Quick Answer
If you only submit to three, these are the three:
- SaaSHub - reported DR 70+, dofollow, free. Ranks for "alternatives to X" queries, which is where buyers with intent actually land.
- Futurepedia - reported DR 65+, dofollow, free, around 680,000 monthly visits. The largest free dofollow listing still accepting general submissions.
- There's An AI For That - DR around 76, nofollow. Submit anyway, for the traffic, not the link. See the caveat below.
Disclosure: we run AIToolsRecap, which is an AI tool directory. It appears in the table below in the position the evidence puts it, not at the top. Judge the method rather than the ranking.
If you want the submission process rather than the link analysis, see our guide to which directories founders should submit to.
The Comparison
| Directory |
Reported DR |
Link type |
Price |
| Product Hunt |
90+ |
Disputed |
Free |
| There's An AI For That |
~76 |
Nofollow |
Free |
| SaaSHub |
70+ |
Dofollow |
Free |
| Futurepedia |
65+ |
Dofollow |
Free |
| Toolify |
55+ |
Dofollow |
Free |
| TheSaaSDir |
~53 |
Dofollow |
Free (badge) |
| AIToolsRecap |
39 |
Dofollow |
Free |
DR figures are as reported by the directories or by third-party listicles, not independently audited. Treat them as a starting point, not a fact. The link-type column is the one that matters and the one you should verify yourself.
Check Any Directory Yourself in Ten Seconds
Do not take a listicle's word for it, including this one. Published sources contradict each other: one 2026 guide lists Product Hunt as nofollow, another lists it as a DR 90+ dofollow link. They cannot both be right, and the reason they disagree is that most of these articles copy each other rather than checking.
The check:
- Open any existing listing on that directory - not the homepage, an actual tool page.
- Right-click the outbound link to the tool's website and choose Inspect.
- Read the
rel attribute. rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" means no link equity passes. No rel attribute at all means dofollow.
Two things that catch people out. First, directories often differ between free and paid listings - the paid tier is dofollow, the free one is not. Check a listing at the tier you intend to buy. Second, a directory can change this sitewide overnight and nothing announces it, so a link you earned in 2025 may not be the link you have today.
The Directories, Individually
SaaSHub
Verdict: the best free dofollow listing for anyone selling software.
Reported DR 70+, dofollow, free. What makes SaaSHub different from a general AI directory is that it ranks for "alternatives to [product]" queries. That is a buyer who has already decided they want this category and is picking a vendor - far better intent than "best AI tools".
Honest limitation: it is a SaaS directory, not an AI one. If your product is an AI feature rather than a product someone subscribes to, you will look out of place.
Best for: AI products with a pricing page.
Futurepedia
Verdict: the largest free dofollow AI listing still open to general submissions.
Reported DR 65+, dofollow on the free tier, around 680,000 monthly visits. Featured placement is paid.
Honest limitation: volume is the problem. Futurepedia lists thousands of tools and the category pages are long. Without featured placement you are one row among hundreds, so treat this as a link and a crawl path rather than a traffic source.
Best for: the baseline dofollow link everyone should have.
There's An AI For That
Verdict: submit for the traffic, and know the link does nothing for your rankings.
DR around 76 and the highest-profile AI directory there is - but the outbound links are nofollow, which both sources we checked agree on. You are buying referral traffic and visibility, not link equity.
Honest limitation, and this one is new: our own Semrush pull in September 2026 showed theresanaiforthat.com down about 35.6% in organic traffic month over month - roughly 100,000 visits - while its ranking keyword count stayed flat. Traffic falling while keywords hold is the signature of AI Overviews absorbing the clicks rather than of a ranking loss. The listing is still worth having. It is worth less than it was six months ago.
Best for: launch-week visibility.
Product Hunt
Verdict: the best launch-day traffic available, and you should verify the link yourself before counting it as SEO.
DR 90+ is not in dispute. The link type is. We found two 2026 guides giving opposite answers, so rather than guess, apply the ten-second check above to a current product page before you factor it into a link-building plan.
Honest limitation: Product Hunt is a launch event, not a listing. The traffic arrives on one day and then stops. If you are not ready to convert a spike, you have spent your one launch on nothing.
Best for: a genuine launch with a landing page built for it.
Toolify
Verdict: easy dofollow, low effort, modest return.
Reported DR 55+, dofollow, free. Toolify publishes monthly traffic estimates per tool, which is genuinely useful for competitive research even if you never submit.
Honest limitation: low editorial bar. Anything that gets in is sitting beside everything else that got in, and that is increasingly what these links are worth.
Best for: completing the set once the bigger ones are done.
TheSaaSDir
Verdict: a smaller dofollow link, free if you will carry a badge.
DR around 53, dofollow, free via a badge exchange - you place their badge on your site, they list you. That is a reciprocal link, which is worth less than a one-way link and is not something to build a strategy on.
Best for: founders comfortable with a badge in the footer.
AIToolsRecap
Verdict: DR 39, dofollow, free - a smaller link than the four above it, with editorial review attached.
This is our directory, which is why it is seventh in this list rather than first. On the metric this article is about - domain rating - we are behind Product Hunt, TAAFT, SaaSHub and Futurepedia, and saying otherwise would be easy to check and embarrassing.
What is different is that listings get a written editorial review rather than a directory row, and our pages are crawled heavily by AI assistants (see the next section). If you want the strongest possible link, submit to SaaSHub and Futurepedia first. If you want a human verdict on your tool that an AI assistant may later cite, that is what we do.
Honest limitation: DR 39 is a modest link. We launched in March 2026 and have not had time to build more.
Best for: founders who want coverage, not just a row in a table.
What Actually Changed in 2026
The reason this article is about verification rather than a ranked list of DR numbers is that the link is no longer the main thing a directory gives you.
Here is direct evidence. On 26 September 2026 we pulled our own server logs for a fifteen-minute window and counted the distinct AI crawlers hitting our pages:
- ChatGPT-User and OAI-SearchBot - OpenAI, both active
- PerplexityBot
- DuckAssistBot - DuckDuckGo's assistant
- Claude-User
- meta-webindexer
- Google-PageRenderer and Google-Jetski-Antigravity
Eight AI crawlers on one mid-size directory inside fifteen minutes. Every tool page they read is a page that can be quoted back to someone asking an assistant "what is the best AI tool for X".
That is the modern case for a directory listing, and it does not depend on the rel attribute at all. A nofollow link on a heavily-crawled directory may be worth more in 2026 than a dofollow link on one the assistants ignore.
Which means the question to ask a directory is no longer only "is it dofollow". It is also: does anything actually read this page?
Decision Framework
- You need link equity and nothing else - SaaSHub, then Futurepedia, then Toolify. All free, all reported dofollow, verify each before counting it.
- You are launching this month - Product Hunt and There's An AI For That. Both are traffic plays. Do not count either as SEO until you have checked the
rel yourself.
- You want to be cited by ChatGPT or Perplexity - prioritise directories that publish real editorial text about your tool over ones that publish a row. An assistant can quote a paragraph; it cannot quote a table cell.
- Your budget is zero - every directory in this article has a free tier. Paid featured placements run roughly $29-$299 and buy position, not a better link.
- You have already done all of these - stop. The marginal value of directory eight is close to zero. Move to comparison content and integration partners.
The Submission Stack
A sequence that takes about two hours total and does not waste your launch:
- Weeks before launch - submit to SaaSHub, Futurepedia and Toolify. These are slow, unglamorous and permanent. Get them indexed before anyone is watching.
- Launch week - Product Hunt on the day, There's An AI For That alongside it. Both send traffic in a burst, so point them at a page built to convert rather than your homepage.
- Week after - submit to directories that write about tools rather than list them. This is the slow one and it is the one that shows up in AI answers three months later.
- Ongoing - re-check your
rel attributes every six months. Directories change them silently, and a link you counted in your reporting may have quietly stopped passing equity.
FAQ
Are AI directory backlinks still worth it in 2026?
For link equity, less than they were - most are nofollow and the dofollow ones are mid-DR. For AI citation and referral traffic, more than they were. Submit, but measure referral traffic and assistant citations rather than domain rating.
Which AI directories give dofollow backlinks?
SaaSHub (DR 70+), Futurepedia (DR 65+), Toolify (DR 55+), TheSaaSDir (DR ~53) and AIToolsRecap (DR 39) are reported dofollow. There's An AI For That is nofollow. Product Hunt is disputed - verify it yourself.
How do I tell if a directory link is dofollow?
Open a live listing, inspect the outbound link, and read the rel attribute. nofollow or sponsored means no equity passes. No rel means dofollow. Check at the tier you plan to buy, because free and paid listings often differ.
Should I pay for featured placement?
Only for traffic. Featured placement typically runs $29-$299 and buys position on a category page. It rarely changes the link type, so it is an advertising decision, not an SEO one.
How many directories should I submit to?
Three to five. The marginal value drops sharply after the first few, and a profile made mostly of directory links looks exactly like what it is.
Does a nofollow directory link do anything at all?
Yes - referral traffic, and crawl paths for AI assistants, which do not appear to weigh the rel attribute the way search ranking does. A nofollow listing on a directory that ChatGPT reads can be worth more than a dofollow one on a directory nothing crawls.