The Launch Directory Review: A $5 Launch Site That Shows Its Work

The Launch Directory is a weekly startup launch directory where a $5 paid launch gets a followed link, six link metrics and a "launch receipt" that tracks what happened after you went live. It's run by Zinn Digital® Ltd, a UK company, and has been online since late September 2026.

There's no shortage of places to launch a startup. Most of them work the same way: submit a form, maybe add a badge to your site, get a page with one Domain Rating number on it, and never hear about it again. Whether that page sent you a single visitor, or whether the link was ever worth anything, is something you have to work out yourself.

The Launch Directory is built around the opposite idea. It looks like a newspaper, with weekly editions, an archive and a "record" of every launch, and it tries to show its work: six metrics per listing from three providers, a receipt of what each launch gained, and labels on every paid spot. I went through the homepage, pricing, submission flow, a full listing, the receipts, leaderboards, Billboard, developer docs, help centre and founders page, and checked several of the sites it links to. Here's what holds up and what you should know before you pay.

What Is The Launch Directory?

The Launch Directory is a launch platform for startups, SaaS products and small businesses, organised into weekly editions that run Monday to Sunday (UTC). Launches in a week are ranked by votes from signed-in users, and the top three become Launch of the Week. Every listing is a permanent, dated page with structured data, written to be read and cited by Google, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude.

The homepage makes the pitch directly: "Submit your startup to the launch directory that keeps the record." Below that sit the site's own metrics (DR 71, Trust Flow 11, Citation Flow 29, Moz DA 14), this week's launches ranked by votes, the paid Billboard, the archive by week and a calendar of booked weeks.

It's small for now. Week 45 had 18 launches when I checked, the top one had 7 votes, and week 44 closed with 16 launches. The newspaper design isn't just decoration, though. It's quick to read, works in light and dark modes, and every number on the page says where it came from and when it was checked.

$5 for a Followed Link: The Two Ways to Launch

There are two ways to get listed, and the difference is mostly about the link.

• Paid launch, $5 one-off: live straight away or in the week you choose, no badge on your site, the full profile (founder story, milestones, screenshots, demo video, comparisons) and a followed link to your website.

• Free entry: a basic profile, a nofollow link, and a queue 1 to 2 weeks out. It only goes live once their badge is found on your site and your founder profile is complete. The crawler checks for the badge every 7 days, and if you take it down later, the listing goes back to "waiting for badge".

Five dollars for a followed link with no badge is cheaper than most launch directories, many of which charge $20 to $100 to skip the queue. The badge link itself starts as nofollow and only becomes followed once your own site reaches DR 20 and passes their spam checks. That's a reasonable rule, but it means a brand-new site on the free route gets no followed link at all.

Prices are in US dollars and before VAT. UK customers pay 20%, and EU businesses with a verified VAT number are reverse-charged. Listings go live right away, so payments aren't refundable.

The AI Draft Doesn't Guess

Submitting starts with one field: your website. Their crawler, LaunchBot, reads a few public pages (home, about, pricing, contact, features), respects robots.txt and drafts the listing. The rule that matters is printed right on the form: "Whatever it cannot find stays empty and marked, and everything can be changed before the listing goes live."

You don't need an account to start; it's created at checkout. That leaves blanks instead of the made-up features and pricing I've seen other directories' AI write. The listing I looked at for Tranzly, a WordPress translation plugin, reads like a decent product summary: features, pricing model, an FAQ and a "chronicle" of dated milestones.

Six Link Metrics on Every Listing

This is the feature that sets it apart. Most launch sites show one Ahrefs Domain Rating. Every listing here shows six: Ahrefs Domain Rating, Majestic Trust Flow and Citation Flow, and Moz Domain Authority, Page Authority and Spam Score, plus referring domains, external backlinks and the domain's registry record (age, registrar, expiry and DNSSEC).

DR is checked every day for every listing. The other five are checked every 30 days on paid listings and every 90 days on free ones. Every change is shown with an arrow and the date of the check.

Showing more than one provider is the right call, because any single score can be pushed around. It also makes the site's own numbers easier to read, which I'll come back to.

Launch Receipts: What Actually Happened After Launch

Every live listing gets a "launch receipt". It starts from the readings closest to launch day, updates daily, and is fixed at 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 270 and 365 days. It records DR, referring domains and, most usefully, how many visits the listing actually sent to your site. You can also connect Google Analytics or add a revenue key to show verified numbers.

The receipts are honest in a way that cuts against the site's own sales pitch. Each one carries the line "A change here is a reading, not a claim about its cause," and the visit counts are small. Tranzly had been sent 2 visits on day 2. The most-clicked listing on the site, makerio.io, had 22 visits after nine days. If you're expecting launch-day traffic, the receipts tell you not to.

The "biggest gains" list needs a closer look. More on that below.

Votes vs. Money: Paid Spots Are Labelled

Votes come only from signed-in users, one per launch, and can't be bought, sent through the API or cast by an AI assistant. Everything paid sits in its own labelled place:

• Featured launch, $19 for 7 days: the Featured spot on the homepage, labelled, no vote.

• Homepage shelf, $49 for 7 days: the Sponsored slot, then a lasting entry on the "Our sponsors" page.

• Category shelf, $19 for 7 days and newsletter shelf, $29 per issue.

• Billboard, from $5: a separate board ranked only by total money contributed, with the top 5 on every page and a followed link "for life" on the full board.

The Billboard is the most openly pay-to-rank thing I've seen on a launch site, and I mean that as a compliment to how it's labelled: "Paid ranking = money contributed." A followed link for $5 that lasts as long as the site does is also a strong offer on its own.

Add-ons include extra categories ($5), a commissioned product review ($19, labelled "Commissioned by the maker" and with no star rating), an editor-checked founder feature ($29) and 12 weeks of AI answer tracking ($19), where they ask ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity your buyers' questions each week and email you whether you were named. One free AI check comes with every listing.

Launch From Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor

The Launch Directory has a remote MCP server at https://thelaunchdirectory.com/mcp and a REST API with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec. Add the MCP address as a custom connector in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code and you can ask "What launched this week in my category?" or "Launch my product https://example.com". 18 operations work without signing in; 23 more (submitting, editing listings, claims and orders) need OAuth or an API key.

The limits are sensible. The API can't vote and can't charge you; it returns a checkout link that you pay yourself. Few launch directories offer an API at all, and this is a well-documented one.

A Useful Free Tool: Launch Directories Ranked

Even if you never list here, the launch directories ranked page is worth bookmarking. It tracks 247 platforms by Domain Rating, with Moz DA, monthly search traffic, how often AI answers cite each one, pricing and link type (dofollow, nofollow, or dofollow with a badge required).

The search traffic and AI citation columns are what make it useful, because DR alone puts a lot of empty directories near the top. A site with DR 81 and 6 monthly visits shows up right next to one with 100,000. If you're planning a launch, you can also browse our other launch platform reviews.

Who's Behind It, and Why It Matters

The Launch Directory is published by Zinn Digital® Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales and run by Natalie and Neil Lock. Natalie had the idea; Neil built it, and the founders page says he also built Zinn Hub, Zinn Digital® and PBN LTD.

That's disclosed. What isn't spelled out is how much of the site is Zinn Digital's own network. Here's what I found:

• The bundle network. I checked nine of the launch directories listed on the site: Beast Launches, Product Debuts, Maker Launches, Rapid Launches, Zivaro Launch, New Product Launches, SaaS Directory List, Unvero Launch and Business Listing Finder. All nine say "Operated by Zinn Digital® Ltd" in their footer. The $99 bundle puts your listing on "49 other launch and discovery sites", and the pricing page and help articles never say these are the operator's own sites.

• The receipts. Most of the "biggest Domain Rating gains" are those same sister directories. Beast Launches went from DR 7 to 73, and Maker Launches, Unvero Launch, Product Debuts and SaaS Directory List all went from single digits to DR 51 within the same week.

• The rankings and paid boards. Five of week 44's top ten launches were Zinn Digital directories. In week 45, the #1 launch and the current homepage sponsor, Page Builder Sandwich, lists Zinn Digital® Ltd as its publisher, and Tranzly, Rapid Launches, Business Listing Finder, New Product Launches and Zivaro Launch are in the top 11 too. 14 of the 17 Billboard contributors are the operator's own products, and so are all three published product reviews.

None of this breaks the site's own rules. Votes are votes, paid spots are labelled, and the ranked list is sorted by DR whoever owns the site. It's also normal for a young directory to seed itself with the founders' own products. But it changes what you're buying. The bundle is 49 more listings on one company's network, not 49 independent sites, and links from one network are worth less than the same number from unrelated sites.

It's also worth applying the site's own advice to its own numbers. The Launch Directory shows DR 71 on a domain registered on 21 September 2026, next to a Moz DA of 14, a Trust Flow of 11 and 0 AI citations at its last monthly check. I can't tell from the outside where that DR comes from, but when one provider says 71 and the others say 11 to 14, the gap is the kind of thing their six-metric listings are built to flag.

What's Missing

Clear network labelling. One line on the pricing page saying the 49 bundle sites are run by Zinn Digital would fix the biggest issue in this review.

Time. The site is about six weeks old. The receipts' 30-day checkpoints haven't arrived for most listings yet, and there's no history to judge whether listings hold their value.

Traffic. A few votes per launch and visit counts in the single or low double digits mean this is a link and a record, not a source of users.

Refunds. All payments are final. At $5 that hardly matters, but at $99 or $149.99 for the bundle it does.

How It Compares

For reach, Product Hunt is still in a different league. The Launch Directory competes with the long list of smaller paid directories, and against those it's cheaper, better labelled and much better at showing its numbers.

Who Should Use It

Founders working through a launch-directory list who want a cheap followed link. At $5, with no badge, the paid launch is one of the easier ones to justify.

SEO-minded makers who like to see what they're getting. The six-metric listing and the receipt are useful, and you can check how your own site moves.

Developers and AI-assistant users who'd rather submit and manage listings from Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor than through another web form.

Anyone planning where to launch, even if they never list here, because the ranked list of 247 directories with traffic and link type is free.

If you're after traffic or users, look elsewhere for now. And if you're thinking about the $99 bundle, know that it's one company's network before you buy. Visit The Launch Directory.

How Much Does The Launch Directory Cost?

All prices are one-off, in US dollars and before VAT, from the rate card on 4 November 2026:

• Free entry: $0, nofollow link, badge and complete founder profile required, 1 to 2 week queue.

• Paid launch: $5 per listing, followed link, no badge, full profile.

• Multi-site bundle: $99 for 49 more sites, self-serve.

• Done-for-you listing: $149.99 for 49 sites, plus 7 days Featured on all 50.

• Featured launch: $19 for 7 days. Homepage shelf: $49 for 7 days. Category shelf: $19 for 7 days. Newsletter shelf: $29 per issue.

• Billboard: from $5, any amount, adds up over time.

• Add-ons: extra categories $5, product review $19, founder feature $29, AI answer tracking $19 for 12 weeks.

The Launch Directory FAQ

What is The Launch Directory?

The Launch Directory is a weekly startup launch directory run by Zinn Digital® Ltd in the UK. Each launch gets a permanent, dated listing page with six link metrics and a launch receipt, and launches each week are ranked by community votes.

How much does it cost to launch on The Launch Directory?

A paid launch costs $5 before VAT and gets a followed link with no badge required. A free listing costs nothing but needs their badge on your site, has a nofollow link and waits 1 to 2 weeks in a queue.

Is The Launch Directory dofollow?

Paid launches get a followed (dofollow) link to your website. Free listings get a nofollow link. The badge link on your own site starts as nofollow and becomes followed once your site reaches Domain Rating 20 and passes spam checks. Billboard contributors also get a followed link on the full Billboard page.

Who owns the 49 sites in the multi-site bundle?

The pricing page calls them "other launch and discovery sites". Every one I checked, including Beast Launches, Product Debuts, Maker Launches, Rapid Launches, Zivaro Launch and SaaS Directory List, is operated by Zinn Digital® Ltd, the same company that runs The Launch Directory.

Can you buy votes on The Launch Directory?

No. Votes come only from signed-in users, one per launch, and can't be cast through the API or by an AI assistant. Paid placements such as Featured, sponsor shelves and the Billboard are labelled and kept separate from the vote ranking.

What is a launch receipt?

A launch receipt is a record on each listing of what was measured after it went live: Domain Rating, referring domains and the visits the listing sent to your site. It updates daily and is fixed at 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 270 and 365 days after launch.

Does The Launch Directory have an API or MCP server?

Yes. It has a free REST API at /api/v1 with an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, and a remote MCP server at thelaunchdirectory.com/mcp that works in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code. Reading is open; submitting and editing listings needs OAuth or an API key.

Can I get a refund?

No. Listings go live straight away, so payments are non-refundable. Statutory rights still apply.