As an indie developer for our app Capy Diet, the experience of getting the app noticed is challenging, especially with big companies dominating the app store rankings and advertising space. However, several platforms — both free and paid — can help you gain traction, get more downloads, and increase visibility. Whether you're looking for organic exposure or targeted paid promotion, these top websites can help you showcase your app effectively.
Free Websites to Promote Your Mobile App
These are the 3 top picks:
1. Product Hunt
Website: https://www.producthunt.com/
Why Use It? Product Hunt is a fantastic place for launching new apps and getting feedback from a tech-savvy community. If your app gets enough upvotes, it can gain significant exposure.
2. Reddit
Website: http://reddit.com/
Why Use It? Subreddits like r/SideProject, r/startups, and r/AndroidApps can be great places to showcase your app. Just be mindful of the rules and engage genuinely with the community. You can also create your own subreddit & build up your community.
3. AlternativeTo
Website: AlternativeTo
Why Use It? Users actively search for alternatives to popular software. If your app offers unique features, listing it here can help you reach an audience looking for solutions beyond mainstream apps.
Full list:
Website | Cost | Our Experience |
Free | Excellent community. 100% worth investing time & effort to plan your launch for a successful campaign. | |
Free | It's important to follow each communities' rules. A suggestion is to phrase your post so that it is genuine and not so much self-promoting. The most interesting and engaging posts win! | |
Free | A good website to list your app amongst different competitors. Easy onboarding. | |
Free | An easy-to-use website to list your saas company. | |
Free | A nice website that allows you to list and users to review your app. You would expect to get about 100+ views. | |
Free | A very cool website to list your iOS apps, they don't have a form to submit your app, so the best way is to email their authors directly. Brent helped us publish an article which was amazing! | |
Free | They have really high domain rating, so it's worth submitting your idea to. | |
Free | Long wait for free tier, but it's free so why not! | |
Free | Long wait as well. But apparently they would rank your startup amongst the industry, most likely from your domain ranking and visits. | |
Free | Free community to submit your indie app idea. You can also make posts to engage in the social community too! It's pretty cool and the design of the website is nice too. |
Paid Websites to Showcase Your Own App
We showcased above many great sites to list your app for free, but some popular blogs or app listings require a payment to have your app listed too. Whether it is for their operating cost, or simply to make a profit based on their good domain rating and authority score.
IMO it's still worth doing this if your budget allows, as more backlinks should help your website's visibility score. Here's the list.
Website | Cost | Our Experience |
$2 | There are different paid options and we chose the cheapest tier, which requires a long wait time to be reviewed. | |
$99 | Most website charge between $0 to $30 so this is a pretty expensive in my opinion. The listing experience was good. | |
$30 | A website that claimed they helped increasing the exposure of uber for their funding round. I'm on the cheapest listing tier so yet to figure out how it performs. | |
$14 | Fun and active website, similar to thepopularapps.com, the UI is cute and apprently there are users who would rate your app too. |
Another great way, while not as time-effective, is to outreach to personal bloggers. Many bloggers would be interested in paid collaborations, which is also a great way to increase your backlinks and organic traffic.
One last thing, be cautious too.
Lastly, there are some websites that I personally did not have a good experience with. Namely some sites like apps400, who would take the payment and never respond. So beware of scams too.
Summary
These platforms can be incredibly useful for indie developers looking to promote their apps on a budget. By strategically leveraging both free and paid options, you can increase visibility, get downloads, and build a loyal user base.
Have you tried any of these? Let us know your experience!