The best day to launch on a weekly leaderboard

On a daily launch board, everything happens in 24 hours, so the hour you post matters. A weekly board works differently: products compete over seven days, and the day you go live decides how many of those days you get. This guide explains how that plays out, using the published rules of a weekly board as the worked example.

The short answer

On a weekly board, launch as early in the week as your team can be fully present. Monday gives the most days to collect visits. If you cannot be around on Monday, pick the first day you can, and avoid launching in the last two days of a week unless you are happy to treat that week as a warm-up.

How a weekly board decides rank

Weekly boards differ, so read the rules of the one you use. As an example, What’s New Today publishes its method on How we rank:

• The week runs Monday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59 UTC. When it ends, the board freezes and is marked final.
• The score is 60% verified clicks, 25% weighted votes and 15% freshness.
• Each input is scored from 0 to 100 within the week, so you are compared with the other products launched that week, not with all-time totals.
• Freshness falls from full to zero over seven days after the listing was published or really changed.
• Ties go to more counted clicks, then earlier publication.

Two of those rules make the launch day matter.

Why the day matters

Clicks accumulate

Clicks are the largest input, and they are counted across the week. A listing live from Monday morning can collect visits for seven days. The same listing published on Friday has three days in that week's window. Unless the late listing gets far more visits per day, it has less to show by Sunday night.

Freshness does not save a late launch

It is tempting to think a late launch wins on freshness. It does get a higher freshness score on the last day, but freshness is the smallest input at 15%, and it can only close a small click gap, because clicks carry 60% of the score. Freshness is there to stop old listings sitting on top, not to reward timing.

Ties favour earlier publication

When two products have the same score and the same click count, the one published first ranks higher. It is a small edge, but it points the same way.

Why not always Monday

Monday is the best day only if you can use it. Launch day is when people ask questions, find bugs and decide whether you are worth following. A launch on a day you are travelling or in meetings wastes the attention you get.

Consider your timezone too. A week that starts at 00:00 UTC begins on Sunday afternoon or evening in the Americas and on Monday morning in Asia and Australia. For a team in California, "Monday" on the board starts at 4pm on Sunday in winter and 5pm on Sunday in summer.

Practical choices:

• Teams in Europe, Africa or Asia: Monday morning local time is early in the board's week and inside your working day.
• Teams in the Americas: publish on Monday morning local time. You lose a few hours of the board's week, which matters far less than being awake to answer people.
• If Monday is impossible: Tuesday or Wednesday still gives five or six days.

What about a late-week launch?

A Friday to Sunday launch is not wasted. Your listing stays on its category hub and search pages after the week ends; on this directory, category hubs count clicks from the last 90 days. You simply will not do well on that week's board. If the weekly board is not your main goal, for example if you are listing a small update or a side project, the day matters less.

Do the same rules apply to daily boards?

Not directly. On a daily board a product competes for one day, so being live for the whole of that day matters more than which day of the week it is. Read that board's rules for when its day starts. The weekly logic above, more days means more visits, does not carry over. Check which kind of board you are using before you plan.

A simple plan

1. Read the board's ranking page and note when its week starts in your timezone.
2. Have the product, listing text and analytics ready the week before. Our launch checklist covers what to prepare.
3. Publish at the first moment in the week when you can stay at your desk for the rest of the day.
4. Spend the week answering people and fixing what they find, rather than chasing votes.

On this directory a free listing joins the current week as soon as it passes automated checks, so submit on the day you want to launch. A Priority Launch lets you pick the week in advance. You can submit your product when you are ready.