Product Launch Checklist — Free Launch Prep List for Indie Makers

What is Product Launch Checklist?

Product Launch Checklist is a free, single-page web resource for indie makers and small teams shipping software — whether that is a SaaS, a mobile app, an AI tool, a browser extension, an open source project, or a developer tool. It covers the stretch from the moment the product works to the first month after launch, one item at a time.

It is not an app in any heavy sense: there is no account, no dashboard, and no backend for your data. The entire product is a carefully curated checklist page of about 50 numbered items organized into 9 sections, where each item is tagged Must do or Worth doing and carries its own rationale, skip conditions, verification steps, and common failure modes. Page views are counted without cookies, which fits the no-friction ethos of the whole page.

How Product Launch Checklist Works

You start by picking your launch type — SaaS, mobile app, AI tool, browser extension, open source, or developer tool — and the list filters accordingly; the site frames this as the list getting shorter, not longer. You then work through the items in order: write a one-line description, set pricing, test signup and payment flows, check HTTPS, SEO, and Open Graph tags, prepare logos and screenshots, submit to directories, post on launch day, and follow up through week one and month one.

Ticking and skipping items saves in the browser. A share link encodes your current state, so you can carry progress to another device or show a colleague where you are. Nothing is stored server-side; the FAQ is explicit that your ticks, skips, and launch types live in that browser only.

Main Features

• 9 structured sections — Before you launch, Product ready, Website ready, Launch assets, Get listed, Launch day, First week, First month, and Type-specific items.
• About 50 tagged items — each marked Must do or Worth doing, with a rationale, skip conditions, and common failure modes.
• Launch-type filtering — selecting SaaS, mobile app, AI tool, extension, open source, or dev tool shortens the list to what applies.
• Local progress tracking — ticks and skips persist in the browser with no account, and a share link moves state across devices.
• Type-specific guidance — store review prep and TestFlight for mobile apps, trials and failed-payment handling for SaaS, rate limits and data disclosure for AI tools, and more.
• No-account, cookie-free operation — the page works immediately and counts views without cookies.

Pricing

The checklist is free. There are no plans, no paid tier, and no account that could be upsold. The tools it recommends in passing — Stripe, PostHog, Sentry, Resend, PageSpeed Insights — are third-party services with their own pricing, none of it charged through this page. The one commercial thread is SubmitMap, a directory-submission product that the page promotes repeatedly with referral links and cites 435 directories of its own submissions as of September 2026 for; the checklist itself charges nothing.

Common Use Cases

• Pre-launch audits — walking the Product ready and Website ready sections before announcing anything.
• Launch-day coordination — using the Launch day and Launch assets sections as a run-of-show for the announcement.
• Directory submissions — the Get listed section consolidates where and how to submit a new tool.
• Post-launch follow-through — First week and First month items keep momentum after the initial spike.
• Team alignment — sharing the link so collaborators see the same filtered, ticked list.

Limitations

The page is honest about being lightweight. Progress lives in one browser only — clear your data or move devices without the share link and your state is gone. There is no export, no reminders, no team features, and no API. The list is explicitly opinionated, and the FAQ cautions that you do not need to do everything on it. The submission statistics and effectiveness claims are self-reported by the site's authors, who also run SubmitMap — the checklist repeatedly steers readers toward it via referral links, so treat its directory advice as partially commercially motivated. Finally, it is a static reference: no dates, no integrations, and no updates promised on a schedule.

Summary

Product Launch Checklist is what it says it is: a free, opinionated, well-annotated list that turns launch chaos into a sequence. Its strengths are the per-item reasoning, the type-based filtering that respects your time, and zero-friction access with no account. Its weaknesses mirror its simplicity — browser-only persistence, no collaboration or export, self-reported stats, and referral-linked promotion of the authors' own SubmitMap tool. For an indie maker about to ship, spending an hour with this page before launch day is cheap insurance; just bring your own tracker if you want the checklist state to outlive your browser profile.