DR 81, Free, and the Only Thing It Wants Is a Badge.
Written by Submitator. We compete with Findly on one product and file customers to another, and this page says which is which rather than picking a side. The link count is measured from their live listings and the method is in the footnote.
Findly.tools is a tools directory rated 81 by Ahrefs, holding 3,551 listings across 35 categories. That is the highest Domain Rating of any badge directory in our catalog, and among the highest of any directory in it at all. Their submit page states the deal in six words: "Free with a badge, or Premium without one."
The free plan promises "1 dofollow backlink". We sampled 90 of those 3,551 listings and every one carries exactly one followed anchor to the listed tool. Not approximately one. Exactly one, on all ninety, with no nofollow on it. The claim is precise and it is met precisely.
Their Premium tier, the one that removes the badge, is $36 listed at $25.20 with their own discount code. So they have priced the badge themselves, and it is close to what a whole Submitator plan costs. We install it and keep it live, which means the DR 81 followed link costs you nothing and stays nothing.
Free with a badge, or $25.20 without
| Route | Price | Badge | The link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free listing | $0 | Required on your site | 1 dofollow, confirmed on 90 of 90 |
| Premium listing | $36, shown at $25.20 | Not required | 4 claimed; 1 seen on the listing page |
| Premium also adds | AI-written profile, 2,500-char SEO description | Instant approval | Lifetime listing |
| Through Submitator | Free route, badge kept live, plus 29 more directories from $29 | Ours to install | Same DR 81 followed link |
Per findly.tools, its submission flow and its sitemap, all read on 10 September 2026. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' figure via submitator.com/domain-rating-checker, which returned 81, matching the DR 81 Findly displays on its own pages with an Ahrefs attribution. Their sitemap holds 3,551 listing URLs alongside 35 categories and 15 blog posts; their home page counter reads 3,569+ tools, which we did not reconcile. The plan wording, the "Free with a badge, or Premium without one" line, the "1 dofollow backlink" and "Badge required on your site" free-plan bullets, the $36 list price shown at $25.20 with their FINDLY30 code, and the Premium bullets covering four permanent dofollow backlinks, an AI-generated premium profile, a 2,500-character SEO description, no badge, instant approval and a lifetime listing are all read from their submission flow, which sits behind a login; /badge, /badges and /pricing return 404 to a logged-out visitor, so the badge snippet itself was not seen and its verification and enforcement rules are outside what we can report. The link finding is a sample, not a census: a seeded random sample of 90 listing URLs, every one fetched successfully at 117-152 KB, parsed rather than pattern-matched, with each outbound anchor classified by hostname. Seven hosts appear on every sampled page and were identified by frequency and excluded before attribution: ahrefs.com behind their DR display, dailypings.com, and chatgpt.com, claude.ai, perplexity.ai, google.com and grok.com, which correspond to the AI-visibility feature in their Premium bullets. Of the remainder, all 90 listings carry exactly one anchor to the listed tool with rel="noopener noreferrer" and no nofollow; the sample's 729 outbound anchors include 11 carrying nofollow, all of them also tagged ugc, and none of the 90 pages carries a robots noindex. Because every sampled listing carries exactly one followed anchor on its own page, we could not observe the four backlinks Premium advertises and make no claim about them; any further links would come from pages we did not enumerate. Findly.tools also sells a directory submission service at $59 to $139, which competes with ours and which we compare separately at submitator.com/findly-tools-alternative; nothing on this page is a claim about that product. Submitator files customers to Findly.tools on the free tier and installs and keeps badges live where a directory wants one. Our plans are $29 for 30 directories, $49 for 60 and $79 for 100, one-time, chosen by you with each Domain Rating shown and nofollow marked where it applies, rejections credited back as +1 directory and a 30-day refund policy on the conditions in our terms.
How to submit to Findly.tools, step by step
- 1
Have the logo ready; it is the only required upload
Tool name, website URL, category and logo are the four required fields, and the cap is a generous 5MB, so this is one of the few directories where you will not be fighting a file size limit. An app image is optional and worth adding, because a listing with only a logo looks thinner than its neighbours on a site this size.
- 2
Pick from their 35 categories rather than reaching
Thirty-five categories across 3,551 listings means each one is genuinely populated. A precise category puts you on a page people browse to the end of; a stretched one puts you at the bottom of something crowded.
- 3
Turn on the promo code toggle if you have one
The form offers a promo code described as a discount for Findly visitors. It is a switch and a field, it costs nothing, and it gives your card a reason to be clicked that the cards around it do not have.
- 4
Decide about 'list for sale' deliberately
The second toggle also shows your tool on the Findly.tools marketplace, which is a different audience: people looking to buy a product, not to use one. Leave it off unless you would genuinely entertain an offer, because it changes who arrives.
- 5
Choose the free plan and install the badge
The free plan gives the one dofollow link from a DR 81 domain and asks for the badge in return. The alternative is $25.20 to skip it. If somebody is keeping your badges alive, the free route is the obvious one and the link is identical.
- 6
Then keep the badge there, because that is the deal
A badge is not a step you complete, it is a condition you maintain. This one sits on the strongest domain in the badge tier, so it is also the one worth least losing to a redesign nobody thought about six months from now.
A claim measured to the digit
Most directories say something vague about backlinks. Findly says one, and one is what the markup contains: a single anchor to the listed tool, carrying noopener noreferrer and no nofollow, on every one of the ninety listings we pulled. Of the 729 outbound anchors in the sample, eleven carry nofollow and all eleven are also tagged ugc, which is what user-submitted links should carry.
Their Premium tier advertises four. We could not see them. Every listing we sampled carries exactly one followed anchor on its own page, so whatever the other three are, they live somewhere we did not enumerate, and we are not going to guess at their shape in order to have a fuller paragraph.
One other detail from the census worth knowing, because it explains a line on their pricing card. Every listing links out to ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google and Grok. That is the "optimized for stronger visibility across" row rendered as actual markup, and it tells you which audience the site is built for.
They priced the badge for us
Working out what a badge requirement is worth is normally guesswork. Not here. Findly sells the badge-free version of the same listing for $36, displayed at $25.20 after their own discount code. That is their valuation of not having a snippet in your footer, and it is within a few dollars of what a thirty-directory plan costs on our side.
Premium buys more than the badge removal, to be fair: an AI-written profile, a 2,500-character SEO description, instant approval and a lifetime listing. But the followed link, the thing most people are here for, is on the free tier too.
The badge, handled for you
One badge is five minutes. The reason it stops being five minutes is that the good free links keep asking for one, each with its own snippet, its own verification and its own quiet penalty when a redesign eats it. This is the highest-DR example in the catalog, which makes it the most expensive one to lose by accident.
Badges are installed and kept live wherever a directory in your plan asks for one, Findly included:
Badges Submitator places + keeps live
We compete with them, and we submit to them
Worth saying plainly rather than leaving you to find it. Findly.tools also sells a directory submission service, at $59 to $139 for 30 to 100 directories against our $29 to $79, and we compare the two properly on its own page.
Their directory is a different product and a good one: DR 81, a followed link that does what it says, 3,551 listings and a form with four fields. We submit customers to it and we would whether or not we competed with them elsewhere. Both things being true is not a contradiction, and pretending otherwise in either direction would be the dishonest version.
Their $25.20 removes one badge. Our $29 covers thirty directories.
One payment, every directory named in your dashboard with its Domain Rating on the card and nofollow marked where it applies, and one component that keeps every badge live.
Findly.tools review: the short answer
Submit, take the free tier, and make sure the badge stays up. A followed link from a DR 81 domain for four form fields is the best free trade in the badge tier, and the census says the link is exactly what the plan card promises.
Pay the $25.20 only if you want the AI-written profile and the long SEO description, or if nobody is going to keep a badge alive for you. The link itself is the same either way.
DR 81 for a badge, or $25.20 without.
Findly.tools is the strongest badge directory we cover. Its free plan promises one dofollow backlink and delivers exactly one, on all 90 of the 3,551 listings we sampled. Premium at $25.20 removes the badge and adds an AI profile and a 2,500-character description. We keep the badge live instead. The whole catalog.
FAQ
Is a free Findly.tools listing dofollow?
Yes, and exactly as advertised. Their free plan promises “1 dofollow backlink”. We sampled 90 of the 3,551 listings in their sitemap and every one carries exactly one followed anchor to the listed tool, with rel="noopener noreferrer" and no nofollow. Across 729 outbound anchors in the sample only 11 carry nofollow, all of them tagged ugc. Nothing is noindexed.
What does Findly.tools cost?
The listing is free if you display their badge. Premium is $36, shown at $25.20 with their FINDLY30 code, and buys four permanent dofollow backlinks, an AI-generated premium profile, an SEO description of up to 2,500 characters, instant approval, a lifetime listing and no badge on your site.
Does Findly.tools require a badge?
On the free tier, yes. Their submit page says it in one line: “Free with a badge, or Premium without one”, and the free plan card lists “Badge required on your site” next to the single dofollow link. Premium is sold explicitly as the badge-free route.
Do Submitator customers need to install the Findly badge?
No, we install it and keep it live. That is the whole reason the free tier is the right one here: the badge is the price, and paying it is work rather than money. You get the DR 81 followed link without the $25.20 and without a snippet to maintain in your own footer.
What is Findly.tools' Domain Rating?
81 on Ahrefs, which makes it the strongest badge directory in our catalog by some distance and one of the strongest domains in it overall. They publish the figure on their own pages too, sourced from Ahrefs.
What does the Findly.tools submission form ask for?
Four required things and a couple of switches. A tool name, a website URL, a category and a logo, with an optional app image, both capped at 5MB. Then two toggles: a promo code described as a discount for Findly visitors, and a “list for sale” option that also shows your tool on their marketplace. Then you pick free or Premium.
Does Premium really give four dofollow links?
That is their claim and we could not verify it from the listing pages. Every listing we sampled, free or otherwise, carries exactly one followed anchor to the tool on the listing page itself, so any further links Premium adds would have to come from other pages on their site, which we did not enumerate. We report what we counted and make no claim either way about the other three.
Do you compete with Findly.tools?
On one product, yes. They sell a directory submission service at $59 to $139 for 30 to 100 directories, against our $29 to $79, and we have a page comparing the two. Their own directory is a different thing: it is a strong, well-run listing site and we submit customers to it. Both statements are true at once and we would rather say so than pick one.
More submit-to guides.
Findly is $0 with the badge. Thirty directories are $29.
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 where one is wanted, and a rejection swapped for another directory.