Who do the AI engines
actually cite?

Each listing is a researched record that must pass an automated quality gate (a minimum of structured fields, sourced facts and an on-topic fit-check) before it can be published. Thin pages are structurally impossible.

Yes. Browsing and searching the directory is free, and submitting a tool is free too. Every submission is researched and quality-gated the same way.

Yes, and here is exactly how far. A tool whose owner buys Featured or Premium is placed above the free listings in the same list, with Premium above Featured, and every row a placement moves carries the word "Advertisement" where you see it, on first paint and not behind a click. The lead is finite: at most three paid listings pin to the top of a category or tag page and at most two to the home picks grid, and beyond that a paid listing is spaced through the list rather than stacked. Inside the paid group and the free group alike the order is newest first, then alphabetical, so payment never reorders you against another listing on the same tier. What it never buys: the verdict, any researched fact, an exclusion, the quality gate, or anything at all about a competitor. The whole rule, and why placement is weighted first, is at /methodology.

Yes. It costs $99 a year, it auto-renews, and it is one link: the destination link on your own listing page, sold for the exact URL you bought it for. Next to that link, as visible text in the same place and on first paint, sits the word "Advertisement" and a sentence saying you pay for the link. Every other outbound link on the site stays no-follow, so this moves nothing on a category page, a tag page, a best-of, or any listing but yours. It also buys no position: payment is not an input to any order on this site, and a followed link is not an ordering input anywhere in the code. Two named conditions end it before the term does: the destination stops resolving, or we withdraw followed links across the whole fleet, in which case the unused part of your term is refunded. If you change your website URL, the followed attribute does not move with it, because the link was sold and checked for one destination.

Every listing is re-researched on a schedule, and each fact carries the source it was verified from, with the verification date printed on the listing. Changes land in the listing changelog, not silently.

No. A rating is only worth reading when its input is independent of whoever publishes it — thousands of verified users, or a product measured on a bench. We do research instead, and any number derived from research would be measuring how much we found, not how good the tool is. So every listing lists the sources it is built from — each labelled with the claims it supports — says when we last re-verified it and what changed, names who it is best for and who it is not for, and lists real limitations.

Submit it free. The research agent builds a sourced listing, the quality gate checks it, and if it fits the taxonomy it publishes. You claim it from your inbox and manage it (including upgrades) from your dashboard.