The Badge Gets You Reviewed. The $29 Gets You the Link.
Written by Submitator. We run a free DR checker of our own and we sell directory submissions, so we compete with parts of this site and file customers to another part of it. Everything below is measured from their live listings, and the method is in the footnote.
Domain-Rating.com is a free Ahrefs-powered DR checker with a startup leaderboard attached, built by Jaisal Rathee of Tiny Startups. The checker is genuinely free and genuinely useful. The leaderboard is the part you can get listed on, and it works like this: install their badge, wait in a review queue, and you appear. Or pay $29 and skip both.
We fetched all 269 listings on the board. On 248 of them the link to the listed site carries rel="nofollow". Nineteen carry no rel at all. Their $29 tier is the one that promises, in their words, a dofollow backlink; the free route never claims one.
We checked. Eleven of the nineteen followed listings are the operator's own site or domains linked straight from its homepage: Tiny Startups itself, Startup Spotlight, saas.fyi, startups.fm and others in the same network. We cannot attribute the remaining eight. Either way, a followed link here is the exception, and mostly it is the house.
Getting on the leaderboard: two routes
| Route | Price | Badge | Wait | The link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free listing | $0 | Required, or you are not approved | Review queue | Nofollow on 248 of 269 |
| Skip the queue | $29 | Not required | Instant | Dofollow, per their page |
| DR Boost (separate) | $199 / $299 | n/a | n/a | 5 or 10 links on unnamed sites |
| Through Submitator | Free route, badge kept live, plus 29 more directories from $29 | Ours to install | Ours to chase | Nofollow here, marked as such |
Per domain-rating.com, its home page, its /boost page and its sitemap, all read on 6 September 2026. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' figure via submitator.com/domain-rating-checker, which returned 37 for domain-rating.com. The badge, queue and pricing wording is quoted from their home page: "Listing requires adding our DR badge to your site"; "Add the verified DR badge to your site before we review it — listings without it aren't approved"; and, for the paid route, "No review — instant listing with a dofollow backlink from Domain-Rating.com. No badge required" at $29 one-time. Boost pricing is quoted from /boost: $199 for 5 dofollow backlinks from DR 20-70 sites at a stated $39.80 per link, $299 for 10 at $29.90 per link, with a 90-day money-back guarantee if Domain Rating does not rise; placements are not named before purchase. The link finding is a full census, not a sample: their sitemap lists 269 /site/ pages, all 269 were fetched with zero errors at 9-10 KB, parsed rather than pattern-matched, and every outbound anchor classified by hostname. Each page carries two site-wide anchors, to ahrefs.com and to the operator's personal site, which were identified by frequency and excluded. Of the remainder, 248 listings carry rel="nofollow" on the anchor to the listed domain, 19 carry no rel attribute and 2 carry no outbound anchor at all; none of the 269 carried a robots noindex. To see what the 19 had in common we fetched tinystartups.com, the operator's own launch platform, and found that 10 of the 19 are domains linked from its home page, with tinystartups.com itself making 11; the other 8 we could not attribute and make no claim about. That is one day's snapshot and any of it can change. Nothing behind the pay buttons was observed: no listing was purchased and no Boost bought, so delivery and refund practice are outside what we can report. Submitator runs a competing free DR checker at submitator.com/domain-rating-checker and sells directory submissions; our plans are $29 for 30 directories, $49 for 60 and $79 for 100, one-time, chosen by you in the dashboard with each Domain Rating shown and nofollow marked where it applies, badges installed and kept live, rejections credited back as +1 directory and a 30-day refund policy on the conditions in our terms.
How to get on the leaderboard, step by step
- 1
Check your DR first, anywhere free
You need to know the number before any of this is interesting. Theirs is free and Ahrefs-powered; so is ours, at submitator.com/domain-rating-checker, which also estimates how many points directory listings could add in a month. Neither asks you to sign up.
- 2
Enter the domain and your email
The flow is a single input and a Check button, and if your score qualifies you are offered a place on the high score table. Their line is that they will queue your domain for it once you give an email.
- 3
Install the DR badge, because without it nothing happens
This is a gate rather than a courtesy: listings without the badge are not approved. It is a live embed rather than a static image, so it shows your current score pulled from Ahrefs and updates as the score moves. That is a nicer badge than most, and it is still a permanent thing on your site.
- 4
Wait out the review
You go into a queue and appear under New once approved. There is no published turnaround. If the timing matters to you, the $29 tier exists precisely to remove the wait.
- 5
Know what the free listing is and is not
It is a real page on an indexed domain that tracks your DR daily and shows an 83-snapshot history. It is not, on the evidence of 248 of 269 listings, a followed link. Put it in your distribution column, not your backlink column.
- 6
Decide about the $29 on its own merits
It buys instant listing, no badge and a dofollow link from a DR 37 domain. Whether one link at that price is worth it is a judgement call, and it is a different judgement from the free route, which costs a badge and returns no equity.
The badge, handled for you
Their badge is better engineered than most: an embed that pulls your live score, so it stays accurate instead of going stale on your footer. It is still one more thing that has to be installed, verified and left alone through every future redesign.
That is work rather than a decision. Badges are installed and kept live wherever a directory in your plan asks for one, this one included:
Badges Submitator places + keeps live
Two free DR checkers, and what each is for
We are not going to pretend to be neutral here, so: we run one too. Theirs checks any domain against Ahrefs for free with no signup, then offers you the leaderboard and the paid Boost. Ours checks any domain against Ahrefs for free with no signup, then tells you roughly how many points a month of directory listings could add.
Both give you the same number, because both read it from the same place. The difference is what each one does with your attention afterwards, and you can see both offers plainly enough to choose.
The Boost is a different product
Worth separating, because it is easy to conflate with the listing. $199 buys five dofollow backlinks from sites rated DR 20 to 70, and $299 buys ten, which their page prices at $39.80 and $29.90 per link. There is a 90-day money-back guarantee if your Domain Rating does not go up, which is a cleaner promise than most link sellers make.
The placements are not named before you buy, which is the part to weigh. Our full comparison of the Boost goes through it properly. This page is about the leaderboard, which is free and is a different thing entirely.
Their $29 buys one link. Our $29 buys thirty listings.
One payment, every directory named in your dashboard with its Domain Rating on the card and nofollow marked where it applies, and you tick the ones you want before anything is filed.
Domain-Rating.com review: the short answer
Use the checker, it is free and it works. Take the leaderboard listing if the badge is handled for you, because a free indexed page that tracks your score daily costs you nothing to hold.
Just be clear-eyed about what the free route returns. Two hundred and forty-eight of the two hundred and sixty-nine listings on that board pass no equity, and most of the ones that do belong to the house.
Badge to be reviewed. $29 to be followed.
The free leaderboard listing needs their DR badge on your site and a wait in a review queue, and on 248 of the 269 listings we censused the link is nofollowed. Their $29 tier skips the queue, drops the badge and promises the follow. Eleven of the 19 followed listings are the operator's own network. The whole catalog.
FAQ
Is a Domain-Rating.com leaderboard listing dofollow?
Usually not. We fetched all 269 listings on their high score table: 248 carry rel="nofollow" on the link to the listed site, 19 carry no rel at all and 2 have no outbound link. So roughly seven listings in a hundred pass equity.
Which listings get the followed link?
Their $29 tier says it plainly: instant listing “with a dofollow backlink from Domain-Rating.com”. The free route promises no such thing. And of the 19 followed listings we found, eleven are the operator's own site or domains linked from its homepage, so a large share of the followed set is the network itself rather than paying strangers.
Do you need a badge to get on the Domain-Rating.com leaderboard?
For the free route, yes, and it is a hard gate rather than a nudge. Their wording: “Add the verified DR badge to your site before we review it — listings without it aren't approved.” The badge is a live embed that shows your current score pulled from Ahrefs.
How do you skip the Domain-Rating.com queue?
You pay $29. The free route puts you in a review queue behind the badge check; the paid one is described as “No review — instant listing with a dofollow backlink from Domain-Rating.com. No badge required.” So $29 buys three things at once: no wait, no badge, and the follow.
Do Submitator customers need to install the badge?
No, we install it and keep it live, here and on every other directory in a plan that asks for one. What that buys on this particular site is the listing and the leaderboard place, not link equity, and we would rather you knew that before you counted it.
Is there a free Domain Rating checker?
Several, including theirs and ours. Ours is at submitator.com/domain-rating-checker: enter any domain, get its live Ahrefs Domain Rating with no signup, plus an estimate of how many points directory listings could realistically add in a month. Theirs is also free and also Ahrefs-powered, and adds the leaderboard.
What is the Domain-Rating.com Boost?
Their paid link package, separate from the listing. $199 for five dofollow backlinks from DR 20 to 70 sites, or $299 for ten, which works out at $39.80 and $29.90 a link. It carries a 90-day money-back guarantee if your Domain Rating does not rise. The placements are not named before you buy.
Is the leaderboard worth getting on?
As a free listing with the badge handled for you, sure: it is a real page on an indexed domain, it tracks your DR daily and it costs nothing. Just file it under presence rather than backlinks, because on the free route the link does not pass equity.
More submit-to guides.
One link for $29 there. Thirty listings for $29 here.
One payment, each directory named with its Domain Rating on the card before you choose it, nofollow marked where it applies, badges installed and kept live, and a rejection swapped for another directory.