Original research

The Global Startup Distribution Benchmark

Name: The Global Startup Distribution Benchmark
Creator: StartupAmplify

First-party data on what it actually takes to list a startup across the world's directories — measured over our live catalog of 1,058 directories and our own operational runs. No survey, no estimates: these are counts over real rows. We report what the data honestly supports and withhold what it doesn't.

1,058

Directories measured

Languages covered

Markets / regions

52.8%

Free to list on

19%

Fully automatable end-to-end

27.3%

Require human editorial review

1 · The economics of getting listed

Most of the directory world is free to list on — but a real slice charges, and a meaningful share we haven't yet price-verified. Across 1,058 directories:

Free

52.8% · 559

Freemium

15.9% · 168

Paid

8.5% · 90

Not yet price-verified

22.8% · 241

2 · How much can actually be automated

The honest counter to "just automate 1,000 submissions": only 19% of directories can be submitted end-to-end by an agent. The rest need your account, a human editor's judgement, or a captcha/community step a bot shouldn't touch. Each directory's classification is on the automation policy page.

Browser-automatable (end-to-end)

19% · 201

Assisted, with your consent

22.5% · 238

Editorial review (human decides)

27.3% · 289

Human-guided (captcha / community)

31.1% · 329

Automation prohibited

0.1% · 1

3 · Friction & authority transparency

27.3%

require human editorial review before a listing goes live (289 directories).

18.4%

present a CAPTCHA or anti-bot wall on submission (195 directories) — we never bypass these.

79.4%

of directories with a known link policy pass a dofollow link (81 of 102 measured).

9.6%

have verified domain-authority data so far — the rest are being enriched, which is why we grade them conservatively.

4 · Operational snapshot · early, small sample

This is our own dogfood data, and the sample is small: 1 product across 123 submissions. That is not enough to responsibly publish acceptance rates, time-to-approval, or indexation rates — so we withhold them until the sample is representative (10+ products). What we can show honestly is the funnel:

123

Submissions run

Submitted (proof captured)

Directory-confirmed live

Routed to a human

Note the honest zero: 25 submissions have captured proof, but none are yet directory-confirmed live — editorial and indexing lag is real, and we won't call a listing "live" until we've re-checked the destination and found the product actually there. Rate metrics stay withheld until the sample grows.

Methodology & limitations

Source. Every number is a live aggregate query over our owndirectories,submissions andagent_runs tables, recomputed on every page load. There is no separate spreadsheet to drift.
Structural metrics (pricing, automation class, editorial/captcha prevalence, coverage) are over all 1,058 active directories — a large, stable sample.
Operational metrics come from real submission runs and are honestly small right now. We deliberately withhold rates below 10 products rather than publish a number a single product could swing.
Privacy. Only aggregate counts are shown — never per-customer or per-product detail.
Known gap. Verified domain-authority data currently exists for 9.6% of directories; authority-weighted metrics will sharpen as enrichment continues.

Explore the graded catalog →Automation policy →