Most live email countdown timers are just an image URL. Every open hits a server, the server draws the current time, and you hope the inbox shows a fresh picture.
That breaks in a boring way now. Apple Mail Privacy Protection prefetches and caches the image. Gmail and Outlook still do not run JavaScript. So the live clock is often wrong, frozen, or a gray box, and the marketer thinks they did something wrong.
We ran into this while building Countdown for Email (not live on Product Hunt yet). The job is not draw a clock. The job is put a branded deadline in Mailchimp, Klaviyo, or HubSpot that still looks like a timer when the inbox caches the image. That is why we are shipping animated GIFs with a visual designer and a paste-in embed, not a new ESP.
We are still locking defaults before launch, so this is a real ask, not a teaser:
Hey Product Hunt 👋 I’m the builder of Countdown for Email.
I’d love feedback on the timer design + embed experience. If you try it:
- Create a timer
- Grab the embed HTML or image URL
- Tell me what email platform you’re using and what you want to customize
Launch offer: 10% off with code PRODUCTHUNT10 at Stripe Checkout.
Reply with questions and I’ll respond fast.