Product Hunt First Comment: A Template That Gets Replies
A Product Hunt maker comment template, annotated line by line: what each line does, which stock line it replaces, and the one question that gets replies.
By Mark Fulton ·
A Product Hunt maker comment is the first thing a visitor reads under your gallery, and its job is to start a conversation, not to repeat your listing. The version that works says who the product is for in one line, admits the one thing you are unsure about, and ends on a question a stranger can answer in a single sentence. Skip the greeting, skip the feature list, skip the thank-you to the hunter. Product Hunt's own launch guide asks for the story behind the product, who it is for, and a request for feedback rather than upvotes, in a humble and helpful tone. This page gives you a full comment to adapt, with every line labelled by the job it does and the stock line it replaces.
Most maker comments are written from a template, and you can tell. Open any launch day and the first comments under a dozen products share the same skeleton: a hello, a paragraph about how the founder got frustrated, a bullet list of features, a thank-you. When every comment in the feed has the same shape, readers learn to skim past all of them, including yours. The fix is not a cleverer template. It is writing the comment as the first message in a conversation you actually want to have. If you are still working out the rest of the day, the launch day runbook covers the hours around it.
What is the maker comment for?
It has three jobs, and none of them is describing the product. Your tagline, gallery and description already do that.
- Put a person behind the listing. Visitors scrolling a feed of launches are deciding in seconds whether this one is worth a click. A real human with a stated reason for building the thing is a reason to stay.
- Say what the listing can't. Product Hunt's launch guide suggests using the first comment to cover who the product is for, your story, your goals and any launch-specific pricing. Anything that wouldn't fit in the tagline and description belongs here.
- Give people an easy way in. A comment section with no questions in it looks empty. A good first comment is a prompt: it makes the second comment easy to write.
Product Hunt lets you write the first comment as part of submitting the product, so it can be ready the moment you go live. The launch guide on Product Hunt describes it as the comment that sits directly below the gallery, which is why it gets read before the rest of the thread.
Why do template comments all sound the same?
Because they are all answering the question "what should a maker comment contain?" instead of "what would I want to know if I landed on this page cold?"
Here are the stock lines you will recognise, and why each one costs you attention:
| Stock line | What the reader hears | What to do instead |
|---|---|---|
| "Hey Product Hunt! 👋" | Nothing. It is a greeting to a crowd. | Start with who it is for. |
| "Thanks to [hunter] for hunting us!" | An in-joke for people already in your circle. | Thank people in the replies, where they will see it. |
| "I built [product] because I was frustrated with..." | The same origin story as the product above yours. | One honest sentence about the specific moment, not the mood. |
| "Key features: ✅ ✅ ✅" | The listing, again. | Cut it. They can see the gallery. |
| "Would love your feedback!" | A request with no task attached. | Ask one concrete question. |
| "Thoughts?" | An essay prompt. Most people scroll on. | Ask something answerable in a sentence. |
None of these is wrong in isolation. The problem is that they are interchangeable. A comment made of interchangeable parts says nothing about you.
What should the first two lines say?
The first two lines are what shows before anyone decides to read more, so they carry the comment.
Line one: who it is for, in the reader's terms. Not "a platform that leverages...", but the person and their situation. "This is for solo developers who have shipped an app and have no idea where to show it." If a visitor can tell in one line whether the product is for them, you have done the most useful thing a first line can do. If they decide it isn't for them, that is a fine outcome too. You saved them time and they are more likely to trust the next thing you say.
Line two: why you built it, as a specific moment. "I kept finishing side projects and then not telling anyone" beats "I was passionate about solving this problem." A moment is something the reader can picture. A passion is a claim they have to take on trust.
Product Hunt's guide asks for a humble, helpful tone and plain language over marketing-speak, and these two lines are where that is easiest to hold to. If a sentence would fit equally well in a press release, it doesn't belong here.
How much of the story belongs in it?
Less than you think. The origin story is the part makers most want to write and readers least need.
A workable budget for the whole comment is somewhere around 120 to 200 words. Long enough to say something real, short enough that it doesn't need a scroll. Spend it roughly like this:
- Who it's for: one line
- Why you built it: one or two lines
- What it does differently, in plain terms: two or three lines, and only the thing a reader couldn't guess from the tagline
- The thing you're unsure about: one or two lines
- The question: one line
That "unsure about" slot is the one nearly every template skips, and it is the one that makes the comment sound like a person wrote it. It is also useful. Launch day is the cheapest moment you will ever have to ask a few hundred strangers about the decision you keep going back and forth on. If you can't think of one, you are probably not looking hard enough: pricing, the name, which platform to build for next, whether the onboarding makes sense.
What does the full comment look like?
Here is a complete example, written for a made-up app so nothing in it is a claim about a real product. Each line is labelled below.
Built this for people who ship small apps and then have nowhere to show them. (1)
I'm Sam. I finished my third side project last spring and realised I had no plan beyond posting a link into the void. (2)
Pagelet lets you drop in a URL and get a shareable page with a screenshot, a one-line description and a try-it button. No account needed to look around. (3)
What I'm unsure about: the free tier gives you one page. I can't tell if that's generous or just annoying. (4)
If you've shipped something small, what's the first thing you'd want on a page like this? (5)
And the job each line does:
| Line | Job it does | Stock line it replaces |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Who it's for | Lets the right reader self-select in one sentence | "Hey Product Hunt! 👋" |
| 2. The moment | Gives a person and a specific reason, not a mood | "I was frustrated with the current solutions..." |
| 3. What it does | Says the one thing the tagline can't, in plain words | The bullet list of features |
| 4. What you're unsure about | Signals you're listening and hands readers something to disagree with | "Would love your feedback!" |
| 5. The question | Gives a stranger one sentence to write | "Thoughts?" |
Notice what is missing. There is no thank-you, no "excited to share", no discount code, no call to upvote. If you have a genuine launch-day offer, Product Hunt's guide lists pricing and special offers as fair game for this comment, so put it in a single line near the end. But note that upvote requests are a separate matter, and we cover the rules in can you ask for upvotes on Product Hunt.
What question should it end on?
The question is the part that decides whether the comment gets replies, and it has to pass one test: could a stranger answer it in a sentence without thinking hard?
| Weak question | Why it stalls | Stronger version |
|---|---|---|
| "What do you think?" | Too open. The reader has to decide what to think about. | "Does the one-page free tier feel enough or too tight?" |
| "Any feedback?" | Same problem, with more politeness. | "What's the first thing you'd change on this page?" |
| "Who would use this?" | Makes the reader do your marketing. | "If you've shipped something small, where did you post it first?" |
| "Which feature do you want next?" | Fine, but invites a wishlist. | "Is it more useful to add video or to add analytics?" |
Two patterns tend to work. The first is a choice between two: people reply to a binary faster than to an open prompt. The second is a question about their own experience, because everyone is an expert on that. "Where did you post your last project?" is easy for any maker to answer, and it gives you real information about where your audience hangs out.
Whichever you pick, ask one question. Two questions split the replies and halve your response rate.
How do you reply to the comments it gets?
The comment gets the first reply. How you handle the replies decides whether it becomes a thread.
- Answer everyone who wrote something real. It doesn't have to be long. A one-line reply that uses the person's own words tells them you read it.
- Answer the question behind the question. If someone asks "does it have an API?", the useful reply covers what you have today and what you don't, not a yes or no.
- Don't be defensive about criticism. "Fair point, I hadn't thought about it that way" is a complete reply. A reader scanning the thread notices who stays calm.
- Reply in batches, not in real time. Block out fifteen minutes every couple of hours. You will write better replies than you do while refreshing the page.
- Keep it person to person. Product Hunt's commenting guidelines discourage generic comments and ask that LLMs and Chrome extensions not be used to write them. That applies to your replies as much as anyone's. Write them yourself.
If you have already launched elsewhere, the same logic carries over. A Show HN post and an Indie Hackers launch post both live or die on how the author handles the thread, and the same short, direct, honest replies work in all of them.
Where does the comment go once launch day is over?
Launch day ends. The comment you wrote, trimmed to its first two lines, is still useful: it is the sentence you can reuse as the opening of a directory listing, an email to early users, or a post in a community. The "who it's for" line in particular is hard to write and worth keeping.
A listing that stays up is worth having alongside a launch that lasts a day. TryMy is free to submit to: you paste your URL and a person writes the listing, so you don't have to turn your maker comment into form copy by hand. Submit once, and the page stays up after the leaderboard moves on.
FAQ
How long should a Product Hunt maker comment be?
Short enough to read without scrolling: somewhere around 120 to 200 words works for most products. Product Hunt does not publish a length limit that we could verify, so treat this as a guide, not a rule. If you can cut a line without losing anything, cut it.
Should I post the maker comment right at launch?
Yes, have it ready beforehand. Product Hunt's launch guide says you can write your first comment while submitting the product, so it is in place as soon as you go live. If you schedule your launch, draft it the day before and paste it in rather than writing it at midnight.
Can I edit the maker comment later?
The commenting guidelines page doesn't address editing, so check the options on your own comment in Product Hunt itself rather than relying on a guide. As a habit, write the comment so it doesn't need edits: no time-sensitive claims, no "we're live now" lines that go stale by afternoon.
Should the maker comment include a discount?
Only if you have a real one. Product Hunt's launch guide lists pricing and launch offers as fair content for the first comment. Keep it to one honest line near the end, and don't let it replace the question. A discount with no conversation attached gets a click but not a reply.