Launch Llama FAQ — Submit Free & Earn a Newsletter Feature

Launch Llama is Distribution as a Service, not just a directory listing. Our moat is our newsletter network: 72,000+ subscribers across Launch Llama, The Stack and our founder email list, with 22,000+ opens per send. It is our primary distribution driver, and other launch directories cannot keep up with it. We then amplify your launch across X, LinkedIn, Threads, Instagram, Medium, our blog and the directory itself (95,000 monthly visitors across launchllama.co and tools.launchllama.co, DA 30). Most launch directories give you a page and stop there. Every listing also gets a permanent product page, SEO + GEO/AEO pages that AI assistants can cite, and a dofollow listing link when our checker finds the Launch badge, your listing reaches 50 upvotes, or you buy Instant Launch or Featured. Agents can search the catalog and open listing drafts through our public REST API and MCP server. Free listings start at $0 and can be picked for an editorial newsletter feature. Featured, our Premium plan, is where we push your launch across the whole network.

Distribution as a Service is what you get with Featured, our Premium plan ($49/week or $99/month). Instead of listing your tool and waiting, we actively push it across our entire network. The core is a feature in our newsletter network, our primary distribution driver, to 72,000+ subscribers (Launch Llama 16,000+, The Stack 46,000+ and our founder email list 9,000+; 1 feature per 4 weeks subscribed). We then amplify it with launch posts on X (5,000+ followers), LinkedIn (12,000+ followers), Threads (80K recent views) and Instagram, feature articles on Medium, launch roundups on our blog, and placement at the top of the directory and homepage hero with a permanent DA 30 dofollow backlink. You submit once and we do the distribution. Subscriber numbers are refreshed nightly. If you only want the newsletter, book a newsletter ad on /launch#newsletter.

Yes. A free directory listing costs $0, no credit card. After the form, the free path asks you to upvote 5 community tools (the same tool up to 3 times) and leave one star rating plus written feedback (both lines at least 20 characters). Then you embed the Launch Llama badge on your site. The badge is required for a free listing. Our checker fetches your website and looks for the badge before you can continue. Free listings are reviewed in about 4 weeks. The listing link becomes dofollow when that check finds the badge, or once your own listing reaches 50 upvotes. If a later check cannot find the badge, a badge-granted link can switch back to nofollow, unless the listing has 50 or more upvotes. Strong free listings may be picked for an editorial newsletter feature to 72,000+ founders (not guaranteed). Instant Launch ($39 one-time) skips the wait, the upvote step, and the badge step, and includes a permanent dofollow backlink plus guaranteed Google Search Console indexing. Featured ($49/week or $99/month) goes live immediately with pinned placement, a permanent dofollow backlink, and 1 newsletter feature per 4 weeks subscribed to 72,000+ founders. See /pricing.

Go to tools.launchllama.co/submit (or click Submit in the nav), create an account, and add your product name, URL, tagline, description, categories, and media. You can also start from the public REST API or MCP server: an agent can open a listing draft, and you still finish and choose a plan at /submit. Docs are at /developers. Then choose Free or Featured. On Free you can add Instant Launch ($39) to skip the queue. If you stay on Free with no paid skip, you upvote 5 community tools and leave one review, then verify the Launch badge on your site. Featured and Instant Launch skip those steps and go live after payment. A free listing goes live after review, about 4 weeks. Filling in the form takes under 5 minutes. The free gates come after that.

About 4 weeks after you finish the free submit steps: 5 community upvotes, one review, and a verified Launch badge. We review for quality and relevance. Featured membership publishes your listing immediately after checkout. Instant Launch ($39 one-time) also skips the free review wait, the upvote step, and the badge step, and publishes a standard (non-Featured) listing. See /pricing.

Free ($0, 1 tool): reviewed in about 4 weeks, basic directory placement, basic analytics. You must upvote 5 community tools, leave one review, and verify the Launch badge before a free listing can go live. The badge is required on the free path. Our checker fetches your site to confirm it. The listing link is dofollow when that check finds the badge, or once your listing has 50 upvotes. Featured ($49/week or $99/month, up to 3 tools): instant launch, pinned placement, a permanent dofollow backlink, distribution across 4+ SEO pages, Distribution as a Service (we push your launch across our newsletter network, X, LinkedIn, Threads, Instagram, Medium, our blog and the directory), advanced analytics, and 1 newsletter feature per 4 weeks subscribed to 72,000+ subscribers. The badge is not required. Featured Pro is no longer sold. Instant Launch ($39 one-time, on the Free plan): skip the ~4 week wait, the upvote step, and the badge step. You go live now with a permanent dofollow backlink and guaranteed Google Search Console indexing. Standard placement, no Featured pin, and no newsletter feature included. Editorial newsletter picks are separate from paid Featured plans.

Featured is $49/week or $99/month (up to 3 tool listings). Featured Pro is no longer sold. Cancel anytime from your dashboard. Full plan details and current Stripe prices are on /pricing.

Yes for founders who want a permanent listing and ongoing discovery instead of a one-day launch spike. Launch Llama gives a free or paid directory page, community upvotes and leaderboards, and a path into a weekly newsletter to 72,000+ founders. Product Hunt is still strong for launch-day buzz; Launch Llama is built for lasting SEO, backlinks, and repeat founder traffic. Compare options on /launch and /pricing.

Use more than one. Launch Llama: a free or paid directory listing, a dofollow listing link when you verify the badge or buy Instant Launch or Featured, and a newsletter path to 72,000+ founders. BetaList: early-adopter waitlist exposure, slower free tier. Indie Hackers: community discussion and storytelling more than a curated tools directory. Peerlist: professional and maker network and launches. Launch Llama is strongest when you want a permanent tool page, SEO, and newsletter distribution in one place. Stack it with community posts elsewhere.

Start free if you can wait about 4 weeks and can put the Launch badge on your site. The badge is required for a free listing. That is $0, with a chance at an editorial newsletter feature. The free listing link is dofollow when our checker finds the badge, or once your listing has 50 upvotes. Pay Instant Launch ($39) when you need to go live now with a permanent dofollow backlink and no badge step. Buy Featured ($49/week or $99/month) when you want pinned placement, faster SEO distribution, and 1 newsletter feature per 4 weeks subscribed to 72,000+ founders. Buy directory backlink packages (Starter $99 for 30 directories, Pro $149 for 60, Premium $199 for 100+) when you want submissions to other directories. Those packages are not included in a listing. Traffic varies by category and positioning. See /success-stories for founder outcomes.

The link on your Launch Llama product page and a directory backlink package are different things. Featured and Instant Launch ($39) include a permanent dofollow backlink from tools.launchllama.co (DA 30). A free listing link becomes dofollow in any of these ways. One: your listing reaches 50 upvotes. Those are upvotes on your product, not the 5 community upvotes you give during submit. Two: our checker fetches your website and finds the Launch Llama badge in the page. That fetch runs when you click Verify badge on my site in /submit, and again about every 14 days on free listings. If the badge was what turned the link dofollow and two later checks cannot find it, the link can go back to nofollow. Three: your free listing finishes in the top 5 of the weekly leaderboard. That grant is permanent. The #1 finisher that week is also featured in the newsletter to 72,000+ founders. A listing with 50 or more upvotes, a top-5 weekly finish, or a paid plan keeps the dofollow link without the badge. The 5 upvotes and one review in the free submit flow are only there so you can continue. They do not grant the backlink. Directory packages are a separate paid service: Starter is $99 for 30 directories, Pro is $149 for 60, Premium is $199 for 100+. They are not included in Free, Instant Launch, or Featured. See /directory-backlink-service and /leaderboard.

The free weekly leaderboard ranks community listings by upvotes received that week. It resets every Sunday at 00:00 UTC. Paid Featured listings are not in this ranking. The top 5 each week get a permanent dofollow backlink. The #1 finisher is also featured in the newsletter to 72,000+ founders. Places 2 through 5 get the dofollow link and not that newsletter feature. The top 15 get higher homepage visibility. Each logged-in account can upvote a tool up to 3 times, and only votes from the current week count. See /leaderboard.

Four paths: (1) Weekly leaderboard. The #1 free listing each week is featured in the newsletter to 72,000+ founders. Places 2 through 5 do not get that feature. (2) Free editorial pick. A strong free listing may also be featured to 72,000+ founders. That pick is not guaranteed. (3) Featured plan. Includes 1 newsletter feature per 4 weeks subscribed, to 72,000+ founders, claimed in your dashboard. Featured Pro is no longer sold. (4) Paid newsletter ads. $200 for one send or $500 for three sends, bought on /newsletter-ads. The ad does not guarantee the #1 spot, and LinkedIn and X promo are not included. An X post from @launch_llama is $150 and a LinkedIn sponsored post is $250, sold separately. You do not need a Featured plan to buy an ad. A weekly win, an editorial pick, a Featured plan feature, and a paid ad are different things.

Yes for a free listing. The badge is required before a free listing can go live. After the form you paste the embed, then click Verify badge on my site. Our checker fetches your website and looks for the badge in the HTML. Continue stays locked until it finds the badge. That same check can switch your listing link from nofollow to dofollow. A later recheck, about every 14 days, fetches the site again. If the badge is gone on two checks, a badge-granted dofollow link can switch back to nofollow. Your listing link is also dofollow once the listing itself has 50 upvotes, or when it finishes in the weekly top 5. Those grants stay even without the badge. Instant Launch ($39) and Featured do not require the badge. Those plans include a permanent dofollow backlink. Embed code is at /badge. The free listing walkthrough is at /get-featured-free.

No. Featured subscriptions are non-refundable once activated. Instant Launch, newsletter sponsorships, and directory backlink packages are non-refundable once they are scheduled or the work has started. You can cancel future Featured billing from your dashboard. You keep access until the end of the week or month you already paid for. Contact us before directory work or a newsletter send starts if you need to change timing.

Yes. Weekly and monthly Featured plans can be canceled anytime from your dashboard at /dashboard. You keep access until the end of the current billing period. There is no lock-in past the period you already paid for. Canceling does not refund the current period.

Free accounts can list 1 tool. Featured allows up to 3 tool listings. Featured Pro is no longer sold. Instant Launch applies to a single Free submission. Existing Featured subscribers who joined before listing-limit changes keep their prior allowance. If you are at the limit, delete a listing from your dashboard before submitting another.

Newsletter ads are one-time Stripe purchases, not part of a subscription. One send is $200 and three sends are $500. Each send goes to 72,000+ founders and includes a dedicated ad slot, custom copy, and a performance report. It does not guarantee the #1 spot, and LinkedIn and X promo are not included. An X post from @launch_llama is $150 and a LinkedIn sponsored post is $250, sold separately. You do not need a Featured subscription to buy a newsletter ad, a social post, or a directory package. This is separate from a free editorial pick and from the Featured plan feature (1 per 4 weeks subscribed, to 72,000+ founders). Buy at /newsletter-ads.

After purchase we reach out within 24 hours to collect your product details, submit your product to the directories in the package, and send a completion report. Most packages finish in about 5 to 14 business days depending on tier, often within about a week. Starter is $99 for 30 directories, Pro is $149 for 60, Premium is $199 for 100+. This is not the dofollow link on your Launch Llama listing. See /directory-backlink-service.

We review every free listing for quality and relevance. We reject spam, scams, affiliate dumps, and anything that is not a real product. MVPs, beta products, and waitlist pages are welcome when there is something real to look at. Being accepted as a free listing is separate from a newsletter feature and from buying Featured. You get an email when a free listing goes live. Featured and Instant Launch go live after payment.

The checker fetches your website and reads the HTML the server returns. It does not run JavaScript. The page must contain the badge embed: the Launch Llama badge image, or a link to tools.launchllama.co or launchllama.co. A screenshot, a badge that only appears after JavaScript loads, or a page the checker cannot fetch (login wall, blocked request, or timeout) will fail. Paste the embed from /badge into the HTML of your homepage or footer, publish it, then click Verify badge on my site again.

Log in as the owner and open your product page, or open the listing from your dashboard at /dashboard, then choose Edit listing. You can update the product name, tagline, short description, website URL, logo, founder names, and the page sections (who it is for, use cases, features, pricing, and founder story). Saving updates the public product page. Renaming the product does not change the URL.

No. Complete Launch Pad is no longer sold. Directory backlink packages are still available on their own: Starter $99 for 30 directories, Pro $149 for 60, Premium $199 for 100+. After purchase we reach out within 24 hours, then send a completion report. Most packages finish in about 5 to 14 business days, often within about a week. You do not need a Featured plan to buy a package. Newsletter ads are also sold separately ($200 for one send, $500 for three). These are separate from the dofollow link on your Launch Llama listing. See /directory-backlink-service and /newsletter-ads.

Yes. Launch Llama has a public REST API and an MCP server so agents (Cursor, Claude, ChatGPT tools, custom bots) can search the catalog, run a launch-readiness audit, and open a listing draft — no API key required for those flows. Agents never publish for you; founders finish and confirm at /submit. Docs: /developers and tools.launchllama.co/llms.txt. This is part of the same distribution stack as the directory, newsletter, and backlinks.

The best Product Hunt alternatives depend on your stage: BetaList for pre-launch waitlists, Indie Hackers and Peerlist for maker community feedback, Hacker News Show HN for technical products, and launch directories such as Uneed, Fazier, MicroLaunch, and Launch Llama for ongoing discovery. Launch Llama is the strongest pick when you want a permanent free or paid listing, a dofollow listing link when you verify the badge or buy Instant Launch or Featured, and a path into a weekly newsletter to 72,000+ founders instead of a one-day launch spike. Stack several channels rather than relying on one. See /launch and /faq.

Submit your AI tool to a mix of AI tool directories, launch boards, and communities: Launch Llama for a permanent DA 30 listing and newsletter path, plus AI directories (for example Futurepedia-style catalogs and curated lists), Product Hunt or Show HN for launch-day attention, and niche communities on Reddit or Indie Hackers. Start with Launch Llama at tools.launchllama.co/submit ($0 free listing after ~4 weeks review, or Instant Launch at $39 to skip the wait). Agents can also open a draft via the public API or MCP at /developers.

You can submit an AI tool for free on Launch Llama: go to /submit, create an account, add your product details, and choose Free. It costs $0 (no credit card). The free path then asks for 5 community upvotes, one review, and a verified Launch badge on your site. Review takes about 4 weeks. The listing link is dofollow when our checker finds the badge, or once your listing has 50 upvotes. Strong tools may be picked for an editorial newsletter feature to 72,000+ founders (not guaranteed). Instant Launch ($39) and Featured are for when you need to go live now or want pinned placement. Those plans include a permanent dofollow backlink without the badge. Walkthrough: /get-featured-free.

Directory backlinks are worth it when the directory has real domain authority, a dofollow link, and a page that stays live. They are not worth it when the site is a low-quality link farm. On Launch Llama, Featured and Instant Launch ($39) include a permanent dofollow backlink from tools.launchllama.co (DA 30). A free listing link is dofollow when our checker finds the Launch badge, or once the listing has 50 upvotes. A badge-granted link can return to nofollow if later checks cannot find the badge, unless the listing has 50 or more upvotes. Separate paid packages submit you to other directories: Starter $99 for 30, Pro $149 for 60, Premium $199 for 100+. Those are a portfolio of third-party links, not the Launch Llama listing link. Details: /directory-backlink-service and /get-featured-free.

Get your first users by going where buyers already gather: launch directories, niche communities, and direct outreach. Practical stack: list on Launch Llama (a permanent page, a dofollow DA 30 link when our checker finds the badge, the listing reaches 50 upvotes, or you buy Instant Launch or Featured, and a newsletter path to 72,000+ founders), post in relevant Reddit or Indie Hackers threads without spam, ship a Show HN if the product is technical, and email people who already asked for the problem you solve. Pair distribution with a clear landing page and a fast feedback loop. Start at /submit or /launch.

You can launch a startup for free by combining a free directory listing, organic community posts, and owned channels. On Launch Llama, a free listing is $0. After the form you upvote 5 community tools, leave one review, and verify the Launch badge. Review takes about 4 weeks. The listing link is dofollow when our checker finds the badge, or once the listing has 50 upvotes. There is a chance at an editorial newsletter feature to 72,000+ founders (not guaranteed). Add free tactics: Show HN or Indie Hackers posts, helpful Reddit answers, and a simple landing page with an email waitlist. Pay only when you need speed (Instant Launch $39, permanent dofollow, no badge step) or pinned placement (Featured). See /get-featured-free and /pricing.

There is no single best free AI tools directory. The right one depends on whether you want browsing discovery or founder launch distribution. For founders submitting a product, Launch Llama offers a free $0 listing (about 4 weeks review, after 5 community upvotes, one review, and a verified Launch badge) and a path into a newsletter to 72,000+ founders. The listing link is dofollow when our checker finds the badge, or once the listing has 50 upvotes. Large AI catalogs (for example Futurepedia-style directories) are better for end-user browsing. Use both: list where founders launch, and where users search for tools. Submit free at /submit.

Use both if you can. Uneed is a community-driven launch board popular for indie and AI product discovery. Launch Llama is built for lasting distribution: a permanent free or paid listing, a dofollow listing link when you verify the badge or buy Instant Launch or Featured, community upvotes, and a weekly newsletter path to 72,000+ founders, plus REST API and MCP for agents. Pick Uneed when you want another launch-day audience. Pick Launch Llama when you want an enduring product page, SEO, and newsletter reach. Compare plans on /pricing.

Fazier is a product discovery and launch platform often listed among Product Hunt alternatives, with a community-focused board that is typically less crowded than Product Hunt. It can be a useful extra launch channel. Launch Llama is a stronger fit when you want a permanent directory page, a dofollow listing link when you verify the badge or buy Instant Launch or Featured, and newsletter distribution to 72,000+ founders rather than only a short launch window. Many founders submit to Fazier and Launch Llama together. Start at /submit.

A SaaS directory submission is listing your product in curated startup or software directories to earn referral traffic and backlinks. It is worth paying when the directories are vetted, relevant, and high-DR, and when someone else does the form work. Launch Llama includes one listing on Free or paid plans. The dofollow link from that listing is included with Instant Launch ($39) and Featured. On Free it is dofollow when our checker finds the Launch badge, or once the listing has 50 upvotes. Separate Starter, Pro, and Premium packages ($99 for 30 directories, $149 for 60, $199 for 100+) submit you to many third-party directories with a completion report. Complete Launch Pad is no longer sold. Those packages are not included in the listing. See /directory-backlink-service.

To launch on Show HN, post a Show HN thread on news.ycombinator.com with a clear title, a working URL, and an honest technical write-up — the HN audience rewards substance over marketing. Follow HN guidelines, engage in comments, and expect blunt feedback. Show HN is excellent for developer tools and APIs but traffic is short-lived. Pair it with a permanent Launch Llama listing (free or Instant Launch) so you keep a product page, backlink, and newsletter path after the thread cools. See /launch.

Usually three to six well-chosen channels beat twenty low-quality directories. Prioritize: (1) one permanent listing site with real authority and ongoing traffic (Launch Llama: DA 30, free listing, newsletter to 72,000+ founders), (2) one or two community launches (Show HN, Indie Hackers, or Peerlist), (3) one or two AI/startup directories relevant to your category (for example Uneed or Fazier), and skip paid spam directories. Quality and follow-up matter more than raw submission count. Plan a stack on /launch.