saas · indie · ai

Open-Launch: requirements, how to submit, and what you actually get

Visit

A daily launch board whose free slots are booked into 2027, and whose free followed link needs both a top-three finish and their badge on your site.

open-launch.com
Open-Launch homepage
Eligibility

Who Open-Launch accepts

You need
An account at /sign-in
Their badge on your site, for any chance of a followed link on the free lane
Patience, or $12
You'll be rejected if
Anyone who needs to launch this year on the free lane, since it is booked into 2027
SaaS productsIndie productsAI toolsDeveloper tools
What you actually get
A project page and a day on a board where everything launches at 08:00 UTC. The free lane is not a queue you join, it is a waiting list: their pricing page says free slots are fully booked into 2027 and offers to email you when it reopens. The followed link on that lane needs two conditions at once, a top-three daily finish and their badge on your site, so treat the free path as a placeholder and the $12 as the actual price.

How to submit to Open-Launch

  1. Sign in
    /sign-in creates the account the launch attaches to.
  2. Start a launch
    /projects/submit takes the project details. Their own pricing page tells free users to start a launch anyway so they can be emailed when free slots reopen.
  3. Pick a plan
    Free Launch (marked Fully booked), Premium Launch at $12, or the $59 SEO Growth Package. Premium has ten slots a day and a live counter of how many are left.
  4. Add the badge
    On the free lane the badge is one of the two stated conditions for a followed link, the other being a top-three finish in that day's ranking.
  5. Launch at 08:00 UTC
    All launches go live at the same hour, so the day's cohort starts together.

Open-Launch requirements

An account on the site
Project name, URL and description
Their badge on your site, for the free lane's conditional link
A logo and images for the board tileoptional

Gotchas

Free launches are fully booked into 2027, and the card is not merely full, it is inert: it cannot be selected, so there is no free listing to create and no queue position to hold. The only free action on the page is an email box that tells you when the lane reopens.
The free followed link needs two things at once: a top three finish in that day's ranking AND their badge on your site. Missing either leaves you with a nofollow.
Premium is capped at ten slots a day with a live counter, so "launch tomorrow" is true only while tomorrow has room.
There are two different badges here and only one of them is yours. The one published at /legal/badges says "Powered by Open-Launch" and belongs to sites running their open-source code; the badge that counts toward the free dofollow comes out of the launch flow.

Let your agent submit to Open-Launch

Connect SubmitMap to your AI over MCP and this page stops being something you read and copy. Your agent asks for the Open-Launch 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 4 Open-Launch rules above, so you find out you would be rejected before you open a tab.
Hands your agent all 4 fields this form asks for, 1 of them optional, already filled from your pack.
Warns you that Open-Launch looks for its badge on your site, so it has to be live before you submit rather than after.
Tells you what paying buys here, so you pick it on purpose: premium Launch is $12 a launch: tomorrow's board, no wait, a guaranteed followed link, and ten slots a day. An SEO Growth Package is $59, struck through from $199, and adds a written review article aimed at "[your product] review" keywords. The free lane is $0 and closed.
Types it into Open-Launch 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 Open-Launch?".
Connect your agentHow this worksTools and endpointsWorks with Claude Code, Claude, Codex, Cursor, VS Code and Hermes.

Open-Launch FAQ

How long does Open-Launch approval take?
Open-Launch's typical time from submission to going live is 6+ months.
How much does it cost to submit to Open-Launch?
Open-Launch has a free submission option plus paid placement (Premium Launch is $12 a launch: tomorrow's board, no wait, a guaranteed followed link, and ten slots a day. An SEO Growth Package is $59, struck through from $199, and adds a written review article aimed at "[your product] review" keywords. The free lane is $0 and closed.).
Does Open-Launch give a dofollow backlink?
No, links from Open-Launch are nofollow. The site has a domain rating of 71.
Does Open-Launch require a backlink to your site?
Yes, Open-Launch expects a link back from your site as part of listing.
What gets you rejected from Open-Launch?
Anyone who needs to launch this year on the free lane, since it is booked into 2027.