Key takeaways
- 1Every listing becomes a permanent, dated page rather than a one-week entry, built to stay indexable and citable by Google, ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity long after launch week
- 2Launch receipts track Domain Rating and visits sent from launch day forward, with fixed snapshots at 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 270, and 365 days, turning the listing into a running record instead of a one-time badge
- 3Community voting comes only from signed-in readers and sets the weekly ranking; paid placements like Featured, Sponsored, and Billboard sit in their own labelled slots that never touch the vote count
- 4A remote MCP server and a documented REST API let Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and VS Code search launches, check category leaderboards, and submit a product by URL directly from chat
- 5Filing starts at $5 for an immediate, followed-link launch, with a free badge-verified route, a 49-site multi-site bundle, and add-ons covering extra categories, a commissioned review, or ongoing AI-citation tracking
A Launch Listing Built to Outlast Launch Week
Most founder launch boards are built around a single day: you submit, you get a burst of attention, and within a week the entry has scrolled off the front page for good. The Launch Directory is built around the opposite assumption, that the listing itself should keep working long after the week it ran. Every submission becomes a permanent, dated page, filed into a weekly archive that search engines and AI assistants can keep reading and citing well past launch day. That framing shows up everywhere on the site, from the weekly editions and their full archive of past launches to the language used throughout, on the record, filed, in press. It's a small positioning choice that changes what you're actually buying: not a day of visibility, but a dated citation that sits on the internet indefinitely.
Filing a Listing: Free Queue or Paid and Live Today
Submitting is straightforward either way. A free entry gets a basic profile and joins the free queue, which runs one to two weeks out once the verification badge is live on your site. A paid launch, $5 one off, skips that queue entirely: it goes live today or in whichever week you choose, with a full profile, a followed link to your site, and an indexable page carrying structured data. Submission can also run through the MCP connector or REST API rather than the web form. The system drafts the listing from your product's own website and cites what it used, leaving anything it can't verify blank and flagged for you to fill in, so you're reviewing a draft rather than writing one from scratch. Add-ons scale with how far you want to take a single launch: extra categories at $5, a commissioned product review at $19, or an editorial founder feature at $29 for a written profile on the founders page and in the newsletter.
Launch Receipts: A Running Record, Not Just a Launch-Day Badge
Launch receipts are where the permanent-record idea turns into something measurable. Each live listing carries one, tracking the change in Domain Rating from the reading closest to launch day to the latest reading, alongside visits sent to your site through the directory's own click tracking. The receipt updates daily, with fixed snapshots locked in at 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 270, and 365 days out, so the record of what happened after your launch keeps building rather than freezing the day the badge goes up. The site is upfront that a reading isn't proof of cause, since plenty of other factors move a domain's metrics, and that click counts can run higher than shown once ad blockers and private browsing are accounted for. That kind of plain disclosure, on a page whose whole job is to make the directory look good, is itself a point in its favour.
Built for an AI-Search World
Every listing comes with one free check of whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity already name or cite the product, a direct answer to a question most founders are now asking about their own site and rarely get to measure. Founders who want that answer tracked on an ongoing basis rather than as a single snapshot can add 12 weekly checks across all three assistants for $19. The same AI-forward thinking runs through how the directory itself is built to be used. A remote MCP server at the site's own address works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and VS Code, and a matching REST API publishes a full OpenAPI specification. Between them there are 41 operations, 18 of which, searching listings, categories, leaderboards, and blog content, work with no sign-in at all. The other 23, covering submission, editing a live listing, and checking out a paid placement, need OAuth or a personal API key, and voting is kept off the API entirely so it stays a human-only signal. For a directory, that's an unusually developer-literate way to expose the same catalogue a visitor browses by hand.
Who Gets the Most Out of The Launch Directory
The clearest fit is a founder who's thinking past launch week, someone who wants a dated, indexable record they can point to months later, who cares whether their Domain Rating actually moved and how many clicks the listing sent, and who's increasingly aware that being named by an AI assistant matters as much as ranking in a search result. The free AI-answer check and the public launch receipts give that founder something to look at that most one-day launch boards never offer. Founders running the same launch across several sites also get a specific advantage here: the 49-site multi-site bundle turns one written listing into 49 placements elsewhere in the network, reworded for each, with a done-for-you version if writing 49 variants isn't how you want to spend the week.
Ratings
Filing is simple either way, but the free route needs a verified badge first and a one-to-two-week queue, while the paid route and the MCP/API submission path need a little upfront setup to use
A $5 one-off paid launch with a followed link, a free reading route, and no subscription anywhere in the core listing flow is a low bar to clear for a permanent, indexable page
Treating a launch listing as a permanent, dated record with ongoing receipts and AI-citation tracking, rather than a one-day spike, is a genuinely different model from the typical launch board
Weekly editions, vote-driven rankings, launch receipts, AI-answer tracking, a multi-site bundle, and a full MCP connector and REST API cover a lot more ground than a simple submission form
Editorial add-ons like a commissioned review or founder feature give direct access to extra attention whenever you want more than the standard listing flow
Best for
Founders who want a launch listing that keeps working months after launch week, especially ones who care about Domain Rating movement, referral clicks, and whether AI assistants cite their product by name.
Not ideal for
Founders who want to submit and manage listings purely through chat without ever touching the website can do that too, since submitting or editing through the MCP connector just needs a one-time account connection first.
Pros
- Every listing is a permanent, dated page built to stay indexable and citable long after launch week, not a feed entry that disappears
- Launch receipts track Domain Rating and visits sent from launch day through fixed 30-to-365-day snapshots, so results are a running record instead of a one-time badge
- Community votes come only from signed-in readers and can't be bought; paid placements like Featured, Sponsored, and Billboard are kept in their own clearly labelled slots
- A remote MCP connector and documented REST API, 41 operations with 18 open to anyone, let Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and VS Code search launches and submit a product straight from chat
- Every listing includes one free AI-answer check showing whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity already name or cite the product
- Paid launches go live today or in a chosen week for $5, with a 49-site multi-site bundle available for founders submitting the same launch across the wider network
- A free weekly email digest and a running library of SEO and listing-craft guides give founders a reason to keep reading between launches
Cons
- Free listings need a verified badge on your site and join a queue that runs one to two weeks out; founders who want to be live the same day can use the $5 paid launch instead, which skips the queue entirely.
- Guaranteed homepage visibility through Featured, Sponsored, or Billboard placement is sold separately from the vote-driven ranking, so a listing aiming for top placement rather than relying on reader votes will want one of those add-ons.
- The AI-answer check that ships free with every listing is a single snapshot; tracking it weekly across ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity over time is available as a separate 12-week add-on.
Verdict
The Launch Directory is built for a founder who's stopped treating a launch as a one-day event. The permanent, dated listing, the launch receipts tracking Domain Rating and clicks over a full year, and the free AI-citation check all point at the same idea: a launch should keep paying off long after the week it ran, and you should be able to see whether it actually is. File a free listing to get the badge and basic profile moving, or spend $5 to go live today with a followed link and skip the queue entirely. Either way, check back on your launch receipt in 30 days. If the Domain Rating line and the click count are both moving in the right direction, the record that made the case for filing in the first place is already proving itself.
Frequently asked questions
Is listing on The Launch Directory free?
Reading is always free, and a free listing is available too. It needs a verified badge on your site first and joins a queue that runs one to two weeks out. A $5 one-off paid launch skips that queue and goes live today or in a chosen week, with a followed link included.
How is the weekly ranking decided?
By votes from signed-in readers only, and votes can't be bought. Paid placements such as Featured, Sponsored, and Billboard are sold separately and labelled clearly, and they sit apart from the vote-driven ranking rather than feeding into it.
What are launch receipts?
A public record on each listing's page that tracks the change in Domain Rating and the visits sent to your site from launch day onward, with fixed snapshots at 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 270, and 365 days. It updates daily, and the site is clear that a reading reflects measurement, not proof that the listing alone caused the change.
Can I submit through Claude or ChatGPT instead of the website?
Yes. The Launch Directory runs a remote MCP server that works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and VS Code, plus a matching REST API with a published OpenAPI spec. Reading and searching work with no sign-in; submitting or editing a listing needs a one-time account connection through OAuth or an API key.
What if I'm launching the same product on several sites?
A 49-site multi-site bundle is available for $99, built from one listing you write that gets reworded for each site, with edits flowing to all of them. A done-for-you version at $149.99 has the team write and place all 49 for you, with 7 days of Featured placement included on each site.