Launch week: a day-by-day plan across launch platforms
A Monday-to-Sunday launch week that gives each platform its own day: what to post, when, who answers comments, and what to measure every evening.
LLaunchScaler·Published ·9 min read
A good launch week gives each platform its own day, so you can answer every comment while it matters: a directory launch on Monday, Product Hunt on Tuesday, Show HN on Wednesday, communities on Thursday, newsletters and follow-ups on Friday, and a recap over the weekend. Each evening, you check what every source produced in visits, signups and payments.
Below is the plan day by day, with what to post, when, who answers comments, and what to measure. The platform terms (dates, times and rules) were checked on each platform's own pages in September 2026.
What does a launch week look like at a glance?
A launch week is one dated launch per day, prepared a month in advance, with a named person on every thread and a ten-minute review each evening. The order below puts the lower-stakes launch first, so the busiest days run on a site and a story that have already met real visitors.
Day
Main launch
Also that day
Who answers
Evening check
Monday
LaunchScaler
Personal posts on X and LinkedIn
Founder
Signups by source, bugs found
Tuesday
Product Hunt, 12:01 am PT
Waitlist email in the morning
Founder plus one teammate, in shifts
Questions, answered
What people ask about this
01
What should a product launch week look like?
One dated launch per day, so each thread gets your full attention: a directory launch on Monday, Product Hunt on Tuesday, Show HN on Wednesday, communities on Thursday, newsletters and follow-ups on Friday, then a weekend recap. Every evening, check visits, signups and payments by source.
Swap the days to suit your audience, but keep the rule: one dated launch per day.
What should you prepare in the month before launch week?
Book everything that has a queue, write everything that will be posted, and test everything a visitor will touch. Product Hunt lets you schedule a post up to 1 month ahead, and Uneed's free line assigns a date between 30 days and 5 months out, so the calendar is set weeks before the week itself.
Work through this list, roughly in order:
Book dated launches. Schedule the Product Hunt post for Tuesday at 12:01 am PT. Book Monday's launch day. If you want Uneed inside the week, you need its Skip the line option to pick the exact date, since the free line assigns one for you.
Submit to BetaList if your product fits. Every BetaList submission is paid, the timeline depends on the plan, and it's shown when you choose it.
Write the Product Hunt assets: a tagline of at most 60 characters, a description of at most 260 (the help center's limit; the launch guide says 500), a 240 x 240 thumbnail, at least two gallery images at 1270 x 760, and the first comment. Product Hunt notes that 70% of products that reached Product of the Day, Week or Month had a first comment by the maker.
Write the Show HN title and text by hand, with the backstory and a clear statement of what it does.
Build a UTM-tagged link for every channel you control, and note that Product Hunt's URL field doesn't accept tracking links.
Draft the waitlist email and every social post.
Name who answers comments on each day, and when each person sleeps.
Test signup, onboarding and payment in production.
Start the week with a launch that doesn't hinge on a single morning's votes. On LaunchScaler's launch board, "A fresh board every day. Products climb it on community votes," and the readiness score on each card is "measured separately and can never be voted up or bought." Your listing stays up after the day ends.
What to post and when: share your listing link on X and LinkedIn in the morning, with one sentence on what the product does and why you built it. Post it in your own channels only, not in communities yet, since Thursday is their day.
Who answers: you. With only your own posts pointing at it, Monday's visitors are mostly people who know you, which makes it the right day to find the rough edges in onboarding before the bigger days.
What to measure in the evening: signups by source, any bug a real user hit, and every question someone asked twice. Put the repeated questions into your Product Hunt first comment tonight.
Tuesday: launch on Product Hunt
Go live at 12:01 am Pacific Time. Product Hunt's guide explains that "the homepage runs on a 24-hour cycle based on Pacific Standard Time," so posting at 12:01 am gives the full day. Its best-day advice is simpler: "The best day to launch is the day on which you're most prepared." A Tuesday leaves Monday to fix what the first launch found.
What to post and when:
12:01 am PT: the post goes live with your first comment already in place.
Morning in your audience's time zone: send the waitlist email, with one link and one ask. Product Hunt's rule is that "you cannot ask people directly to upvote your product. Instead, ask them to visit and comment."
Through the day: post on X and LinkedIn at two or three points, each with something new (a demo clip, a customer quote, a behind-the-scenes note), not the same ask repeated.
Who answers: split the 24 hours between two people if you can, and make sure every maker has a Product Hunt account before the day, because company accounts are prohibited. Reply to every comment, including the critical ones.
What to measure in the evening: visits from producthunt.com (by referrer, since the post URL can't carry UTMs), signups, activated users and any payments. Rank matters less than what the traffic did. The guide on the best time to launch on Product Hunt covers the timing in more depth.
Wednesday: post a Show HN
Post your Show HN when you have the next several hours free, because the guidelines require a project "you're around to discuss." Show HN is for "something you've made that other people can play with," and asks you to make it easy to try, "ideally without barriers such as signups or emails." If your product needs an account, set up a demo path first.
What to post: a title that begins with "Show HN:", then the name and a plain line on what it does, inside Hacker News's 80-character title limit. Put a short text in the post covering why you built it, what it does and what's different. Don't ask anyone to upvote or comment; the Hacker News FAQ says it penalizes or bans submissions, accounts and sites that do.
Who answers: the person who built it, in the thread, with technical detail. Hacker News readers ask hard questions, and a direct answer does more than any launch copy.
What to measure in the evening: signups from news.ycombinator.com, the three most common objections, and any feature request that came up more than once. The Show HN rules guide covers the posting rules in full.
Thursday: post in communities that allow launches
Spend Thursday in the communities where your users already talk, and only where launch posts are allowed. Every subreddit and forum sets its own self-promotion rule, so read each one's rules before posting. Where launch posts aren't allowed, answer existing questions instead and mention your product only where it answers the question.
What to post: a post written for that community, not a copy of your Product Hunt text. Say what you built, who it's for, and what you'd like feedback on, and disclose that you're the maker.
If you bought Uneed's Skip the line, Thursday is a good slot for it too. Uneed puts a new batch live "every day at 12:00 AM PST," and suggests Tuesday to Thursday for B2B and productivity products.
Who answers: you, in each thread. Community replies come slower than on Product Hunt, so check every few hours.
What to measure in the evening: visits and signups from each community, and whether those users activate at a different rate than Product Hunt's.
Friday: newsletters and follow-ups
Use Friday to extend the week's reach through people who already have an audience. Send short pitches to newsletters that cover your category, with a one-line summary, a link and a screenshot. Follow up with everyone who signed up this week and hasn't reached the product's core action yet.
What to post: a thank-you post on X and LinkedIn with what happened this week in plain numbers, if you're comfortable sharing them. Ask your first happy users for a short review or quote.
Who answers: anyone on the team; Friday is replies and outreach, not a live thread.
What to measure in the evening: the week's totals by source, in one table: visits, signups, activated users, payments. This is the table that decides where you spend effort next month.
Saturday and Sunday: recap and plan the month after
Use the weekend to fix the top reported bug, write a short recap of what you learned, and plan the next four weeks. Launch week creates a spike; the month after turns it into a trend through reviews, directories, content and follow-up with every signup.
On Saturday, post the recap where you've been building in public, and check how many of Monday's signups came back. On Sunday, write the plan: which two channels produced paying users, what content answers the questions people asked all week, and which directories to submit to next. The SaaS launch strategy sets goals and metrics for that month.
What should you measure each evening?
Record the same five numbers per source every evening, in one sheet: visits, signups, activated users, payments and open issues. Tag every link you control with utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign, which Google Analytics says you should always set, and read the rest by referrer.
Compare platforms on signups and payments, not on rank. A lower rank that sends users who pay beats a badge that sends browsers.
Book your launch day with Premium
Monday's launch only works if the day is yours to choose. LaunchScaler's Premium launch costs $29 one-time and books any open day, today included, with your listing written for you from your own scan, and nothing to put on your site because paying skips the badge. The listing stays in the permanent curated index after its standing decays. Every listing starts with a 156-check readiness scan across 6 of 7 categories, and the 1 dofollow link to your site is earned by passing it, on Premium as on the free launch. Get Premium to book Monday, or choose the free launch on the same page, which gives you "your listing from the day the queue reaches you" and fits a week you don't need to fix in advance.
What day should I launch on Product Hunt?
Product Hunt says the best day is the one on which you're most prepared, and that 12:01 am Pacific Time is the best time for makers planning ahead, because its homepage runs on a 24-hour cycle. A midweek day leaves room for the other platforms around it.
03
Should I launch on Product Hunt and Hacker News on the same day?
No. Both rank by votes or points in the first hours, and both expect the maker in the thread. Put them on separate days so you can answer every comment.
04
How far ahead should I plan a launch week?
Start at least a month out. Product Hunt lets you schedule up to 1 month ahead, and Uneed's free line assigns a date between 30 days and 5 months away, so queues need booking before the week itself.
05
What should I measure during launch week?
Each evening, record visits, signups, activated users and payments by source using your UTM-tagged links and referrers, plus open bugs and unanswered comments. Judge each platform by signups and payments, not by rank.
BetaList charges every submission and editors pick who is featured, refunding the rest. LaunchScaler lists free from a queue and ties its link to a scan.
Product Hunt is a free, one-day launch where votes and featuring decide visibility. LaunchScaler scans your site and keeps a permanent listing. Use both.
SaaSCity's free plan needs its badge and a 210-day queue; Quick Pass is $19.99. LaunchScaler's free launch needs a badge or fee; Premium is $29, any day.
