It Says $20 in Its Body and $10 in Its FAQ. Both Buy a Nofollow Link.
Written by Submitator, which sells a competing directory-submission service. Every figure below is published with its source and its sample size, so you can check it against their site rather than against us.
Halfway down the submission page, in bold: "Publishing your startup at The Startup INC will cost you $20, to be paid once the startup is reviewed and published." Further down the same page, click the toggle headed "Is it paid or free to submit startup?" and it answers: "No, Publishing your startup at The Startup INC will cost you $10, to be paid once the startup is reviewed and published." Word for word the same sentence, half the number.
Whichever you pay, the fee is the small part. The form runs to twenty-two fields and six of them are written answers, two with minimums: 500 characters about the startup and 250 about the founders. And the reason the page gives for doing all that is a link. We fetched every one of their 283 sitemap URLs: 200 carry a Visit Website button and all 200 carry rel="nofollow".
Benefit three on their submission page, in full: "Online Marketing Benefit: give a boost to your online marketing efforts by getting listed at ‘The Startup INC’. This ensures you are getting a high-quality link back to your website, which directly helps in SEO." Every link in their catalogue is nofollow. Not most of them, not the free ones: 200 of 200, with no exception anywhere in the set.
The Startup INC submission at a glance
| Feature | The Startup INC |
|---|---|
| What it is | A startup directory, 277 listings |
| Where | /submit-startup/ |
| Price in the body | $20 |
| Price in the FAQ | $10 |
| When you pay | After review and publication |
| Fields on the form | Twenty-two |
| Written answers required | Six, two with minimums |
| Minimum characters | 500 plus 250 |
| The promised link | "directly helps in SEO" |
| The delivered link | nofollow, 200 of 200 |
| Listings with no link | 77 of 277 |
| Duplicate content | Rejected, stated twice |
| Domain | DR 33 on Ahrefs |
| Thirty directories here | $29, and we fill the forms |
Per thestartupinc.com, its sitemap_index.xml, /submit-startup/ and every URL in its post sitemap, all read on 28 August 2026 through a browser, because the site answers automated requests with a JavaScript challenge. Domain Rating is Ahrefs' figure via submitator.com/domain-rating-checker; no second provider was queried. Nothing was submitted, no account was created and no payment was made. The post sitemap holds 283 URLs, of which 277 are /startup/ listings and 6 are articles; the blog sitemap holds 174, the page sitemap 12 and the category sitemap 14. The link census is not a sample: all 283 post-sitemap URLs were fetched with zero errors, 200 carry an anchor whose text is Visit Website, every one of those 200 carries rel="nofollow", and 199 of the 200 carry utm_source=TheStartupINCdotcom; the remaining 83 carry no such anchor. The two prices are both from the served page: $20 appears in the visible body and $10 inside the collapsed FAQ item headed "Is it paid or free to submit startup?", which was opened in a browser the way a visitor would to confirm it renders. The field list, the character minimums, the duplicate-content warnings and the five numbered benefits are quoted from the same page. Submitator does not submit to The Startup INC: 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, rejections credited back as +1 directory and a 30-day refund policy on the conditions in our terms.
How to submit to The Startup INC, step by step
- 1
Ask which price is the price
The body says $20 and the FAQ on the same page says $10, in the same sentence. Email and ask before you write anything. It is a fair question, the answer costs them nothing, and getting it in writing is the difference between paying the number you expected and the number you did not.
- 2
Budget the afternoon, not the twenty dollars
Twenty-two fields, six of them written answers, and minimums of 500 and 250 characters on two of them. There is no AI draft button and no import from your website. Whatever the fee turns out to be, the real cost of this submission is the hour or two you spend writing it.
- 3
Write it fresh, because they check
"Don't copy and paste the content below. Share unique content only, duplicate content will be straight away rejected." Their FAQ says the same again. So the 750 characters cannot come from your homepage, which is the obvious shortcut and the one that gets you turned down.
- 4
Do not buy it for the SEO
Their third listed benefit says the link "directly helps in SEO". Every Visit Website anchor in their catalogue carries rel="nofollow", on all 200 listings that have one. If a followed link is why you are filling in twenty-two fields, this is the step to stop at.
- 5
Take the payment terms as the good news
Both prices carry the same condition: paid once the startup is reviewed and published. Nothing leaves your card for a submission that never goes live, which is rarer than it should be and worth saying plainly.
- 6
Check your listing got a link at all
77 of their 277 listings carry no outbound link of any kind. After you publish, open your page and look for the Visit Website button. If it is missing, that is worth an email too, because at that point the listing is a profile of you that nobody can click out of.
Two prices, one page
This is not two surfaces disagreeing, or an old page nobody updated. It is one URL. The bold line above the form reads $20. The FAQ item below the form, which opens on a click, reads $10. Both sentences are otherwise identical, down to "to be paid once the startup is reviewed and published".
We opened the toggle in a browser rather than reading it out of the markup, because a line hidden in an accordion is not the same as a line a visitor sees. It renders. Anyone who clicks that question gets told $10, and anyone who does not gets told $20, and the page never reconciles them.
A high-quality link that directly helps in SEO
That is their phrase, not ours. It is the third of five numbered benefits on the submission page, and it is the only one that makes a technical claim rather than a hopeful one.
So we checked all of it. Not a sample: every one of the 283 URLs in their post sitemap, fetched with zero errors. 200 carry an anchor reading Visit Website. Every one of those 200 carries rel="nofollow", and 199 of them also carry utm_source=TheStartupINCdotcom. There is no second pattern in the data, no paid tier that behaves differently, no exception to point at.
Here is one, whole, from their listing for FreshMenu: "<a href="https://www.freshmenu.com/?utm_source=TheStartupINCdotcom" rel="nofollow">Visit Website". A nofollow link is a fine thing to publish and plenty of good directories do it. It is simply not the thing the sentence above the form describes.
Twenty-two fields, and six of them are essays
The form asks for a startup name, a one-line definition, a founding date, an industry, an employee band, a headquarters, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook profiles, an email, a phone number, a promo video URL, Android and iOS app URLs, a website, and any achievements. Then it asks you to write.
"About Your Startup" carries a minimum of 500 characters. "Tell Us About The Founders" carries a minimum of 250. Between those sit four more open questions with no minimum but no shortcut either: what problems you solve, who it is for, what makes you stand out, and your future plans. And none of it can be pasted from your own site, because duplicate content is "straight away rejected".
Price that properly. The fee is $20, or $10, and the work is an afternoon of original copy for one profile page. That is the actual exchange rate here, and it is the reason the fee being ambiguous matters less than it looks.
Credit where it is due: you pay after, not before
Both versions of the price carry the same condition, and it is the best line on the page: "to be paid once the startup is reviewed and published". No deposit, no expedited-review fee, nothing taken for a submission that never goes live. Most of the directories in this series take the money first and describe the review afterwards.
The duplicate-content rule is a point in their favour too. A directory that turns down copy-paste submissions is a directory whose pages are worth reading, and their FAQ is explicit about why: "this degrades the overall quality of our site. You can make some tweaks to your main content and we will be happy to publish your startup."
What the same money does here
Their $20 buys one long-form profile, written by you, ending in a nofollow link. Our $29 buys submissions to thirty directories, each named in your dashboard with its Domain Rating on the card, ticked by you before anything is filed, and the forms are filled on your behalf rather than by you at midnight.
Nine of those thirty sell paid tiers of their own that the plan absorbs, each named with its price on the savings page, over $140 in total. The nine dollars between their price and ours is not the comparison. The comparison is one profile you write against thirty submissions you do not.
Their $20: one nofollow link, and you write it. Our $29: thirty directories.
One payment, every directory named in your dashboard with its Domain Rating on the card, and you tick the ones you want before anything is filed.
The Startup INC review: is it worth submitting?
If you want a long profile of your startup on a DR 33 site in front of its readers, and you are happy to write it, this is a reasonable place to spend an afternoon. The payment terms are honest, the editorial rule against copied text is real, and nothing is taken from you until the page exists.
If you are doing it for the link, stop. The sentence selling that link says it "directly helps in SEO", and all 200 links in the catalogue are nofollow. That is not a small caveat on the offer. It is the offer.
And find out which price applies before you start writing, because the page tells you both.
$20, $10, one nofollow. Ours: $29 for thirty.
One page quotes both prices in the same sentence, $20 in the body and $10 in the FAQ, and both are payable only after your startup is reviewed and published, which is the honest part. The form is twenty-two fields with 750 characters of minimums you must write yourself. It is sold on a link that "directly helps in SEO", and all 200 links in the catalogue carry rel="nofollow". Our $29 covers thirty directories and we fill the forms. The whole catalog.
FAQ
How much does it cost to submit to The Startup INC?
Their page gives two answers. The body says "Publishing your startup at The Startup INC will cost you $20, to be paid once the startup is reviewed and published." Open the FAQ toggle headed "Is it paid or free to submit startup?" on the same page and the answer reads "No, Publishing your startup at The Startup INC will cost you $10, to be paid once the startup is reviewed and published." Same sentence, half the price.
Is The Startup INC link dofollow?
No. Their submission page promises "a high-quality link back to your website, which directly helps in SEO". We fetched all 283 URLs in their post sitemap with zero errors: 200 carry a "Visit Website" button and every single one of the 200 carries rel="nofollow". Not one exception, and 199 of the 200 also carry a utm_source tag.
What does The Startup INC form ask for?
Twenty-two fields. Startup name, a one-line definition, founding date, industry, employee count, headquarters, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook profiles, email, phone, a promo video URL, Android and iOS app URLs, website, achievements, and then six written answers: "About Your Startup" with a minimum of 500 characters, what problems you solve, who it is for, what makes you stand out, your future plans, and "Tell Us About The Founders" with a minimum of 250 characters.
Do you pay The Startup INC before or after publication?
After, and that is the best thing about the offer. Both prices on the page carry the same condition: "to be paid once the startup is reviewed and published". So you write the submission, they review it, and the money only moves if it goes live. Almost nothing else in this series works that way.
How big is The Startup INC?
277 startup listings, from a post sitemap of 283 URLs of which the other six are articles. Alongside that they run 174 blog posts. Of the 277 listings, 200 carry an outbound link and 77 carry none at all.
Will The Startup INC reject duplicate content?
They say so twice. The submission page warns "Don't copy and paste the content below. Share unique content only, duplicate content will be straight away rejected." Their FAQ repeats it: "We don't publish startups who submit copied or duplicate content because this degrades the overall quality of our site. You can make some tweaks to your main content and we will be happy to publish your startup."
Is a listing on The Startup INC worth writing 750 characters for?
That is the real question, because the fee is the small part. The minimums alone are 750 characters across two fields, and four more written answers have no minimum but still have to be written. Against that, the link at the end of it carries rel="nofollow" on every listing we checked. Decide whether the page itself, in front of their readers, is worth the afternoon.
Is The Startup INC worth $20?
As a placement, possibly: a DR 33 site, a long-form profile of your startup, and you only pay if it publishes. As SEO, no, on their own markup. The page selling it says the link "directly helps in SEO" and every one of the 200 links in their catalog is nofollow, so the one sentence you would be buying it for is the one that does not hold.
Does Submitator submit to The Startup INC?
No. Their $20 buys one long-form profile with a nofollow link at the end of it, and you write it. Our $29 buys submissions to thirty directories, each named in the dashboard with its Domain Rating on the card, ticked by you before anything is filed, and we fill the forms. $49 covers sixty and $79 a hundred, paid once, with a rejection swapped for another directory and a thirty-day refund window on the conditions in our terms.
More submit-to guides.
Their $20: one profile you write. Our $29: thirty directories we file.
One payment, each directory named with its Domain Rating on the card before you choose it, badges installed and kept live where one is wanted, and a rejection swapped for another directory.