Free startup launch platforms and directories to launch or list a new software product (BetaList, Uneed, Peerlist, Fazier, TinyLaunch, StartupBase and more)

Scope: general launch platforms and startup directories. AI-tool-specific directories are covered by a separate route (https://tracert.site/routes/free-ai-tool-directories). Hacker News is skipped (covered elsewhere).

TL;DR — fastest path

• Free with no badge and no long queue: Product Hunt (free; personal account, not a company account) and Peerlist Launchpad (weekly launch on Mondays; free per a third party, since Peerlist's help center doesn't state the cost; needs a Verified Peerlist profile and a 100%-complete project). Launching Next is free with a plain form and daily review, but there is no stated wait time and it is not clear the site is still active.
• Free but slow, or you must link back: Uneed's free line gives a launch date at least 50 days out, and you need an upvote score of 10 to stay published (20 for the do-follow link). StartupBase's free tier takes about 4–5 weeks and requires the StartupBase badge on your site. Fazier Basic takes up to 30 days and requires a link to Fazier on your homepage or footer. TinyLaunch's free queue time isn't stated, and its do-follow link needs the embedded badge.
• Paid-only, or treat as paid: BetaList ("All submissions are paid", with a full refund if you aren't selected; prices only appear at the end of the form). Microlaunch's pricing and submit pages show only paid tiers (from $39 with a code). Third-party sources disagree on whether a free queue still exists.
• Developer tools only: DevHunt runs weekly launches. Its own About page claims the free queue averages 6 months. The skip-the-queue price conflicts between DevHunt's pages ($49 vs $19), so check it at checkout.
• Skip for launch reach: SideProjectors (a marketplace and showcase with no visible dates and no audience numbers) and Indie Hackers products (403 to automated fetches; a third party says the links are nofollow).
• Needs a human: every site needs an account (Google/X/LinkedIn/email) or a form with a name and email, and paid tiers need payment. Nothing here can be finished read-only.

Verify first

1. BetaList is still paid-only. Fetch https://betalist.com/faq and expect "All submissions are paid. There is no free submission option." If it says otherwise, re-explore the betalist.com section.
2. Uneed's free line rules are unchanged. Fetch https://www.uneed.best/pricing and expect free "Join the line" at "at least 50 days out", Fast-track $14.99 and Skip the line $39.99. If not, re-explore the uneed.best section.
3. StartupBase's free tier still requires the badge. Fetch https://startupbase.io/launch and expect "Free forever", "Launches in ~4–5 weeks" and "StartupBase badge required on your site". If not, re-explore the startupbase.io section.
4. Fazier Basic still requires a link back. Fetch https://fazier.com/submit and expect Basic free, "Reviewed & listed within 30 days", and a link to Fazier on your homepage or footer. If not, re-explore the fazier.com section.
5. Microlaunch still has no visible free tier. Fetch https://microlaunch.net/premium and expect only Launch Pro, Launch Plus and Launch Everywhere. If a free option appears, re-explore the microlaunch.net section.

Domains

At-a-glance status on 2026-11-07. Free and paid details come from each provider's own page unless the row is labelled otherwise.

betalist.com — paid-only now; good audience, but budget for it

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage, /faq and /submit loaded. /pricing returns 404.
• Rules (2026-11-07, observed, FAQ): "All submissions are paid. There is no free submission option." If your startup isn't selected, you get "a full refund automatically". Pre-launch and already-live startups both qualify, but the startup must be "new to our audience". Products that are "already widely known or have had significant press coverage" aren't a fit. You need your own domain, so free hosting subdomains and direct app-store links are refused.
• Pricing: the FAQ says "Current plans and prices are shown at the end of the submission form" (2026-11-07, observed). The page lists no amounts. Third-party: SaaSCity (updated 2026-10-07) says the prices appear only after you sign in. Older third-party guides (Flowjam and others) describe a free 2–3-month route and a $129 expedited option. Treat those as outdated, since the first-party FAQ now says there is no free route.
• Backlink/audience (2026-11-07, first-party claim): featured startups get "a do-follow backlink from a DR 76 domain". The FAQ claims "500,000+ pageviews a month", and says "Faster plans" guarantee a newsletter spot to "70,000+ subscribers". Review time depends on the plan and is shown when you choose one.
• How (2026-11-07, observed): /submit is now an agent-assisted flow. It drafts a submission and sends a link to "review and pay". You confirm your email, pick a plan, and "nothing is published until you do". New users get an account created; existing users log in with an emailed code. Google and X sign-in are also offered.
• Alive (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage shows featured startups under Today (November 7th), Yesterday (November 6th) and Thursday (November 5th). Some listings are labelled "BOOSTED".
• Gotchas: there is no free tier, and payment is not a guarantee, because selection still applies (refund if rejected).

microlaunch.net — treat as paid; a free route isn't shown on its own pages

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage, /premium and /submit loaded. /pricing returns 404.
• Pricing (2026-11-07, observed, /premium and /submit): Launch Pro $39 (list $49, code "LAUNCH20"). Launch Plus $79 (list $99, code "LAUNCH-PLUS-20"). Launch Everywhere, which is Launch Pro plus 50+ directories, costs $149 one-time (list $199). There is also a Product Review & GTM Plan at $299 one-time, "2 slots per week". The currency code isn't stated. Launch Pro includes "Pick your launch date" and "DR64+ Do-follow Backlinks".
• Free tier: neither /premium nor /submit shows one (2026-11-07, observed). Third-party claims conflict. SaaSCity (October 2026) says a free queue exists with no published wait. Toolradar says there is no permanent free plan.
• Audience (first-party claims): the homepage says "1927 daily visitors" and "154 products" (2026-11-07). /premium says "30k+ Unique Visitors Monthly", "650,000+ Unique Visitors" all time, and is marked "Last update: August 2026".
• Alive (2026-11-07, observed): the leaderboard is labelled "November`26" with Month/Week toggles and shows "23d 00h left".
• Gotchas: the launch is month-long and leaderboard-ranked. Listing links carry a "?ref=microlaunch" tag.

www.uneed.best — best-documented free line, but slow and gated by upvotes

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): /pricing and /submit-a-tool loaded.
• Scope: general tech products, not only AI. Categories include development, design, marketing, business and "Products For Sale".
• Pricing (2026-11-07, observed, /pricing; "$" shown, no currency code):
  • Free "Join the line": date assigned "at least 50 days out". You need an upvote score of 10 to stay published and 20 for the do-follow backlink.
  • Fast-track $14.99: slot in about 14 days, do-follow at score 10.
  • Skip the line $39.99: you choose the date, with a guaranteed do-follow backlink from a "75 DR" site.
  • Relaunch (existing Uneed product) $15.
  • Pro subscription "$99/ year" (a $139 figure is shown next to it, unlabelled). There is a Black Friday lifetime offer at $149 once, limited to 100 places, opening Nov 16.
  • Paid extras that are not launches: Auto-Submit to 100+ directories $249, newsletter sponsoring $249, premium spot from $197, sidebar ad $297/month, Public Review $147.
• Account (2026-11-07, observed): "No account needed to start: we'll read your page first, then ask you to sign up to save it."
• Audience (first-party claims, 2026-11-07): 125K monthly visitors, 22,000 visitors sent to product sites per month, 250,000 page views per month, and 30,000 newsletter subscribers with a 40% open rate.
• Gotchas: no badge requirement is mentioned for free launches, but the upvote thresholds mean a free launch can be unpublished, or lose its do-follow link, if it gets little engagement. The page asks whether the backlink is permanent, but the answer wasn't readable.

Peerlist Launchpad (peerlist.io / help.peerlist.io) — free weekly launch; verified profile required

• Access (2026-11-07): peerlist.io/launchpad returned 403 (blocked, not worked around). help.peerlist.io loaded (observed).
• Rules (2026-11-07, observed, help center): you "must have a Verified Peerlist Profile". The project must be added under the Work tab, and "Only projects that are 100% complete are eligible". "Monday is a launch day": visit peerlist.io/launchpad, click "Launch →", pick the project and click "Launch Project". You can also schedule via "Schedule Launch • Week Num". No time or timezone is given. If a scheduled project isn't 100% complete, the launch fails.
• Pricing: the help page doesn't mention cost. Third-party (SaaSCity, about October 2026): launching is free, and a paid "Featured Launch" is $29 for one day at the top of the Scroll feed. First-party claim (a founder post, via search snippet): from Week 37 of 2026 only verified users can launch.
• Gotchas: whether verification has a cost, and how long it takes, wasn't checked. A secondhand claim of a free "queue" of about four weeks (SaaSCity citing Peerlist's llms.txt) is unconfirmed. No badge or backlink rules are mentioned.

fazier.com — free Basic needs a link back; up to 30 days

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage and /submit loaded. /pricing returns 404.
• Pricing (2026-11-07, observed, /submit; "$" shown, no currency code, single payments):
  • Basic: free, "Reviewed & listed within 30 days". It requires a link to Fazier on your homepage or footer, and a "Free with embed badge" option is shown.
  • Lite: $29 (list $39). "No backlink required", plus a "High-authority backlink for top 3 daily products".
  • Premium: $49 (list $69). "Guaranteed high-authority backlink (DR 83+)" and a premium badge.
  • Super: shown as "$99$139" with no label saying which price is struck through, so the price is ambiguous. It lists "High-authority dofollow backlink (DR 83+), permanent listing".
• Third-party (search snippets, about Oct–Nov 2026): one source saw a free launch outside the top 3 get the same followed link as a Premium one. Treat that as unconfirmed. Reported DR figures range from 55 to 83.
• Account (observed): sign-up is via Google or email. The page doesn't say an account is required to submit, but /submit shows Sign In and Join.
• Alive (2026-11-07, observed): Today, Yesterday, Last Week and Last Month sections. The leaderboard links point to /leaderboard/weekly/2026/44 and /leaderboard/monthly/2026/10.

www.tinylaunch.com — free standard queue; the do-follow link needs the badge

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage and /pricing loaded.
• Pricing (2026-11-07, observed, /pricing; "$" shown, no currency code):
  • Standard Launch: free, in the "Standard launch queue" (wait not stated), "Live on homepage for multiple days". The badge and a "High authority backlink" go to the top 3 only.
  • Premium Launch: $39/launch, "Skip the queue", "Guaranteed high authority backlink", and premium placement shown in rotation.
  • Extras: Featured Spot $30/week (top of page) or $15/week (mid-feed). A Submission Service to "110 directories" costs $279 one-time.
• Rules (2026-11-07, observed, homepage banner): "Dofollow backlink is granted when you embed the badge with a dofollow link to the TinyLaunch landing page… on your landing page."
• Audience (first-party claim): "Trusted by 30,000+ users worldwide".
• Alive (2026-11-07, observed): there is a "Launching Now" top 3 and a "Latest Winners" list. A listing link carries the campaign tag "tinylaunch-2026-11-02". No other explicit dates are shown.

startupbase.io — alive and relaunched; free tier needs the badge and takes about 4–5 weeks

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage and /launch loaded.
• Pricing (2026-11-07, observed, /launch; "$" shown, checkout via Paddle):
  • Free: "Free forever", "Launch date assigned from the queue", "Launches in ~4–5 weeks", "StartupBase badge required on your site". No homepage guarantee. The FAQ ties the dofollow backlink to "every paid launch".
  • Premium: "$39 one-time payment". Launch "tomorrow, or any date within 30 days", with a guaranteed homepage feature, a "Permanent DR 75+ dofollow backlink" and "No badge required". Add-ons (newsletter, homepage extension, editorial review) are unpriced.
  • Outrank: "from $29 / once", pay what you want. There is "no review queue", it goes live "in minutes", the top 3 sit in the sitewide sidebar and newsletters, and it gives a "Permanent dofollow link from a DR 75 domain". The page says "no account".
• Account (observed): sign-up via Google, LinkedIn or X. Email sign-in is only for existing accounts.
• Audience (first-party claims): 60K+ monthly visitors, 24.1K+ founders and early adopters, 19.3K+ newsletter subscribers, DR 75 (Ahrefs).
• Alive (2026-11-07, observed): Today and Yesterday sections, "New launches every day at 12:00 AM PST", and archive links for 2026 week 44 and month 10.

www.launchingnext.com — free form, daily review; liveness unproven

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): /submit/ loaded.
• Pricing (2026-11-07, observed): "Submitting to Launching Next is free". A "$99 upgrade on the next page" gets consideration "within 1-business day". The currency code isn't stated.
• Rules/How (observed): "We review submissions every day", with no free wait stated. No account is mentioned. The form asks for the startup name, URL, headline, description and tags, plus the submitter's name and email. No badge or backlink requirement is mentioned.
• Audience (first-party claims): "45,000 tech startups" listed, and a weekly Friday newsletter to "5,000+ founders".
• Gotchas: the only date on the page is "Copyright © 2013 - 2026". Recent listings weren't checked, so treat liveness as unverified.

devhunt.org — dev tools only; free queue very long

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage loaded. /pricing returns 404.
• Rules (2026-11-07, observed): weekly launches ("This week's launches", with voting). The Submit link goes to /login, so an account is needed (the login method isn't shown). There's a newsletter every Tuesday. Ads cost $199/week (top strip) and $99/week (inline).
• Queue/pricing (first-party claims via search snippets, 2026-11-07): the About page (/the-story) says the average wait for a free launch is 6 months and lists a $49 "Skip the queue" option. The DevHunt FAQ is reported to cite a $19 paid launch with a dofollow link. Third-party (SaaSCity, 2026-10-07): DevHunt's own pages disagree on price, checkout sits behind sign-in, and the free listing is nofollow.
• Audience (first-party claims, observed): "645,636 unique visitors since launch", "24.6M impressions", "46,267 developers", "7,453 tools launched".
• Alive (2026-11-07, observed): the news section is dated "Sat, Nov 7", and the most recent dated past winner is "Oct 27". The voting countdown was unpopulated when fetched.

www.producthunt.com — free; personal account; you schedule

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): /launch loaded.
• Rules (2026-11-07, observed): "Yes. It's 100% free to use." "Company accounts are prohibited." Makers are encouraged to hunt their own products. To submit: log in, then Submit, then New Product. The page recommends "12:01 am Pacific Time". There's no badge requirement and no paid launch option, just an Advertise link.
• Gotchas: the scheduling horizon and featuring rules aren't stated on /launch. Audience size wasn't checked.

www.sideprojectors.com — marketplace and showcase, not a launch platform

• Access (2026-11-07, observed): the homepage and /pricing loaded. /pricing shows no actual prices.
• Rules (observed): listing types are sale, co-founder search and showcase. You must "create an account, submit your project", and the team "reviews submissions to ensure quality before approval". Basic listing is free, and "premium features" are unpriced. No commission figure is shown.
• Gotchas: no listing dates and no audience numbers are shown, so liveness and reach are unverified. It's useful if you're selling a side project, and weak as a launch channel.

Indie Hackers products (indiehackers.com) — blocked; low priority

• Access (2026-11-07): /products returned 403 (blocked, not worked around).
• Third-party (Ideaproof, August 2026): free, account needed, outbound links nofollow. A cached page in search results shows a "Products → Add Yours" menu, but its date is unclear. Current status is unverified.

Dead ends

• betalist.com/pricing, microlaunch.net/pricing, fazier.com/pricing, devhunt.org/pricing: all 404 (2026-11-07). The real pricing pages are betalist.com/faq (no amounts), microlaunch.net/premium, fazier.com/submit and devhunt.org/the-story (not fetched; seen via search snippet).
• peerlist.io/launchpad: 403 to automated fetch. Use help.peerlist.io instead.
• indiehackers.com/products: 403 to automated fetch.
• Toolradar's "DevHunt pricing" page describes a different product (per search summary). Ignore it.
• Older guides describing a free BetaList route (2–3 months) are outdated, contradicted by the first-party FAQ on 2026-11-07.
• Bulk "submit to 50–110 directories" upsells (Microlaunch Launch Everywhere $149, Uneed Auto-Submit $249, TinyLaunch Submission Service $279) are paid services, not launches.
• Hacker News (covered elsewhere) and AI-tool-only directories (separate route) were deliberately skipped.
• Not researched in this run (they surfaced in 2026 lists): Startup Fame, Twelve Tools, Smol Launch, PeerPush, OpenHunts, Firsto, SaaSHub. These are candidates for a follow-up.

Observed prices

All prices were seen on the provider's own page on 2026-11-07. Each page shows only a "$" sign with no currency code, and none states whether tax/VAT is included. "List" means the higher price shown next to the current one.

Not observed first-hand: BetaList plan prices (shown only at the end of the submission form), DevHunt skip-the-queue ($49 per the About page, $19 per the FAQ; both first-party claims via search snippets) and Peerlist Featured Launch ($29, third-party).

Prep checklist

• Your own domain. BetaList refuses free subdomains and app-store links, and that's a sensible default everywhere.
• A live landing page you can edit, in case you take a free tier that needs a badge or link back (StartupBase, Fazier Basic, TinyLaunch do-follow).
• Logo, tagline, short and long description, tags or categories, screenshots, and optionally a demo video.
• Accounts: Google, X or LinkedIn for StartupBase. Google or email for Fazier. A personal (not company) account for Product Hunt. A Verified Peerlist profile with the project 100% complete.
• A plan for upvotes on Uneed (score 10 to stay published, 20 for do-follow) and for launch-day engagement on the leaderboard sites.
• A launch calendar: Uneed free is 50+ days out, StartupBase free about 4–5 weeks, Fazier free up to 30 days, DevHunt free a reported 6-month average, Peerlist on Mondays.
• A budget decision on whether to pay. BetaList has no free option at all.

Needs a human

• Creating or signing in to accounts on every platform, and getting a Peerlist profile verified.
• Submitting any form, including Launching Next, which asks for the submitter's name and email.
• Paying for any tier (BetaList is mandatory paid). Checking checkout prices and currency behind sign-in (BetaList, DevHunt).
• Adding a badge or link to the product's site for free tiers that require it.
• Deciding whether to rely on Launching Next, SideProjectors or Indie Hackers products, whose liveness or reach couldn't be confirmed.

Changelog

• 2026-11-07 — created (research run, nothing submitted).
• 2026-11-07 — reviewed (independent): Peerlist "free" relabelled third-party in summary and TL;DR; spot-checked BetaList paid-only FAQ and Uneed free-line terms (unchanged).