Favors.dev
The short answer
To get listed on Capterra for free, open a vendor account with a company email, claim the page if one already exists or submit your product, and wait for the review. The listing costs nothing. It only starts to matter once a real customer review is on it, so plan the first ten reviews before you submit, and never pay for them.
Most guides stop at the sign-up form, which is the easy part. A Capterra page with no reviews gets almost no attention, because the people who use the site arrive to compare products by what other customers said. This guide covers the request, what approval looks for, the profile, and then the part that decides the outcome: how to get the first reviews from the first ten customers without buying them.
Is a Capterra listing free?
Yes, a basic listing is free. Capterra is free for people choosing software, and it states that software providers pay for sponsored profiles to receive web traffic and sales opportunities. That is the business model in one sentence: the free listing gets you on the site, and the paid tier buys you a better position on it.
What is not included in free is placement. Capterra's category pages are an auction in part, so a sponsored product can sit above one with more reviews. That sounds discouraging, but for a new product it points the right way. You cannot outbid anyone yet, and you do not need to. You need a complete profile and a handful of honest reviews, and both are free.
One note on sources. Capterra's own vendor and guideline pages block automated readers, so the process below comes from independent 2026 write-ups that agree with each other and from the structure of the site. Confirm each step on the live form, especially anything about timing and incentives.
How do you request the listing and get approved?
The form is short and the account is the first step. Capterra often has a page for your product already, built from public information, so check before you create anything. Here are the six steps in order.
01Check whether a page for your product already exists
Capterra often builds listings from public information. Search for your product name first, and claim the page if it is there instead of creating a second one.
02Open a vendor account with a company email
Go through the For Vendors area and sign up with an address on your own domain. Free webmail addresses are the most common reason a request stalls.
03Submit the product details
Enter the product name, website, a short description and the category or categories that fit. Choose the narrowest category that is true.
04Wait for the review of your request
Capterra checks that the product is real and publicly available before it goes live. Do not resubmit while you wait.
05Fill every field of the profile
Add a logo, screenshots, pricing, features and integrations. Half-empty profiles look abandoned next to complete ones.
06Invite real customers to review
Use the plan below, starting with the people who have used the product longest.
Approval is a check that the product is real, public and describes itself honestly. The listing guidelines Capterra publishes say it builds or checks listings from publicly available information, and the practical consequences are simple. A working website, a clear description of what the product does and a way to actually use it or sign up all help. A coming-soon page with an email box does not.
Choose your category with care. A narrow, accurate category beats a broad one you cannot win. If your product is project management for a specific trade, say so instead of filing it under general project management against the biggest names. The same positioning discipline applies here as in the SaaSHub submission guide, and the launch directories guide explains where a review site sits in the order you submit.
How do you complete the profile properly?
Treat the profile as the page a skeptical buyer reads at the end of their search. They have already seen your site. They are here to check you against what other people say, so every field you leave empty reads as something you would rather not say.
- Description. Lead with who it is for and the problem it solves. Skip the feature dump.
- Pricing. Show real prices or a real starting price. A page that says contact us loses to one that does not.
- Screenshots. Use the actual product on a real task, not marketing graphics.
- Features and integrations. List what exists today. Do not list what is planned.
- Categories. One accurate main category and a few related ones.
- Links. Point to a page where the visitor can try the product, not only the homepage.
Keep it current. Pricing changes, features ship and a stale profile sitting next to fresh competitors costs trust at the exact moment a buyer is comparing. Put a monthly reminder on your calendar to re-read the page as a stranger would.
How do you get the first genuine reviews?
The first reviews are the hard ones, because there is no social proof yet and every request is a favor. The rule underneath the plan is that you ask people who have used the product, and you ask them to say what is true. You never choose the rating or the words.
The first-ten-customers review plan
Pair each request to a customer in order, one at a time. If you do not have ten customers yet, the guide to getting your first ten paying customers comes first, and the listing can wait.
| Customers | What you do | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Customers 1 to 3 | Ask in a personal email, one at a time | Name the specific thing they did with the product. These first reviews set the tone for the page. |
| Customers 4 to 6 | Ask after a clear win, such as a finished project or a renewal | People write the most useful review right after the product has just helped them. |
| Customers 7 to 8 | Ask people who gave you feedback or a testimonial earlier | They have already put their thoughts into words once, so the review is a small step. |
| Customers 9 to 10 | Ask the one customer who was unhappy and got a fix | A review that mentions a problem and how it was handled reads as honest. |
Keep the message short and personal. Say what they did with the product, say that a review on Capterra helps the next buyer in their position, and link straight to the review page. Do not attach a reward, do not suggest a rating and do not send it to everyone at once. Spread the requests over several weeks. A cluster of new reviews on the same day from new accounts looks like what it is, and review platforms check for that.
What not to do
Founders may tell customers that the page exists. What gets a listing demoted or reviews removed is manipulation, and the list is short.
- Asking only for five-star reviews, or telling people what to write
- Offering your own reward in exchange for a positive review
- Mass-emailing your whole list the day the page goes live
- Writing reviews yourself, or asking friends who never used the product
- Reviewing a competitor badly to move yourself up
- Buying reviews from a service
There is also a legal edge. The federal rule on consumer reviews states that it is an unfair or deceptive practice for a business to provide compensation or incentives conditioned on reviews expressing a particular sentiment, positive or negative. Google's spam policies take the same view of manipulative links and content. An honest plan is the safe plan. For the wider playbook on asking customers for proof, read how to get your first reviews and how to get testimonials for a new product.
What about the paid options?
Paid placement exists, and it is priced per lead, so it can cost real money quickly. It makes sense once the free page has reviews, a conversion path that works and a clear idea of what a visitor is worth to you. Before that, you would be paying to send traffic to a page that cannot yet persuade anyone. Capterra also runs its own review campaigns under its published community guidelines, and those are the only incentive route to look at. Read the terms on the live site first, since they change.
Where Capterra sits among the other directories is covered in which startup directory backlinks are worth it, and the Favors.dev directories atlas entry for Capterra lists the submission route. It also helps to have somewhere else that shows real people using the product, such as the Favors.dev apps directory, which collects honest reviews from other founders.
Frequently asked questions
Is a Capterra listing really free?
A basic listing is free. Capterra is free for software buyers, and it earns its money from vendors who pay for sponsored placement. You can claim a profile, complete it and collect reviews without paying, and you can decide later whether paid placement is worth it.
How long does Capterra take to approve a listing?
Capterra does not publish a guaranteed timeline. Independent write-ups describe a few business days for the vendor account and the listing review. Submit with a complete, accurate form, avoid resubmitting, and do not plan a launch around an approval date.
Can I list a brand-new product with no customers?
You can usually get a page, but it will do very little. A profile with no reviews is hard for a buyer to trust and sits low in category pages. If you have no customers yet, spend the time getting your first ten users and come back to the listing once some of them have used the product for a few weeks.
Can I pay or reward customers for Capterra reviews?
Not on your own. The FTC rule on consumer reviews makes it unlawful to give compensation or incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, and a rewarded review of any kind is a risk on a platform that checks for it. Capterra runs its own review programs under its published community guidelines, so if incentives interest you, read those terms on the live site rather than improvising.
Is Capterra better than G2 for a small SaaS?
They reach overlapping but different buyers, and for a one-person product neither is urgent until you have real reviews to show. Start with the one where your customers already spend time, collect a handful of honest reviews, and add the second later.