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 is free for a month, and a paid place starts at $10, paid once. A paid 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. Nothing renews unless you choose the Always on Today plan: $30 a month for a permanent point every day, which keeps a product on today's board.
Submit a product for freeCan I list a product for free?
Yes. A free listing starts at 0 points and has a month from the day it goes on the wall. A set number of free listings go on the wall each UTC day, in the order they were submitted, so a free listing may wait in a queue for its day, which the form shows before you submit. Any payment skips the queue. It stays for good once any payment is made on it, from $10, and a website also stays for as long as the outclimbed badge is on it, which adds 30 points. With neither, it is removed when its free time is up. Each site can be listed free once, whichever page of it you list.
How free listings work, and the formWhat happens to a free listing after a month?
It stays if it has a payment behind it or holds the outclimbed badge, and is removed if it has neither. The owner is emailed 7 days before and again if it is removed. A free listing kept by the badge alone is paused on the day the badge check takes the badge back, after 7 daily checks in a row without it: it leaves the wall but is not deleted, and returns when the badge is verified again or a payment is made. Any payment, from $10, ends the clock for good.
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?
A paid listing is on the wall the moment the payment clears, at the rank its points buy. A free listing goes through a queue that puts a set number of listings on the wall at the start of each UTC day, oldest first, and the form shows the expected day before you submit. Any payment on a queued listing, from $10, puts it on the wall at once. There is no review and no launch day.
How long does a listing stay up?
A paid listing stays indefinitely: it is bought once and never expired, archived or rotated off the wall. A free listing has a month, and stays after that only with a payment behind it or the outclimbed badge on its site.
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 or its badge bonus is removed - 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. The 30-point badge bonus does not expire on a clock; it is held for as long as the outclimbed badge stays on your site.
What are bonus points and how do I get them?
Bonus points are 30 extra points a listing holds for as long as the outclimbed badge stays on its own website. To get them, copy the badge from your profile, paste it anywhere visible on the page you listed, and press Verify. They are free, they do not expire on a clock, and they are not bought points: the page is checked once a day, and if the badge is missing on 7 checks in a row the 30 points are removed, with an email first. Putting the badge back and verifying again restores them.
The bonus rules in fullHow 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. Putting the outclimbed badge on your own site adds 30 bonus points, held for as long as it stays there.
What counts as a referred visitor?
One point is one new person arriving at the wall through your referral link, counted once per person for good, not per click and not per day. Reloading the page, opening your own link or driving bot traffic through it does not accumulate points.
Why are some of my visitor points held?
Points are held when visits through a share link look repeated or automated. They are off the board but not deleted, and the owner is emailed each time. After 3 times, however far apart, the held points are removed and the link stops earning points. If the visits were real people, replying to the email gets them looked at again.
How do I unlock a locked share link?
A share link locked on its third catch can be unlocked from the dashboard for $100, which also adds 100 bought points to the listing like any other purchase. A locked link still takes visitors to the wall; it just earns no points. If it is caught again after an unlock, it may be locked again straight away, and unlocked the same way.
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, with an optional one-time dofollow upgrade available for any listing.
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 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, and keeping it on your site is worth 30 bonus points. It is checked once a day on the page you listed, or another page on the same domain, and has to be visible there. The points stay for as long as the badge does and are removed after 7 daily checks in a row without it, with an email first. The link inside the badge points at the public wall rather than at the owner's referral link, so it does not earn visitor points from your own visitors.
How do I check a website's Domain Rating?
Use the free Domain Rating checker on outclimbed: enter any domain and it shows the site's Domain Rating by Ahrefs on the 0-100 scale, which band it falls in, and what that band means. There is no sign-up, and every domain gets a free badge to show its DR, refreshed weekly.
Check a Domain RatingPayments 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?
Only if you choose it. Entry, top-ups, the dofollow upgrade and ad slots are one-time payments that never renew. The Always on Today plan is the one subscription: $30 a month buys one permanent point every UTC day, 28 to 31 a month, so the product is on today's board every day. Cancel any time from your dashboard; the daily point keeps coming to the end of the month you paid for, and every point stays.
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 through a self-hosted Umami with a public dashboard: no cookies, no per-visitor identifier. For visits through a share link the site also keeps a few technical details of the visit, to keep points honest, never the IP address; the Privacy policy lists them. Cookies only for signing in, referral credit and that check, so there is no consent banner.
Privacy policyStill deciding?
The wall shows what every position costs right now, including the cheapest one. Nothing is hidden behind a signup.