Free chapter — from the 2026 Almanac
Most launch advice is written as if every channel were free. Plenty are — 48 of the 84 channels in the Almanac have no paid tier at all — but the ones that charge rarely say so until you are three steps into a submission form. This page collects every channel in the database that asks for money, or that hides its price behind the submit flow, with the number as the site states it.
Two patterns cover almost all of it. Skip-the-line: the listing is free but the queue is weeks long, and $29–$99 buys you a review in 24 hours (Uneed, BetaList, PeerPush, StartupRanking, TopAI.tools). Featured: you are listed either way, and the fee buys placement at the top of a category for a week or a month.
| # | Channel | Cost | What you get | Verification |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Uneed64,000 makers; 451,309 visits + 1.45M pageviews in 2026 (self-reported) | Free queue ("join the line") / $29.99 skip-the-line / $15 relaunch | Backlink + traffic spike + social proof | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 02 | BetaListNewsletter digest + startup-spotter audience | Free (Hobby tier; 4–6 week queue) / paid expedited ~$39–$99 (24h review) | Backlink + early-adopter signups (3rd-party: $0.50–1.40/signup) | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 03 | EverFeaturedSmall: 493 makers, 64 products listed | Paid "Get Featured" model (price gated) | Evergreen editorial backlink | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 04 | Startup Fame20K+ monthly visits (self-claimed) | Free (verified listing) / $19/mo Highlight / $149/mo Spotlight | Backlink (badge-gated) + directory presence | Live-checked August 10, 2026 |
| 05 | Launch.cabWeekly launch board, ~10–16 upvotes on the top entries (read 2026-08-10) | Free tools; submission cost still not displayed | Launch-prep tools + listing | Live-checked August 10, 2026 |
| 06 | PeerPushActive; note domain moved .net→.com | Free queue / $35 instant+backlink / $89 boosted (~20K impressions) / $189 max (~100K… | Explicit GEO/AI-citation play (optimized for ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot, Claude) + backlink | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 07 | SoloPushSolo-builder niche audience | Cost not displayed (marketing upsells via listd.in) | Niche traffic + badge | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 08 | Smol Launch2,500+ makers weekly (self-claimed) | Free (capped 8 free/week) / Premium $15–19/week / Premium+ | 7-day visibility window + backlink | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 09 | Tiny Startups"Thousands of early-stage founders weekly" | Free standard / £199 Featured / £499 Premium | Backlink + leaderboard traffic | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 10 | PitchWall500K+ monthly visitors; 50K+ newsletter subs (self-claimed — treat skeptically) | Cost not displayed | Backlink + AI-product discovery traffic | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 11 | There's An AI For That (TAAFT)"Used by 90M+ humans" (self-claimed, on the get-featured page 2026-08-10) | Paid: $347 one-off (refund if rejected). Free path: monthly X thread, 1 winner listed free | AI-citation + large traffic + backlink | Live-checked August 10, 2026 |
| 12 | Futurepedia"Millions of visitors, 2M+ YouTube subs, 500K+ accounts" (self-claimed) | Pricing gated behind submit flow (historically paid tiers) | Backlink + AI-tool discovery traffic | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 13 | TopAI.tools1M+ monthly AI-tool users, 3M+ monthly page views (self-claimed) | Fast Track $47 one-time (live <48h, permanent listing) / Featured $229 one-time (7 days… | Backlink + traffic | Live-checked August 10, 2026 |
| 14 | Startup Stash"World's largest startup tools directory" | Pricing not displayed (historically paid listing) | Backlink + category traffic | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 15 | ToolFinder65K pageviews/mo, 23K newsletter subs (self-claimed); 1K+ tools | $39 one-off listing / $299/mo Platinum (3-mo min) — no free path found | Backlink + productivity-niche traffic + newsletter exposure | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 16 | StartupRanking140k+ newsletter subs (self-claimed) | Free queue / fast-track $49 Basic / $99 Premium (<24h approval) | Backlink + ranking presence | Last checked August 9, 2026 |
| 17 | G2World's largest B2B software marketplace | Free profile; paid subscription from ~$2,999/yr | AI-citation (critical GEO) + social proof + buyer traffic | Live-checked August 10, 2026 |
Paying to skip a queue makes sense in exactly one situation: you have a coordinated launch week and a listing that lands three weeks late is worth nothing to you. Outside that, the free queue delivers the same backlink for $0 — later.
Featured slots are a media buy, and should be judged like one: at $229 for a seven-day feature, you need to believe in the traffic number the site claims. Most of those numbers are self-reported, and we label them that way in the database rather than repeating them as fact.
The one line here that is not a placement fee is G2's vendor subscription (from about $2,999/yr). That is a lead-generation product, not a listing — the profile itself is free, and worth claiming whether or not you ever subscribe.
It is entirely possible to run a full launch for €0: the free directories, the free queues, the community posts, and an editorial newsletter pitch. It takes about three weeks of calendar time instead of three days. Start with the free list.
The full Launch Almanac has all 84 channels with the same fields you see above, ready-to-paste submission templates for every channel type, a Claude Skill that does the submissions for you, the 2026 GEO checklist, and a tracking sheet. Re-verified updates for 12 months.
Get the full Almanac — €24Every row on this page is generated from the Almanac database, last liveness run August 10, 2026. Rows we could not re-check that day say so — we would rather show you a stale flag than a false ✓.