StartupFree

Introduction

Curated directory of 100+ AI tools organized into 12 categories (image, video, writing, code, productivity, SEO, voice, business, education, search, automation, directories).
Smart search & filtering by name, category, pricing (Free / Freemium / Paid), sort by rating / reviews / newest / name.
Detail pages for every tool: tagline, long description, categories, tags, pricing badge, rating, reviews, external "Visit Website" CTA.
One-click Google sign-in (NextAuth-style custom Google OAuth + JWT via jose) — no email + password to remember.
3-step submission flow for tool owners: basic info → description + categories + tags → plan + email.
Two pricing plans: Free (with mandatory reciprocal dofollow badge) and Basic ($9.9 one-time for priority review, logo, featured placement).
Dofollow backlink exchange: free listings require displaying a permanent badge on the tool's site; Basic listings provide a permanent dofollow link without the badge requirement.
Personal dashboard showing submission status.
Multi-tier badge styles (default / minimal / compact / large).
SEO-friendly: static generation, semantic HTML, OpenGraph, Twitter card, robots.txt, sitemap.xml.
Edge-first infra: deployed on Cloudflare Pages + D1 SQLite for low-latency global access.
Stripe-powered checkout for the paid Basic plan (Edge Runtime compatible via fetch).
Contact form, About, Pricing, Blog, Privacy, Terms, Badges pages — all self-hosted.

Introduction