What is Launch Indie Apps?

This is our own site, and I'm the one who built it, so read this as the maker's description. Every fact below is also on the pricing page or the about page, and you can check it there.

When Squatoll went live on the App Store, I had a link, a dashboard and no idea what to do next. Building it had taken months. Getting anyone to look at it was a different job, and nothing I'd read covered it.

Launch Indie Apps is the next step I didn't have.

Who is it for?

Indie makers and solo founders with an iOS app on the App Store. Most have no audience yet, no marketing budget and no team.

It's also for people looking for apps made by independent developers. A reader sees what an app costs, whether it needs an account and whether it works offline before they download it.

How does an app get listed?

1. Paste your App Store link on the submit page. The name, icon and screenshots come in from the App Store.
2. Pick a plan and pay once. There is no subscription.
3. A person reviews the app. If it isn't approved, you're refunded. If there's no decision within 48 hours of payment, you're refunded too.

Approved apps get a listing that stays up. There is no launch day to win or lose.

What does it cost?

These are today's prices. The launch prices last until their spots are gone, and the pricing page always shows the current numbers.

What does paying buy, and what doesn't it buy?

Paying buys a listing and the tools around it. It does not buy approval. It doesn't buy kinder wording either, or a place on one of our comparison pages.

Paid spots on the homepage are labelled Sponsored, on the site and in the newsletter. Links from paid listings to the App Store carry rel="sponsored", which is what Google asks for on paid links. If you're shopping for a followed backlink, this isn't one, and we'd rather say so up front.

What comes with a listing?

• The Launch Kit. Launch posts written for X, Reddit, LinkedIn, Indie Hackers and email, in three styles each.
• The Launch Badge. A badge for your own site that shows the live count of App Store clicks your listing has sent.
• Launch Reports. At day 7 and day 30: views, clicks and where they came from.
• The Launch Map. 32 other places to launch an iOS app, each checked against its own site. It's free to read whether you list with us or not.
• The newsletter. New listings go in the Fresh section of the next weekly issue.

How is it different from Product Hunt?

A Product Hunt launch competes for one day. Its own launch guide says your product is ranked on the leaderboard for your launch day, and after that it keeps a permanent product page. Launching there is free.

A listing here is the other half: a page that's still there in month four, built around one iOS app, with its facts checked. I think most makers should do both. The Launch Map lists Product Hunt for that reason.

What do the numbers measure?

We count clicks from our pages to the App Store. A click isn't a download, and we never call it one.

The site's own numbers are public on the stats page: visits, where they came from and App Store clicks by source. A listed app gets the same view for itself in its Launch Reports.

Who runs it?

I do. Rashem, a solo founder based in Berlin. There's no team behind the curtain, and every review decision is mine.