directory · indie · saas

Smol Best: requirements, how to submit, and what you actually get

Visit

A fortnight in the queue, and the follow still costs you a badge

smolbest.com
Smol Best homepage
Eligibility

Who Smol Best accepts

You need
A live public URL
A square logo and a landscape product image
Their badge on a page they can reach
You'll be rejected if
No badge means no free listing at all here, not merely a nofollow link: the launch step will not advance without it.
Indie productsSaaS productsAI toolsDeveloper tools
What you actually get
A card for small indie products, with the shortest queue of the five in a launch feed that runs a limited number of projects a day at 08:00 UTC, reviewed and listed within up to 14 days on the free lane. The link follows once their verifier has found your badge; listings without one carry rel="nofollow". The same operator runs several near-identical sites on this codebase with the same copy, and sells a package of links across them, so treat the neighbourhood as one network rather than as separate audiences.

How to submit to Smol Best

  1. Sign in
    Google, GitHub or email and password. Google creates the account on the first click. Set your display name before you go further: it arrives as whatever the Google account is called and it is printed as the maker.
  2. Project Info
    Name, website URL, an optional affiliate URL, a short description in a rich text box, a square logo and a landscape product image. There is an AI Autofill button beside the URL that rewrites fields from your page.
  3. Details
    Up to three categories from a searchable list of several hundred, up to five tech stack tags, the platforms you run on, a pricing model, and optional GitHub and X links.
  4. Launch type and badge
    The free lane is selected by default. Copy the badge snippet, put it live, then press Verify Backlink. The Next button stays disabled until that passes.
  5. Review
    The last screen before the launch date is confirmed.

Smol Best requirements

A live public URL
Logo
1:1 square, under 1MB
Product image
16:9, around 800x450
Short description
A rich text box, no counter shown
Categories
Up to 3
Tech stack
Up to 5 tags
Badge
Live and verified before the form will advance

Gotchas

The badge is not a last step here, it is a gate in the middle: the launch step refuses to advance until their verifier has found it, so you deploy to your own site before you can even choose a date.
The dofollow is the badge's reward rather than the listing's default, so a listing that goes up without one is carrying rel="nofollow" like the rest of the feed.
Several sites on this codebase share the same copy, the same form and the same badge trade, so filling this one teaches you the others and submitting to all of them is not five audiences.
The free lane buys you a place in the queue, not a day: there is no date picker on it at all, so the review step reads "No date selected" and the site assigns the day itself. Scheduling is what the paid cards sell. That line is not an error and nothing on the free lane will clear it.
Launches here run weekly rather than daily: everything goes live at 08:00 UTC on a Monday, so the queue moves in week-sized steps and the date you are given can be a fortnight out.

Let your agent submit to Smol Best

Connect SubmitMap to your AI over MCP and this page stops being something you read and copy. Your agent asks for the Smol Best playbook and gets the brief for this exact form, with the values already taken from your submission pack instead of placeholders you fill in by hand.

What it does for this platform
Checks your product against the 4 Smol Best rules above, so you find out you would be rejected before you open a tab.
Hands your agent all 7 fields this form asks for, none of them optional, already filled from your pack.
Warns you that Smol Best looks for its badge on your site, so it has to be live before you submit rather than after.
Types it into Smol Best in your own browser, and stops for you when the form wants a sign-in.
Records what it sent, so the dashboard can answer "did I ever submit to Smol Best?".
Connect your agentHow this worksTools and endpointsWorks with Claude Code, Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code and Hermes.

Smol Best FAQ

How long does Smol Best approval take?
Smol Best's typical time from submission to going live is 1-2 weeks.
How much does it cost to submit to Smol Best?
Submitting to Smol Best is free.
Does Smol Best give a dofollow backlink?
Yes, a listing on Smol Best carries a dofollow link. The site has a domain rating of 21.
Does Smol Best require a backlink to your site?
Yes, Smol Best expects a link back from your site as part of listing.
What gets you rejected from Smol Best?
No badge means no free listing at all here, not merely a nofollow link: the launch step will not advance without it.