There's An AI For That vs LaunchIt: An Honest Comparison for 2026

If you have built an AI product, two names keep coming up in every "where should I submit this" conversation: There's An AI For That, the giant of AI tool directories, and LaunchIt, the launch platform you are reading right now. Founders regularly ask us which one is worth their time, so here is the honest answer, with a disclosure you should weigh while reading: LaunchIt is our platform. We will make the strongest fair case for both, because the real answer is not the one you might expect from a comparison page on our own blog.

The short version

There's An AI For That (TAAFT to its regulars) is a discovery database: enormous, AI-only, organized around the question "is there an AI for this task?". LaunchIt is a launch platform and startup directory: smaller, product-agnostic, organized around giving each product a launch moment, a permanent page, and an SEO asset. One is a phone book with massive reach; the other is a stage with a backlink attached. They compete for your submission time, not really with each other, and for most AI products the correct strategy uses both. The rest of this article is the detail behind that verdict.

What There's An AI For That does well

TAAFT earned its position. It grew with the AI wave into one of the largest AI tool databases on the internet, spanning tens of thousands of tools mapped to thousands of specific tasks, with a release timeline that doubles as a history of the AI boom and a newsletter with a very large subscriber base.

• Task-first discovery. Its core insight is that people do not search for "AI writing assistant category leaders"; they search for the job: "AI that removes image backgrounds", "AI that summarizes PDFs". TAAFT's whole structure mirrors that, which is why it ranks so well for the long tail of "AI for X" searches.
• Serious authority and traffic. It is one of the highest-authority AI directories, and a listing there puts you inside a site that search engines and AI assistants crawl constantly when answering "best AI tool for X" questions.
• An audience that already wants AI. Everyone browsing arrived by asking for an AI solution. If your product fits a task they search, the intent match is excellent.

The honest limitations follow from the same scale:

• You are one row among tens of thousands. A listing is not a moment; it is an entry. Without paid placement, standing out inside a database that size depends almost entirely on matching the exact task someone searches.
• Visibility increasingly costs money. Like most large directories, TAAFT monetizes through featured spots and promotional placements, and pricing has trended upward as its audience grew. Check its current submission terms before budgeting; they change often enough that we will not quote numbers here.
• AI-only, by design. If your product is not an AI tool, or its AI angle is thin, this is simply not your channel, and stretching to fit ("our to-do list has an AI summary button!") tends to underperform.

What LaunchIt does differently

LaunchIt is built around a different job: not cataloguing everything that exists, but giving each product that launches a real shot at being seen, and leaving something permanent behind. Grade the following accordingly, since it is our own pitch:

• A launch moment, not just a row. Every product gets guaranteed homepage placement on its launch day, with community votes, comments, and a ranking. The audience is smaller than TAAFT's, but on your day, you are on the front page, not on page 40 of a category.
• A dofollow backlink that keeps working. Every listing includes a permanent page and a dofollow backlink, which compounds into your domain authority long after launch week. That is the part most founders undervalue on day one and value most in month six; it is the mechanic our whole traffic playbook is built on.
• Any product, not only AI. SaaS, dev tools, communities, side projects: the category pages and tags cover the whole maker spectrum.
• Founder-friendly pricing. The basic launch is free in exchange for a badge on your site; the Premium Launch is a one-time $19 that skips the badge and the queue. No recurring fees for staying listed.

And the honest limitations on our side: LaunchIt's audience is a fraction of TAAFT's, our domain authority is growing but younger, and if your only goal is raw AI-seeker traffic at maximum scale, the bigger database wins that single dimension. We would rather tell you that plainly than have you discover it annoyed.

Head to head, dimension by dimension

The dimension founders weigh wrong

Most founders compare directories on one axis: audience size. That is the wrong single metric, because the value of a submission is reach multiplied by your odds of being seen, plus what remains afterward.

TAAFT has enormous reach, but your odds of being surfaced depend on owning a specific task keyword or paying for placement, and what remains afterward is an entry in their database. LaunchIt has modest reach, but your launch-day visibility is guaranteed rather than probabilistic, and what remains afterward is a backlink and a page that feeds your domain, not only ours. These are different products entirely. It is the same reason our directory roundup keeps repeating one principle: quality directories are not substitutes for each other; each adds a different asset to the stack.

So which one should you pick?

If your product is an AI tool: both, in sequence. Launch on LaunchIt first to get the launch spike, the votes, the review activity, and the dofollow backlink while your site is young and needs authority most. Then list on There's An AI For That so the long tail of "AI for X" searchers can find you for years. The combined cost is one badge or $19 plus whatever TAAFT currently charges, and the two assets compound rather than overlap.

If your product is not an AI tool: TAAFT is not an option, and your version of this question is which launch platforms and general directories to stack; our launch platform comparison covers that terrain honestly, LaunchIt's placement in it included.

If you can only do one thing this week: do the one with the launch moment. A launch generates the votes, comments, and first users that make every later listing look alive instead of abandoned, and gives your landing page real traffic to convert. A database entry does not care when it goes live; a launch benefits from going first.

Frequently asked questions

Is There's An AI For That worth it for a brand-new AI tool?

Generally yes, if the current submission cost fits your budget and your tool maps cleanly to a task people actually search. Its long-tail search presence is the asset you are buying into. Just go in with accurate expectations: it is discovery infrastructure, not a launch event.

Does LaunchIt accept AI tools?

Yes, AI products are one of our largest categories. You get the same guaranteed homepage launch, votes, permanent listing, and dofollow backlink as every other product, and AI-related tags route category traffic to your page afterward.

Which one is better for SEO?

Different mechanisms. TAAFT gives you presence inside a very high-authority site, which can rank for your brand and task searches. LaunchIt gives you a dofollow backlink that raises your own domain's authority, which helps every page on your site rank. If you are playing the long game for your own domain, the backlink is the rarer asset; our SEO guide explains why referring domains are the bottleneck for most startup sites.

Do AI assistants like ChatGPT use these sites?

Both, in different ways. Large directories are heavily represented in the sources AI assistants read when recommending tools, so presence on both feeds your AI visibility. If you want to see whether the assistants mention you yet, run your brand through our free ChatGPT mention tracker, and read the full playbook on getting recommended by LLMs.

The bottom line

There's An AI For That is the best pure-scale discovery database for AI tools, and pretending otherwise would insult your intelligence. LaunchIt is the better launch: guaranteed day-one visibility, community proof, and a dofollow backlink you keep forever, for free or $19. They answer different questions, so let your bottleneck decide the order: need authority and a launch moment? Start here. Need long-tail AI-seeker traffic at maximum scale? Add TAAFT. Building something real? Do both and move on to shipping.