Fazier Alternatives: Launch Sites That Do Not Want a Link Back
Fazier’s free Basic tier is reviewed within 30 days and requires a backlink to Fazier on your homepage or footer; its paid tiers drop that requirement. Alternatives differ mostly in what they want on your site. Post Your Build Ideas, our own board, asks for nothing on your site, and neither does Show HN. Smol Launch, StartupBase and TinyLaunch ask for a badge on the free route, while Launching Next accepts free submissions for editorial review.
What does Fazier want in return for a free listing?
Fazier’s home page says you can submit a product for free, and its submit page (read 13 November 2026) spells out the terms. Basic is free, reviewed and listed within 30 days, with homepage featuring only if selected, and it requires a backlink to Fazier on your homepage or footer. The paid tiers add scheduling, a high-authority backlink for top three daily products, longer promotion and a premium badge, and they say no backlink is required.
So the free route is paid for in a link on your site. Some makers are glad to do that; others keep their footer clean, run a site where they cannot add third-party links, or simply want to publish before a reviewer has looked. Those are the people reading this page.
The useful way to compare alternatives is by what each one wants placed on your property, because that is where free routes hide their cost. Waiting is the other cost, and the table further down tracks both.
Which alternatives ask nothing of your website?
Eight sites follow, starting with the ones that leave your site alone. Facts are from each site’s own pages read on 13 November 2026, apart from BetaList, taken from our 12 November check.
01 Post your build ideas
Our free launch board. Nothing is placed on your site and nothing is reviewed first.
- Placed on your site
- Nothing
- Review
- None; the emailed link publishes the launch
- Link out
- The link to your website on the launch page is an ordinary followed link
We run this board, so the bias is ours to declare. Where Fazier wants a link back, we want only an email address to confirm that a person is behind the launch. The outbound link to your product is followed; links inside descriptions and comments are marked nofollow ugc.
What you give up is reach and polish. There is no newsletter and no paid badge, the gallery stops at four images, and the audience is small. A launch here is a free public page, nothing more.
02 Show HN
A Hacker News section for things you made that readers can try.
- Placed on your site
- Nothing
- Review
- None; the community decides attention, and there is no fee
- Fit
- Tryable projects, not landing pages
It is the opposite of a backlink trade: the guidelines forbid asking friends to upvote, and they exclude sign-up pages and fundraisers. If your product is a finished thing a stranger can run, nothing about it touches your footer.
03 Launching Next
A long-running directory of new startups and side projects with a Friday newsletter.
- Placed on your site
- Nothing, per its submit form
- Review
- Reviewed every day; an email follows if it publishes yours
- Cost
- Free to submit; a paid upgrade buys consideration within one business day
The form asks for a five to eight word headline, a description up to 2,500 characters, five to ten tags and whether yours is a side project, a bootstrapped startup or an investor-funded one. Nothing in it mentions a badge.
The catch is that submitting is a request. Its page says you will get an email if your startup is published, so publication is an editor’s choice.
04 BetaList
A curated directory of new startups, reviewed by a person, with a newsletter.
- Placed on your site
- Nothing that we found
- Review
- Human review after you choose a plan
- Cost
- We could not confirm a free route
As of our 12 November reading, its agent-submission page asks you to pick a plan and pay before review, and declined submissions are refunded. It avoids the badge, but the plan comes first, so it trades a link for a payment decision.
05 Smol Launch
A weekly launch board for indie makers.
- Placed on your site
- Its badge, on the free route
- Also required
- Votes for five other launches first
- Paid
- Premium drops the badge
Its pricing page says the free route covers only a product’s first launch and needs the badge on your homepage. Compared with Fazier’s footer link, the badge is the same kind of exchange with extra homework attached.
06 StartupBase
A daily launch platform with permanent product pages.
- Placed on your site
- Its badge, on the free tier
- Wait
- About four to five weeks in the queue
- Paid
- No badge required; pick a date within 30 days
The free tier here is Fazier’s trade with a queue instead of a review: a badge in return for a date assigned later. The pages describe the listing as permanent once it is up.
07 TinyLaunch
A ranked launch competition with a free standard queue.
- Placed on your site
- Its badge, to earn the dofollow link
- Reward
- A badge and backlink for the top three
- Paid
- Premium guarantees a backlink and skips the queue
Its home page says the dofollow link is granted when you embed the badge with a dofollow link to TinyLaunch. A badge that carries a link is a reciprocal arrangement by design, so it is not an escape from Fazier’s terms.
08 Product Hunt
The best-known launch site for software.
- Placed on your site
- Nothing that we know of
- Review
- Daily ranking and curated featuring
- Checked
- Not read; its pages blocked our automated check
We can say only the well-known basics: free to submit, sign-in needed, one day of ranking. There is a longer treatment in the Product Hunt alternatives guide.
What goes on your site, and how long is the wait?
| Site | On your site | Wait or gate |
|---|---|---|
| Fazier Basic | A backlink to Fazier on the homepage or footer | Reviewed within 30 days |
| Post your build ideas | Nothing | None |
| Show HN | Nothing | Community decides attention |
| Launching Next | Nothing on its form | Editorial decision |
| BetaList | Nothing we found | Plan, then human review |
| Smol Launch | Badge | Free week assigned; votes first |
| StartupBase | Badge | Queue of about four to five weeks |
| TinyLaunch | Badge with a dofollow link | Standard queue |
Should you take the link swap anyway?
Often yes. A footer link costs nothing if your site already carries credits, and a month of review is no hardship if you are not in a hurry. The swap only becomes a problem when the link would sit on a page you cannot change, such as a hosted app store listing, or when you would rather not send your visitors to a directory.
If you skip it, publish where nothing is asked first, then use the time to prepare descriptions for the others. The launch directory traffic calculator helps you decide which are worth a form, and the answer on backlinks from directories explains why you should not launch only for the link. The directory list for free startup listings and where to launch a side project put the sites in an order. To start now, launch your product free on our board, or browse the ideas board if you are still choosing what to build.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fazier free to submit to?
Its home page says you can submit a product for free, and its submit page lists a free Basic tier. Basic is reviewed within 30 days and requires a backlink to Fazier on your homepage or footer. The paid tiers drop that requirement. Check the page on the day you submit.
Do I have to link back to a launch directory?
Only on some free routes. Fazier’s Basic tier, and the free routes at Smol Launch, StartupBase and TinyLaunch, involve a link or badge on your site. Post Your Build Ideas, which is ours, and Show HN do not. Read each site’s current terms first.
Which Fazier alternative gets me live fastest?
Post Your Build Ideas goes live when you press Publish on the emailed link, and Show HN goes live when you post. Both have caveats: our audience is small and Show HN has strict rules. Fazier’s free tier can take up to 30 days to review.
Does a badge on my site hurt anything?
It changes your page a little, and a link in the badge sends some visitors away. The bigger risk is an unmaintained directory, so check that a site still posts recent launches before you add its badge. Remove the badge if the directory stops operating.
Can I list on Fazier and an alternative?
Yes, nothing we read asks for exclusivity. Reuse one description, tag each link with its own source and keep a note of which sites sent visitors. That tells you whether the next link swap is worth making.
Post your build ideas publishes this page and runs a free launch board that competes with some of the sites it names. Facts about other sites came from their own pages on the date shown above; terms, queues and prices change, so confirm on their sites before you decide. About the publisher.