We looked at 48 real launches. Here's what actually got clicks.

If you've read any launch advice, you've heard it all. Add a demo video. Post three screenshots. Write a detailed description. Launch on a Tuesday.

We run DivvLaunches, a launch platform for indie makers, so we could actually check. We looked at 48 real launches from August 18 to October 4, 2026, and tracked every click from a listing to the product's website in its first 7 days.

The short version: most of that advice made no visible difference. A few things did, and some of them surprised us.

First, the real numbers

Together, the 48 launches got 145 website clicks in their first week. The median launch got 1 click, and 19 of the 48 got none at all. The top 10 launches took 72% of all clicks.

We're sharing these numbers because hiding them would make the rest of this post less useful. 48 launches is a small sample, so treat everything below as a strong hint about what to test, not a law.

1. The day after launch beat launch day

Launch day brought only 14% of first-week clicks. The next day brought 31%, more than twice as many.

We think it's time zones. Our launch day runs on India time and ends at midnight IST, which is still the afternoon of the same day in New York. So a lot of US visitors who browse "on launch day" actually land on our day 2.

What to do: don't post once and disappear. Plan a second round of sharing for the day after launch. Post a thank-you, reply to comments, and share your listing link again.

2. Your listing keeps working after launch week

29% of all clicks came after the first 7 days. Listings kept getting found and clicked for weeks after their launch.

This is the part most founders miss. A launch isn't a single day. A good listing is a permanent page that keeps sending people your way, and on DivvLaunches it also gives you a backlink that helps your SEO for as long as it's live. If backlinks are new to you, start with our beginner guide to backlinks.

What to do: write your listing for the person who finds it two months from now, not only for the crowd on launch day.

3. Outside attention mattered more than the listing

The biggest pattern in the data wasn't about listings at all. Every one of our top 10 launches went out between August 18 and September 14. Every one of the bottom 10 went out after September 18.

DivvLaunches launch study · 48 launches, Aug 18 to Oct 4, 2026 · hover a dot to see the launch

What changed? In those first weeks, posts about DivvLaunches on X were sending a wave of visitors to the site. When that wave calmed down, clicks dropped for everyone. The listings themselves weren't any worse.

We saw the same thing with single launches. Launch-day upvotes tracked clicks more closely than anything else we measured. Upvotes don't cause clicks. They're a sign that the founder brought people with them.

Where a listing shows up matters too. About half of all clicks came from our homepage. Our 5 featured launches got a median of 10 clicks, against 1 for free launches. That's only 5 launches, and featured listings sit at the top, so it measures placement more than the products. But it shows how much being seen early counts.

DivvLaunches click log · all launches, all time, as of Oct 12, 2026

The lesson: a launch platform amplifies attention. It can't create it from nothing.

What to do: before launch day, decide where you'll share it. X, LinkedIn, your newsletter, a community you're part of. A small group of people who know you is worth more than any listing tweak.

4. Short taglines did better, and long ones got cut off

Shorter taglines leaned slightly better. The top 10 launches had a median tagline of 9 words. The bottom 10 had 18. Across all 48 launches the link was weak, so take this as a nudge, not a rule.

Illustration · the 120-character tagline cap on DivvLaunches listings

One finding was hard to ignore, though. Taglines on DivvLaunches are capped at 120 characters, and 60% of the ones we studied were 110 characters or longer. Many got cut off mid-sentence, ending in things like "Try it free and". A cut-off tagline looks unfinished, and the reader never gets your point.

Some of the best performers said it in a handful of words: "The modern truck dispatch software." "Where to submit your product, and exactly how."

What to do: keep your tagline under 10 words. Say what it is and who it's for. Save the details for the description.

5. What made no difference

Some of the most common launch advice didn't show up in our data at all.

• Screenshots. Launches with 1 screenshot and launches with 3 had the same median: 1 click.
• A demo video or GIF, on free launches. Free launches with and without a video got the same average, 1.9 clicks each.
• Description length. Long and short descriptions did about the same.
• Launching on a busy day. Days with 8 launches didn't do worse than quiet days.
• Day of the week. Mondays looked best, but that rests on 7 launches, two of them on the same day. Not enough to pick a day.

DivvLaunches launch study · rank correlation with first-week clicks, 48 launches, Aug 18 to Oct 4, 2026

This doesn't mean screenshots and videos are useless. A good video might help someone decide to sign up after they click, and we only measured the click. It just means they're not what gets the click in the first place. So don't delay your launch to perfect them.

The bug we found while writing this

While digging through these numbers, we found a problem on our own site. The Website button on homepage listings was hidden on phones, and it had been that way since the morning of our very first launch day.

So every launch in this study lost its clicks from phone visitors on the homepage. It hurt all launches equally, so the comparisons above still hold. But the real totals should have been higher.

We fixed it on October 12, 2026. If you launched with us before then, thank you for your patience. Your listing now has a working button on every screen size.

Three launches worth copying

[Before publishing: get each founder's permission. For Zinn Hub, confirm whether First Class was bought or comped.]

Zinn Hub: a tiny tagline, a detailed story

Zinn Hub got 27 clicks in its first week, the most of any launch. Its tagline is just four words: "The Fairer Freelance Marketplace." Its description goes the other way, a detailed 441 words, plus a demo video. It was also the only listing with enough views to measure: about 1 in 4 people who opened the page clicked through. It was a featured launch, so it had top placement on launch day.

SubmitMap: the free tier, done well

SubmitMap launched on the free tier and finished first on its launch day with 8 upvotes, the most of any launch in the study. It got 8 clicks in week one and 17 so far, and it's the most-viewed listing on the site. Its tagline tells you exactly what you get: "Where to submit your product, and exactly how."

Otto Dispatch: plain and specific

Otto Dispatch got 8 clicks in its first week with zero upvotes. Five-word tagline, a 27-word description, one screenshot. Half of the people who viewed its page clicked through. No hype needed: it says exactly what it is, and the right people found it.

Your launch checklist

• ☐ Write a tagline under 10 words that says what it is and who it's for
• ☐ Check that your tagline doesn't get cut off on the listing
• ☐ Before launch day, pick where you'll share it: X, LinkedIn, your newsletter, a community
• ☐ Share on launch day, then plan a second round for the day after
• ☐ Reply to every comment on launch day
• ☐ Link to your listing from your site and socials so it keeps working after launch week
• ☐ Don't delay your launch to perfect screenshots or a video

A few honest notes

48 launches is a small sample, and one or two launches can move any median. We counted clicks, not unique visitors, and we can't see what happens after the click, like signups or sales. Our page view data only starts on September 11, 2026. We'll rerun this study at 100 launches and update this post.

If you're getting ready to launch, book your launch on DivvLaunches and put this checklist to work. And if you've launched with us, we'd love to hear what worked for you.