SaaS product launch checklist: the 30 days before and after launch

A SaaS launch is not a day. It is about sixty days: thirty before, when you make the product launchable and start the queues that take weeks to clear, and thirty after, when the listings go live and the first users tell you what is broken. Most launch checklists are eighty items with no dates. This one is sequenced, because the order is what saves you: directory queues run for months, Product Hunt wants you present for a day, and the week after launch is when you should be replying to users rather than filling forms.

30 days out: make the product launchable

• One sentence. Who it is for, what it does, and the two or three products it replaces. Every directory form, every community post and your own homepage start from this sentence. If you cannot write it, you are not ready to launch; you are ready to talk to more users.
• A pricing page. Even a simple one. Directories ask for your pricing model (free, freemium, trial, paid) and lowest price, and buyers filter on it. Decide free tier versus trial now.
• Signup to value in five minutes. Watch one stranger sign up. If they need you in the room to get to the first useful moment, fix that before anything else on this list.
• Analytics with source tracking. You are about to get traffic from twenty places. Make sure you can tell them apart: UTM parameters on the URL you submit, and a signup event that records the source.
• The boring pages. A support email someone reads, privacy and terms pages, an about page with a real name. Product Hunt and several directories check for them; users check for them more.
• Site metadata. Title tag, meta description, Open Graph image, square favicon and logo. Directories scrape these to prefill their forms, and so does the package builder. Get them right once and every listing starts correct.

14 days out: build the launch package

Everything a directory will ask for, prepared once, so submission is copy and paste. Name (under 40 characters), tagline (under 60), short description (about 160), long description (600 to 1,000), a 512 by 512 logo under 200 KB, three to five screenshots under 400 KB each, pricing, categories, keywords, alternatives, links and a support email. The launch package checklist has every limit we have hit. Paste your URL into Launch to Win and most of it is drafted for you.

Two things people forget at this stage: a demo video or GIF (optional almost everywhere, but it lifts conversion on the sites that show it), and the "alternative to" list, which is where AlternativeTo and SaaSHub traffic comes from.

7 days out: start the queues and schedule the day

• Submit to the long free queues now. Uneed, MicroLaunch, StartupBase and SoloPush take one to three months to publish a free listing. Submitting a week before launch means they go live in the weeks after, which is exactly when you want a second wave.
• Submit the evergreen directories. AlternativeTo and SaaSHub have no launch-day dynamics. A complete listing now is a complete listing on launch day.
• Schedule Product Hunt. A Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, going live at 12:01 am Pacific. Draft the maker comment. Line up five to ten people who will genuinely try the product and say something specific. Do not ask for upvotes; ask for feedback. The Product Hunt checklist has the form fields and timings.
• Draft the Show HN. Title (what it is, plainly), a first comment explaining why you built it and what is technically interesting. Hacker News rewards honesty and punishes marketing copy.
• Write the launch post on your own blog or changelog. It is the URL you will link from everywhere, and it is the page that ranks for your name next month.
• Warn your list. Anyone on a waitlist or in a private beta gets a "launching next Tuesday" email. They are your first comments.

Launch day

1. Product Hunt goes live. Post the maker comment immediately.
2. Show HN mid-morning US time, when the front page turns over.
3. Post in the two or three communities whose rules allow a launch post, and only those. Read the rules again. The startup communities guide lists the ones that welcome it.
4. Your own channels: X, LinkedIn, the launch post, the email to your list.
5. Reply to every comment, everywhere, for twelve hours. Watch signups and error logs. Fix small things live; people notice and say so.

Do not submit to thirty directories today. The value of launch day is that you are present in the comments. The directories are next week's job.

The week after: work the directory list

• The fast launch boards. TinyLaunch, Tiny Startups, Huzzler, Startup Fame, LaunchIgniter, PeerPush, Peerlist, BetaList if the product still counts as new, and an Indie Hackers product page. With autofill each one is two to three minutes; the whole well-rated list is an afternoon.
• Niche directories where the audience matches: AI tool directories, developer tool lists, framework-specific showcases.
• Email every launch-day signup personally. One question: what did you try to do, and did it work? The replies are your roadmap for the next month.
• Log everything. Directory, date, status, listing URL. The dashboard does this per package; a spreadsheet works for one product.

30 days after: review and set the next one

• Which sources produced signups that stayed? The UTMs tell you. Double down on the two that worked; the rest were still worth the listing.
• Update every listing with what changed: new screenshots, new pricing, the feature you shipped because of launch feedback. Listings with a login are easy to edit, which is one reason to submit with your own accounts rather than a submission service.
• Check the long queues. Uneed and MicroLaunch listings tend to go live around now. Reply to any directory that asked a question.
• Write the "what we learned" post. It is honest, it is content, and it links to the product.
• Put the next launch on the calendar. Most launch boards allow a relaunch for a major version, and Product Hunt allows one after a substantial update. A launch is a repeatable event, not a wedding.

The checklist, compact

When	Do
30 days out	One-sentence positioning, pricing page, five-minute onboarding, analytics with sources, support and legal pages, site metadata
14 days out	Launch package: copy at every length, logo, screenshots, pricing, alternatives, links
7 days out	Long-queue directories, AlternativeTo and SaaSHub, schedule Product Hunt, draft Show HN, write launch post, email the list
Launch day	Product Hunt, Show HN, permitted communities, own channels, reply to everything for twelve hours
Week after	Fast launch boards, niche directories, personal email to each signup, keep the log
30 days after	Review sources, update listings, check queues, write the retrospective, schedule the next launch

If this is not your only product

Everything above is per product except the accounts and the knowledge. The second launch is faster because the package is the unit of work: build a new one, run the same sequence. The multi-product playbook covers batching several launches without redoing the work.