How to launch on Product Hunt: a checklist for makers with more than one product

Product Hunt needs no introduction, which is exactly why launch day there is competitive. This checklist covers what the form asks for, what to prepare before it, and how to make sure the material you create for Product Hunt does double duty on the dozen other launch sites the same week. It is written for makers who will do this more than once.

What the form asks for

Field	Limit	Advice
Name	40 characters	Just the name. "Acme" not "Acme – AI analytics for startups".
Tagline	60 characters	The line everyone sees in the feed. Spend real time on it. Say what it does, not how it feels.
URL		Add UTM parameters so you can see Product Hunt traffic separately.
Description	260 characters	Two sentences: what it is and who it is for. The long story goes in your first comment.
Topics	Up to 3	Pick the ones with active followers, not the most precise ones.
Thumbnail	240×240 recommended	Your logo, or an animated GIF if you have something short and clear.
Gallery	Images 1270×760 recommended, optional video	First image is the hero. Three to five images that show the product.
Makers		Add co-makers so they can reply in comments.
Pricing	Free / Paid / Free options	Match your real pricing page.
First comment		Not in the form, but write it in advance: the story, why you built it, what you want feedback on.

If you have a launch package, most of this already exists: the 40-character name, the 60-character tagline, the 260-character medium description, the logo and the screenshots. That is not a coincidence; the package limits were chosen from forms like this one.

Two weeks before

• Create your Product Hunt account if you have not, and be active: upvote, comment, follow topics. Brand-new accounts launching on day one look like what they are.
• Schedule the launch. Tuesday to Thursday, 12:01 AM Pacific, is the conventional slot. Avoid days when a well-funded company is launching if you can see it coming.
• Write the tagline, description and first comment. Get someone to read them.
• Produce the gallery: three to five screenshots that show the product doing its job, and a short video if you can make one in an afternoon.
• Line up the people who will genuinely try it and leave a real comment. Do not ask for upvotes; ask for feedback.

Launch week: do the other sites too

A Product Hunt launch produces exactly the material every other launch site wants. Use the same week:

• The morning of: Show HN on Hacker News if the product is technical. Different audience, same assets, and it does not compete with Product Hunt.
• The same day: Uneed, Peerlist Launchpad, TinyLaunch, Huzzler and the other launch platforms with daily or weekly rankings. See Product Hunt alternatives. Several of these ask for your Product Hunt URL, so submit after the page is live.
• Later in the week: the evergreen directories — AlternativeTo, SaaSHub — and BetaList if the product is new. These do not care about launch day but benefit from the screenshots you just made.
• Day one, for the queue: the free tiers with long waiting lists (MicroLaunch, Open-Launch, StartupBase). Submit early; they go live weeks later, which spreads your launch out for free.

Doing all of this by hand is a full day of form filling on top of a launch day. With a package it is a couple of hours: Chrome autofill fills each form, or an AI agent can work through the list while you answer comments.

Launch day

• Post the first comment immediately. Tell the story and ask a specific question.
• Reply to every comment within the hour. Product Hunt's ranking rewards engagement, and so do the people commenting.
• Share the page where you have an audience, once. Repeated "please upvote" posts hurt more than they help.
• Watch your site's analytics. Product Hunt traffic is bursty; make sure signup works under load and that the landing page matches the tagline.

After

• Add the Product Hunt badge or link to your site if you placed; some directories ask for the PH URL anyway.
• Record the launch in your submission log, with the page URL.
• Update your launch package with anything that changed: a sharper tagline that came out of the comments, a new screenshot. The next directories get the better version.

If you launch more than one product

Product Hunt allows one launch per product, and you can launch different products as often as you have them. Everything above is per product, which is why the package matters: the second and third launches should be the same process with different content, not a fresh scramble. The multi-product playbook covers how to run that.