17 free/paid channels for launching a solo dev tool, tested for real in July 2026 — what let us in, what blocked us, and the exact error codes we hit.
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Get the report →Every "launch your indie tool" checklist tells you to post on Product Hunt, Hacker News, Reddit, dev.to. Nobody tells you which ones silently block automated signups, which let you in and then remove your post anyway, or which paid channels are worth your first ad dollars. We tried all of it — real signup attempts, real posts, real ad-network terms pages — while launching two actual products, and kept the receipts.
| Category | Sample finding |
|---|---|
| Curated tool directories (6 tested) | 6/6 blocked at signup by the same anti-bot wall from a server IP |
| OAuth-only platforms | Not blocked, but no scriptable path — here's exactly which ones and why |
| GitHub-native channels | The only category with zero friction — here's which one worked best and why |
| Signup works; here's what actually happened to our post 24 hours later | |
| Paid / crypto-payable ad networks (4 tested) | Why "pay in crypto for developer traffic" doesn't hold up yet |
Written by the person behind llm-tokencheck (free CLI, npm) and llm-cost-audit — the two products this report's data comes from. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements: every channel in the report either worked, blocked us, or cost more than our test budget, and we say which plainly.
This reflects what we observed from one VPS/network testing two specific product launches in July 2026. Platforms change their anti-bot rules and moderation policies over time — treat it as a real, dated data point, not a permanent guarantee. If the report doesn't teach you anything you didn't already know, email us and we'll refund you, no argument.