Why directories reject you, and what to fix first
You know which of your submissions were never going to be accepted, before you send them.
Almost every rejection is a rule the directory published and nobody read. Six checks account for most of them, and five are cheap to pass.
A live, working URL
826 of the 842 directories require one, which makes it the closest thing to a universal rule. A waitlist page, a coming-soon splash or a repo with no deployed build fails it. This is the single most common reason a submission goes nowhere, and the only fix is to ship something a stranger can open.
A category you actually fit
464 directories check that the product belongs in one of theirs. Submitting a design tool to an AI-only index is not a near miss, it is a refusal, and 266 of them will only take a product they can file as AI. Read the category list before the form, not after.
A square logo
331 want one, and a wordmark cropped to a square is not a square logo. Export at 512x512 with the mark centred and transparent padding, and it will pass everywhere. This is twenty minutes that unblocks two fifths of the directory.
Whether you can carry their badge
303 check that your site can host a link back, and 296 require it outright. If you cannot add HTML to your own homepage, roughly a third of the directory is closed to you, and several of them verify by fetching the page rather than taking your word for it.
An account, and who can open one
Plenty of them gate the form behind a sign-up, and there is no way to count them from the outside: the rule lives in the flow rather than in anything a platform publishes. Some accept Google or GitHub, some want a business email, and a few want you validated through LinkedIn before the submission page will render at all. Find out which before you set aside an evening.
A cover image, and then the long tail
249 want a cover or screenshot. After that the rules get specific and rare: 22 want documentation, 21 want a pricing page, 12 want a public repo, 11 want a demo video, 24 set a minimum domain rating, 10 want paying customers, and 3 set a traffic floor. Each of these closes a handful of doors, not a wing.
- Only 24 of 842 publish a domain rating floor, and the highest is 30. A rating of zero blocks far less than people assume.
- 3 directories set a traffic minimum, every one of them at 1,000 visitors a month. Traffic is almost never the thing standing in your way.
- "Free" and "free to submit" are different questions: 692 of 842 cost nothing to submit to, but 293 of those charge you a permanent badge on your homepage instead.
- A directory that publishes no rules at all is not permissive. It usually means a human reads everything and rejects on taste, which is the hardest kind to plan for.