Where to promote your startup

1. 1

   Product Hunt

   Any product people can try today

   Free, one planned launch day, no hunter needed.

   Cost

   Free Source for Product Hunt cost

   Link

   Nofollow or no link (ugc) Source for Product Hunt link type

   DR

   91

2. 2

   Hacker News (Show HN)

   Developer and technical products

   Free and live at once. Best when people can try it without signing up.

   Cost

   Free Source for Hacker News (Show HN) cost

   Link

   Depends on plan, votes or launch (nofollow until the post gains points) Source for Hacker News (Show HN) link type

   DR

   91

3. 3

   AlternativeTo

   Anything that replaces a known tool

   No listing fee stated. Puts you next to the tool you replace; a followed link was seen on a listing.

   Cost

   No listing fee stated; optional $5 priority review Source for AlternativeTo cost

   Link

   Followed link seen Source for AlternativeTo link type

   DR

   81

4. 4

   G2

   B2B software with customers

   Free to claim a profile on a software review site. Claims take 1-3 business days.

   Cost

   Free to claim a profile Source for G2 cost

   Link

   Not verified

   DR

   91

5. 5

   SaaSHub

   Any SaaS

   Free to submit, then you verify the product is yours.

   Cost

   Free Source for SaaSHub cost

   Link

   Nofollow or no link (nofollow) Source for SaaSHub link type

   DR

   80

DR is Ahrefs' Domain Rating, fetched 2026-10-18: a backlink-strength score, not a measure of traffic. Places rated below 20 are not listed.

Reach, effort and payoff are our editorial judgement of how each channel type works, not measured figures. Counts come from the dataset reconciled 2026-10-18.

1. Same day

   • Hacker News (Show HN) freeAppears at once on shownew, the newest Show HN listSource for Hacker News (Show HN) wait
   • Peerlist freeGoes live immediately; launches open on Mondays (UTC)Source for Peerlist wait
   • Product Hunt freeLaunch days start at 12:01 AM Pacific. You can schedule up to 1 month ahead.Source for Product Hunt wait
   • MEDIAPRONET paidPaid listings go live as soon as the payment is confirmed - no waiting period, and no badge required, on any paid tier.Source for MEDIAPRONET wait

2. Within a week

   • There's An AI For That paid1-2 days on averageSource for There's An AI For That wait
   • G2 freeClaims reviewed within 1-3 business days; a new product is verified in about 3-5Source for G2 wait
   • SideProjectors freeMost projects reviewed within 2-5 business daysSource for SideProjectors wait

3. Up to a month

   • MEDIAPRONET freeA free listing is published automatically once it is at least 7 days old and our daily check finds our badge on the page you submitted.Source for MEDIAPRONET wait
   • Fazier freeWithin 30 days on the free plan; paid plans can publish at onceSource for Fazier wait

4. Over a month, or no date

   • AlternativeTo freeNo date for free submissions; 1-2 business days with paid prioritySource for AlternativeTo wait
   • Capterra freeCan take over six weeksSource for Capterra wait
   • GetApp freeCan take over six weeksSource for GetApp wait

Waits read 2026-10-11 to 2026-10-13; MEDIAPRONET's own wait is the rule its publishing code runs today. Lanes are our grouping of the stated waits.

Prices and rules change. Confirm them on the destination site before investing time or money. Side-by-side pages: Product Hunt, G2, AlternativeTo, or every comparison. To list your product next to the tools it replaces, see the alternatives pages.

1. 2 weeks before

   Build the launch kit once

   • Write the tagline, the three descriptions and the maker comment from the templates below.
   • Export the logo and four or five screenshots at the sizes in the checklist.
   • Create one tagged link per place so every visit can be traced back.

2. 1 week before

   Start everything that has a queue

   • Claim the G2 profile: a new product takes about 3 to 5 business days to verify.
   • Submit to free queues that take weeks, such as Fazier (up to 30 days) and AlternativeTo.
   • Schedule the Product Hunt launch. It can be set up to 1 month ahead.

3. Launch day

   One launch platform, full attention

   • Product Hunt days begin at 12:01 AM Pacific, so the post has the whole day.
   • Post the Show HN if the product can be tried without a waitlist.
   • Answer every comment the same day. Ask for feedback, never for upvotes.

4. Week after

   Directories in small batches

   • As a rule of thumb, submit to five to ten places a day from the channel types that match your buyer.
   • Reword the description for each place instead of pasting the same text.
   • Invite your first customers to leave a review where you claimed a profile.

5. Weeks 2 to 4

   Measure, then cut

   • Group visits and signups by utm_source in your analytics.
   • Keep the places that sent signups. Stop maintaining the ones that sent nothing.
   • Update the profiles that work when you ship something new.

Four templates to copy

Replace the brackets with your own words: a plain description, a way to try the product, and a request for feedback, not votes.

[What it does] for [who it is for]

Example: Invoice reminders for freelance designers

Show HN: [Product] - [what it does in plain words]

Hi HN, I built [Product] because [the problem you kept hitting].

It [does the one main thing]. You can try it at [link] without signing up.

It is built with [stack]. The part I am least sure about is [open question]. I would like to hear where it breaks for you.

Hi everyone, I am [name], the maker of [Product].

I built it after [short story of the problem].

What it does today:
- [benefit one]
- [benefit two]
- [benefit three]

It is [free / price]. I will be here all day. What would stop you from using this?

[Product] helps [audience] [achieve outcome] without [the usual pain].

[One sentence on how it works.] [One sentence on what makes it different from the tool people use today.]

Pricing starts at [price], with [free plan or trial]. Founded in [year] by [name] in [place].

How do you know which place sent a signup?

Give every place its own tagged link: utm_source is the place, utm_medium the channel type, utm_campaign the launch. Then group signups by utm_source in your analytics.

Terms used in this guide

Domain Rating (DR)

Ahrefs' score from 0 to 100 for the strength of a website's backlink profile compared with the other sites in its database. It is based on links only and does not measure traffic, content quality or relevance. Source for Domain Rating (DR)

Dofollow and nofollow

A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", a hint to search engines not to pass ranking credit through it. A link without that attribute is informally called dofollow. Both send real visitors.

Sponsored link

A link marked rel="sponsored". Google asks sites to use it for ads and paid placements, and still accepts nofollow for the same purpose. Source for Sponsored link

UTM parameters

Tags added to the end of a link, such as utm_source and utm_medium, that tell your analytics which place a visitor came from.

Launch platform

A site where new products compete for attention on a set day or week, such as Product Hunt. In our experience most of the traffic arrives in the first day or two.

Startup directory

A site that keeps a permanent, categorised profile of each company. It sends fewer visitors at once than a launch platform but keeps sending them.

Show HN

The Hacker News label for posts where someone shares something they made that other people can try. Its rules exclude landing pages and sign-up pages. Source for Show HN

Editorial review

A person checks a submission before it is published. It is slower than instant listing and keeps obvious spam out.

Changes

2026-10-15

Rewrote the guide around five places to start. Added a table of every place that filters by cost, link type and channel, a free-or-paid breakdown, and the waits each platform states. Link types are now shown only with a page that shows them.

2026-10-13

Cost and wait in the rules table now come from the same checked data as the platform comparison pages. Rechecked There's An AI For That, Peerlist Launchpad, Product Hunt, G2, Fazier and BetaList.

2026-10-11

Checked rules and costs for the major platforms on their own pages. Removed 7 closed platforms and one that no longer takes submissions.