Should you offer free access when launching a paid product on Product Hunt?
I'm seeing more products launch on Product Hunt that require payment to actually use any features. No free trial, no freemium tier, just a download that leads straight to a paywall.
Part of me thinks this makes sense. If your product has real value, why give it away? People on Product Hunt understand they're looking at premium tools. Plus offering free access can attract users who will never pay anyway.
But I also see the argument for temporary free access during launch. Product Hunt users want to actually try what they're upvoting. How can they give meaningful feedback or become advocates if they hit a paywall immediately?
Some makers offer special promo codes just for the PH community.
Then there's the middle ground - a limited free trial that gives people enough time to evaluate during the launch buzz, but converts them to paid after.
I've seen successful launches using all three approaches, but I'm curious what actually works better for building genuine momentum versus just getting empty upvotes.
What's your experience launching paid products on PH? Do you think the community expects some level of free access, or are people fine paying if the value is clear? And does it affect your chances of getting featured?
Replies
AdBacklog
Great question, @sahil_khxn — we debated this a lot before launching @AdBacklog on Product Hunt.
We decided not to offer free access, but instead gave 50% off for the first month, exclusively for PH users. Why? Because we wanted to attract users who were genuinely interested — not just curious. Even a small financial commitment filters in people who are more likely to give serious feedback, use the product consistently, and stick around.
That approach worked well for us:
It showed us which features were truly valuable to paying users
It created urgency without devaluing the product
And we still got great feedback from early adopters who wanted* to help improve it
In our case, AdBacklog is built for marketing teams or agencies — and we found they were willing to pay if the value was clear, as long as there was a low-friction entry point.
So no, we didn’t go free — but we did make it accessible.
If you're offering something valuable, it's okay to ask for a little commitment.
I feel like this has to be done tbh - People need to get to the point in the 'free-section' where they're able to see value - Maybe it's just me but that's what we've done with out product & we're at 320+ users atm & it's going well!
Paraflow
When launching a paid product on Product Hunt, offering a limited free trial can be a good strategy to allow users to experience the value before committing. Users are more likely to pay if they can see the product’s value clearly. Also I think that they would be more inclined to pay after being cultivated a habit of using this free product (for now).