Everyone says submit to SaaS directories so AI finds you. I measured 172 citations across 4 categories. Directories got 1.

The advice is everywhere and it sounds right: get listed on G2, Capterra, AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, Crunchbase and Product Hunt, because that is where AI assistants learn which products exist.

I believed it enough to block out an afternoon for it. Before spending the afternoon, I measured it. I am glad I did, because in the data I have, the advice is close to backwards.

What I measured

I run a tool that asks ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the questions buyers actually type, as live web searches, and records the source pages behind each answer. I ran it across four software categories:

AI SEO tools