How to submit to MicroLaunch: free vs Pro and a launch week for one person

A one-day launch rewards whoever can bring the biggest crowd at 9 AM. MicroLaunch is built the other way around. The listing stays in front of visitors for weeks, and the community scores the idea, the product and the feedback you collect. For a solo founder with a small audience, that is a different job, and it needs a different plan.

What is MicroLaunch, and how does a launch run?

MicroLaunch is a directory and launch platform for early products. Its homepage shows a monthly leaderboard with Business and Consumer tabs, and each product card carries separate scores for the idea and the product, plus a count of roasts. A roast is a feedback thread: people try the product and say what is wrong with it. The platform also runs a deals marketplace, a weekly newsletter and hackathons, but none of those is required to launch.

Per its premium page, a launch gives you 30 days of visibility, and the program is built around getting reviews, feedback and a first set of customers. That framing matters. If you want a single loud day, a daily ranking suits you better, and the Product Hunt launch guide covers it. If you want a product in front of people who will tell you what is wrong, a month is the better shape. For where either one belongs in a submission order, the launch directories guide lays out the whole field.

Free launch vs Pro: what is gated?

The free launch is real, and it gets you a listing. What you give up is control and extras. Here is how the options stack up, with prices read from the premium page on November 2, 2026. The site changes its discount codes often, so confirm the number on the checkout screen.

The honest comparison is time against money. The free line costs you a date you do not control and an unknown wait. Pro costs $39 and gets you the date, so your launch lands when your list is warm. Nothing on the page sells votes, and that is worth saying out loud: a paid slot buys placement and distribution, not a ranking. The same logic applies on the Uneed launch guide, where the paid tiers also buy timing and guarantees, not popularity.

The page also lists a $299 product review and go-to-market plan, with two slots a week. It is a separate service, not part of a launch, and you can skip it without affecting anything above.

How do you prepare the listing?

Seven steps cover the form and the follow-up. The listing itself takes under an hour. The preparation that decides the month is the list of people you will tell.

1. 01Create an account and open the launch form

   There is no public submit page to bookmark. You sign up, then use the New Launch button in the site header.

2. 02Pick Business or Consumer

   The monthly leaderboard is split by audience. Choose the side where your product actually competes for attention.

3. 03Fill in the product details

   Name, address, a short tagline, a description and images. Write the tagline so it makes sense on a card with no context.

4. 04Choose free or Pro

   The free launch goes through a queue. Pro lets you pick the launch date and adds featured placement. The next section covers what each includes.

5. 05Tell people the date

   A launch feed shows many products at once. The people you notify are what separate your listing from the others.

6. 06Answer every comment and roast

   Roasts are the feedback threads, and they are part of how a product is scored. Reply to each one.

7. 07Relaunch only for a major release

   MicroLaunch allows additional launches when something significant ships. It is not a way to repeat a launch every month.

Before you open the form, check these six lines.

• A product a stranger can open without a waitlist
• A tagline that makes sense with no context
• A clear Business or Consumer choice
• Screenshots that show the product working
• A launch date you can staff for the first day
• A short list of people who will actually click

If the tagline is the weak link, the free landing page roast shows what a first-time visitor sees before they read the description. A product behind a waitlist belongs somewhere built for that, such as BetaList, which the BetaList submission guide walks through.

What does launch week look like, day by day?

Here is a schedule that fits one person with a day job or a product to run. It has two actions per stage and nothing that needs a team. The month does the rest, so the goal of the first week is to start conversations, not to win a ranking.

The pattern is one reachable action per day, and each one is something a single founder can finish in an hour. For the hour-by-hour version of the first day, the launch week playbook goes further, and the launch day checklist covers the morning.

How do you use the feedback and comments?

The roasts and comments are the main thing a month-long format gives you that a daily ranking does not. Treat them as a free round of user interviews. Reply to every one, and sort what you hear into three piles: problems you will fix this week, requests you will note and revisit, and misunderstandings that tell you the description is unclear.

Two replies work better than the rest. First, quote the person back to themselves: say what they found, then what you will do about it. Second, post the fix in the same thread when it ships. That turns a critic into someone with a reason to come back, and it shows other visitors that the product is alive. If you want more structured input before or after the launch, the pre-launch feedback guide lists the questions that produce answers you can act on.

You can also bring your own testers. Founders in the Favors.dev founder marketing co-op earn points in the points economy by trying a product and writing down what they honestly think, so a MicroLaunch date on the launch calendar gives you real people to send to your listing on the first day.

Do a directory's own authority numbers matter to you?

Very little. Review sites for launch directories like to quote a domain rating for each one, and MicroLaunch advertises do-follow backlinks as part of Pro. Those figures describe the directory. They do not describe what a link to your product is worth, which depends on how the link is marked up and how many other links you have. Google's guidance on qualifying outbound links explains how a link attribute changes how a link is treated.

The practical advice is to open your live listing, inspect the link, and see for yourself. Then judge the launch on what it brought: signups, feedback and reviews. If the backlink helps, good. The directory backlinks guide explains how to weigh a listing like this against the others, and the Product Hunt alternatives roundup shows where MicroLaunch sits among them.

Frequently asked questions