Launch on DevHunt and Automate Listings With ListingBott

If you built a developer tool, two things get it in front of people early: a launch where developers see and vote on it, and listings on the directories where buyers and search engines look. DevHunt covers the first: a weekly launch for dev tools, with paid launches starting at $19. ListingBott covers the second: a done-for-you service that submits your product to 100 hand-picked directories over about a month. This guide explains how each works, what they cost as of October 2026, and how to do the same work yourself if you would rather not pay.

Disclosure: DevHunt and ListingBott are both made by John Rush. The facts below come from each product's own pages: the DevHunt FAQ and listingbott.com.

DevHunt vs ListingBott at a glance

	DevHunt launch	ListingBott
What it is	Weekly launch platform for developer tools	Directory submission service (software plus a human team)
What you get	A permanent tool page, a launch week on the home page, developer votes and comments	100 listings on directories picked for your product
Effort for you	Fill in one submission form	Fill in an onboarding form, approve the directory list
Time	One launch week	About 1 month of publishing, plus indexing time
Price (Oct 2026)	Paid launches from $19	One-time fee; the pricing section lists $299 (marked down from $499)
Main benefit	Early users, feedback, a dofollow link from a dev-focused site	Referral traffic from directories and more referring domains

Part 1: showcase your tool on DevHunt

DevHunt is a launchpad only for developer tools: open source projects, APIs and SDKs, frameworks, CLIs, IDE extensions, testing, DevOps, databases, auth, AI agents and MCP servers. Every week a new batch of tools launches on the home page and developers vote for the ones they like. Voting requires a GitHub or Google sign-in, which keeps votes from real accounts.

How to launch, step by step

1. Prepare your assets. A one-line tagline, a clear description (what it does, who it is for, how it differs), a square logo, 2-5 screenshots or a demo video, and your pricing model.
2. Sign in to DevHunt with GitHub or Google.
3. Submit your tool from your account: name, website, description, logo and screenshots. The tool gets a permanent page right away.
4. Pick a launch week. A paid launch lets you choose any week:
   • $19 launch: your chosen week, a spot in the weekly newsletter, and a permanent dofollow link from your tool page.
   • $49 boosted launch: everything above, plus a higher position than standard launches on equal votes (on the site and in the email) and a dedicated post on DevHunt's X account.
5. Launch week. Tell your users and community the tool is live, answer every comment on your tool page, and post updates. Votes are counted over the whole week, so a slow first day is not fatal.
6. After the week. The tools with the most votes are weekly winners: they get featured in the newsletter, mentioned on DevHunt's social channels and receive a winner badge for their site.

What makes a DevHunt launch work

• Write for developers. Lead with what the tool does and show code, a CLI command or an API call in the screenshots. Skip marketing adjectives.
• Make it easy to try. A free tier, an open source repo or a no-signup demo usually converts DevHunt visitors better than a "book a demo" form.
• Be present. Replying to comments during launch week gets you better feedback and gives voters a reason to come back.

Before you launch, look at this week's launches and recent weekly winners to see what good listings look like.

Part 2: automate directory listings with ListingBott

A launch gives you a spike. Directories give you a long tail: people browsing "AI tools" or "SaaS for X" lists, and the referring domains that help new sites get crawled and ranked. Submitting to 100 directories by hand means 100 different forms, logins, image sizes and approval queues. That is the work ListingBott does for you.

What ListingBott does

According to listingbott.com:

• It keeps a database of more than 10,000 directories and websites, updated as new ones are found.
• After payment, you fill in an onboarding form and choose your goal: domain rating (SEO) or awareness (traffic from relevant directories).
• The team picks the 100 most relevant listings for your product, and you approve or decline them before anything is submitted.
• Submissions run at a human pace over about one month, with progress reports every few days and a full report at the end.
• If a directory already lists you, it is skipped and replaced.
• You own the listings: they are created with your email (via forwarding) or a dedicated email that is handed over afterwards, so you can edit or remove them.
• It is priced per website, for SaaS, AI, no-code, dev tools, agencies, e-commerce, courses, marketplaces and similar products.

Timeline

Phase	Duration
Directory list prepared for your approval	1-2 days
Publishing	About 1 month
Review and report	After publishing
Indexing by search engines	Up to 2 months; some listings index within hours

Price and guarantee (as of October 2026)

The pricing section shows a one-time fee of $299 per website, marked down from $499, with an option that adds up to 10 dofollow links from the founder's blogs for $999. A monthly plan with 20 listings a month is also offered. Prices change, so check the ListingBott pricing section before you buy.

ListingBott states it guarantees a Domain Rating increase from 0 to 15 within two months of the report for sites starting below DR 15; if that does not happen, it keeps working on listings or refunds. For sites already above DR 15 or DR 40, it makes no fixed promise, because the result depends on your domain's history and content.

Do it yourself instead

If you prefer to spend time instead of money, here is the manual version:

1. Make one listing kit: a 60-character tagline, a 160-character description, a 500-word description, logo in square and wide formats, three screenshots, category, pricing and founder name. Paste from it every time.
2. Start with the big, relevant ones. For dev tools: DevHunt, Product Hunt, Hacker News (Show HN), awesome lists on GitHub, AlternativeTo, G2 and Capterra (for B2B), and the AI tool directories if your tool uses AI. DevHunt keeps lists of Product Hunt alternatives and where to promote a developer tool (67 newsletters, podcasts, communities and lists with their rules and prices).
3. Use one email alias for all directory accounts so verification links and renewal notices land in one place.
4. Pace it. Submit a few per day over weeks rather than 100 in an afternoon.
5. Track everything in a spreadsheet: URL, date submitted, status, link type (dofollow or nofollow), login.
6. Skip paid listings that don't fit. Many directories charge for "featured" spots; pay only where your buyers actually browse.

ListingBott puts 100 submissions at about 60 hours of work; that time is what you trade for the fee.

Which should you use?

• Pre-launch or just launched: launch on DevHunt first. Developer feedback in the first week shapes your positioning, which you then reuse in every directory listing.
• After launch, new domain with few backlinks: directory listings (yourself or via ListingBott) are a cheap way to get referring domains and the first trickle of search traffic.
• Established product: directories help less with SEO; focus on the handful of directories and newsletters your buyers actually read.

FAQ

How much does it cost to launch on DevHunt?

Paid launches start at $19 and let you choose your launch week, include a newsletter spot and give your tool page a dofollow link. A $49 boosted launch adds a dedicated post on X and ranks above standard launches on equal votes.

What is ListingBott?

ListingBott is a directory submission service: software finds relevant directories and a human team submits your product to 100 of them over about a month, with reports and full ownership of the listings.

Are directory backlinks good for SEO?

Relevant directory links help new sites get discovered and add referring domains, which is why they move Domain Rating on young sites. They are not a substitute for useful content and links from real articles. Expect the biggest effect on new domains and a small one on established sites.

Is ListingBott safe for my website?

ListingBott publishes gradually over a month instead of creating dozens of links in a day, and you approve every directory before submission. As with any link building, choose relevant directories over volume.

Can I launch on DevHunt and use ListingBott at the same time?

Yes. A sensible order is to launch on DevHunt first and start directory submissions right after, so listings point to a product that already has a public launch page, reviews and comments.