Product Hunt, TLDR: A Comparison Guide
According to @Supabase's State of Startups 2025, founders follow newsletters like TLDR.
ICYMI Product Hunt isn’t just a launch platform. It’s also a collective of newsletters.
As we’re gearing up for 2026, you might be planning your marketing strategy. So, I compared both options and did the math. Here’s what I found.
Fig. 1: Product Hunt also is a collective of newsletters
Overview
TLDR is a collective of 12 newsletters on topics like AI, DevOps, and more.
Product Hunt, on the other hand, maintains 3 newsletters:
The Leaderboard, Product Hunt’s daily digest
The Roundup, a weekly summary featuring the top launches
The Frontier, a weekly, AI-focused newsletter
Let’s compare the two AI-focused newsletters, their audiences and performances.
Larger audience on TLDR, founder-friendly on Product Hunt
TLDR reports 920,000+ subscribers to their AI newsletter,
Product Hunt has “only” 425,000+ subscribers to The Frontier.
Looking more into detail, both audiences are mostly US-based, resp. 64% for TLDR and 53% for Product Hunt. Product Hunt has a significant proportion of founders (19%) and subscribers are more likely to work in early-stage companies under 100 people (59% vs. 29% for TLDR).
Higher open rates on TLDR, cost-effective on Product Hunt
TLDR reports a 44% open rate (OR)
Product Hunt: 41% OR
Looking at the ad opportunities, TLDR offers 3 different placements. The primary placement at the top of the newsletter includes a logo, 3 URLs, and up to 100 words. Pricing ranges from $6K to $24K per sent, i.e. $7-$26 cost per mille (CPM). Product Hunt has less options: 1 placement at the top, including an image, 1 URL, and around 150 words (fig. 2). Pricing also is simpler: starting at $10K, 4 issues, $2.5K per sent, i.e. $6 CPM.
Fig. 2: Example of an ad in The Frontier, Product Hunt's weekly, AI-focused newsletter
Recap
If you want to reach a large audience, the TLDR AI newsletter is worth considering. This has a higher cost, though.
If you’re targeting early-stage companies and looking for a cost-effective channel, sponsoring Product Hunt’s AI newsletter might be a good option.
Over to you! What channels are you planning to explore in 2026?
Replies
What I think is cool about this kind of guide is that it doesn’t treat day-of upvotes as a lottery ticket. Instead, it highlights patterns like how launching on a weekday or prepping ahead tends to matter. That’s practical and grounded, not hype-y.
from my perspective, key takeaways from this thread:
TLDR: more reach, more expensive
Product Hunt: founder-first, accessible
Interesting read! Beyond open rate, I am curious if there's any additional insights around per click or per conversion?
@harryzhangs thanks, Harry!
good q. AFAIK @Product Hunt has a 0.3-0.5% CTR; no recent data for TLDR.
Interesting! Curious about your thoughts on this metric. For me, open rate tells only a part of the story. For companies looking into ads, metrics like CTR matter more.
0.3-0.5% CTR seems a bit low for a well-known super brand like PH. I thought CTR for most newsletters falls between 1-4%. Mailchimp finds ~2.66% to be elite (https://mailchimp.com/resources/email-marketing-benchmarks/). Morning Brew reported >15% CTR in the early day (https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/customers/how-morning-brew-improved-email-open-rates-by-125/).
@harryzhangs - are they ad clicks?
https://www.newsletteroperator.com/p/newsletter-benchmarks appears so...
below is the benchmark they referenced for newsletter ads specifically
Unique Click Through Rate (CTR)
Vozo AI — Video localization
Really enjoyed this — thanks for sharing. One angle I’ve found helpful is product–channel fit.
ph newsletters seem to work best for builder-first, easy-to-try products where the value clicks quickly. That often overlaps with to-developer tools?
Curious how others here think about matching product type to ph channel.
@lightfield thank you! Product Hunt definitely is a great place for developer tools.