What’s the best day to launch on Product Hunt?
One of the most common questions I get from founders is:
“Which day should we launch?”
As if the entire success of the launch depends on the calendar.
And truth is : it kind of does.
Here’s what I’ve seen from dozens of launches (ours and others):
– Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday → Highest traffic, but also highest competition. Big players like OpenAI, Google, Perplexity tend to drop updates then. You’ll get more eyeballs, but you’ll fight harder for them.
– Monday & Friday → Still strong days. Slightly less crowded, but with decent visibility and traffic.
– Saturday & Sunday → Quiet. Lowest traffic, but also the lowest competition. Good if you want to test without too much pressure or if you’re aiming for a niche audience.
What’s your experience? Any launch day that worked surprisingly well (or badly)?👇
Replies
I’ve been thinking a lot about launch timing too. Here’s my take:
If your product needs strong credibility and targets mid-market or above, the badge matters a lot. In that case, launching on a quieter day like Saturday or Sunday helps maximize your chance to get a badge.
But if your product is more polished, has some traction, or already has a community, then aiming for weekday traffic makes more sense.
So my simple rule is:
First launch → aim for the badge (weekend)
Next launches → focus on traffic and users (weekdays)
Curious to hear how others approach this.
@hwiidg Agree!
When is your launch day?
@byalexai I picked August 9th for the launch! It's my very first time on Product Hunt, so honestly... I have no idea if I’ll make it. But hey, I’m showing up and giving it a shot
@hwiidg Nice!
Can you share a link for your product?
@hwiidg Good luck on your launch!
I feel the same, Alex. Do you have any hypotheses why Monday is not so strong?
@busmark_w_nika meetings... everyone is in meetings + UK has bank holiday mondays so a percentage of audience is not in 'work mode'
@justisio aaaaa, that makes sense, I forgot that my meetings take like 8 minutes while others can spend hours :D
@busmark_w_nika In my opinion, for some people, it’s part of a long weekend. In other cultures, Monday is the busiest day of the week. And quite often, it’s actually a public holiday in various countries.
So, in a way, there are reasons to avoid it. Plus, if OpenAI makes an announcement, it usually happens around 10–11 AM California time, which is 6–7 PM in Europe. That means people in Europe can’t really participate in the launch the same day. So, due to time zone differences, announcing something on a Monday often means launching on Tuesday.
@byalexai True. I haven't been thinking about that this way. (I still live in a bubble.) :D
@busmark_w_nika The PH bubble
Atlas
ohhh...interesting, i thought Monday would be the highest.
I like the idea of launching on Monday so you have more days to nab that weekly badge!
@laura_cruickshanks true!
A lot of people totally forget about the weekly badge! A lot of benefits around the weekly badge!
Exactly, and launching early in the month maximizes your exposure for the monthly badge!
Atlas
@fmerian exactly!!!
PageAI
on Hunted.Space we track the number of upvotes to win, make it to top 3, 5 or 10 for any given month: https://hunted.space/history-monthly
The month of the year also makes quite a difference.
For example, February seemed super competitive compared to e.g. summer months:
https://hunted.space/product-hunt-monthly-launch-history/2025/February
insightful!
@dan_mindru Great information, Dan! This always gives a reference for how many upvotes you should aim for!
Congratulations on the website. I always follow the first initial hours there every day.
IXORD
Many people want to get this question but we can't say the exact data on which day is better. I think there is a certain percentage of luck here, which helps to get more votes. But I have never launched on weekends, I hope someone will share their story about launching on weekends :)
@ixord Absolutely. Some days are supposedly during the week, but there’s no competition at all. And you get high traffic, low competition.
FYI @Hunted Space tracks votes, comments, and products launched every day. This overview by day is eloquent: the highest activity is definitely on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
PageAI
@fmerian thanks for the shoutout! Let me know if we can do something better 🙌
From my perspective, you should define your launch day based on 2 main factors:
Your objective
Your target audience
Product Hunt has the highest traffic/visibility on weekdays, i.e. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays — Source: hunted.space
Higher traffic/visibility, higher competition.
If you're a developer tool, you may also want to launch on a weekend. Take @Zeabur (#1 Product of the Day) or @Trench (#3 Product of the Day) for example. Both launched on a Sunday. Why? Because many developers are developers in and out of work, with hobby projects to experiment with a new language, a new framework, or a new tool.
Fun fact: Last year, 16 out of the 20 best developer tools launched on Product Hunt, i.e. nominated for a Golden Kitty Award in the category, launched on a weekday: 28% launched on a Monday, 22% on a Tuesday, 17% launched on a Wednesday or a Thursday.
@fmerian Absolutely true.
But from my observations, small teams and indie hackers very rarely take these things into account. They just pick the day they like the most and launch. Yet there are many hidden bonuses if you approach it strategically.
@fmerian @byalexai I picked Wednesday for our launch, thinking Monday and Tuesday are more competitive, but I still wanted to catch that mid-week traffic.
Also checked Reddit and a few other communities where I’ve posted before—Wednesday consistently got the best engagement from those audiences.
That said... I won’t lie—I’m a little nervous about how we’ll stack up against the competition 😅
Would love to hear if anyone’s had success launching on Wednesdays as a small team/ indie hacker.
Above all, enjoy your launch day. And keep launching! Product Hunt pays off in the long term.
@fmerian agreed! I should just give it a try.
my todo for tomorrow - submit & add teaser
YourGPT
Yes, I experienced the same.