The indie maker directory where backlinks compound. Submit your SaaS, newsletter, course, Gumroad asset, Etsy storefront, Discord server, podcast, productized service, or weekend side project. Permanent listings, human reviewed, with a dofollow backlink to your site.
plugyourbuild.com · Pricing · Submit a listing · Blog · Sunday digest
Plug Your Build is a categorized directory built specifically for indie makers and solo operators. Every listing is permanent and persists as long as the badge stays embedded (free tier) or the subscription stays active (paid tiers). The site has twelve top-level categories, browse pages for each, click and impression analytics on the maker dashboard, an Editor's Pick spotlight, an auto-rotating "In the Spotlight" rail of paid placements, and a Sunday newsletter that surfaces the week's best indie work to a growing list of indie-curious readers.
The directory exists because indie products lose visibility quickly on social media but retain value indefinitely on directories. A tweet has a half-life of about eighteen minutes. A Product Hunt launch is a twenty-four-hour sprint. A directory listing produces a steady drip of search-qualified traffic for as long as it stays live.
Plug Your Build runs a true backlink flywheel. Every listing gets a permanent dofollow link from plugyourbuild.com to your site. As the directory's domain authority climbs, the link gets more valuable. The free tier is the engine: free listings trade a "Listed on Plug Your Build" badge embedded on the maker's own site or GitHub README for a permanent dofollow link back. Every embedded badge sends a signal to plugyourbuild.com, which lifts the value of every paid listing's outbound link, which makes paid listings more valuable, which funds the directory. The trade works in both directions.
Different jobs. A launch platform optimizes for the day-of spike. A directory optimizes for the long tail.
For most indie products, the directory does more total work over twelve months than any individual launch. A cluster of five quality directory listings, maintained and updated, can drive a thousand-plus monthly targeted visitors by month twelve, with no ongoing effort beyond keeping the listings current. The traffic from directories is search-qualified in a way social traffic almost never is, because directory browsers searched their way to the listing.
Plug Your Build is one such directory, built specifically for indie work rather than enterprise SaaS or AI hype cycles.
- SaaS and software products
- Newsletters
- Online courses and educational products
- Gumroad and digital products (templates, ebooks, scripts, prompts, design assets)
- Etsy and physical crafts (handmade goods, prints, merch)
- Discord servers and communities
- Podcasts
- Productized services
- Side projects and weekend builds
- Devtools, CLI utilities, open-source libraries
- Mobile apps
- Other (the catch-all for indie work that doesn't fit neatly)
Four tiers. One free, three paid. The free tier trades a badge for a permanent listing. The paid tiers skip the trade and pick your placement.
$0 forever. The trade: embed a "Listed on Plug Your Build" badge on a website you control OR in a public GitHub repo README.
- Permanent listing while the badge stays embedded
- Dofollow backlink from PYB to your site
- Chronological placement in the feed and your category
- 10 free approvals per day across all submissions (resets midnight UTC)
- 1 active free listing per account
- 3-day moderation queue (auto-publishes if not rejected)
- Weekly badge verification
- Marketplace-only listings (Gumroad, Etsy, Discord, App Store) require a separate website or GitHub repo for the badge, or start at $3.99/month
$3.99/month or $39.99/year. 14-day free trial.
- No badge requirement on your site
- 24-hour manual review (no 3-day queue)
- Permanent listing, no daily cap on submissions
- Eligible for Sunday digest mentions
- Chronological placement in your category
- Cancel anytime, listing remains until end of period
$99 once for the first 50 founding spots, then $149.
- Everything in Indie, forever
- One-time payment, no renewal email ever
- Founding member badge on your listing card (first 50)
- First in line for new Pro features
- 30-day refund window
$14.99/month or $149.99/year. 14-day free trial.
- Top of category
- Always in the Sunday digest
- Weekly auto-refresh that resurfaces you to "Newest builds"
- Spotlight badge on listing card
- Priority Q&A handling
- Editorial spotlight rotation
- Roughly 3x average click-through versus Indie
Run multiple listings if you ship across multiple categories. Each listing is billed separately.
Real indie work in any of the categories above. The bar is intentionally low for indie and solo work. The moderation focus is on quality and safety, not gatekeeping.
Concrete examples of submissions that fit:
- A solo-built SaaS at $0 MRR
- A weekly newsletter with twelve subscribers
- A Discord server with fifty members
- A Gumroad template doing $30 a month
- A productized service one person delivers
- A weekend side project that's still in beta
- A podcast with eight episodes published
- An open-source devtool or CLI utility
Stage is not a gate. Polished and rough listings sit next to each other in browse, sorted by recency and category.
SFW only. Plug Your Build is a clean, family-safe directory across every category. The following are immediate rejection:
- NSFW content of any kind (adult content, explicit imagery, sexual services or platforms)
- Scams, MLM, get-rich-quick schemes, pyramid structures
- Gambling, betting, casino-adjacent products
- Crypto pump-and-dump tokens, rug-pull projects, "investment opportunities" without substance
- Illegal goods, controlled substances, weapons
- Misleading, deceptive, or impersonation listings
- Spam, duplicate submissions, or low-effort listings created in bulk
- Stolen IP or counterfeit goods
- Hate speech, harassment, or products targeting groups for harm
Borderline cases are reviewed individually. The standard: would a typical professional be comfortable having this listing surface on their work computer next to other indie products. If the answer is no, the listing is rejected with a proration refund.
- Sign up and pick the Free tier at plugyourbuild.com/dashboard/listings/new.
- Fill in basics, upload a square logo, pick a badge host (your website or a public GitHub repo).
- Paste the embed code into your site footer or GitHub README and click Verify.
- The listing enters a 3-day queue. Most submissions are manually approved sooner. If we don't reject it within 3 days, it auto-publishes.
- Once live, the badge is checked weekly. Two consecutive missed checks pauses the listing until the badge is re-embedded.
- Pick Indie, Pro Lifetime, or Spotlight at plugyourbuild.com/pricing.
- Fill in the same details. No badge required, no queue.
- Stripe handles billing. Cancel anytime through the Stripe Customer Portal.
- A human reviewer checks the submission for SFW compliance and category fit. Most submissions go live within 24 hours.
If a submission needs an edit before approval, you receive an email with a specific note. If a paid submission is rejected outright, the Stripe subscription is canceled with a proration refund.
Every listing on PYB can embed a "Listed on Plug Your Build" badge on the maker's own site or GitHub README. Free-tier listings require it. Paid-tier listings get it as a bonus social-proof asset.
The badge endpoint serves three style variants:
https://plugyourbuild.com/api/badge/your-slug?style=dark
https://plugyourbuild.com/api/badge/your-slug?style=light
https://plugyourbuild.com/api/badge/your-slug?style=transparent
HTML embed for a website footer:
<a href="https://plugyourbuild.com/listing/your-slug" rel="dofollow">
<img src="https://plugyourbuild.com/api/badge/your-slug?style=dark"
alt="Listed on Plug Your Build" width="180" height="40" />
</a>Markdown embed for a GitHub README:
[](https://plugyourbuild.com/listing/your-slug)The badge does two things at once. It signals to other indie makers that the product is part of a curated directory, and it produces a small reciprocal SEO benefit for both sides. As PYB's domain authority climbs, the value of every embedded badge climbs with it.
This GitHub repository exists as a brand presence and a public reference point. The site code itself is not open source.
If you found this repo because you're considering a listing on Plug Your Build, the answers to most questions are above. If something is missing, the contact links below are the right path.
- Site: plugyourbuild.com
- Blog: plugyourbuild.com/blog
- Pricing: plugyourbuild.com/pricing
- Submit a listing: plugyourbuild.com/dashboard/listings/new
- Sunday digest: subscribe in the footer at plugyourbuild.com
- X: @PlugYourBuild
- Discord: discord.gg/XtQmY3Jqsk
Plug Your Build is built and operated by Ninsei Labs, an AI-powered agency and micro SaaS studio. Ninsei runs Plug Your Build as one of its own products on the same agentic infrastructure it builds for clients. Solo operator. Premium boutique posture. The directory grows alongside the rest of Ninsei's work.
For partnerships, press, or operator questions, reach out via the contact path on plugyourbuild.com.