How to submit your design tool to Toools.design
TL;DR
Toools.design (styled TOOOLS.design) is a hand-picked directory of 2,406 design tools and resources, curated by designer Pascal Strasche since 2019. Suggesting a tool is free, but fewer than 4% of submissions make it in, and paid placements start at $100 for a newsletter spotlight. It suits startups whose product helps designers do their work.
What is Toools.design?
Toools.design sorts design software, assets and learning content into 18 categories and 178 subcategories, from AI Tools (290 entries) and Design Tools (309) to Typography, Icons, Mockups and Podcasts. One designer vets every entry, and anyone can browse for free without an account. Around the list sit a filterable Tool Finder, a beta Tool Consultant, a beta MCP connection for AI agents and a weekly newsletter. Issue #31 went out on 27 October 2026, and each issue presents the newest additions, so the directory still grows every week.
The audience is UI, UX, web and product designers, plus brand, graphic, motion and 3D designers, design engineers, founders and no-code builders. The site reports about 36,000 unique visitors and 165,000 pageviews a month.
Who should submit to Toools.design?
- Makers of design software: Figma plugins, AI design tools, color and font tools, prototyping and UX research apps.
- Creators of design assets: icon sets, illustration packs, UI kits, mockups and typefaces.
- Design-focused learning products: courses, books, podcasts and blogs.
- Skip it if your startup does not serve designers. The form itself says that only design-related, useful tools are considered, so a general SaaS, fintech or e-commerce tool wastes the reviewer's time and yours.
How much does Toools.design cost?
- Suggesting a tool: free, with no guarantee of a listing.
- Newsletter Spotlight: $100 for one issue, $175 for 2 weeks, $325 for 4 weeks. The newsletter reaches 3,800+ people every Tuesday, reports a 45% open rate and a 9.2% click rate, and carries one sponsor per issue.
- Homepage Feature: $200 for 4 weeks in the top spots of the homepage.
- Category Page Feature: a fixed spot at the top of a subcategory for 4 weeks, priced on request.
Paid spots are booked by email at sponsor@toools.design.
How do you submit your tool to Toools.design?
- Open the Toools.design suggestion form.
- Fill in the link URL, the tool name and a description of up to 120 characters, then choose the pricing model: Beta, Free, Free + Paid, Free Trial, Freemium or Paid.
- Add your email and an optional message, then click Submit tool.
- Wait for the review. The site publishes no review time and guarantees nothing, so follow the weekly newsletter to see when your tool appears.
Tips to get more out of Toools.design
- Write the 120 characters for a designer: name the task your tool handles and the software it works with, in plain words.
- Use the message field to name the category and subcategory that fit, and to say what your tool does that the entries already listed there do not.
- Pick the honest pricing label. The Tool Finder filters by price, and a wrong label brings the wrong visitors.
- Test with the $100 spotlight before the $200 homepage feature, and time it with a launch or a big release so the clicks land on something new.
- The DA of 36 belongs to toools.design. Count on clicks from designers looking for tools first.
Our verdict
Toools.design is one of the better-kept design tool lists: one curator, weekly additions and a strict filter. For a product designers use every day, the free submission takes 10 minutes and is worth sending. Products outside design should skip it.
More options: see all design galleries and portfolio sites. Planning the launch around this listing? The Fe/male Switch startup game walks women founders from idea to first customers.