Guides · 12 min · Updated 2026-10-21
Free Launch Platforms (2026): Where You Can Still Launch for $0
Free launch sites that still take a $0 submission, with wait and link type only as each vendor states. Checked October 21, 2026. BetaList is now paid.
Free still works, and it usually costs a wait
A free launch is still a useful week of work. You get a public URL, a few early users who will say when the sentence is wrong, and practice being in the comments before a larger day. Some of those pages also pass a link that search engines can follow. Many do not. The usual price of $0 is time: a queue, a badge on your site, or a rule that the link stays nofollow unless you place or pay.
Checked October 21, 2026. The cells below are what each vendor’s own submit, pricing, FAQ, or guidelines page said that day. If the page did not say it, the cell says not stated. This catalog’s older notes were not used as the source. Names under Related platforms at the bottom link to the matching page on this site. The table itself is plain text.
Where a $0 submission is still stated
Fourteen rows. Product Hunt, Peerlist, Uneed, Fazier, DevHunt, TinyLaunch, Smol Launch, Tiny Startups, AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, and the Hunt boards state a $0 option on their own pages. Hacker News and Indie Hackers state no fee on the pages that loaded. Reddit is here because founders look for it, and reddit.com blocked the rules check. The five Hunt boards are one row so they do not take over the list. Open Launch and MicroLaunch are not in the table; the reason is in the sections after this one.
| Platform | Free option (as stated) | Paid upgrade (as stated) | Backlink (as stated) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Product Hunt | Launch guide: “It’s 100% free to use.” Ads help: launching is free. Goes live at 12:01am Pacific. You can schedule within 30 days. | Optional ads, not required to launch. Self-serve web display $5,000–$10,000. Managed campaigns start at $10,000. No ads on launch day. | Follow attribute not stated on the launch guide or the ads article. | A free main day, if you can stay in the comments. |
| Hacker News (Show HN) | No fee is stated. Submit a story whose title begins with “Show HN”. It must be something people can try. Landing pages and fundraisers are off topic. | No paid upgrade is stated. The guidelines say not to use HN primarily for promotion, and not to ask friends to upvote. | Follow attribute of the story link: not stated. | A technical thing strangers can try the same day. |
| Indie Hackers | No fee is stated on the homepage, which shows public posts including Show IH. /guidelines did not load (Cloudflare). A Sept 29, 2017 reply from Courtland Allen says you may link your own work if the post starts a discussion. That reply is old. | No paid launch price is stated on the pages that loaded. | Follow attribute: not stated. | A founder conversation, once you can post. |
| could not verify (site blocked our check). Rules are per subreddit. | could not verify (site blocked our check). No public price page loaded. | could not verify (site blocked our check). | Only a subreddit whose current rules allow the post. | |
| Peerlist Launchpad | No fee is stated. Launch window opens Monday and continues for a week. A verified individual profile is required. | No paid launch price is stated on the Launchpad FAQ. | “Only the top 5 projects of the week are awarded a backlink.” Follow attribute: not stated. | A weekly launch attached to a real profile. |
| Uneed | “Join the line” is free. They assign the date, at most 5 months out. Upvote score of 10 to stay published, 20 for the do-follow backlink. | Skip the line $29.99 (you choose the date). Fast-track $14.99 (a slot in about 14 days; do-follow from a score of 10). | Do-follow from a 75DR domain, guaranteed with Skip the line. Free needs a score of 20. | A daily indie launch if you can wait, or pay to pick the day. |
| Fazier | Basic is free, “Free with embed badge”. Reviewed and listed within 30 days. Homepage only if selected. You must link to Fazier from your homepage or footer. | Lite $29 one-time. Premium $49 one-time. Super $99 one-time. | Free tier does not say dofollow or nofollow. Super says “High-authority dofollow backlink (DR 83+)”. Premium says a guaranteed high-authority backlink (DR 83+) and does not use the word dofollow. | A free listing if you can wait up to 30 days and embed the badge. |
| DevHunt | “Listing a tool is free: every tool gets a permanent page with a nofollow link.” The homepage launch week is the paid step. | Launch $19 once (you pick the week, newsletter spot, link becomes dofollow). Boosted launch $49 (listed above others on a tie, plus its own post on X). | Free listing: nofollow. Paid launch: permanent dofollow. | A developer tool. The free page is the listing; the week is $19. |
| TinyLaunch | Standard Launch is free. Live on the homepage for multiple days. Standard launch queue (length not stated). Badge and a high-authority backlink for the top 3. | Premium $39 per launch. Guaranteed high-authority backlink, and it skips the queue. | Follow attribute not stated on either tier. Both say “high authority backlink”. | A free multi-day homepage run, if the queue is acceptable. |
| Smol Launch | Free Verified is $0 after the badge. Next free week: Dec 21, with 400 ahead. Both free paths require votes on 3 other launches. Free covers a product’s first launch only. 50 verified slots a week. | Premium $19 per launch: no queue, no badge, permanent backlink from a DR 76 domain. Premium+ $39 per launch adds a one-week featured spot and a newsletter feature. | Basic Free stays nofollow. Free Verified is dofollow after the badge. Premium says a permanent high-authority backlink and does not repeat the word dofollow. | A first launch, if you can wait until a free week and add the badge. |
| Tiny Startups | Launching is free (£0): permanent page, Monday–Sunday leaderboard, no card. Free submissions enter a review queue and are not guaranteed a date. llms.txt: free listings embed a badge. | Terms and llms.txt: skip the queue £99 (required with any other paid upgrade); DR 70+ do-follow £99. The about page says skip the queue is £29. Those pages disagree, so confirm the number at checkout. | llms.txt: free listings “link out nofollow”. The do-follow link is the £99 upgrade on that page. The submit page advertises a “DR 71+ do-follow” without saying it is paid. | A free weekly founder board, after you read which price the checkout actually shows. |
| AlternativeTo | Suggesting an app is free. It enters a review backlog of several thousand apps. They cannot promise a review date, or that yours will be looked at. | Priority review is a one-time fee “shown before you pay”. The amount is not stated on the FAQ. Those reviews are usually 1–2 business days. Paying does not buy approval. | Follow attribute: not stated. | An evergreen directory page, if you can live with the free backlog. |
| SaaSHub | Their own product page lists “Free Submission”. Submissions are approved by hand. They reject agencies, waitlist pages, unreleased products, free subdomains, and non-English products. Verification is described as a free promotion option. | Featured listing: the same product page says “Freemium $99 / Monthly (Featured Product Listing)”. The featured page calls it a month-to-month subscription. | Follow attribute of a product link: not stated. | A comparison directory, once the product is actually released. |
| Hunt network (one row) | Aura++ free is $0, with a standard queue, 5 free slots a day, and a scheduling window of up to 365 days. Dofollow only if you finish top 3 and show the badge. IndieHunt, EarlyHunt, MakerHunt, and SideHunt list a free launch: nofollow by default, dofollow if you win top 3, badge required on the free tier. MakerHunt and SideHunt also list a free Nofollow Launch with no badge. Queue length in days: not stated. Monday 8:00am UTC on the four weeklies. Aura++ launches at 8:00am UTC. | Aura++ Premium $29 per launch (guaranteed dofollow, DR 73, skips the free queue). Premium Plus $69. The four weeklies: Premium $19 one-time, guaranteed dofollow. EarlyHunt, MakerHunt, and SideHunt say Premium skips the queue. IndieHunt’s card says priority scheduling, not a skip. | Free: nofollow, unless a top-3 rule on that site upgrades it (Aura++ also requires the badge). Premium: guaranteed dofollow, at the DR each pricing page prints (Aura++ 73, IndieHunt 65, EarlyHunt 66, MakerHunt 49, SideHunt 46). | One free warm-up. Not all five in the same month. |
The same names, as links on this site
The guide template prints table cells as text. The chips under Related platforms are the links. The paths, if you want them in the prose, are below.
- Product Hunt: /platforms/product-hunt
- Hacker News: /platforms/hacker-news
- Indie Hackers: /platforms/indie-hackers
- Reddit: /platforms/reddit
- Peerlist Launchpad: /platforms/peerlist
- Uneed: /platforms/uneed
- Fazier: /platforms/fazier
- DevHunt: /platforms/devhunt
- TinyLaunch: /platforms/tinylaunch
- Smol Launch: /platforms/smol-launch
- Tiny Startups: /platforms/tiny-startups
- AlternativeTo: /platforms/alternativeto
- SaaSHub: /platforms/saashub
- Aura++: /platforms/aura-plus-plus
- IndieHunt: /platforms/indiehunt
- EarlyHunt: /platforms/earlyhunt
- MakerHunt: /platforms/makerhunt
- SideHunt: /platforms/sidehunt
- BetaList: /platforms/betalist
- Open Launch: /platforms/open-launch
- MicroLaunch: /platforms/microlaunch
Not free any more
BetaList used to be the place people meant by a free pre-launch queue. That option is gone. The support page at https://betalist.com/support says, in the submissions section: “All submissions are paid. There is no free submission option.” The next answer is just as direct: “No. BetaList used to offer free submissions, but all submissions now require payment.”
Prices are not printed on that page. It says current plans are shown at the end of the submission form, and that a startup which is not selected is refunded in full. If it is featured, the same page says every plan includes a do-follow backlink, and that the Visit Site button does not use rel="nofollow". There is no free queue to join. Do not plan a BetaList week around a $0 wait.
A $0 plan that you cannot launch on today
Open Launch’s pricing page still shows a Free Launch at $0. It also says free slots are fully booked into 2027, and that Premium is the only way to launch right now. Premium is $12 per launch, with a guaranteed dofollow backlink from a DR 71 domain. You can start a launch and ask to be emailed when free reopens. That is a wait until 2027, not a launch for $0 this month. It is left out of the table. Page on this site: /platforms/open-launch.
MicroLaunch is left out for a different reason. https://microlaunch.net/submit redirects to the premium pricing page. That page lists Launch Pro at $39 and Launch Plus at $79, and it does not state a $0 launch. A free submission may exist behind an account. It is not stated on the public page that loaded, so it is not in the table. Page on this site: /platforms/microlaunch.
How to get the most from free launches
Submit to the queues first, while the product page is good enough to read. Uneed can assign a date up to five months out. Fazier’s free review is within 30 days. Smol Launch’s next free week, on the day this was checked, was December 21 with 400 people ahead. Aura++’s free scheduling window is up to 365 days. AlternativeTo’s free backlog is “a very long time”. Paying later is how you skip some of those. Starting late is how you miss the week you wanted.
Stagger them. A Show HN thread, a Product Hunt day, and a Reddit post all want you in the comments for hours. Put them on different days. One Hunt board is enough as a warm-up. The Monday boards (IndieHunt, EarlyHunt, MakerHunt, SideHunt) share a clock. Two of them on the same Monday splits the same afternoon.
Reuse one asset kit. The same one-line description, the same two screenshots, and the same first comment, rewritten only where a site’s rules demand it. Product Hunt’s tagline cap and Show HN’s title pattern are different jobs. The product sentence under them should not be. A dated four-week plan, including a free-only budget, is the tool at /tools/launch-plan-generator. It runs in the browser. It does not submit anything for you.
This site’s publisher operates Aura++ and does not boost it. The Aura++ numbers above are from auraplusplus.com/pricing on October 21, 2026, the same way the other rows were checked. Every guide is listed at /guides.