The Complete Product Hunt Launch Asset Checklist: Every Visual One Product Needs
Quick answer: A Product Hunt launch is not a design project. It's a coordinated content drop across at least five surfaces, and every surface has its own pixel size, reading context, and caption limit. The solo founders who make launch day look easy aren't better designers — they batched the assets ahead of time, at the correct sizes, so launch day is only scheduling.
This checklist lists every visual asset a one-person launch actually needs, with exact dimensions, what each one must accomplish, and the copy that travels with it. Bookmark it for the week before launch.
The principle: one message, many surfaces
Don't make five different campaigns. The launch has one core message — what the product does, who it's for, and why it matters now. Each surface below is that same message recomposed for its context: the gallery image carries the hook, the X card carries the take, the LinkedIn carousel carries the argument, and the OG image makes shared links look credible.
You can absolutely produce all of these from one product description. The point of the list is to make sure none is missing.
1. Product Hunt itself (launch day)
| Asset | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Thumbnail | 240 × 240 px square, under 3 MB | High contrast, readable at 60 px in a feed. Animated GIFs are popular but under a third of Product of the Day winners use one — don't bet on it. |
| Gallery images | 1270 × 760 px (1.67:1), 2+ images required | Product Hunt crops anything off-spec, so build exactly to the ratio. Sequence matters: 1) hero/value prop, 2) core flow screenshot, 3) feature breakdown, 4) a metric or result, 5) social proof. |
Gallery content order matters more than beauty: the first image is your second chance at the hook, the second proves the product is real, and the rest answer objections. If you have only two, make them a strong value-prop hero and an honest product screen.
First comment: prepare it in advance — what you built, why, and the honest state of the product. It's a text asset, not an image, but it's the single highest-leverage piece of launch-day copy: Product Hunt's own launch guide reports that 70% of products that reached Product of the Day, Week, or Month had a first comment by the maker. Two optional pieces worth noting: a YouTube demo video (about 53% of Product of the Day winners since 2021 include one) and the maker's first comment are the two non-visual assets that consistently correlate with outcomes.
2. X / Twitter
| Asset | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| In-feed image | 1200 × 675 px (16:9) | The launch announcement card. One line, one screenshot, one metric. This is where simple beats clever. |
| Quote / metric card | 1080 × 1080 px (1:1) | One strong number or claim — a single idea per image. |
| Story / thread visuals | optional 9:16 | A 3–6 image thread (hook → problem → what it does → how it works → CTA) outperforms a single repeated poster. |
Caption limit: 280 characters. X punishes link posts — put the link in the first reply and keep the post itself visual. Plan three or four variations, not one image repeated: angles on X should be distinct (a metric, a use case, an opinion, a behind-the-scenes), because the same card posted repeatedly trains the feed to ignore you.
3. LinkedIn
| Asset | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Feed image | 1200 × 627 px (1.91:1) | For the founder's launch post. |
| Document carousel | PDFs exported at portrait pages (1080 × 1350 px reads well) | LinkedIn document carousels earn dwell time because readers swipe through. A 6–8 page deck (problem → solution → how it works → proof → CTA) is the closest thing to a native pitch deck on the feed. |
| Page cover | 1536 × 640 banner | Update the founder/company banner during launch week. |
Caption limit: 3,000 characters. LinkedIn rewards the personal voice — "I built X because I couldn't find Y" outperforms product-speak. The carousel is the visual workhorse; the text is the founder story.
4. Open Graph / shared-link images
| Asset | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| OG image | 1200 × 630 px (1.91:1) | Everywhere your link unfurls — Facebook, most link previews, Slack, Discord, iMessage. A blank or default OG image makes a shipped product look like a side project. |
| Web banner | 1536 × 640 px (2.4:1) | Hero for docs, changelog, or cover pages. |
Facebook shares the same 1.91:1 shape at 1200 × 630. The OG image must be legible without the page context — product name, one-line value prop, brand mark.
5. Instagram / visual feeds
| Asset | Size | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Feed post | 1080 × 1080 px (1:1) | Reuse the strongest square cards. |
| Story | 1080 × 1920 px (9:16) | A countdown and a launch-day story; leave room for platform UI overlays at top and bottom. |
| 1000 × 1500 px (2:3) | If you're a tool/product, pin the screenshots that answer "how does it work" — Pinterest is an underused search channel for tooling. | |
| RedNote (Xiaohongshu) | 1080 × 1440 px (3:4) | Vertical 3:4 cards; caption limit around 1,000 characters. |
Instagram caption limit: 2,200 characters.
6. Developer channels
- dev.to / Hashnode / blog cover: a 16:9 cover at 1200 × 630 or the platform's recommended cover, plus a banner variant. The launch article (what you built, the hard problems, the stack) carries the long-form proof — the social cards only tease it.
- Reddit / Hacker News: mostly text, but a screenshot or simple 1200 × 675 card in the linked page is essential. Don't lead with a marketing image; lead with the product.
- App store / product pages: reuse the gallery's 1270 × 760 images and the OG image — no new design needed.
7. The internal assets you'll forget
- Email banner: a 600–1200 px wide header for the launch email to your list.
- Slide deck / pitch summary: if you talk to press or investors during launch week, a short deck answering what, why, who, metrics — and export it as a native, editable PowerPoint that travels through email without a repair prompt.
- Discord/Slack community image: a 16:9 hero pinned during launch week.
- Square avatar mark: a recognizable 1:1 mark consistent with the PH thumbnail.
Batch them in the right order
The efficient order is not surface-by-surface. It's:
- Lock the message — one sentence: what it is, who it's for, why now.
- Build the eight hero assets — PH gallery set, X card, LinkedIn carousel, OG image, Instagram square, Story, banner, quote card.
- Write the captions per channel — X 280, LinkedIn 3,000, Instagram 2,200, RedNote 1,000 — and keep a facts file open so every variant uses the same numbers.
- Resize to the exact pixels above — recomposing, not stretching. A 16:9 card scaled into 9:16 is a broken card; the layout needs to reflow.
- Schedule — gallery and comments pre-uploaded; X variations spaced through the day; LinkedIn carousel ready; article published the morning of.
This is one batch of work, done once, not a series of midnight rescues. If you'd rather not hand-size fifteen images, that's the exact job Neatico was built for: paste your product description, get up to eight assets from different angles at once, then adapt each one to the real platform dimensions above — X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Story, RedNote, Pinterest, and banner — with captions drafted against each platform's character limit. Build your launch kit before the night before launch.
One last thing: the best launch assets don't look like agency work. They look like a confident builder showing what shipped — clean, specific, screenshot-rich, and fast to read. The polish that matters is precision (right sizes, consistent type, no overflow), not decoration. Most winners don't win the art direction. They win because every surface was covered.
Related: You don't need a million templates · Why the AI never touches a pixel coordinate