How to submit your app to a directory

Every directory wants roughly the same nine things and asks for them in a different order. Prepare them once and a submission takes two minutes instead of twenty; prepare none of them and you will abandon the fourth form of the evening.

1. Pick destinations before you open a single form

   Of the 1445 destinations we track, 135 are link farms we exclude by name, and 103 have a submission page that no longer answers. Filter first. How you actually get listed sorts the whole list by the route each one takes.

2. Write the brief once

   Name, one-line tagline, a short description (~150 characters), a long one (~500), category, logo, a screenshot, your pricing model and a contact email. Three description lengths, not one — forms enforce different caps and a truncated sentence reads as carelessness.

3. Use one address you will actually read

   Most listings are confirmed by a link in an email, and some arrive weeks later. A shared or aliased inbox beats a personal one, because the person who submitted is rarely the person who notices the mail.

4. Submit, then record where you submitted

   493 destinations take a plain form; 172 only reveal one after a click; 76 want a pitch to an editor. Whatever the route, write down the URL, the date and the address you used. Without that record you cannot chase, correct or prove anything later.

5. Confirm the email, then wait

   Clicking confirm is not publication. Review queues run from minutes to several weeks, and plenty of directories never write again either way.

6. Check the public page, logged out

   A dashboard that says approved is a claim, not a listing. Open the public URL with no cookies and confirm your product name renders to a stranger.