Software directories in Europe, where to get listed

G2, and why Capterra is now the same account

G2 publishes a free Basic Profile, and the route is a product submission form followed by a profile claim, with G2 stating that a claim is approved within one to three business days. Two conditions matter before you start: G2 does not accept business to consumer products or products in alpha or beta, and inclusion in a G2 Grid report requires at least ten reviews in the category, while the category itself needs at least six products with ten or more reviews. Ten reviews is therefore the real entry fee, and it is paid in customer goodwill rather than money.

The structural news is that Capterra's vendor page now describes itself as part of the G2 ecosystem, its listing button points at g2.com, and the old Gartner Digital Markets domain no longer resolves. One seller account covers four properties. Whether a single submission populates all of them automatically is not stated anywhere, so verify it inside the portal rather than assuming.

G2's paid entry tier is published at 299 USD per month, or 2,999 USD per year. Everything above that, and every Capterra lead generation quote, is sales-contact only. Treat any CPC or cost-per-lead figure you read in a blog post as unverified.

Product Hunt, AlternativeTo, SaaSHub and SourceForge

Product Hunt is free and the ranking cannot be bought: the help centre states plainly that advertising during a launch is not permitted because ads are not allowed to influence the leaderboard. Self-serve display campaigns sit on a 5,000 to 10,000 USD budget with a CPM capped at 35 USD, managed campaigns start at 10,000 USD, and none of that touches your launch day. Prepare a 40 character name, a 60 character tagline, a 240 by 240 pixel logo and a first comment, and launch from a personal account, because company accounts cannot launch.

AlternativeTo is the one to submit early, because the free queue is measured in months and the site says it declines more apps than it used to. Two rejection reasons hit European vendors specifically: an app available in only some European countries counts as regional, and agency or custom-built work is out of scope. Paying buys a review in one to two business days, not approval. Links are nofollow, paid placements are sponsored, and the site states you cannot buy a followed link.

SaaSHub has the best effort to result ratio of the set. The listing and the verification badge are free, verification works by company email or an HTML snippet, and the queue is partly in your hands because products that identify more competitors are approved first. Featured placement is published at 99 USD per month with no contract and goes live immediately.

SourceForge lists more than 129,000 business software products, so search before you submit. It is also the clearest example of why a directory ranking is not an editorial ranking: its own vendor page states that your exact position is determined by the price of your plan. Nothing about the plan prices themselves is public.

OMR Reviews for DACH and Appvizer for France

OMR Reviews is the one German language platform worth the work. A free basic profile exists, the Essential tier is published at 575 EUR per month, pay per click starts at 100 EUR per month, sponsored content at 2,000 EUR and Tool Talks at 4,000 EUR. Reviews are moderated within 72 hours and reviewer identity is checked by name plus email or LinkedIn. Incentives are allowed but, per their own guidelines, never conditioned on a positive opinion. Every outbound vendor link we checked on a product page was nofollow.

Appvizer states that listing a product is completely free and without commitment, and confirms account validation within 24 hours. Its transparency page names its three revenue streams: a banner, a paid mention, and cost per click. The important detail is in its own help centre: Appvizer does not allow a hyperlink to your site. We parsed a product page and found 94 links, none to the vendor domain. The value is clicks and leads, not SEO.

The local layer: Bing Places and Apple Business

These two are not software directories. They exist because assistants and maps read business entity data, and because consistent name, address and phone data is cheap insurance. Both changed address recently: bingplaces.com now redirects to bing.com/forbusiness, and Apple Business Connect has been folded into a single product called Apple Business alongside Business Manager and Business Essentials.

For Bing, the fast path is importing your Google Business Profile, which the interface describes as instant verification; bulk imports take hours. For Apple, a location needs a name, an address with a map pin, a phone number with country code, a primary category and opening hours, and the website field is optional. Both require a real address, so a fully remote vendor with no office may not qualify. Neither produces a crawlable link, and neither price is stated on the current pages, which is why both are marked unverified above.

What none of these buys you

A followed link. We checked the ones that could be checked: AlternativeTo, SaaSHub and OMR Reviews are nofollow by policy or in the markup, paid slots are marked sponsored, Appvizer emits no vendor link at all, and the Capterra family routes clicks through paths excluded in robots.txt. That is the correct behaviour under Google's spam policy, which requires paid links to carry rel nofollow or rel sponsored, and it means a directory programme should be judged on leads, presence in the sources assistants retrieve, and nothing else. If an agency sells you directory submissions for link equity, that is the moment to stop the call.

What to do in which order

1. One week: G2 submission and claim, SaaSHub listing plus the free verification badge, AlternativeTo submission so the slow queue starts moving, your market directory (OMR for DACH, Appvizer for FR).
2. Next: ten reviews from real customers in your main G2 category, asked for without an incentive attached to sentiment.
3. Then: Bing Places and Apple Business, with your name, address and phone written identically everywhere, which is also the groundwork for getting named by AI assistants.
4. Last: a comparison listing. Ours is free, submissions are read by a person, and how to get your software listed in comparisons tells you what we need. Our rules are at /en/get-listed: a paid plan buys verified facts or a labelled sponsored placement, never a ranking position and never a score, and every paid link is sponsored and nofollow. Thinking is published by TTA Technologies, which also builds LUXPOS, Salonify, BoxBee and DepotGest, and every page naming one carries a disclosure.