How to Submit to AlterBase, and What to Type in the Alternative To Box
AlterBase (alterbase.co) lists software by what it replaces. Submissions are free and the form sits behind a login, seven fields with four of them required. Ahrefs rates the domain 44 and it holds 146 listings, each on its own indexable page.
We submit here on the free tier, and what follows is that same submission done by hand. Six of the seven fields are what you would expect. The seventh decides everything: Alternative To is free text, and what you type there has to match the name of one of their comparison pages exactly or your listing joins none of them. There are 106 of those pages and fifteen of them are reachable.
Spelling is the whole game in the Alternative To box. Six tools are filed under ScreenStudio and share a page linked from every footer on the domain, while the one entered as Screen Studio lands on a page nothing points to, and two entries match no page at all: one has a trailing space after the name and one typed Google Analytics, where the page is called Analytics. And turning the Is it Free? toggle off adds two more required fields, a price and a billing period, which are invisible until you flip it.
AlterBase submission at a glance
| Feature | AlterBase (alterbase.co) |
|---|---|
| Where | Your dashboard, after signing in |
| Account | Required: Google, GitHub or email |
| Fields | Seven, four of them required |
| Alternative To | Free text; must match, 15 names count |
| One-Liner | 10 to 150 chars, the only copy you write |
| Logo | Optional, under 2 MB |
| Free tier | Reviewed within 4 weeks, per the dashboard |
| Paid tiers | $19.90 newsletter, $59.90 skip-queue |
| Links | Followed, 292 of 292 counted |
Per alterbase.co, its sitemap and robots.txt, the browse grid, every /alternatives page it exposes, all 146 listing pages, /advertise, /terms and the client bundle that renders the submission form, read on 14 August 2026. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' figure via submitator.com/domain-rating-checker; no second provider was queried. Nothing was submitted through the form and no payment was made, so what follows a submission is not described here. The form sits behind authentication: field names, placeholders, help text, character limits and validation messages are read from the client bundle that renders it and match the owner's screenshot of the signed-in page. The catalog count is a census: 146 listing pages, all of them on the browse grid, which runs to ten pages of 15 although its pager only ever offers five at a time. Added dates run from 1 November 2025 to 30 April 2026, 130 of them in November 2025. The link audit is a census rather than a sample: product links were resolved from each page's own data rather than by eye, and across all 146 pages the 292 resulting anchors, two per page, carry no rel attribute, with nofollow, sponsored and ugc absent entirely, and all 292 carry an appended ref parameter. Advertiser placements and the X profile links the optional Twitter field generates are counted separately and excluded. Every listing page carries index, follow and a self-canonical, and none appear in sitemap.xml, which holds 21 URLs; several were still returned by a site-restricted search, so the omission has not kept them out of the index. Comparison pages come from a fixed list rather than from the submitted strings: 106 /alternatives/ URLs return 200 against a control that 404s, a listing appears on one only when its stored string matches that page's name exactly, and the 146 listings between them carry 88 distinct strings. Fifteen of the 106 are in the sitemap and are the only ones linked anywhere on the site; the other 91 are reachable only by URL, 66 hold a single tool and 19 hold none, among them Scrivener, whose only candidate stores a trailing space, and the four-tool analytics page, which is named Analytics and so takes nothing typed as Google Analytics. Listing copy was characterised across a 90-page sample: the meta description matches the submitted one-liner character for character, and 87 of the 90 bodies share one generated skeleton with a median length of 168 words. The named rivals, the asserted features and the misspelled product name are read from published listings. Logo cropping is inferred from how listings render the uploaded image, and the automatic screenshot from its arrival on their storage seconds after the logo. The badge verifier's refusal is quoted from what the endpoint returns rather than from the fallback string in the page code. Turnaround wording is quoted from the dashboard's Pending badge tooltip; the 24-hour figure on /advertise is attached to purchases, and no public page states a timeframe for a free submission. Prices are the discounted figures on /advertise under an Early Bird banner, against list prices of $39.9, $119 and $220; the refund wording for those tiers lives only in that page's client-side FAQ. The newsletter they sell has no signup form on any public page, so nothing here describes what it delivers. Traffic is read from the public dashboard AlterBase links as Live Stats in its own navigation, on its 7-day, 30-day and all-time views; that counter was installed between 12 March and 16 April 2026, so it does not cover the site's first months. The audience numbers printed on /advertise are byte-identical across archived copies from 10 December 2025 onward and are not repeated here as fact. Submitator submits here as part of its catalog: $29 for 30 directories, $49 for 60 and $79 for 100, one-time, chosen by you in the dashboard with DR shown, badges installed and kept live, a live link per completed listing, rejections credited back as +1 directory and a 30-day refund policy on the conditions in our terms.
Type one of these, spelled exactly as shown, and your card joins a page that is in their sitemap and linked from the site itself. The number is how many tools are filed there now.
- Buffer (7)
- Stripe (7)
- Claude Code (6)
- ScreenStudio (6)
- Vercel (6)
- Shadcn UI (6)
- Chrome (5)
- Product Hunt (5)
- Analytics (4)
- Cursor (4)
- Linktree (3)
- Xnapper (3)
- Rewardful (2)
- Semrush (2)
- Tweet Hunter (2)
How to submit to AlterBase, step by step
- 1
Pick your Alternative To before you open the form
This is the decision, and it is easier made with the site open than with the cursor blinking in the box. Check alterbase.co/alternatives for the fifteen promoted names, and read them the way they are written: ScreenStudio is one word, Shadcn UI has a space, and the analytics page is called Analytics, so typing Google Analytics matches nothing, as the Sleek Analytics listing found out. If none of them is your competitor, type the real one anyway, because a page of one on their domain is still a page.
- 2
Make an account
Google and GitHub are one click. The email route wants a first name, a surname and a password, then sends a confirmation link you have to follow before anything else works. Submit Your Tool in the header bounces you here first.
- 3
Fill the name and the URL
The name field takes 2 to 100 characters, and it also becomes your address on the site: they lowercase it, turn spaces into hyphens, drop everything that is not a letter, digit or hyphen and collapse whatever hyphens are left over, so Adsly.io is published at /tool/adslyio and Welco.ai - AI Receptionist at /tool/welcoai-ai-receptionist. If that address is already taken, they append six random characters instead of telling you. The URL field wants the bare domain, since https:// is printed inside the box and added for you.
- 4
Write the one-liner, because it is the only copy you get
10 characters minimum, 150 maximum, and it does three jobs: the text on your card, the line under your product name and the meta description of your listing page, used verbatim. Say what the product does in the first few words rather than opening with a slogan. Everything longer is generated for you afterwards from the URL and the three fields you typed, and so is the screenshot.
- 5
Answer the pricing question honestly
Is it Free? is a toggle, and turning it off unfolds two more required fields: an amount, digits only, and a billing period from Per Month, Per Year or Lifetime/One-time. Whatever you pick prints on your card in the grid, so $19/mo and Free are both a filter other people browse by. The logo is optional, under 2 MB, and PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP or SVG; send a square one, because listings render it cropped to a square rather than letterboxed.
- 6
Submit for Review, then watch the dashboard
You get a toast saying the product was submitted and will be reviewed soon, and land back on the dashboard with a yellow Pending badge. Hover it and the tooltip gives you the only timeframe anyone states for a free listing: within 4 weeks. Nothing promises to tell you when that changes, so note the date and check back.
The box that decides where your listing is filed
Most directories ask you to pick a category from a list. AlterBase asks a better question, which is what your product replaces, and then hands you an empty text field to answer it in. There are no suggestions, no autocomplete and no warning that the answer is load-bearing.
It is, and not in the way it looks. The comparison pages are a fixed list of 106, and a listing joins one only when what you typed matches that page's name exactly. Fifteen of them are the site: they are in the sitemap, they carry the tools worth comparing against and ten sit in the footer of every page on the domain. The other 91 are reachable only by typing the URL, 66 of them hold a single tool and 19 hold nothing at all.
The clearest illustration is already published. Six screen recorders are filed under ScreenStudio, spelled as one word: Cap, Loom, Tella, OBS Studio, Cursorful and Screen Charm, and they share a page that is one click from every footer. A seventh, RookieClip, has Screen Studio with a space in that field, and lands on a separate page nothing links to. Both listings are real, both links are followed, but only one of them stands where readers walk past.
Two entries miss the structure altogether. Inkfluence AI is filed under Scrivener with a trailing space after the word, and the Scrivener page reads no alternatives yet, be the first to submit an alternative to Scrivener. Sleek Analytics typed Google Analytics, which is nobody's page name here: the analytics page is called Analytics, so the four tools that typed that word share it and Sleek Analytics appears on none. Both listings are live and both links are followed, but no page on the site sets either of them beside a competitor.
One sentence, and the rest is written for you
There is no description field on this form. The help text says a detailed description will be generated automatically, and that is exactly what happens: the moment you press submit, your URL, your product name, your one-liner and your Alternative To answer are sent off to be written up, and your site is screenshotted in a second request. What comes back on published listings is a few hundred words with a Key Features list and a Who It's For paragraph.
That puts unusual weight on 150 characters. Your one-liner is the card text, the line under the product name and the meta description of the page, copied across without editing. It is also one of the four inputs the longer write-up is built from, so a vague tagline produces a vague page. Lead with the function, not the adjective.
Read the result once it lands, because the write-up takes liberties. Published ones run to about 170 words on a fixed skeleton, a hook, a contrast paragraph, a Key Features list of four and a Who It's For close, and along the way they name rival products you never entered and assert features you never claimed. On one live listing the product's own name is misspelled five times in the body while the heading above it is correct. The page and the link are unaffected, but the prose on it is not yours, so it is worth a read before you point anyone at it.
What lands on your page
A followed link, twice over, and the number behind that comes from every page rather than a handful. Each listing renders its Visit Website button once per layout, and across all 146 pages those 292 anchors carry no rel attribute at all. Nofollow does not appear once, and neither do sponsored or ugc. Every one of those pages carries index, follow and a canonical pointing at itself.
Two things worth knowing alongside that. Listing pages are not in their sitemap, which holds 21 URLs and stops at the alternatives pages, so what carries yours is the browse grid, where your card slides back a page at a time as newer ones arrive, plus the page you are filed under when that one is promoted. And if you fill in the optional Twitter field, you get a second followed link, pointing at your X profile rather than your site.
The badge, and the check it buys
A Get Verified button sits next to every product name. It opens a dialog with a light or dark badge, the embed code already written and one instruction: put it on your website's homepage, then press Verify Badge. Their checker fetches your site, looks for the image and comes back with badge not found on your website, please add the AlterBase badge to your homepage and wait a few seconds, if it is missing. What you get for passing is a blue checkmark on the listing.
Nothing about the listing or the link depends on it, so this is genuinely optional. It is also the part of directory work that stacks up: one badge is a two-minute commit, and thirty of them is an afternoon plus a permanent row of logos in your footer. Submitator installs badges from one script, keeps them live so re-checks like this one keep passing, and can render them invisibly when you would rather not carry the clutter.
Free, or $59.90 to skip the queue
The free route costs nothing and is not gated behind anything: no payment step, no upsell screen after you submit. What you trade is time, since the dashboard is clear that a pending listing is reviewed within four weeks.
Their advertise page sells three placements, currently under an early bird banner at $19.90 for a newsletter mention, $59.90 for premium and $99.90 for sponsor. Premium is the one that touches the queue, in their words skip queue, launch instantly, and adds a verified badge, homepage and browse-page placement for 30 days. Sponsor puts a banner on every page and adds a written review. None of it changes the link on your listing, which is followed either way.
One thing is worth a look before you spend anything here. Live Stats in their own navigation opens a public analytics dashboard, and over the last 30 days it reads 436 pageviews from 119 visitors, while the audience figures printed on the advertise page have not moved since December. None of that touches the free listing, which is handing you a followed link from a DR 44 domain rather than an audience.
One form done. Twenty-nine still asking.
The answers barely move from one directory to the next. The sign-in screens do. Hand the batch across and get the afternoon back.
Worth doing?
Yes, and the reasoning is short. Nothing is charged, the link on your page is followed, the listing gets an indexable URL with a canonical of its own, and DR 44 puts this above most directories that make you create an account. The alternatives framing is a bonus, because a page built around the tool you compete with is a page people search for by name.
The work is front-loaded and small. Decide which name you are filing yourself under, write 150 characters worth reading, and the rest of the form is your URL and a price. Get the first of those wrong and you still get a listing, just one that stands beside no competitor anywhere on the site.
Spell the competitor their way.
Free, behind a login, seven fields with four required. Alternative To is free text and has to match a comparison page by name: fifteen of the 106 are worth matching, and a near-miss puts you on none of them. The one-liner is 150 characters and the only copy you write. Saying you are not free adds two required fields. Pending means four weeks. The whole catalog.
FAQ
Where is the AlterBase submission form?
Behind the login. Submit Your Tool in the header sends you to a sign-in screen first, and the form itself lives in your dashboard. You can create the account with Google, with GitHub or with an email and password. Going in by email means a first name, a surname and a password, then a screen reading Check your email that holds you there until you click the confirmation link, so the two social buttons are the faster route.
What should you type in the AlterBase Alternative To box?
A name that already exists on the site, spelled their way. The box is free text with no suggestions behind it, and your listing joins a comparison page only when what you typed matches that page's name exactly. Fifteen of those pages are promoted in the site navigation and sitemap: Buffer, Stripe, Claude Code, ScreenStudio, Vercel, Shadcn UI, Chrome, Product Hunt, Analytics, Cursor, Linktree, Xnapper, Rewardful, Semrush and Tweet Hunter. There are 106 comparison pages in total, so a string can still match one of the other 91, but those stay out of their sitemap and out of every menu on the site. A string that matches nothing puts your listing on no comparison page at all, which is where Sleek Analytics ended up by typing Google Analytics instead of Analytics.
Does spelling matter on the AlterBase form?
It decides the outcome, and there is a live example on the site. Six screen recorders are filed under ScreenStudio, spelled as one word, and share a page that is linked from the footer of every page on the domain. A seventh has Screen Studio with a space in that field and lands on a separate page that nothing links to. Same target, same category, two different pages, and the difference is one character. A trailing space or a near-miss like Google Analytics instead of Analytics matches nothing at all.
Is AlterBase free to submit to?
Yes. The form takes no payment and nothing in it is gated. AlterBase does sell three placements on a separate advertise page, discounted at the moment to $19.90 for a newsletter slot, $59.90 for premium and $99.90 for sponsor. Those buy speed and position, which is why the premium card says Skip queue, launch Instantly. The listing itself, and the link on it, are the same either way.
How long does AlterBase take to approve a listing?
Up to four weeks. That figure is not on the form or on any public page: it appears as a tooltip on the yellow Pending badge in your dashboard, which reads Will be reviewed and approved within 4 weeks. The 24-hour number quoted on their advertise page belongs to the paid placements, so it is not the one to plan around on a free submission. No notification is promised anywhere, so the badge turning from Pending to Published is the thing to watch.
Are AlterBase links dofollow?
Yes. Every listing page was checked rather than a sample of them: across all 146, the 292 anchors pointing at the listed products carry no rel attribute at all, so nofollow, sponsored and ugc appear nowhere. That is two per page, because the Visit Website button renders once for each layout. Every listing page also carries index, follow and a self-canonical. Two details alongside that: all 292 have a ref parameter tacked on, which is standard practice and leaves the rel attribute alone, and filling in the optional Twitter field adds a further followed link, that one pointing at your X profile.
How long should the AlterBase one-liner be?
Between 10 and 150 characters, and it is the only sentence you write. It becomes your card text on the browse grid, the heading line on your listing page and the meta description of that page word for word. The longer body copy underneath is generated after you submit, from your URL plus the three things you typed, and so is the screenshot, so the one-liner is where the whole submission is won. Read the generated part once it publishes: it runs to about 170 words and it will name rivals you never entered and describe features you never claimed.
Does AlterBase require a badge?
No. The badge is optional and buys you a blue checkmark on the listing rather than the listing itself. Their dialog offers a light or dark image, hands you the embed code and asks you to put it on your website's homepage, then checks for it when you press Verify Badge and answers badge not found on your website, please add the AlterBase badge to your homepage and wait a few seconds, if it is not there. Submitator installs badges like this one and keeps them live, so the check passes without a commit from you.
Does Submitator submit to AlterBase?
Yes, on the free tier, as part of the catalog you choose from. By hand this one is an account, a decision about which name to file yourself under and a form that changes shape depending on whether you charge for your product. Thirty directories run $29 one-time with us, and the catalog names every one of them with its rating attached, so the choosing stays yours.
More submit-to guides.
You name the doors. We stand in the queues.
Thirty directories cost $29 one-time, every one of them shown with its rating before a slot goes on it, badges put up and kept up, and the published address sent back for each listing that lands.