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Startup To Startup: requirements, how to submit, and what you actually get

Visit

The free lane will not let you press submit until its bot has found their badge on your site

startuptostartup.com
Startup To Startup homepage
Eligibility

Who Startup To Startup accepts

You need
An account
Their badge live on your site, before the free submission can be pressed
A live product URL
A 1:1 icon and a 16:9 cover
You'll be rejected if
A free submission from a site that will not display their badge, which their bot checks before the submit button unlocks
Anything without a 1:1 icon and a 16:9 cover, which the details screen requires
StartupsSaaS productsIndie products
What you actually get
A page at /item/<slug> carrying four links to your site, three of them with no rel attribute and one nofollow. Their pricing page's "3 dofollow links" is literally what you get, and the nofollow is the prominent named button at the top. Free listings are reviewed at a stated five a day, and the site publishes no review time.

How to submit to Startup To Startup

  1. Sign in and fill the details
    Screen 1 of 3 is the Mkdirs form: link, name, categories, tags, description, a Markdown introduction, a 1:1 icon and a 16:9 image.
  2. Choose Free on the pricing screen
    Screen 2 shows Free, Pro at $9.90 and Sponsor at $19.90 a week. Picking Free saves the draft at status Submitting and prints the badge snippet you have to publish.
  3. Publish the badge, then verify it
    The panel says "Item has not been submitted" and offers Verify Backlink beside a greyed Submit to review. Their snippet links to their homepage, not to your listing, and uses their badages-awards.svg at 54px high.
  4. Submit to review
    Only after the verify passes does Submit to review become the button that actually sends it. Their free tier says five listings are reviewed a day and gives no wait in days.

Startup To Startup requirements

An account
Their badge on your site
links to their homepage, not your listing
Product URL
Name
Categories and tags
Description
Introduction
Markdown
Icon
1:1
Cover image
16:9

Gotchas

Filling the whole form does not submit anything on the free lane. The draft parks at "Item has not been submitted" and Submit to review stays out of reach until their bot has found the badge on your site, so budget a deploy in the middle of the flow.
The badge snippet points at their homepage rather than at your listing, which is the opposite of most badge-first directories, so a link built from your listing URL will not verify.
Free is reviewed at five listings a day with no stated wait, and it is the only tier without customer support, so there is no way to ask where you are in the queue.

Let your agent submit to Startup To Startup

Connect SubmitMap to your AI over MCP and this page stops being something you read and copy. Your agent asks for the Startup To Startup playbook and gets the brief for this exact form, with the values already taken from your submission pack instead of placeholders you fill in by hand.

What it does for this platform
Checks your product against the 6 Startup To Startup rules above, so you find out you would be rejected before you open a tab.
Hands your agent all 9 fields this form asks for, none of them optional, already filled from your pack.
Warns you that Startup To Startup looks for its badge on your site, so it has to be live before you submit rather than after.
Tells you what paying buys here, so you pick it on purpose: free needs their badge on your site and nothing else. Pro is $9.90 one time and publishes immediately with no backlink. Sponsor is $19.90 a week and puts you on almost every page, one advertiser at a time.
Types it into Startup To Startup in your own browser, and stops for you when the form wants a sign-in.
Records what it sent, so the dashboard can answer "did I ever submit to Startup To Startup?".
Connect your agentHow this worksTools and endpointsWorks with Claude Code, Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code and Hermes.

Startup To Startup FAQ

How long does Startup To Startup approval take?
Startup To Startup does not publish how long approval takes.
How much does it cost to submit to Startup To Startup?
Startup To Startup has a free submission option plus paid placement (Free needs their badge on your site and nothing else. Pro is $9.90 one time and publishes immediately with no backlink. Sponsor is $19.90 a week and puts you on almost every page, one advertiser at a time.).
Does Startup To Startup give a dofollow backlink?
Yes, a listing on Startup To Startup carries a dofollow link. The site has a domain rating of 33.
Does Startup To Startup require a backlink to your site?
Yes, Startup To Startup expects a link back from your site as part of listing.
What gets you rejected from Startup To Startup?
A free submission from a site that will not display their badge, which their bot checks before the submit button unlocks; Anything without a 1:1 icon and a 16:9 cover, which the details screen requires.