Ten places to launch that aren't Product Hunt, what each one is actually good for, and which ones we'd skip if you're short on time.
Billion Dollar Pitch Decks··8 min read
In short
One launch on one site isn't a plan. Five or six over a couple of months works better.
Smaller sites send less traffic but the people who show up are usually a better fit.
Half of these are directories, not launches. No spike, but the listing keeps working.
If you've got no budget and no audience, start with Tiny Startups.
Match the site to what you built. Dev tool? Dev Hunt. SaaS? SaaS.fyi. Nothing shipped yet? BetaList.
Four of these are ours: Tiny Startups, Startups.fm, Startup Spotlight and SaaS.fyi. We run a network of startup directories, so read the rankings with that in mind. We've tried to be straight about what each one does and doesn't do.
You pick a Tuesday. You message everyone you know. By Thursday it's over, you got a couple hundred visitors, and maybe two of them signed up. That's what a Product Hunt launch looks like for most people now.
Product Hunt isn't broken. It still works, mostly for people who already had an audience before they posted. If you're launching your first thing to nobody in particular, the front page is a hard place to win, and the traffic you do get disappears in about 48 hours.
So the useful question isn't which site replaces Product Hunt. Nothing does. It's where else you can post, and what you're actually trying to get out of it. Sometimes that's traffic. Often it's a link that sits there for years.
Traffic or links: pick before you start
Roughly half the sites below are launch platforms. You post, people vote, you get a day or two of attention. The other half are directories. Nothing happens on the day you submit. Your listing just sits there and turns up in search months later.
Both are worth doing, but they pay out differently, and founders get annoyed when they expect one and get the other. If you submit to a directory and then check your analytics that evening, you'll think it failed. It didn't. It's just not that kind of thing.
Best for Your first launch, especially with no budget
Format
Weekly leaderboard + directory
Cost
Free
Audience
20,000+ early adopters, per the site
You keep
Permanent listing, do-follow link
The leaderboard runs weekly instead of daily, which matters more than it sounds. You're not trying to beat everything that launched in one 24-hour window, so a small product has a real chance of finishing near the top.
The other useful bit is that launching and getting listed are the same action. The leaderboard resets, the listing doesn't, so you still have the page and the link afterwards.
It's free and takes about an hour. If you only do one thing off this list, do this one.
Stands outWeekly format means small products can actually win.
Watch outIt's not going to send you the traffic a good Product Hunt day would. Nothing here will.
BetaList is for the stage where you've got a landing page and a waitlist and not much else. Its readers know that going in, which is the opposite of Product Hunt, where showing up half-built gets you punished.
Post here while you're still building. The emails you collect become the people you can actually notify on launch day later.
The free queue is slow. Genuinely slow, sometimes weeks. If your launch depends on hitting a particular date, either pay to schedule it or submit much earlier than feels necessary.
Stands outThe only site here where being unfinished helps you.
Watch outPlan around the queue or pay for it. Don't assume you'll be up next week.
A professional network for people who build things.
Best for Technical products, and founders building a reputation
Format
Network with a weekly Launchpad
Cost
Free
Audience
Engineers, designers, technical founders
You keep
The project on your profile
Everyone voting has a real profile with their actual work on it. You get fewer votes than you would elsewhere and better comments, because the people leaving them can read your code.
It also attaches to you rather than just the product, which is worth something if you're going to launch more than one thing.
Skew is heavily technical. A consumer app will find a thin audience here.
Stands outComments from people who understand what you built.
Best for When you need a guaranteed slot on a specific day
Format
Daily launches + directory
Cost
Free tier, paid tiers for placement
Audience
85,000 makers, per the site
You keep
Directory listing, do-follow link
The pitch is that you pay and you're definitely on the homepage, rather than hoping. If you've already had a launch sink without trace, that certainty is worth paying for.
The free tier is real and worth using first. Try it, see what a free slot gets you, then decide whether the paid one is worth it for the next launch.
Stands outYou can buy a known outcome instead of gambling.
This is a directory, so nothing happens the day you submit. Your listing gets filed under your category, your city and your country, and then it sits there.
What it's good for is the search nobody plans for. Somebody types "AI startups in Berlin" four months from now and finds you. That's closer to how people actually go looking for tools than any launch-day mechanic is.
It tracks funding and open roles too, so the listing does a bit of work for hiring as well.
Stands outStill working in month eight, when a launch spike is long gone.
Watch outSubmit it and forget it. Checking your analytics that night will only disappoint you.
Best for B2B software, where the reader might actually buy
Format
Curated SaaS directory
Cost
Free
Audience
People shopping for software
You keep
Categorised listing + link
Launch platforms put you in front of other founders. A SaaS directory puts you in front of someone comparing three tools with a budget to spend. Smaller audience, much better intent.
The catalogue is kept in the hundreds rather than padded out to tens of thousands, and everything is checked by a person. That's the whole reason being in it means anything.
Stands outThe people browsing are closer to buying than anywhere else here.
Watch outSaaS only. Don't bother if you built an app or a physical product.
Microlaunch talks openly about first sales rather than impressions, and the crowd is a bit more willing to actually buy than the average launch audience.
It pairs naturally with Tiny Startups. Similar size of product, similar readers, and the same assets work for both.
Stands outA cheap early read on whether your price is right.
Best for Buying a spot rather than competing for one
Format
Pay-to-rank leaderboard, weekly
Cost
Paid
Audience
People following indie startups
You keep
Do-follow link + verified badge
This one is paid placement and says so on the tin. You're not winning votes, you're buying a slot, a link and a badge.
Whether that's worth it depends on how you think about it. As paid distribution with a permanent link attached, the price is reasonable. As social proof, it's obviously worth less than topping a leaderboard on merit. If you've got no audience to mobilise, buying the certain thing can beat losing the free one.
Stands outYou know exactly what you're getting.
Watch outIt's paid, so nobody's impressed that you're on it.
Best for CLIs, SDKs, APIs, anything a developer installs
Format
Daily dev-tool board
Cost
Free
Audience
Working developers
You keep
Tool listing + link
Narrow on purpose. If you built something developers install, five hundred of them here beat five thousand general browsers somewhere else.
It's open source and doesn't play games with the ranking, which the audience notices.
Stands outBest audience match on this list, if you're building for developers.
Watch outDev tools only.
The same thing in a table
Platform
Type
Cost
Good for
Tiny Startups
Weekly leaderboard
Free
First launch, no budget
BetaList
Pre-launch feed
Free / paid skip
Waitlists
Peerlist
Network + Launchpad
Free
Technical credibility
Uneed
Daily launches
Free / paid
A guaranteed slot
Startups.fm
Directory
Free
Being found later
Fazier
Daily feed
Free
Easy second launch
SaaS.fyi
SaaS directory
Free
B2B buyers
Microlaunch
Launch platform
Free / paid
First sales
Startup Spotlight
Pay-to-rank
Paid
Buying placement
Dev Hunt
Dev-tool board
Free
Developer tools
How to space them out
Don't post everywhere on the same day. You'll burn through your assets, split your own small audience across ten tabs, and turn something that could have run for two months into one flat afternoon. Spread it out:
While you're still building: BetaList. Start collecting emails now, because those people are your votes later.
When you've got something usable: Tiny Startups. Free, and you keep the listing.
A week or two after that: Product Hunt, if you're doing it. You'll have a waitlist and two launches' worth of feedback by then, which is a much better position than starting cold.
Then the one that fits what you built: Dev Hunt, SaaS.fyi, or Peerlist.
Whenever you have a spare hour: Fazier, Microlaunch, Uneed. The copy's already written.
No rush: the directories. Startups.fm, Startup Spotlight. These aren't time-sensitive, they just need doing.
The links matter more than the traffic
Most of these send modest traffic. The part people underrate is that a decent chunk of them leave you with a permanent, indexed, do-follow link.
Six months out, the launch spike is a bump in your analytics that you've stopped looking at. The listings are still there, still pointing at your site, still turning up when someone searches your name. For a new domain with nothing else going for it, ten reasonable links from relevant startup directories is a real start. Not a shortcut, and not a substitute for having something worth linking to, but a start.
Questions people ask
Is Product Hunt still worth it?
Yes, as one thing among several. It's still the biggest single day you can get and it looks good on a landing page. Just don't build the plan around finishing top five if nobody knows who you are yet.
Can I post the same product on all of them?
Yes. None of these ask for exclusivity. Spacing them out over a few weeks works better than doing them all at once anyway.
I have no money. Where do I start?
Tiny Startups, then Fazier, then Dev Hunt if you built a developer tool. All free. That covers a launch, a follow-up and a niche audience without spending anything.
Should I pay for placement?
Paying for a guaranteed slot on a date you've planned around is usually fine. Paying for vague "exposure" with no defined outcome usually isn't. Ask what you actually get before you pay.
How far ahead should I prepare?
Two or three weeks. You want a landing page that converts, a demo video, decent screenshots, your copy written once, and ideally a waitlist you can email on the day.
Do these links actually help SEO?
Do-follow links from real, indexed, relevant directories do count for something, and they're among the easier links a new company can get. They won't rank you on their own. They're a floor to build on.
If you only do one thing
Post on Tiny Startups this week. It's free, it takes an hour, and you keep the listing whatever happens. Then work down the list as you get time.