Submission policy
Free launches become public only after the required LaunchAF badge is installed and verified. Paid launches become public after payment, unless a future launch date was chosen. We may reject or delist products that violate this policy:
- Adult / NSFW content (including logos and screenshots)
- Gambling, or crypto scam / rug-pull projects
- PLR spam, reskin templates, and auto-generated sites with no original value
- Broken links, parked domains, or pages under construction
- Duplicates of already-listed products
- Anything illegal, hateful, or malware / phishing-adjacent
Product websites and uploaded media must pass the safety checks required by the submission flow. Submissions that fail these checks are blocked.
Every new free listing must install a visible LaunchAF badge on the submitted public URL before publication and keep it installed while listed. The badge may use LaunchAF’s image or the site’s own branded image, linked directly to LaunchAF. If the badge is later removed, the listing is delisted until it is restored and verified again. Free listings published before the badge requirement stay listed without a badge, but their link is nofollow unless a LaunchAF badge is installed and verified; removing it turns the link back to nofollow. Paid listings include a dofollow link without requiring the badge.
If we delist a product for policy reasons, founders can fix the issue and contact us to appeal.
Weekly voting and ranking
Each cohort follows the UTC dates shown in its week selector. A product must be publicly launched before it can receive votes, and voting opens during its assigned competition week. Voting and vote removal close at the displayed deadline, even if the archive job runs later. Paid launches can also receive votes for the rest of their featured days; those votes do not change a completed week's saved results.
Paid launches rank above free launches and stay at the top of the current weekly leaderboard for their featured days, even after their launch week ends. Within each group, launches rank by community upvotes, then earlier approval time, then a stable product identifier. Sponsorships and streak rewards do not add votes or ranking points.
Existing purchased tie-break entitlements remain honored. Older cohorts retain their recorded ranking rules, and affected leaderboards explain their transitional policy. Current purchases do not acquire those legacy entitlements.
Completed weeks preserve overall ranks, final votes, and category winners recorded at closing. Some older archives contain saved ranks only; missing historical totals and category results are identified as unavailable. If a winner is delisted, its saved position remains in the archive.
Streaks and founder verification
A successful first upvote on another maker’s product, a published comment, or a completed first submission for a product can complete your UTC activity day. Visits, drafts, failed actions, unvotes, and repeat votes on the same product do not earn extra days.
Seven actual active days earn one restore, with at most two banked. One restore automatically covers exactly one missed day when you next participate. Longer gaps break the active chain. Your streak page shows milestone rewards and their availability.
The verified founder badge indicates that LaunchAF checked control of an owned product’s domain after the required milestone. A LaunchAF backlink badge or a paid listing alone does not establish domain ownership. Neither verification nor upvotes are an endorsement of a product’s claims.
Sponsors and newsletter
Monthly sponsor placements are clearly labeled and have separate inventory. Sending a booking request does not create a charge or reserve a slot. Existing paid weekly bookings keep their purchased term and benefits.
The LaunchAF Brief is our newsletter, sent on Mondays (top launches) and Thursdays (AI, tech and robotics news). You join it when you subscribe on the site or unlock The Vault. When a product you submitted goes live on LaunchAF, the email on your account is also added. Signing in, or submitting a product that does not go live, does not subscribe you. Every issue includes links to choose your editions or unsubscribe with one click, and once you unsubscribe we do not add you back.