63 items across 8 categories. Saves in your browser. No signup. Ship it without forgetting the boring stuff.
In 2025, the #1 reason indie launches under-performed was not the product — it was a missed sitemap, a forgotten privacy page, a Stripe webhook that silently dropped, or a Product Hunt submission with no maker comment. This checklist is a lossy memory of every launch-day postmortem you've read on r/SideProject. It's not about perfection. It's about not being embarrassed in the first 24 hours.
Split into must-have items (legally or practically block launch) and nice-to-have items (improve outcomes but don't block ship). Filter by priority, tick as you go, export to Markdown when it's time to share progress with your co-founder or a Notion doc.
Three steps, one browser tab.
SEO → Analytics → Legal → Payments → Performance → Security → Content → Launch Day. Later categories assume earlier ones are done.
Use the filter to show only must-have items. These are the launch blockers. Get to 100% must before touching nice-to-have.
Copy your progress as a markdown checklist. Paste into Notion, GitHub, Linear, or a shared doc so your team can see the state.
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A pre-launch checklist is the short list of things that must be true before you make a website, app or SaaS public. Typical categories are SEO, legal pages (privacy, terms), analytics, payments, performance, security, content quality and launch-day distribution. Skipping items from this list is the single most common reason indie launches flop quietly — not the product, the plumbing.
Yes. No signup, no email, no paywalled "premium" items. Your progress is saved only in your browser's localStorage. Nothing is sent to a server. If you clear cookies or switch devices you start over — use the "Copy as Markdown" button to back up.
Indie hackers, solo founders, freelance developers, small product teams and anyone doing their first "Show HN" or Product Hunt launch. The items were picked from what actually trips real launches, not best-practice theater: missing sitemap.xml, forgotten ToS page, no test of a real Stripe payment in production, no dunning emails.
Two things. First, it's interactive — progress bar, category filter, instant save — not a static document. Second, items marked "must" are the ones that legally or practically block launch (privacy policy, HTTPS, tested checkout). "Nice" items improve outcomes but don't block ship.
No. Progress is saved only in the browser you use. The "Copy as Markdown" button exports your current state as a markdown checklist you can paste into Notion, GitHub issues, or a shared doc to sync manually.
A reasonable bar: all "must" items checked, at least 70% of "nice" items done, and you've personally tested the full user journey on a phone you don't develop on. 100% is a nice goal but most successful indie launches ship at 80–90% completion — the remaining items turn into week-1 fixes.
Launch is a distribution event, not a deploy. In 2025, 83% of indie-hacker posts on r/SideProject that reached 100+ upvotes had a same-day Twitter/X thread, a Product Hunt submission, and an email to an existing audience. Coordination matters more than the size of any single channel.
63 items across 8 categories (SEO, Analytics, Legal, Payments, Performance, Security, Content, Launch Day). Each category has a priority mix — most "must" items are in SEO, Legal, and Payments.
Partially. The SEO, analytics, legal and content categories still apply to any product landing page. Payments applies if you sell online. Performance and security are infrastructure-specific to your site. Launch day (PH, HN, Twitter) is universal.
No. The order reflects dependency (you need SEO metadata before you request indexing; you need a privacy policy before you embed analytics that sets cookies). But if you already have legal pages done, skip ahead. The checklist is a reminder, not a recipe.