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Product Hunt Launch

Plan a Product Hunt launch end to end, including whether to launch at all, the day, listing copy, gallery, maker comment, supporter list and a 24-hour schedule, without breaking Product Hunt's rules on vote solicitation. Use when someone says "launch on Product Hunt", "PH launch", "Product Hunt tips", "should I launch on Product Hunt", or is preparing a launch day for a SaaS, app, AI tool or extension.

Intermediate⏱ 60 min to plan, 2-3 weeks to prepare📂 launchv1.0.0

In an hour you will have a go/no-go decision, the listing copy, a supporter list plan and an hour-by-hour launch-day schedule.

Goal

Use Product Hunt for what it is good at: a burst of early adopters, feedback, backlinks and social proof. Don't bet the whole launch on the rank.

When to use

  • The product is live and someone can try it in under 2 minutes.
  • Your audience overlaps with Product Hunt's: makers, developers, designers, marketers, AI and productivity tools.
  • Probably skip or delay if the product is niche for non-tech users (e.g. a local-bakery app), or if you have nobody to tell on the day. Use launch-get-first-100-users first.

Inputs

  • Live product URL, pricing, and any launch-day offer.
  • Logo, 3–6 gallery images or a short video, a demo GIF.
  • Your audience: email list, social followers, communities, friends who are active Product Hunt members.

How the day works

  • A Product Hunt day runs from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. Everyone launching that day competes on that 24-hour clock.
  • Launches are reviewed, and not every product is featured on the homepage. A clear, finished product with a good listing is more likely to be featured.
  • Product Hunt prohibits asking people to upvote and detects vote rings and new accounts voting in bursts. Ask people to check it out and share feedback. Votes from brand-new accounts may be discounted.
  • You can hunt your own product. You don't need a famous hunter.

Steps

  1. Go / no-go (5 min). Can a stranger get value in 2 minutes without talking to you? Do you have 100+ people to notify? If both are no, fix those first.
  2. Pick the day (5 min). Tuesday–Thursday gets the most traffic and the most competition. Weekends are quieter and easier to rank on, with less traffic. For a first launch with a small audience, a weekend or Monday is fine.
  3. Write the listing (20 min).
  4. Name + tagline: the tagline says what it does for whom, not a slogan. "Invoices that chase late clients for you" beats "The future of billing". Keep it within the form's character limit.
  5. Gallery: image 1 = the result/outcome, 2 = how it works, 3 = what makes it different, then a 30–60 s video.
  6. Maker comment: why you built it (a personal story in 2–3 sentences), what it does, what's free / the launch offer, and one specific question you want feedback on.
  7. Build the supporter list (2–3 weeks before). List everyone who might care, split into: email list, personal contacts, communities, and people you helped before. Warm them up with a "launching on , would love your feedback" note a week ahead.
  8. Schedule the launch in Product Hunt a few days early and check the preview on desktop and mobile.
  9. Launch-day schedule.
  10. 00:01 PT: launch goes live. Post the maker comment immediately.
  11. 00:05–02:00 PT: send the first wave (email list, closest supporters). Link to the PH page, ask for feedback.
  12. Morning PT / Europe afternoon: social posts, communities where it's allowed, second email to people who didn't open.
  13. All day: reply to every comment within an hour. Thoughtful replies attract more visitors than anything else.
  14. Evening: thank-you post with what you learned. Screenshot results for later.
  15. Day after. Add a "Featured on Product Hunt" badge if you were featured, email new sign-ups personally, and turn the feedback into a changelog post.

Prompt (copy-paste)

Replace everything in {{ }}.

You are a Product Hunt launch coach. Help me prepare.

Product: {{what it does, who for, URL}}
Pricing / launch offer: {{...}}
Time to first value for a new user: {{e.g. 1 minute, no signup}}
Audience I can notify: {{email list size, followers, communities}}
Timezone: {{my timezone}}

1. Go/no-go: judge whether I'm ready based on time-to-value and audience size. If not ready, say what to fix.
2. Recommend a launch day and explain the traffic vs competition trade-off for my case.
3. Write: 5 tagline options (what it does + for whom, no hype), a 3-image gallery plan with the headline for
   each image, and a maker comment (under 150 words) ending with one specific feedback question.
4. Write a "launching next week" message and a launch-day message for supporters. Ask for feedback,
   NEVER ask for upvotes (Product Hunt forbids it).
5. A launch-day schedule in Pacific Time AND my timezone, with who does what.

Example output

Illustrative example. Fictional product, shown for format.

Tagline: Invoices that politely chase late clients for you Gallery: ① "Get paid 2× faster" (dashboard with paid invoices) ② "Set reminders once" (reminder settings) ③ "Built for freelance designers" (templates) Maker comment:

Hi PH 👋 I'm a freelance designer who once waited 94 days for an invoice. Invoicely Lite sends friendly reminders on a schedule you set, so you never have to write the awkward email. Free for 3 clients, and 50% off Pro for PH this week. Question for you: what's the one reminder you'd never want sent automatically?

Common mistakes

  • Asking for upvotes. It breaks the rules, can get the launch penalised, and annoys your supporters.
  • Launching something people can't try. A waitlist or "book a demo" gets far less engagement than a live product.
  • Going quiet after 9 a.m. Unanswered comments stall a launch. Block the whole day.
  • Treating the rank as the goal. Measure sign-ups, activated users and feedback, not the badge.

Credits

Written by @nvminhtu. Rules from Product Hunt's help center and community guidelines (launch timing, featuring, vote solicitation). Check the current versions before launching.