LaunchRepoSubmit to moderated directories three to four weeks before your launch, and schedule the platforms that let you pick a date only once you know your launch week. That is the whole timing strategy in one sentence. It works because directory listings do not go live when you submit them. They go live when each directory gets to them, which on free routes can take weeks. If you want a launch week rather than a launch smear, you need a floor: an earliest date before which nothing may be scheduled. This article shows why, gives you a week-by-week plan, and shows how the LaunchRepo tracker enforces the floor.
Why free listings go live later than you think
If you have never submitted a product to a directory on its free route, the timelines are surprising. From the public field guides on this site, all observed on 13 September 2026:
- SaaSHub produced a publicly reachable page right after submission, labelled “Pending approval”. Reachable is not accepted, so the tracker keeps it as pending review until the label disappears.
- Pitchwall accepted the submission as “Under Review”, with a review estimate of more than 30 days.
- TinyLaunch offered a future weekly slot on its free Standard path and still showed “Waiting for approval” after the date was chosen: scheduled, with approval outstanding.
- Uneed allowed one pending launch per account on the observed free route, so a second product waits until the first has cleared.
- Product Hunt confirmed a launch date and time zone. That confirms a date, not homepage placement.
None of this is a complaint. Free tiers are moderated by people with a queue, and the queue is long because the tier is free. The toolkit’s runbook tells the agent to warn you up front that many free directories take weeks, not days, and never to invent a review time a platform does not state. The listing status entry explains what each state means.
Two kinds of platform, two clocks
Every directory you plan to use falls into one of two groups, and they need opposite timing.
| Moderated directories | Date-picking platforms | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides when it goes live | The directory’s review queue | You, by choosing a slot |
| Typical signal after submitting | “Pending approval”, “Under Review”, a queue position | A confirmed date and time zone |
| When to act | Early: three to four weeks before launch | Late: one to two weeks before launch, after the floor is set |
| Tracker state | submitted_pending_review or queued |
scheduled, with the date |
| Risk if you get the timing wrong | Listing appears after the launch buzz | Listing fires before your launch page is ready |
| Does the floor apply? | No: submitting is not publishing | Yes: no slot before the floor |
The table explains the whole strategy. Moderated directories are slow and outside your control, so you start them first. Date-picking platforms are fast and fully under your control, so you hold them back until the launch week is fixed.
Target dates versus floors
A target date is when you would like things to happen. A floor is the earliest anything may happen. Directories make targets unreliable and floors cheap, because you control only two things: when you submit and when you schedule.
Consider a target on its own. You want listings live in your launch week. Your agent starts four weeks earlier because reviews take weeks. Most moderated directories then publish whenever they publish: some after a day, some after your launch, some never. The platforms that let you pick a date, such as weekly launch boards or Product Hunt’s calendar, will happily accept the first free slot the agent sees. That slot may be next Monday, and suddenly your best launch platform fires before your landing page, changelog and announcement are ready.
With a floor set to your launch Monday, that problem disappears. The agent can still submit early to moderated directories, because submitting is not publishing and the floor does not apply to it. It cannot schedule anything before the floor, because the tracker refuses.
A four-week launch timeline
Here is the plan the floor is designed for. The dates are an example: a floor of Monday 9 November 2026.
Week −4: set the floor and onboard. Decide the earliest date anything may go public and enter it during onboarding. Finish the product facts and the representation briefing so the agent has approved text before it touches a form. A listing that goes live with the wrong founder bio is worse than a late one.
Weeks −4 to −2: submit to moderated directories. These are the platforms without a calendar: review queues, “Pending approval” pages, “Under Review” estimates. They are the slowest and you cannot steer them, so they go first. Record every outcome. Expect pending and queued states, and expect some to stay there past your launch week. That is fine; the floor was never about them.
Weeks −2 to −1: schedule the date-picking platforms. Launch boards with slots, Product Hunt, anything that confirms a date and time zone. Give the agent the floor and a preferred day. It records scheduled with the platform’s confirmed date, and the tracker rejects anything earlier than the floor. Where a slot is confirmed but approval is still pending, the note says so.
Launch week: verify, then post. On the day, the agent opens each scheduled listing before recording live; a date on a calendar is not proof of a public page. Communities such as Hacker News are posts you write under house rules, not forms, and they belong in this week, when the listings they point to exist.
Weeks +1 to +4: follow up the queue. Pending submissions whose stated review window has passed get rechecked, never resubmitted to jump the line. Listings that arrive late still count. They arrive after the floor, which is the only thing the floor promised.
What the tracker does with the floor
Since the release of 15 September 2026, the product file product.json has a field called earliest_launch_date. Blank means no floor. With a date in it, the tracker script record.py refuses to record scheduled without a --launch-date, and refuses a date earlier than the floor. Onboarding asks for the value before anything is submitted, and the local dashboard shows the floor next to the product. The changelog has the release note.
This is a real run on 30 September 2026, with a floor of 2026-11-09 in an example product:
$ python3 scripts/record.py --project projects/my-product tinylaunch scheduled --note "Slot offered" --next-action "Pick a date"
Tracker rejected input: scheduled requires --launch-date as YYYY-MM-DD
$ python3 scripts/record.py --project projects/my-product tinylaunch scheduled --launch-date 2026-10-26 --note "First free slot" --next-action "Pick a later week"
Tracker rejected input: launch_date is earlier than the owner-authorized earliest_launch_date
$ python3 scripts/record.py --project projects/my-product tinylaunch scheduled --launch-date 2026-11-09 --note "Waiting for approval" --next-action "Verify on launch day"
Recorded tinylaunch: scheduled
$ python3 scripts/record.py --project projects/my-product pitchwall submitted_pending_review --note "Under Review" --next-action "Recheck after 30 days"
Recorded pitchwall: submitted_pending_reviewA schedule without a date is rejected, the slot before the floor is rejected, the slot on the floor is accepted, and the pending submission is recorded weeks before the floor, exactly as intended.
What the floor does not do
It does not make a directory publish faster; the agent does not decide when a directory publishes. It does not apply to pending or queued submissions, because those run on the platform’s clock. If a platform is known to publish immediately on its free route, submit it inside the launch window, not weeks before. And the floor is optional: for a product that has already launched, leave it blank and use a steady rhythm instead, as in the zero-spend launch planning guide.
The floor also does not decide whether a platform deserves a submission. That is a separate question per product, answered with the selection method, not with a date.
Setting the floor in practice
If you start with the Claude Code setup or any other agent, it asks during onboarding; answer with a date or say “no floor”. To change it later, edit earliest_launch_date in the product’s product.json and tell the agent, or change it in the dashboard’s product view. The step-by-step guide shows both ways. Existing scheduled rows are not rewritten: the check applies to new records. If you move the floor past an already confirmed slot, read the tracker before the agent’s next session and decide whether to reschedule on the platform.
Two habits make this work. Confirm the time zone whenever a platform confirms a date; the Product Hunt field guide exists partly because of that. And treat a thank-you screen as what it is: not live, not scheduled, just the end of a form. The scheduled listing entry explains the difference.
LaunchRepo ships this with the one-time licence: the onboarding that asks the question, the tracker that enforces the answer, and 299 active playbooks on 24 September 2026 that document which platforms take a date and which simply take their time.
Frequently asked questions
How far before launch should I submit to directories?
Submit to moderated directories three to four weeks before launch, because free reviews often take weeks. Schedule date-picking platforms such as launch boards one to two weeks before, once your launch week is fixed.
Will a launch-date floor delay my submissions?
No. The floor only blocks scheduling a date earlier than your chosen day. Submissions to moderated directories can go out as early as you like, because submitting is not publishing.
What if a directory publishes my listing before launch day?
Moderated directories publish when their review finishes, and the floor cannot stop that. If a platform is known to publish immediately on its free route, submit it inside your launch window instead of weeks before.
What happens if my launch date moves?
Change earliest_launch_date and tell your agent. New scheduled records must respect the new floor. Slots already confirmed stay as they are, so check the tracker and reschedule on the platform where needed.
Do I need a floor if my product is already live?
No. A blank floor is the default. For a product already on the market, a steady rhythm of a few submissions each week works better than a coordinated launch week.
Sources: ONBOARDING.md, RUNBOOK.md, DASHBOARD.md and CHANGELOG.md in the LaunchRepo toolkit (release of 15 September 2026), a record.py run on 30 September 2026, and the public field guides on this site, observed on 13 September 2026.