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Product Hunt: requirements, how to submit, and what you actually get

Visit

The default launch stage. High traffic for one day, a permanent backlink after.

producthunt.com
Product Hunt homepage
Eligibility

Who Product Hunt accepts

You need
An account via LinkedIn, GitHub, X, Google, Facebook or Apple, since there is no email option
A live product anyone can try without a sales call
A 240x240 logo and three gallery images or a short demo video
You'll be rejected if
Waitlists and landing pages with no working product
Reposting the same product within six months
Web appsMobile appsAI toolsDev toolsFree tools
What you actually get
A top-five finish usually means 800–3,000 visitors on launch day and a handful of paying users. Below tenth place it's mostly a backlink and a badge.

How to submit to Product Hunt

  1. Sign in with a social account
    LinkedIn, GitHub and X get full-width labelled buttons; Google, Facebook and Apple sit below them as a row of three unlabelled icons that is easy to miss. There is no email or password sign-up, so the launch is tied to whichever identity you pick.
  2. Paste the URL to start
    /posts/new asks only for the product link, then scrapes your page and opens the real form at /posts/new/submission. It fills the launch name from your page title, which is usually not your product name.
  3. Main info
    Name (40), tagline (60), links, an open-source checkbox, an X handle, a description (500) and up to three launch tags. There is also a first-comment box here, which posts automatically when the launch goes live.
  4. Images and media
    A 240x240 thumbnail, max 2MB, which they pre-fill from your favicon, and a gallery where the first image becomes the social preview. They recommend three or more. Video and interactive demo are optional.
  5. Makers, extras, checklist
    The Launch checklist scores you against Required and Strongly Recommended items and shows a completion percentage.
  6. Draft or schedule
    Create draft saves everything and stays editable. Schedule launch for later is the commitment. A draft says so on its own page: not scheduled for a launch yet.

Product Hunt requirements

An account via LinkedIn, GitHub, X, Google, Facebook or Apple
Working product URL
Thumbnail
240x240, under 2MB
Gallery images
three or more
Tagline
60 characters
Description
500 characters
Launch tags
up to three
A first comment, which posts on launch

Gotchas

Sign-in is social only, and only three of the six providers are labelled. LinkedIn, GitHub and X are the named buttons; the small unlabelled icons under them are Google, Facebook and Apple. There is no email or password route, so the launch is permanently attached to whichever identity you pick.
They pre-fill the launch name from your page title, not your product name. Ours arrived as "Startup Directories & Launch Platforms" at 38 of 40 characters.
The first comment is written in the submission form, not posted afterwards, and it goes up automatically the moment the launch does. Write it before you schedule.
Create draft and Schedule launch for later sit side by side at the end. Only the second one commits, and a draft page says outright that it is not scheduled.
Asking for upvotes in public gets the launch penalised. Share the link, never the ask.
You get one launch per product per six months, so a launch spent before you have an audience is one you cannot repeat.

Let your agent submit to Product Hunt

Connect SubmitMap to your AI over MCP and this page stops being something you read and copy. Your agent asks for the Product Hunt playbook and gets the brief for this exact form, with the values already taken from your submission pack instead of placeholders you fill in by hand.

What it does for this platform
Checks your product against the 5 Product Hunt rules above, so you find out you would be rejected before you open a tab.
Hands your agent all 8 fields this form asks for, none of them optional, already filled from your pack.
Types it into Product Hunt in your own browser, and stops for you when the form wants a sign-in.
Records what it sent, so the dashboard can answer "did I ever submit to Product Hunt?".
Connect your agentHow this worksTools and endpointsWorks with Claude Code, Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code and Hermes.

Product Hunt FAQ

How long does Product Hunt approval take?
Product Hunt's typical time from submission to going live is same day.
How much does it cost to submit to Product Hunt?
Submitting to Product Hunt is free.
Does Product Hunt give a dofollow backlink?
Yes, a listing on Product Hunt carries a dofollow link. The site has a domain rating of 91.
Does Product Hunt require a backlink to your site?
No, Product Hunt does not require a link back from your site.
What gets you rejected from Product Hunt?
Waitlists and landing pages with no working product; Reposting the same product within six months.