"Launch it on Reddit" is common advice and mostly bad advice, because it skips the part that matters: which community, and in what form. Founder communities differ sharply in what they permit, and the differences are not obvious from the outside.
A small number of communities exist specifically so people can share what they have built. Those are the correct first stop for a launch post, and posts there do not need permission or a designated thread. Lead with what the thing does in one plain sentence, why you built it, and an honest ask for feedback.
Expect modest numbers. These communities are full of other founders rather than your end users, so treat the first launch as feedback and a credibility marker, not a traffic strategy.
The largest founder communities have millions of members and correspondingly strict rules. Most remove bare product posts, and most also run a designated thread — a monthly "share your startup", a feedback thread, a weekly promo day. Those threads are the front door. Traffic from them is lower than a front-page post but the post survives, and moderators notice people who use the mechanism properly.
The alternative route into those communities is the journey post: a detailed write-up of what you learned building or launching, with real numbers, where your product is the context rather than the headline. These consistently outperform announcements, and they are welcome where announcements are not.
The most valuable communities for a SaaS are usually not the founder communities at all — they are the communities of the people with the problem you solve. A tool for photographers belongs in front of photographers; a tool for accountants in front of accountants.
These communities are almost never promotion-friendly, and that is fine, because the play there is different: answer questions in your area of expertise for a few weeks, be visibly useful, and let people find your profile. It is slower than a launch post and it converts far better, because the audience actually has the problem.
Post on a weekday morning US time if your audience is American, and be at your desk for the next two to three hours. Reply to every comment, including the critical ones — especially the critical ones. Engagement in the first hour is what decides whether a post rises or disappears.
One launch per community. Reposting the same thing days later, or the same text across several communities at once, is the fastest way to turn a soft removal into a ban.
Communities built for sharing projects are the safest first launch, and the large founder communities are worth it through their designated threads rather than as standalone posts. But the highest-converting audience is usually the community of people with the problem your product solves, approached through genuine participation rather than a launch post.
Not as a direct promotional post — both remove those. Both do welcome detailed lessons-learned posts where the product is context, and both run designated threads for sharing. Check each community's current rules page before posting; they change.
One at a time, spaced out over days, with the post rewritten for each community. Posting the same launch text to several communities on the same day is the classic spam pattern and gets accounts filtered site-wide, not just removed locally.
Nichory Pro is coming: keyword alerts when someone asks about your topic, self-promotion rule summaries, and best-time-to-post insights. Join the early list — one email at launch, early-bird discount included.