Shipstry - Weekly launch registry for maker-built products with real backlinks

What is Shipstry

Every indie maker knows the feeling. You spend weeks—sometimes months—polishing a product, and then you launch. And then… silence. The product page exists, but nobody sees it. It gets buried in a saturated feed within hours, and the backlinks you desperately needed for SEO never materialize. Sound familiar?

We built Shipstry because we believe launching should feel like opening a door, not shouting into a void. Founded and built in public by @Puinoib, Shipstry is a weekly ship registry for maker-built products. We're currently in Beta, and that's intentional—we're growing alongside the community, iterating every week based on real feedback from makers like you.

Here's the core idea: instead of one giant crowded launch day, products get their own weekly spotlight window. Each week, a fresh batch of products ships, users vote on their favorites, and winners get showcased. No burying. No disappearing after 24 hours. Just a steady, predictable rhythm where every product gets seen.

Tangible SEO value. Every product listed on Shipstry earns a real dofollow backlink from our domain, which currently carries a Domain Rating (DR) of 45—verified by Ahrefs. That's not a token link; that's genuine link equity that helps you rank.

And the numbers show the community is moving. Right now, 518 products have shipped, 796 makers have joined, and this week alone (Aug 24–Aug 30), 25 products are shipping. This isn't a ghost-town directory—it's a living, breathing registry built by and for makers.

Shipstry's Core Features

Shipstry isn't just a directory—it's a full launch system designed around the way indie makers actually work. Here's what you get when you ship with us.

Weekly Ship Cycle

Unlike platforms where your launch competes against thousands of products in one day, Shipstry runs on a weekly rhythm. Each product gets its own window to be seen, voted on, and discovered. This means lower competition, more attention per product, and a much better chance to actually convert visitors into early adopters.

Real Dofollow Backlinks

This is where Shipstry earns its keep. Every shipped product receives a genuine dofollow backlink from a DR 45 domain. That's real link juice flowing to your site. For indie makers and small SaaS teams, quality backlinks are often the hardest part of SEO—Shipstry gives you one just by shipping.

Voting & Discovery

Your community decides what rises. Users vote for their favorite products, and the top performers get showcased as weekly and monthly winners. Recent winners include developer tools like Tura ("16.7% better performance, 77.5% fewer rounds") and AI workflows like Viora—products that clearly earned their spotlight.

Featured Placement

Want to guarantee visibility? Featured Placement lets you reserve a premium slot during your ship week. Your product goes front and center instead of competing for attention in the feed. Think of it as paying for a storefront on Main Street instead of a side alley.

Done-for-you Submission (from $129)

Submitting to 60+ directories by hand is exhausting. Shipstry's done-for-you service handles it for you—hand-submitting your product across dozens of launch platforms so you can focus on building instead of link-chasing.

Wakemark & Additional Surfaces

Wakemark is Shipstry's "rising wake" leaderboard, showcasing the most active community members each week. Plus, Fog Mode and AI Agents sections open up additional discovery surfaces for products that users might otherwise miss.

Who Is Using Shipstry

One of the best parts of building in public is watching who shows up. Shipstry's registry reflects a remarkably diverse group of makers, and here's what that actually looks like.

AI makers own the registry. Out of 518 shipped products, 100 are in AI & Machine Learning—the largest single category. You'll find names like outlast.ing ("Pay for time. Outlast everyone. Own the leaderboard."), VideoAny for AI-generated video and audio, and genzy.io for state-of-the-art AI image generation. If you're shipping an AI tool, this is where early adopters are actively hunting.

Startup founders iterating weekly. The weekly cycle is perfect for MVP-stage founders. You ship, you learn, you iterate, and you ship again. The winners showcase—Tura, ForthWrite, Probedex—shows that even serious products use the platform to build momentum while they stabilize their offering.

SEO-conscious makers. Let's be blunt: getting quality backlinks is a grind. For makers whose growth strategy relies on organic search, the DR 45 dofollow backlink is a tangible, verifiable win. No wondering whether the link passes value—it's a real, indexed, followed link.

Product Hunt alternatives seekers. Our own blog post, "5 Product Hunt Alternatives for Indie Makers in 2026", ranks Shipstry among the top alternatives for makers who want a less crowded, more community-driven launch experience. If you've felt buried on bigger platforms, this is the audience Shipstry serves best.

The category spread tells the story: Productivity (78), Design Tools (77), Marketing & Sales (77), Developer Tools (56). Plus Finance, Health & Wellness, Social, Entertainment, and more. This is a cross-industry community, not a niche corner.

Quick Start

Getting your product on Shipstry takes minutes, not days. Here's exactly how to go from "building" to "shipped."

1. Navigate to "Ship Product". You'll find it in the top navigation. It's the front door to the registry.

2. Review the submission guidelines. Shipstry keeps the bar clear: your product should be real, working, and ready for feedback. You're joining a registry of maker-built products, so the polish bar is about being genuine, not perfect.

3. Submit with a category. Pick where your product belongs—AI & Machine Learning, Productivity, Design Tools, Marketing & Sales, Developer Tools, and more. A well-chosen category helps early adopters actually find you.

4. (Optional) Choose Featured Placement. If your ship week matters and you want premium visibility, reserving a featured slot puts your product front and center. It's your call based on how much launch exposure you want.

5. (Optional) Add Done-for-you submission ($129). Skip the manual grind—Shipstry hand-submits your product to 60+ directories so you get broad coverage without the hours of form-filling.

6. Set up your Dashboard. Once submitted, your Dashboard tracks your product's performance—votes, traffic, and engagement. It's your command center for each weekly cycle.

7. Fetch your Badges. Display your launch status directly on your site with Shipstry badges. It's a clean way to show visitors you're actively shipping.

Shipstry's Ecosystem & Community

Shipstry doesn't exist in isolation—it's embedded in a wider launch ecosystem, and that's exactly the point. When you ship here, you're tapping into a network that extends far beyond one site.

Featured across 100+ directories and launch platforms. Shipstry itself has been listed and featured on numerous platforms, including SubmitMySaaS (Top 1 Daily Winner), ProductFame (Top 1 Daily Winner), AgentHunter (Featured AI Agent), and OpenHunts (Club Member). The platform practices what it preaches—it does the same distribution work it helps makers do.

Part of the TanStarter ecosystem. Shipstry is built with TanStarter, the complete TanStack Start boilerplate for building profitable SaaS. Notably, TanStarter itself was last month's winner on Shipstry—a beautiful example of the ecosystem helping its own roots grow.

Active community channels. Connect beyond the platform:

• Twitter/X: @puinoib_ — the founder, building in public

• Discord: join the server — real-time maker conversations

• Email: hi@shipstry.com — direct line to the team

• RSS: subscribe for every new ship

A real library of launch strategy. The Shipstry blog doesn't just market the platform—it teaches. Articles like "How to Stand Out When Every New Launch Looks Like Another AI Agent" and "How to Build Product Pages for Google's AI Search" give makers genuinely useful playbooks.

Winner showcase culture. Weekly winners (Tura, ForthWrite, Probedex) and monthly winners (TanStarter, Lip Sync AI, Viora) get highlighted and celebrated. It's not just a leaderboard—it's a culture where shipping well is recognized publicly. The Wakemark leaderboard tracks the most active community members each week, rewarding participation as much as results.

Join the Discord, follow the build on X, and you'll quickly see this isn't a transactional directory. It's a genuine community of makers helping each other get discovered.

Pricing & Packages

Shipstry's pricing philosophy is simple: make launching accessible, and let convenience be the premium. The core value—shipping your product and earning a dofollow backlink—is free. Paying only adds reach and saves you time.

Here's the full breakdown:

Here's what we want to be crystal clear about: the base product submission is free, and it always will be. That's core to our open community spirit. Your product gets listed, gets its weekly spotlight, and earns that dofollow backlink—no payment required.

The paid services—Featured Placement and Done-for-you Submission—are add-ons for convenience and reach, not gates on core functionality. Want to be seen faster? Reserve a slot. Want to save 10+ hours of directory submissions? Pay for the hand-submission. But the fundamental value is open for everyone.

This mirrors how we believe launch platforms should work: a strong, free foundation that the community relies on, with optional premium fast-tracks that don't disadvantage anyone who chooses to stay free.

Frequently Asked Questions