product hunt alternatives: where to launch instead, with real numbers
we counted a month of product hunt launches and a year of show hn posts, then checked each board's real prices and traffic. here's where to launch for what you want.
most lists of product hunt alternatives are written by a launch site that puts itself first.
this one does too. dotstore is ours, so it's #1 here and you should take that with some salt.
the difference is we went and counted things. where we couldn't count, we say that.
short answer if you're in a hurry:
web app, want a page that stays up after launch week: dotstore
technical product people can try right now: show hn
dev tool: devhunt
not live yet: betalist
you mostly want a backlink: uneed
people already search for what you replace: alternativeto and saashub
what product hunt gives you now
on october 29, hunted.space tracked 1,017 launches on product hunt.
30 of them got featured.
we pulled the same page for october 12 to 29. one day wouldn't load, which left 17 days: 463 featured launches, about 27 a day. the lowest day had 12, the highest had 48.
the total is shakier than the featured count. the tracker showed around 100 unfeatured launches a day for most of early october, then 500 to 1,500 a day after october 11. that might be a spam wave or a tracking change, we can't tell from outside. most launches went unfeatured on the old number too.
the top is expensive too. the median #1 product in those days finished on 342 upvotes, and the lowest #1 still had 292.
and product hunt's own launch page says you can't ask people directly to upvote. so the usual "pls upvote" post in your group chat is against the rules.
when it does work it still isn't a client machine. one maker reported 746 visits, 32 sign-ups and 12 people who used the product. a roundup of launches that finished in the top 6 saw 71 to 450 signups in a week, and paid conversion anywhere from 0% to about 20%.
that's worth a day of your life. it's a bad reason to wait three months for the perfect launch.
so before you pick a replacement, pick what you're replacing. launch boards do four different jobs: people trying your thing, feedback, a backlink, and a page that keeps working later. no board is good at all four.
1. dotstore, if it's a web app
this is ours. every launch gets the same seven days, monday 00:00 utc to sunday 23:59 utc, so nobody fights over a midnight timezone.
launching is free. your app then stays in the store with its own page, next to 99,670 other apps, so the page keeps working after the week ends. it's a store first and a board second.
the weak part: we're small. 518 accounts and 93 launches so far. app links are nofollow unless you buy pro ($25), so don't come here for the seo juice.
if you want a loud launch day, we're not it yet. the launchpad page has the rest.
show hn, if people can try it right now
show hn is free and it has no editor deciding who gets in. it also has the worst odds you'll ever see, and we have the numbers.
we downloaded every show hn post from the last 12 months through the public hn api. 47,972 of them.
the median post got 2 points. 62.4% got zero comments. 8% reached 10 points, 2.9% reached 50, and 1.6% reached 100.
open the new show hn page on any day and you'll see it yourself.
still, this is the one on the list with real history behind it. segment and dropbox both found early users on hacker news.
the rules tell you what to do. it has to be something people can actually use. sign-up pages and landing pages don't count, and they ask you to remove barriers like signups so people can try it. asking friends to upvote is against the rules here too.
if your app needs an account before it does anything, build a demo mode first. that one change matters more than the title.
devhunt, if you make dev tools
devhunt runs weekly and it's only about dev tools.
when we looked on october 30, the top launch of the week had 71 votes, and its row showed 3,162 impressions.
we like that the impressions are public. most boards never show you that number.
the site says 7,450 tools launched and 44,982 developers, and those are its own numbers. if you sell to developers, 3,000 impressions from the right people is decent. if you sell to dentists, skip it.
we couldn't find a launch price on the homepage. submitting goes through a login.
betalist, if you're not live yet
betalist is for early products that want signups before launch day. some listings are still on testflight.
you give it your site and email, then pick a plan before anything gets published. the page doesn't show plan prices, so check that before you spend time on it.
use it when you have a waitlist page and nothing to try. show hn won't take you yet, and product hunt would be too early.
uneed, if you want the backlink
uneed's pricing is clear, which we respect:
free: back of the line, and you need an upvote score of 10 to stay published, 20 for the do-follow link
$14.99: a slot in about 14 days, do-follow from a score of 10
$39.99: pick your date, do-follow guaranteed
two things stood out.
uneed pro, $99 a year, includes a "+3 vote multiplier". it's on the pricing page in plain sight, so nobody's hiding it. but when you read a rank on that board, part of it can be bought.
the other one is math. uneed says it sends 22,000 visitors a month to product sites. the day we looked, there were 24 products listed. at that rate that's about 30 visitors per product. that's rough, and traffic won't be split evenly, but it's a useful way to think about it.
so buy this one for the link. don't expect it to bring clients.
the ones we didn't measure
alternativeto and saashub are a different kind of thing. people get there by searching for a replacement to something they already use. that intent is great for a saas, and it keeps working for years. we have no numbers on them, they're here because of who shows up.
peerlist has a launchpad that makers like. our checks got blocked by its bot wall, so we have no verdict.
fazier's top apps had 7 votes each when we checked. one look at one day is too small a sample to judge.
auto-submit to 100+ directories usually costs a few hundred dollars (uneed sells one at $249). it might help your backlinks. we haven't tested it, and we wouldn't expect a first client from it.
the order we'd do it in
if we were launching a new saas tomorrow:
week 1: get it working without a signup wall. betalist if you can't yet
week 2: post on show hn, and stay around all day to answer comments
week 3: post on the board that matches your niche, so devhunt for dev tools, dotstore for web apps
week 4: list on alternativeto and saashub, and add the free uneed line for the link
later: product hunt, once you have real users who'd comment without being asked
product hunt goes last on purpose. you only get one first launch there, and about 27 featured spots a day isn't many.
none of this replaces talking to people. we wrote about how to get your first client separately, with our own numbers, and they're humbling.