How much do directory websites make? Based on numbers I can actually verify: a small niche directory typically makes $500-5,000 per month in its first year, and established directories earn anywhere from $80,000 to $400,000+ per year.
I am not guessing. My own directory, OpenAlternative, makes about $6,500 per month. Nomad List has publicly reported around $33,000 per month. SaaSHub crossed $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Sober Nation reportedly profits over $250,000 a year.
Quick disclosure: I also build Dirstarter, a Next.js directory boilerplate, so I am obviously biased toward directories as a business model. That is exactly why I only use numbers that founders have shared publicly, with sources linked. Here is what the data says.
How Much Do Directory Websites Make? Five Real Examples
| Directory | Revenue | Primary model |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAlternative | Ads, sponsorships, featured listings | |
| Nomad List | ~$33,000/month reported | Paid community membership |
| SaaSHub | $10,000+/month MRR | Featured listings |
| Sober Nation | $250,000+/year profit | Listings and lead generation |
| BetaList | Close to $1M lifetime | Advertising, expedited listings |
OpenAlternative: ~$80,000/year
This one is mine, so the numbers are first-hand. OpenAlternative is a directory of open source software alternatives that I built in 48 hours. It now gets about 70,000 monthly visitors and generates roughly $6,500 per month.
The split: around 65% comes from ads and sponsorships, and about 35% comes from featured listings at $197 per month. It took roughly a year to reach meaningful revenue. The full breakdown is in the OpenAlternative case study.
Nomad List: roughly $360-400k/year
Pieter Levels built Nomad List, a directory of the best cities for remote workers, and has shared revenue openly for years. In his Indie Hackers interview he reported around $33,000 per month, which works out to roughly $400k a year, and his publicly shared figures have hovered in that $300-400k range.
The interesting part is the model. Nomad List charges users a paid membership instead of charging the listed cities (obviously). It proves directories can monetize the audience directly, not just the businesses being listed.
SaaSHub: $120,000+/year
Stan Bright's SaaSHub is a software comparison directory pulling around 1.3 million monthly views. According to a breakdown on Indie Hackers, it generates over $10,000 in MRR from roughly 100 featured listings, with most content user-generated and most traffic from SEO.
Stan also runs LibHunt, an ad-funded open source directory with even more traffic. Same playbook, different niche.
Sober Nation: $250,000+/year in profit
Tim Stoddart's Sober Nation is an addiction recovery directory that, per this case study, generates over $250,000 in profit annually. Treatment centers pay to be featured, and the site routes leads to paying facilities.
This is the high end of niche economics. When one customer is worth thousands of dollars to the businesses you list, those businesses pay serious money for placement.
BetaList: close to $1M lifetime revenue
Marc Köhlbrugge's BetaList, a directory of early-stage startups, has generated close to $1 million over its lifetime according to his 10-year retrospective. He started ad slots at $50 per week and kept doubling the price until people said no, landing at $1,500 per week.
Revenue Per Visitor: The Benchmark That Matters
Raw revenue hides the most useful insight, so let's do the math on revenue per visitor per month. These are estimates derived from the cited figures above, not reported metrics.
OpenAlternative: $6,500 divided by 70,000 visitors is about $0.09 per visitor per month. SaaSHub: $10,000 divided by 1.3 million views is under $0.01 per visitor.
That is a 10x difference between two software directories. The gap comes from monetization depth: OpenAlternative stacks ads, sponsorships, and premium listings on every page, while SaaSHub monetizes a thin slice of its massive traffic through featured slots.
A reasonable benchmark: directories earn $0.01-0.10 per visitor per month, depending on niche and monetization. If you have 20,000 monthly visitors and earn less than $200, you have a monetization problem, not a traffic problem.
Pro tip: calculate this number for your own site every month. It tells you whether your next move should be more traffic or better monetization, which are completely different workstreams.
What Separates $500/Month From $30,000/Month
Three variables explain almost all of the variance in these numbers.
Commercial intent of the niche. Sober Nation out-earns directories with far more traffic because a single patient is worth thousands to a treatment center. A directory of free knitting patterns could have identical traffic and make 50x less. This is why picking the niche is the highest-leverage decision you will make, and why I maintain a list of 50 profitable directory niche ideas sorted by exactly this.
Traffic, obviously, but with a catch. Traffic multiplies whatever your per-visitor economics are. SaaSHub needed 1.3 million views to hit $10k/month. Sober Nation needs a fraction of that. Build traffic in a niche with weak intent and you are multiplying a small number.
Revenue model stacking. Almost every directory above $5k/month runs multiple models at once: ads plus sponsorships plus featured listings plus lead gen. OpenAlternative's 65/35 split between sponsorships and listings is typical. I break down how each mechanism works in the directory revenue models guide, so I will not repeat it here. The short version: one revenue stream is a hobby, three is a business.
How Long Until a Directory Makes Money
Here is the timeline I give people who ask, based on my own sites and the public reports above.
Most directories take 3-6 months to see their first revenue. That first dollar is usually a featured listing or a small sponsorship, and it arrives once you have enough traffic that businesses notice you.
A good niche directory reaches $1,000-5,000 per month by the end of year one. OpenAlternative's roughly one-year timeline matches what I see from founders using Dirstarter in our showcase. Nomad List and SaaSHub took years to reach their current numbers.
If someone promises you $10k/month in 90 days, they are selling a course. The honest path is: launch fast, spend months building traffic and trust, then monetize an audience that already finds you useful. The full playbook is in my guide on how to start an online directory business.
The Honest Bottom Line
So, how much do directory websites make? Realistic year-one range: $500-5,000 per month. Established range: $80,000-400,000+ per year, with outliers like Sober Nation proving the ceiling is set by your niche's economics, not by the directory format itself.
The format works. It worked when these sites launched years ago, and it works now. What changed is that building one no longer takes months: the technical build is a weekend project today, which means the niche choice and the monetization work are where you should spend your thinking.
The numbers above are why I keep building directories. They compound quietly while you sleep, and almost nobody is paying attention.
