Is a featured placement on a directory worth it? How to judge one
A featured placement is worth it when you know where it shows, for how long, that it's labelled, who sees it and what it reports. How to judge a paid slot.
LLaunchScaler·Published ·8 min read
A featured placement is worth paying for when the directory tells you exactly where the slot shows, for how long, whether it is labelled as paid, who sees it and what numbers you get back, and when you can count the signups it sends. If any of those five answers is missing, you are buying a guess.
"Featured placement" means a paid position at the top of a directory surface, such as the homepage, a category page or the newsletter, for a set period. Below are the questions to ask before paying for any slot, then LaunchScaler's own featured slots answered against them first, then BetaList's and Uneed's placements, all checked on each site's own pages in September 2026.
What should you ask before paying for a featured slot?
Ask five questions and get each answer in writing from the directory's own page: where the slot appears, how long it runs, whether it is labelled, how many people see that surface, and what the directory reports back. Then add the price per week so different slots compare.
Question
Why it matters
A good answer looks like
Where exactly does it show?
"Featured" can mean the homepage hero or a card three pages deep
A named surface, a slot count and a preview of the placement
For how long?
Price only compares per week
A fixed start date and a number of weeks
Is it labelled as paid?
Readers who find out later trust the directory less, and so do you
Questions, answered
What people ask about this
01
What does featured placement mean?
A featured placement is a paid position at the top of a directory surface, such as its homepage, a category page or its newsletter, bought for a set period. An honest directory labels it as paid so readers know it was bought.
02
Is a featured listing on a directory worth the money?
A visible "Featured" or "Sponsored" label on the slot
What is the reach?
A slot is only as good as the traffic on that surface
A stated audience for that page or newsletter
What do you report back?
Without numbers you can't decide whether to renew
Views and clicks for your slot, not site-wide totals
What does a week cost?
Monthly and multi-month slots hide the weekly rate
A published price, no quote required
Two more checks catch the bad deals. First, ask whether the placement is sold for its link. Google counts "exchanging money for links" as link spam unless the link is marked rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow", so a slot sold as a "dofollow backlink" is selling you a policy problem. The attribute rules are in rel=sponsored, ugc and nofollow. Second, check how many slots share the surface. One of three rotating slots is a different product from one of thirty.
How do LaunchScaler's featured slots answer those questions?
LaunchScaler sells three featured slots by the week, each labelled as paid, each counting views and click-throughs while it runs: the homepage hero at $199 a week, the top of a category at $49 a week, and a Spotlight card at $19 a week. You book 1 to 4 weeks and see your start date before paying.
Here is each question answered from the Featured page:
Where it shows: Global puts you in the homepage hero, one of 3 rotating slots directory-wide, pinned above the trending board. Category puts you at the top of your category page, one of 5 slots per category, pinned above that category's trending board. Spotlight is a card in the discovery rail, with no slot limit and no queue.
How long it runs: "Book 1 to 4 weeks. A busy slot books the next open week; you always see your start date up front." You can pause or renew whenever you like, and Spotlight goes live the moment you buy.
Whether it is labelled: every tier carries a Featured badge and is "Labelled as paid placement." The page says every featured slot is labelled, "so a reader always knows it was paid for."
Reach: LaunchScaler does not publish a visitor figure for these surfaces. The page describes a featured slot as "a week at the top of a surface, a mention in the newsletter, priority in trending," and the newsletter goes out every Monday.
Reporting: "Views and click-throughs counted while it runs," shown in your placement dashboard once the slot is live.
Price: $199 a week for Global, $49 a week for Category, $19 a week for Spotlight, billed by the week.
You buy it from your console on a website verified to your account, and nothing is refunded once bought, because the week is delivered and consumed upfront. The missing answer is reach: with no published audience figure, judge a LaunchScaler week by the clicks and signups your tagged link records, which the next sections set up.
How do BetaList's and Uneed's placements compare?
BetaList sells a boost at $99 a week or $199 a month that adds homepage placement and a newsletter slot, open only to startups it has already featured. Uneed sells a Premium Spot from $197 at the top of all its listing pages for 1, 3 or 6 months. Neither page read in September 2026 describes the reporting you get back.
BetaList boost: homepage and newsletter, shared with other boosts
Your startup appears in the "Boosted" section of the BetaList homepage and in its daily newsletter, "rotated among active boosts," so the exposure is shared when several startups boost at once. The boost page states the newsletter at 70,000+ subscribers in its copy and 60k+ on the plan cards. The boost starts immediately after payment and cancels at the end of the current period. You must have been featured on BetaList first, and BetaList has no free submission route: all submissions are paid, with a full refund if you are not selected.
Uneed Premium Spot: the top of every listing page for months
Uneed describes it as "your product featured at the top of all listing pages, for 1, 3 or 6 months," priced from $197, and its advertise page showed 2 spots left when checked. Uneed states 90K+ monthly visitors and a 75 DR domain. It also sells a sidebar banner on every page at $297 a month and a newsletter sponsorship at $399 an issue; the newsletter maths is in newsletter sponsorships for a startup.
Placement
Where it shows
Length
Price
Labelled on the slot
Reporting
Audience stated
LaunchScaler Global
Homepage hero, 1 of 3 rotating slots, plus newsletter
1 to 4 weeks
$199/week
Yes, Featured badge
Views and click-throughs
Not published
LaunchScaler Category
Top of one category page, 1 of 5 slots
1 to 4 weeks
$49/week
Yes, Featured badge
Views and click-throughs
Not published
LaunchScaler Spotlight
Card in the discovery rail
By the week
$19/week
Yes, Featured badge
Views and click-throughs
Not published
BetaList boost
"Boosted" homepage section and daily newsletter, rotated
Weekly or monthly subscription
$99/week or $199/month
Shown in a "Boosted" section
Not published
70,000+ newsletter (60k+ on plan cards)
Uneed Premium Spot
Top of all listing pages
1, 3 or 6 months
From $197
Not stated on the pricing page
Not published
90K+ monthly visitors
How do you judge a featured placement after it runs?
Judge it on signups per dollar from a link you tagged, never on impressions. Give the directory a URL with UTM parameters, record a signup event in GA4, and divide the price by the signups that arrived with that tag. Renew the placements with the lowest cost per signup and drop the rest.
Set it up before the slot goes live:
Build the link with the three parameters Google says to always use, utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, in lowercase. For example: https://yourproduct.com/?utm_source=launchscaler&utm_medium=paid-placement&utm_campaign=featured-category-2026-10. The full naming scheme is in a UTM naming convention for launches, directories and newsletters.
Fire a sign_up event when an account is created, and mark it as a key event in Admin, under Data display, Events. Google says a newly marked key event can take up to 24 hours to appear in standard reports. The setup is in GA4 key events: track signups by source.
After the week ends, open Reports, Acquisition, Traffic acquisition, switch the dimension to Session source / medium and read the key events for your tagged row.
Compare the directory's own view and click counts with your GA4 sessions. A large gap usually means the link lost its tags on a redirect.
Divide the price by signups. A $49 week that brings 7 signups cost $7 a signup; the same week with 1 signup cost $49. Compare that number to what a signup is worth to you.
Run each placement long enough to judge it but no longer. A single week of a category slot gives you a clean test; book more weeks only after the first one earned its cost.
When is a featured placement not worth it?
Skip it when the slot can't answer the five questions, when the audience is not your buyer, or when your site isn't ready for the visitors. A paid week sends people to your page once, and a slow or broken page wastes the week you paid for.
Three situations make a slot a poor buy:
The directory sells it by the month or longer with no weekly price, no preview and no reporting. You can't test it cheaply, and you can't measure it.
The audience doesn't match. A directory read by other founders is a good place to sell founder tools, and a poor place to sell to dentists.
Your landing page is not ready. Fix the page first: if the signup button fails or the page takes seconds to load, the visitors a placement sends leave without a trace in your key events.
Get a featured week on LaunchScaler
If the questions above lead you to a weekly slot you can measure, LaunchScaler's Featured slots are priced by the week and labelled on every page: a Spotlight card at $19, the top of your category at $49 (one of five slots), or the homepage hero at $199 (one of three rotating slots, plus the newsletter). Each counts views and click-throughs while it runs, and you book 1 to 4 weeks with the start date shown up front. Tag the link, run one week, and renew only what earns its cost. Get featured.
It is worth it when the directory tells you exactly where the slot shows, for how long, whether it is labelled and what it reports, and when you can measure signups from it. Judge it on cost per signup from a tagged link, not on impressions.
03
How much does a featured placement cost?
Published prices checked in September 2026 range from $19 a week for a Spotlight card on LaunchScaler to $199 a week for its homepage hero. BetaList's boost is $99 a week or $199 a month, and Uneed's Premium Spot starts at $197.
04
Should a paid featured link be dofollow?
Google's policy is that paid links should carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Buy a placement for the people who will see it, not for the link.
05
How do I track signups from a featured placement?
Tag the link you give the directory with UTM parameters, fire a sign_up event in GA4 and mark it as a key event, then read signups by session source and medium in the Traffic acquisition report.
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