How we make money
We sell three things. None of them changes whether your software is accepted, where it appears in browsing and search, or the link to your website. Paid extras appear only in areas labelled Sponsored.
What we sell
| Price | What it does | |
|---|---|---|
| Fast-track review | €29 once | Moves your submission to the front of the review queue |
| Enhanced Profile | €59 a year | Adds a button, your social links and four more screenshots to your listing |
| Launch Spotlight | €49 once | One week in the clearly labelled sponsored sections |
All prices include VAT where it applies. The price you see is the price charged.
What money never buys
This is the part that matters, so we will be exact.
Payment never affects:
- whether your listing is accepted. Fast-track buys a place in the queue, not a different answer. A rejected fast-track submission is not charged at all.
- where you appear in listings or search. Ordering is the same for everybody.
- your website link. Every published listing gets the same plain link to the product's site. It is identical for paid and unpaid listings, and payment cannot change it, remove it, or alter how it is marked.
- whether you are indexed by search engines.
- the checks and the decision on anything you submit later.
Paid placement appears in one place only: sections labelled Sponsored. They are visually separate from the ordinary listings, and every link inside them is marked as sponsored, which is what tells search engines not to treat them as recommendations.
How listings are ordered
Software is listed newest first, by the date it was published onXenindex. That is the whole rule for lists. There is no scoring, no quality weighting, and no way to pay to move. A search with words lists the closest matches first, then newest first; payment changes neither.
You can check this yourself: compare any category page against the dates the listings were added, shown on each one.
A listing's page can also show up to three alternatives. The company behind the listing picks them from the other software on Xenindex; for a listing nobody has claimed yet, we pick them. We read every choice before it is shown. Alternatives are free for every listing, and payment plays no part in which ones are shown.
Why we work this way
A directory that sells its ordering is worth nothing to the people reading it, and within a year it is worth nothing to the people paying either. Keeping the editorial side and the commercial side genuinely separate is the only way the free listings stay worth having.