Questions
Frequently asked questions
What a place costs, how points are earned and lost, what the links are worth, and who takes the money. Every number below is the one the site actually charges.
Getting listed
How much does it cost to list a product on outclimbed?
Listing starts at $10, paid once. That entry includes 10 permanent base points, and every dollar above the minimum buys one more permanent point - so $50 puts a product on the wall with 50 points. There is no subscription and no renewal.
Submit a product from $10Can I list a product for free?
No. Every place on outclimbed is paid, starting at $10, and that is the point of the site rather than a limitation of it. A free directory ranks by whatever its owner decides and rarely says so; here the price of every position is published, and the cheapest one is $10.
What can I submit?
A website or an X handle. Startups, SaaS products, side projects, apps, tools and agencies are all listed the same way, sorted into one of 17 categories. One URL can hold one place on the wall at a time.
How long does it take to appear on the leaderboard?
Immediately. Points are delivered the moment the payment clears and the listing is on the wall at the rank those points buy - there is no review queue, no launch day and no waiting for a weekly batch.
How long does a listing stay up?
Indefinitely. A place is bought once and is never expired, archived or rotated off the wall. Bought points are permanent, so a listing can be overtaken by someone who pays or earns more, but it never falls off.
How ranking works
How is rank calculated on outclimbed?
Rank is base points plus bought points plus earned points, recalculated live. Bought points come from dollars at $1 per point and never expire; earned points come from referrals and do expire. When two listings have the same total, the one that joined first ranks higher.
The scoring rules in fullWhat does one dollar buy?
One point, always. The exchange rate never changes, there is no bulk discount and there is no surge price, so a listing's points and the dollars behind it can never disagree.
How much does it cost to reach number one?
Whatever the current leader's total is, plus one dollar. Because every position's price is published rather than negotiated, the cost of first place is a number anybody can read off the wall before deciding - and it changes as the leader earns or buys more.
See what first place costs right nowCan I lose a rank I paid for?
You can be overtaken, but nothing you paid for is taken away. Base and bought points are permanent, so a listing can be passed by someone who spends or earns more, and it can drop as its own earned points expire - but the points bought with money stay on it forever.
Can I add points to a listing later?
Yes. Topping up an existing listing starts at $5 and buys points at the same $1 each, with no new entry fee, because it is buying nothing but points. A single payment is capped at $999,999.
Points and expiry
Do points expire?
Bought points never expire. Earned points do: a referred visitor is worth one point for 30 days, and a referred paying signup is worth 5 points for 180 days. This is what stops the wall from becoming a list of whoever showed up earliest.
How do I move up without paying more?
Share the referral link that comes with every listing. Each new person who reaches the wall through it is worth one point for 30 days, and if one of them buys a place of their own, that is worth 5 points for about 6 months.
What counts as a referred visitor?
One point is one new person arriving at the wall through your referral link, counted once per person per day rather than once per click. Reloading the page, sending yourself the link or driving bot traffic through it does not accumulate points.
Is there a limit on referral points?
Referred visitors are uncapped. Referred paying signups are capped at 10 per listing per 24 hours, which is a ceiling on what a ring of accounts signing each other up can be worth in a day, not a penalty for doing well.
Does an earned point fade out or drop off?
It drops. A visitor point is worth exactly one point on day 29 and exactly zero on day 30 - there is no gradual decay curve. A cliff is predictable, and a listing can see which of its points are due to go before they go.
Links, SEO and disclosure
Are outclimbed links dofollow or nofollow?
Nofollow by default. Every listing's outbound link carries rel="nofollow ugc" unless it has bought the dofollow upgrade, which costs $30 once and is limited to 25 listings at a time. An upgraded link drops the nofollow and keeps ugc, which is the honest label for a paid placement.
Will listing here help my SEO?
Assume not, and list for the traffic instead. A default listing passes no search ranking signal by design, and even the paid dofollow upgrade is a single user-generated link that no honest site should sell as a ranking guarantee. What a place on the wall buys is attention and clicks from people looking at a directory of products.
Why most directory links are nofollowIs selling dofollow links against Google's guidelines?
Selling links that pass ranking signals without disclosure is, which is why the dofollow upgrade is capped at 25 listings, every unpaid link stays nofollow, and the paid placement is disclosed on the page and in the markup. A directory that made every paid link dofollow would be a link scheme, and the penalty for that lands on the directory.
Is there a badge I can put on my site?
Yes, every listing gets an embeddable badge showing its live rank, with the snippet to paste. The link inside it points at the public wall rather than at the owner's referral link, so a badge on your own site cannot earn you points from your own visitors.
Payments and refunds
Who handles payments?
Dodo Payments, as merchant of record. Card details are never seen or stored by outclimbed, and Dodo handles the tax and invoicing that come with selling internationally.
Can I get a refund?
Payments are final. Points are delivered the instant a payment clears and immediately affect a public ranking other people are paying to compete in, so there is nothing to return once a position has been held.
Terms in fullIs this a subscription?
No. Every payment on outclimbed is one-time - entry, top-ups, the dofollow upgrade and ad slots alike. Nothing renews, and there is no card kept on file to renew it with.
What happens if I remove my listing?
It leaves the wall immediately and its points go with it, including bought ones. The URL becomes available again, so anyone - including you - can list it afresh starting from 10 points.
Ad slots
What are the ad slots above the leaderboard?
10 paid placements that sit above the wall, bought outright and completely separate from rank. A slot costs $150 while any of them is free, and $250 once all 10 are taken, because at that point the purchase pushes somebody off the end.
How long does an ad slot last?
Until 10 more products have bought one after you. The slots are a queue rather than a timed booking: a purchase enters at the front, everyone already there moves back one place, and the last one drops off - so every sponsor is shown for the same run, and position is never sold separately.
Your account
How do I sign in?
By email link. There is no password to set or forget - enter the address a listing was bought with and a sign-in link arrives in the inbox.
Sign inCan I list more than one product?
Yes, as many as you like, each bought separately and ranked on its own points. One account can manage all of them from a single dashboard, and they compete with each other exactly as they compete with anyone else.
Can I edit my listing after paying?
Yes. The name, tagline, icon, category and destination URL are all editable from the dashboard at any time, and changes are live immediately.
About the site
How is outclimbed different from Product Hunt?
Product Hunt ranks by votes on a launch day and is free to enter; outclimbed ranks by dollars and referrals, with no launch day and no votes. A place here starts at $10 and lasts indefinitely rather than for twenty-four hours, and what every position cost is published rather than implied.
What startup directories actually costWhy is the ranking openly for sale?
Because most directory rankings are already influenced by money and do not say so. Publishing the price of every position turns a hidden bias into a stated rule, and the second currency - referrals, which cost nothing but effort - is what stops it from being purely a list of the largest budgets.
Why this existsIs paying to be in a directory worth it?
It depends entirely on whether the directory sends real people, which is why the traffic figures here are published and the analytics dashboard is open to anyone. Judge any paid directory on clicks it can prove it sent, not on its domain rating.
What do you track about visitors?
Page views, without cookies and without a per-visitor identifier, through a self-hosted Umami instance whose dashboard is public. No personal profile is built, nothing is sold to anyone, and there is no consent banner because there is nothing to consent to.
Privacy policyStill deciding?
The wall shows what every position costs right now, including the cheapest one. Nothing is hidden behind a signup.