These are the 34 subreddits Radar checks on every scan, built for founders to show what they made. The table above has the live promotion verdict and cited rule for each one; this guide explains what each venue is for and how to post there without getting removed. Treat each of the 34 as a single post, then go find your real customers in the threads where they're already asking for help.
How to use this list
The table above shows the current promotion verdict for all 34 venues, the general ones and the platform-specific ones. Use it like this before you post anywhere.
- Read the verdict first. Allowed means members expect founders to show up and pitch, as long as you disclose you built it. Restricted means promotion is fine, but only under one specific condition. Banned means don't try it, not even a soft version.
- Click through to the rule. The subreddit rules checker pulls a community's actual promotion rule, so check it before you post if you're reading this some time after the audit date, since subreddits change their rules without notice.
- Check the flair or thread condition. A restricted verdict almost always comes down to one thing: a required flair, a designated weekly or monthly thread, mod approval requested first, or a cap on how much of your activity can be self-promotional. Miss that one condition and the post gets removed even when the writing itself is fine.
- Post once. Each of these subreddits gets a single launch post from you, not a rotation you run the same copy through every few weeks.
- Then help elsewhere. A launch post gets you in front of people who like new products. It doesn't reach the person who is, right now, searching for a fix to the problem your product solves. That's a different kind of thread, and it's what the rest of this page and the rest of the site are built around.
The 19 general launch venues
The subreddit rules audit classifies r/microsaas as SaaS-specific, so it sits with the platform group below instead of here. That leaves 19 venues below that take a project from any category, as long as it's something you built yourself and you're willing to say so.
r/SideProject
r/SideProject is the biggest of the generic venues at 833k members, and it exists for exactly this: post the thing you made and ask for feedback. A short writeup with a screenshot or a demo link does better than a pitch. Verdict: allowed, based on the sidebar description inviting side project shares and feedback.
r/buildinpublic
For founders documenting the build itself rather than just the finished result. A post here reads better with numbers or a lesson attached than with a bare announcement. Verdict: allowed, rule 3 permits sharing your work with context and asking for feedback on it.
r/IMadeThis
A straightforward showcase venue: you made something, you post it, people react. Works better for a finished product than an early prototype, since the format is closer to a reveal than a discussion. Check the verdict in the table.
r/alphaandbetausers
Built for founders looking for people to try an early, unfinished build. The post that fits is a request for testers, not a launch announcement, since the audience here is specifically people willing to poke at something rough. Verdict: allowed, a launch and feedback venue.
r/Startups_Promotion
Promotion is the point here, where posting your product directly is the expected format. Promotion venues still carry their own posting rules, so check before you post.
r/GetStartups
This is a discovery venue, so a post works as an introduction: what it is, who it's for, and a link. Better for a first appearance than a deep progress update.
r/MacroStartups
Startup discovery and discussion, in the same spirit as r/GetStartups. Post what you built and why. A concise framing works better than a build log.
r/launchmystartup
The name says it: post at launch, not during development. Cover what it is, who it's for, and what changed since you started.
r/SideProjects
The plural twin of r/SideProject, with the same showcase and feedback format. Post once, either here or in r/SideProject, not in both with the same text.
r/indiehackers
The community tied to the Indie Hackers site, for indie founders sharing revenue, progress, and asking for feedback from other builders. The format that fits is a show-and-tell with real detail, not a one-line drop. Verdict: restricted, self-promotion is allowed once you use the SHOW IH flair, for feedback specifically.
r/saasbuild
A build and launch venue for SaaS founders specifically, closer in spirit to buildinpublic than to a general showcase. A post works best with a concrete before-and-after or a specific problem it solves. Verdict: allowed, a launch and feedback venue.
r/indiebiz
For small, bootstrapped businesses sharing what they're building and how it's going, not limited to software. A post about a real decision or tradeoff fits better than a generic announcement. Verdict: allowed, a launch and feedback venue.
r/buildtoship
For people committed to shipping. Posts here show progress toward launch, not ideas in discussion.
r/scaleinpublic
The sibling venue to buildinpublic for founders past the earliest stage, sharing what scaling an existing product looks like rather than a first launch. Verdict: allowed, a launch and feedback venue.
r/Startup_Ideas
Post a startup idea, or a product you've built if you frame it as validation rather than pitch.
r/producthunters
People here follow and discuss launches. A launch-day post with a clear one-line description of what it does fits the format.
r/TestMyApp
This is for recruiting testers. Ask for specific feedback, not a general announcement.
r/betatests
For recruiting beta testers for an early product, similar in purpose to r/alphaandbetausers. State what stage the product is at and what you want testers to check. Verdict: allowed, a launch and feedback venue.
r/roastmystartup
For posting your startup and asking people to be blunt about what's wrong with it, so the post that works is an honest one, not a defensive pitch. Read a few existing threads before posting so the tone lands right. Verdict: allowed, a launch and feedback venue.
The 15 platform venues
These 15 only apply if your product fits the platform. Posting a general SaaS tool in a narrower category's subreddit gets it removed regardless of the written verdict.
Mobile and desktop apps have three matching venues: r/androidapps and r/iosapps for phone apps, and r/macapps for Mac software. Only post if you shipped a native app on that platform, not a website that works on mobile. Verdict for r/macapps: restricted, self-promotion is limited to once a month and requires disclosing the relationship in the comment itself.
Browser extensions have their own venue, r/chrome_extensions, which only fits if you built a real extension, not a web app with a companion extension as an afterthought.
Shopify has one dedicated venue, r/shopify, and it's worth knowing this one before you try it: verdict banned, rule 5 prohibits soliciting and self-promotion and rule 10 separately bans dev research and app validation posts. If your product is a Shopify app, this is not where you launch it.
Open source projects have three matching venues: r/opensource and r/coolgithubprojects for the code itself, and r/selfhosted if your product is something people run on their own infrastructure. Verdict for r/selfhosted: restricted, the rules require disclosure and following Reddit's general self-promotion guidance.
No-code builders have one venue, r/nocode, for products built with or for no-code tools. Verdict: restricted, the condition is disclosure plus either a company flair, a value-add post, or using the monthly launch thread instead.
Games have two matching venues, r/IndieDev and r/playmygame, for a real game rather than a productivity tool with game-like mechanics.
SaaS and general web apps have four venues: r/microsaas and r/micro_saas for small, founder-run SaaS specifically, r/SaaS for SaaS more broadly, and r/webapps for a web product that isn't neatly SaaS. Verdict for r/SaaS: restricted, promotion is allowed only if it's relevant and helpful, with feedback requests confined to the weekly thread. Verdict for r/micro_saas: allowed, a launch and feedback venue. Check the table above for r/microsaas and r/webapps before posting.
A launch post that survives
The posts that stay up and get real replies follow roughly the same shape everywhere on this list, even though the venues differ.
- What you built. One or two sentences, plain language, no jargon that only makes sense to people who already use the product.
- Who it's for. A specific person or situation, not "everyone who struggles with X."
- What you learned. The most interesting part of most launch posts isn't the product, it's a specific decision, mistake, or number from building it.
- The ask. Feedback, testers, or just reactions. Say what you want from the people reading, since a post with no ask gets skimmed and ignored.
Disclose that you built it, in plain words, once. Use one link, not a link in the post and another three in the comments. Reply to every comment, including the ones that just say "cool" or ask a small question, since a founder who shows up reads as more credible than one who disappears.
A short example: a grocery list app that reads your recipes and figures out what you're missing.
I built a small app that reads a recipe you paste in and tells you what's already in your kitchen versus what you need to buy. I got tired of standing in the grocery store re-reading three recipes on my phone and still forgetting something.
It's for anyone who cooks from real recipes instead of the same five meals on rotation. Right now it only handles text recipes, not photos of cookbook pages, which turned out to be a much harder problem than I expected.
Full disclosure, I built this. It's free to try, link in the comments. I'd like to know if the ingredient matching works for how you cook, or if it's missing things you'd expect it to catch.
Run a draft like that through the reddit reply checker before you post it if you're not sure the disclosure and link placement will hold up.
After the launch post
A launch post is one post. Even a good one reaches people browsing new products that day, and most will never need what you built. Launch posts get visibility and early feedback, not customers.
The customers are in a different kind of thread: someone describing the actual problem your product solves, in a subreddit that has nothing to do with launching startups, often with rules that ban self-promotion outright. That's a much bigger set of communities than these 34, and the rules there are stricter, which is why guessing is expensive.
Use find my subreddits and the subreddit rules checker to find where your customers hang out, read each community's real rules before you say anything, and know whether a reply there can mention the product or just be helpful and unbranded. Scan my site free to see the fuller list for your product, not just these 34 general venues.
Why these 34 and not the big subreddits
The biggest subreddits don't want your pitch. r/startups bans promotion, rule 2 prohibits direct sales, advertisements, or promotional posts, with promotion confined to designated threads. r/SaaS restricts it to relevant, helpful mentions with feedback requests kept to a weekly thread. r/Entrepreneur restricts it too, rule 2 treats self-promotion as off-limits as a post's primary purpose, though it allows citing your own work in a helpful answer.
This isn't a guess. Across 999 subreddits audited, 810 had enough evidence in their posted rules or sidebar to call a verdict. Among those, 49% ban promotion, 31% restrict it to a specific condition, and only 20% allow it more or less freely. The subreddits that allow it tend to be smaller communities built for this purpose. More detail on what "restricted" means in practice is in the rules audit writeup.
I got a 28-day ban from r/SaaS and then a permanent ban from r/startups, both for replies that answered the question and weren't spam, but broke a rule further down the list that I hadn't read. That's why this list exists as its own thing, separate from the general subreddits founders assume are the obvious place to post. More on the reasoning is in why I built Radar.
FAQ
Do I need to post in all 34 subreddits?
No. Most products fit a handful of the 19 general venues plus whichever platform group applies. Posting the same launch in all 34 reads as spam even where each individual subreddit allows it, and several will remove a post that looks copy-pasted across communities.
What if my product doesn't fit any of the platform-specific subreddits?
Skip that section entirely and stick to the 19 general venues. A web SaaS product with no native app, no extension, no game, and no Shopify integration has nothing to post in the platform group, and forcing it into r/androidapps or r/chrome_extensions just gets the post removed.
How often can I post in the same subreddit?
Once, then leave it alone for a good while. These are one-time launch venues, not a channel you return to weekly with updates, and most of the bans and removals founders run into come from repetition in a single community rather than from the first post itself.
Will a launch post in these subreddits actually bring me customers?
Some, but that's not really what it's for. These venues reach people who like browsing new products, which is useful for feedback, early users, and a bit of visibility. The bulk of real customers come from threads where people describe the problem your product solves, in communities built around that problem rather than around launches.
What's the actual difference between an allowed and a restricted verdict?
Allowed means the community's rules or description welcome a disclosed product post without a special condition attached. Restricted means promotion is fine, but only inside a specific constraint, a designated thread, a flair, a ratio, or mod approval first, and posting outside that constraint gets treated the same as posting in a subreddit that bans it.
Can I reuse the same launch post text across multiple subreddits?
Better not to, even where several venues would technically allow it. Reddit's spam systems and individual moderators both watch for identical or near-identical text posted repeatedly across communities, and it reads as lazy to the people you're trying to reach. Adjust the framing to fit each community even if the core facts about the product stay the same.