Where to launch, what each place is good for, and which ones leave you with a link that keeps working.
Billion Dollar Pitch Decks··10 min read
In short
One launch on one site isn't a plan. Five or six over a couple of months works better.
The four biggest names here nofollow their links. You go there for traffic, not SEO.
The smaller directories are the ones that leave you a link that's still working next year.
This list isn't ordered by size. Product Hunt is the biggest by a distance.
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 launch day looks like for most people, on any of these sites.
Which is why one launch isn't a plan. Every site below reaches a different room, and the same product can go out to all of them over a couple of months without anyone minding.
One thing about the order. This isn't ranked by size, and Product Hunt is the biggest here by a distance. It's ranked by what we'd do first if we were launching something today with no audience yet.
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.
Do both. 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. That 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 decent chance of finishing near the top.
Launching and getting listed are the same action here. 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 gives small products a shot at the top.
Watch outIt's not going to send you the traffic a good Product Hunt day would. Nothing here will.
Best for The single biggest day of attention you can get
Format
Daily leaderboard
Cost
Free
Audience
The largest of anything here
You keep
A product page, nofollow link
Still the biggest room. Finish near the top and you get a day that no other site on this list can match, plus a badge people recognise on your landing page.
The catch is who wins. The front page rewards people who arrived with an audience already assembled, so a first product launched to nobody in particular tends to land mid-table and stop.
Treat the link as traffic and credibility rather than SEO. Product Hunt nofollows outbound links, so nothing you get here passes ranking signal.
Stands outNothing else comes close on launch-day volume.
Watch outThe link is nofollow, and the front page is hard to reach cold.
Best for Technical products, if you can take the feedback
Format
Show HN thread
Cost
Free
Audience
Engineers, technical founders
You keep
A thread, nofollow link
A Show HN that catches will out-traffic every other free option here, sometimes by an order of magnitude. It's also the one you can't plan. The same post can do nothing on a Monday and take your server down on a Wednesday.
The comments are blunt and often correct. People will find the flaw in your pricing page in about four minutes. That's the value, if you can stand reading it.
Post it yourself, say what it is in plain words, and answer everything. Links are nofollow here too.
Stands outThe biggest free spike available, when it lands.
Watch outYou can't schedule it, and the comments don't flatter anyone.
Best for Reaching one specific group of people on purpose
Format
Subreddit posts
Cost
Free
Audience
Entirely depends on the subreddit
You keep
A thread, nofollow link
This is the only entry on the list where you choose the audience precisely. There's a subreddit for the exact person you built for, and a post that lands there beats a general launch anywhere else.
It also punishes drive-by promotion harder than anywhere else. Most subreddits have self-promotion rules, moderators enforce them, and an account whose only post is its own product gets removed.
So spend time in the room before you post in it. r/SideProject and r/startups are more forgiving if you want somewhere to start.
Stands outYou can pick your exact audience, which nowhere else here lets you do.
Watch outPost like an advertiser and you'll be removed, sometimes banned.
Best for Bootstrappers with a story or a number to share
Format
Community posts + product pages
Cost
Free
Audience
Bootstrappers, solo founders
You keep
A product page and your posts
Announcements do badly here. What does well is the thing behind the announcement: what you tried, what it cost, what you charge, what didn't work.
That makes it a slower burn than a launch board. You're building a reputation over several posts rather than getting one spike, and the people reading are running businesses of a similar size to yours.
If you have revenue numbers you're willing to publish, this is the place they'll get read.
Stands outThe audience engages with how you built it, not just what you built.
Watch outShow up with a launch announcement and no story and nothing will happen.
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. On Product Hunt, showing up half-built gets you punished.
Post here while you're still building. The emails you collect are the people you can email on launch day later.
The free queue is 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 profile with their work on it. You get fewer votes than you would elsewhere and better comments, because the people leaving them can read your code.
It attaches to you rather than the product. Useful if you plan to launch more than one thing.
It skews heavily technical. A consumer app will find a thin audience here.
Stands outComments from people who understand what you built.
This is a directory, so nothing happens the day you submit. Your listing gets filed under your category and location, 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 how most people go looking for tools anyway.
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.
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. Fewer people, but they're closer to paying.
The catalogue is kept in the hundreds rather than padded out to tens of thousands, and everything is checked by a person. That's why being listed 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.
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.
As paid distribution with a permanent link attached, the price is fair. As social proof it's thin, because everyone knows you paid. If you've got no audience to mobilise, buying the certain thing can still 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
It's deliberately narrow. 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. Developers notice that.
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
Link
Good for
Tiny Startups
Weekly leaderboard
Free
Do-follow
First launch, no budget
Product Hunt
Daily leaderboard
Free
Nofollow
The biggest single day
Hacker News
Show HN
Free
Nofollow
Technical products
Reddit
Subreddit posts
Free
Nofollow
One exact audience
Indie Hackers
Community
Free
Nofollow
Bootstrappers, revenue stories
BetaList
Pre-launch feed
Free / paid skip
Listing
Waitlists
Peerlist
Network + Launchpad
Free
Profile
Technical credibility
Startups.fm
Directory
Free
Do-follow
Being found later
SaaS.fyi
SaaS directory
Free
Do-follow
B2B buyers
Startup Spotlight
Pay-to-rank
Paid
Do-follow
Buying placement
Dev Hunt
Dev-tool board
Free
Listing
Developer tools
How to space them out
Don't post everywhere on the same day. You'll burn through your assets and split your own small audience across ten tabs. Something that could have run for two months becomes one flat afternoon. Spread it out:
While you're still building: BetaList. Start collecting emails now, because those people are your votes later.
Also while you're building: find your subreddit and start using it. Not posting about your product. Just being there, so you're not a stranger when you do.
When you've got something usable: Tiny Startups. Free, and you keep the listing.
A week or two after that: Product Hunt. You'll have a waitlist and a launch of feedback by then, which beats starting cold.
Same week, if it's technical: Show HN. Can't be scheduled, so just post it and see.
Then the one that fits what you built: Dev Hunt, SaaS.fyi, or Peerlist.
Once you have a number you can publish: Indie Hackers. Revenue, churn, what the launch did.
No rush: the directories. Startups.fm, Startup Spotlight. These aren't time-sensitive, they just need doing.
The links matter more than the traffic
Here's the split that decides what you get. Product Hunt, Hacker News and Reddit nofollow their outbound links, so none of that attention passes ranking signal. What they give you is people, on the day. The smaller directories are the opposite: barely any traffic on submission day, and a permanent indexed do-follow link afterwards.
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, a handful of decent links from relevant directories is a foundation. You still need to build something people want to link to.
Questions people ask
Why isn't Product Hunt first?
Because the list is ordered by what to do first, not by size. Product Hunt is comfortably the biggest here. It just goes better once you have a waitlist and a launch behind you. That's what the first entry is for.
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 Product Hunt, then Dev Hunt if you built a developer tool. All free. That covers a launch, a bigger launch 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 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?
The directory ones can. Do-follow links from indexed, relevant directories count for something, and they're among the easier links a new company can get. The big platforms are a different story: Product Hunt, Hacker News and Reddit all nofollow, so treat those as traffic. Neither kind will rank you on its own.
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.