doors too — /explore/, /categories/, /resources/, /blog/, /indian-startups/. But if you're submitting, the thing that matters is whether you end up inside a roundup.

Is it worth doing

Here's what we could actually verify.

The links are dofollow. We pulled the /backlink-checker-tools/ page and checked every outbound link on it. The links pointing at the recommended tools — ahrefs.com, moz.com, majestic.com, aioseo.com — all carry rel="external noopener". No nofollow. No sponsored. They run the WP External Links plugin and it's set up not to add nofollow.

A dofollow link from a DR 65 site is rare now. Compare: Product Hunt is nofollow. G2 is nofollow (G2 submission guide). SaaSHub is nofollow. Crunchbase is nofollow. The ones that do give dofollow are a short list — SourceForge, AlternativeTo, F6S, The SaaS Directory. Startup Stash is in that group.

But getting listed isn't your call. When you submit, you get this: "Thank you for applying to get listed on StartupStash! We will get back to you as early as possible." Look at the word applying. Whether they take you, when, and whether money comes up — that's all on them.

They don't publish a price. We looked at /add-listing/ and /advertise-on-startupstash/ and there's no number anywhere on the site. Our own directory used to have $199 and $399 a year on file for this site, but we can't find a source for that on the live site now, so don't budget around it. The only figures you'll see are in the ad budget question at the end of the form, and those start at "Less than $3,000" — but that's for advertising, not for a listing. Different thing. It does tell you where the money comes from, though.

So here's how to think about it. Sending the application is free. It costs you 20 minutes. A DR 65 dofollow is worth 20 minutes. The real decision comes later, if they reply and ask for money. Make that call then. Don't agonize over it now.

What Startup Stash rewards

There's no public voting like Product Hunt has. An editor decides. From what we can see, these are the things that move the needle:

• Whether you fit an existing roundup. All the traffic is on /best-xxx-tools/ pages. If your category lines up with a list they already have, adding you is easy for them. If it doesn't, you're waiting until they build that list.
• Picking the right category. The form has a dropdown with 45 options. Pick wrong and you land somewhere nobody reads.
• A product page that opens and makes sense. They will click it. Waiting list pages and coming-soon pages don't get through.
• A work email. This one is hard-blocked. More on that below.
• Whether you're interested in advertising. That's what the last three questions are about. Does answering yes speed up the review? The site doesn't say, and we can't prove it does. But a free submission form with three sales questions built into it tells you something.

The most common way people blow this: they pick "Other/Can't find any from the above" for the category and never hear back. That option is for products that genuinely don't fit. It's not there so you can skip thinking.

Before you submit

There isn't much to gather, but get it all ready and you can do this in one sitting. The Typeform goes one question per screen, so if you're missing an asset halfway through it's annoying.

Ten minutes before you start

• An email on your own domain. Something like you@yourdomain.com. The form has a hard rule: "Sorry, we only accept work/business emails." Gmail, Outlook, and the rest bounce. If you don't have one, set it up first — Zoho or Cloudflare Email Routing takes about ten minutes.
• Your product name.
• A short description. Just say what it does.
• A long description. Two or three paragraphs. What it does, who it's for, what makes it different. This is the main thing the editor reads to decide, so don't phone it in.
• Your product URL. A page that opens. Not a waiting list.
• Your logo as a file. The form uploads a file, it doesn't take a URL. Square transparent PNG. Have it on your desktop.
• A demo video link (optional). YouTube or Loom is fine.

Worth doing first

• Go read /top-tools/ and find the roundup you belong in. Ten minutes here pays off more than anything else. Find the list that fits your product, write down its title, and when the editor replies you can say "I think I belong in this one." That beats waiting.

• Decide your category before you start. 45 options, pick the closest. Here they all are so you can look now:

  Analytics, Cap Table, Collaboration & Communication, CRM, Customer Support, Deployment, Design, Development, Domain names, Early users, eCommerce, Feedback & Bugtracking, Finance, Forms & Surveys, Funding Docs, Hosting, HR, Idea generation, Investor relations, Launching, Learning, Legal, Lodging, Market research, Marketing, Mobile App Analytics, Mockups & Wireframing, MVP, Naming, Newsletters, Outdoor Activities, Outsourcing, Payments, Pitch & Deck, Presentations, Product Demo, Product Management, Productivity, Project Management, Raising Capital, Revenue Models, Sales, Social Tools, Task Management, Videos, plus Other.

• Work out how you'll answer the ad questions. There's a whole section on that below.

The submission flow

1. Open /add-listing/

It's at https://startupstash.com/add-listing/. The page has one embedded Typeform on it. That's the whole thing, stop looking for another button.

2. First name, last name

Two separate screens. Use your real name — it greets you by first name later on.

3. Email

Work email. Put in a personal one and you get "Sorry, we only accept work/business emails." and you're stuck there.

4. Product name

5. Short description

6. Long description

By now you're just pasting in what you wrote earlier.

7. Product URL

8. Pick a category

Dropdown, 45 options, pick one.

9. Upload your logo

This is a real file upload. Not an image URL.

10. Video link (optional)

Skip it if you don't have one. It won't hurt you.

11. The last three: advertising

"One last thing... Are you interested to advertise with us?" and two more after it. Next section covers these.

12. Submit, then wait

You'll see "Thank you for applying to get listed on StartupStash! We will get back to you as early as possible :)". No ticket number. No time estimate. That's it.

Don't sit around waiting. Submit and go work on the next site. Treat a reply as a bonus. If you've heard nothing after two or three weeks, send a short follow-up to Hello@startupstash.com — two or three sentences with your product link and the roundup you think you fit.

The three questions at the end, and how to answer them

This is the part nobody writes about and the part you most need to know.

You finish the logo and video, you think you're done, and then these show up:

1. Are you interested to advertise with us? (yes / no)
2. When do you want your campaign to go live? — As soon as possible, In the next month, In the next quarter, More than 3 months out
3. Available budget for this upcoming campaign? — Less than $3,000, $3,000-$10,000, $10,000-$20,000, $20,000+

That's a sales lead form. Their standalone advertising form — the one embedded on /advertise-on-startupstash/ — asks for the exact same budget brackets. The ad contact there is asaf@startupstash.com, and the options they sell are website ads, newsletter ads, and social media ads.

So how should you answer?

• No budget? Just say no. The next two questions get skipped. Does saying no hurt your chances of getting listed? The site doesn't say, and we have no evidence it does. But clicking "$20,000+" and then telling a salesperson you're not buying is a mess you don't need.
• Actually planning to spend? Say yes and put in a real number. You're now in both the listing queue and the sales queue, and the reply probably comes faster, because a different person handles it.
• Don't inflate it to look serious. The bottom bracket is $3,000. That's real money. Pick a bigger one and they'll negotiate from that number, which wastes everyone's time.

Once you see what this form is doing, your expectations line up: half of it is a listing application, half of it is ad lead gen. The free half depends on an editor's mood. The paid half has someone chasing it.

How to get into a roundup

Getting a listing is the start. Getting into a roundup is where the traffic is.

• Find the right one. Go to /top-tools/ — it lists the roundup pages across the site. Scan them and find the one that matches your product. Not "close enough." The one where you'd say "that's literally what I do."
• Ask. Once you're listed, send a short note to Hello@startupstash.com: who you are, what you do, which /xxx-tools/ page you think you belong on, and two sentences on why. These lists are maintained by hand, and anything maintained by hand can be talked to.
• Some roundups have their own submit form. We found another Typeform on a category page (form ID WOtyR8xc) that collects suggestions for that specific list. If you hit one, use it. It's faster than the main flow.
• Don't ask for five lists at once. Pick the best fit, get in, then talk about the next one.

What to do after

• Check your link is really dofollow. Once your page is live, look at the rel on the <a> tag pointing to you. It was clean when we checked, but a plugin setting can change any time. Verify your own link.
• Don't add a badge link back. Some sites hand you an "as seen on" badge to put on your site. Startup Stash doesn't ask for one, so don't volunteer. A one-way dofollow turns into a link exchange the moment you do, and that's a worse deal.
• Watch for referral traffic. Filter for startupstash.com in your analytics. If the roundup page ranks, this grows slowly over time instead of spiking once.
• Come back in six months. Roundup pages get updated and reordered. When you ship something big, it's worth another email asking them to refresh your entry.

Common mistakes

• Using Gmail. Hard stop. This is the number one one.
• Picking Other as your category. Out of 45 options, one of them beats Other.
• Writing the long description as marketing copy. "Reimagine your workflow" — an editor sees that eight times a day. Say what you do and who it's for.
• Pointing the product URL at a waiting list. They'll click it. If it's an email capture page, that's the end of it.
• Not having your logo ready. The form uploads a file. Stopping halfway through a one-question-per-screen flow to go export a PNG is a pain.
• Inflating the ad budget. Covered above.
• Refreshing your inbox every day after. The lack of a time estimate is telling you something. Submit and go do the next site.
• Thinking the form publishes you. It's an application. Get this wrong and everything after it is wrong too.

Startup Stash vs BetaList

Both lean paid, and people compare them a lot.

Short version: BetaList is for finding seed users before you launch. Startup Stash is for picking up search traffic once you're running. They don't conflict, but BetaList comes first.

FAQ

Does it cost money to submit to Startup Stash? Sending the application is free and there's no payment step in the form. But the site never publishes a listing price, so we can't promise money won't come up when they reply. Be ready either way.

How long until they reply? No stated time. You get "we will get back to you as early as possible" and nothing else. If it's been two or three weeks, follow up at Hello@startupstash.com.

Is the link dofollow or nofollow? We checked and it's dofollow. Outbound links to tools on the roundup pages use rel="external noopener" with no nofollow. That could change if they change a plugin setting, so check your own link once you're live.

Do I really need a work email? Yes. The form only takes work or business emails and blocks personal ones. Setting up a domain email is faster than trying to get around it.

Do I have to answer the ad budget questions? The first one, yes. Say no and the other two get skipped. No budget, say no. Don't make up a number.

Is Startup Stash still active? Yes. They keep adding roundup pages, and the /best-ai-* batch is clearly recent.

Other platforms worth doing in the same window

After you submit to Startup Stash you're just waiting, so use that time on other sites. These are all in our directory — click through for the submission details:

• Startup Fame — DR 83, dofollow. Best value of any startup site here. Walkthrough: Startup Fame submission guide.
• F6S — DR 86, free, dofollow. Startup profiles, and you get accelerator info while you're there.
• LaunchingNext — DR 51, free, simple flow, twenty minutes.
• SideProjectors — DR 67, free. Good home for a side project.
• IndiePage — DR 67. Clean product pages for indie makers.
• Uneed — DR 44, paid, daily leaderboard. Fits a launch schedule.
• Microlaunch — DR 19 isn't much, but it's free and fast.
• Land-book — DR 72, dofollow. Worth a shot if your landing page looks good.
• Hacker News — Show HN. It's a coin flip, but it costs you one post.
• Indie Hackers — nofollow, but the discussion itself is worth something. How to post: Indie Hackers submission guide.
• Tech.co — DR 80, free, dofollow.
• The SaaS Directory — DR 88, free, dofollow. Do this one if you're SaaS.
• AlternativeTo — DR 80, dofollow. Get on the right competitor's alternatives page and it sends people for years.
• SourceForge — DR 92, dofollow. Don't skip it if you're open source or you ship a download. Steps: SourceForge submission guide.
• Product Hunt — the link is nofollow, but launch day exposure and getting cited afterward are a separate thing. Prep work: Product Hunt launch guide. Skipping PH? See Product Hunt alternatives.
• Crunchbase — nofollow. You do this one for a complete profile, not for a link.
• SaaSHub — nofollow, but the comparison pages bring people who are shopping. Details: SaaSHub submission guide.

If you want to work through a whole batch, startup directories and the SaaS directory list organize it by wave. To browse by type, go to startup directories, general directories, and SaaS sites. Every entry shows DR, price, and how to submit.