Fake users on Product Hunt?

I've launched my platform 3 months ago on PH and I got several emails which say that we can make your app in top 3 for $2k. I simply rejected it. Whenever I see thousands of upvote, I remember that they have purchased bots to upvote their products. For example, an android app got +1000 upvotes after launch. Android app has still 100+ downloads after a week. It proves everything. : )

There are quite a few, mostly because PH became a good platform to launch your product on and get a boost of customers. The good news is that PH updated their algorithm a long time ago to effectively spot fake users that only upvote and generally have a smaller grade of organic engagement (ie. comments, upvote on comments).

Companies that contact you with the promise that they will get the product featured, or if it's already featured, are ones that will only start posting your PH post everywhere on the internet: FB groups, Twitter, LinkedIn, forums, and so on. I don't think it's a good way to promote your product or brand. They are sure to win some money from you, but it's not very clear whether it will be worthwhile for you.

I suggest spending this money on high quality content on your blog rather which will provide long term benefits, as opposed to the unlikely possibility of a short term gain.

I launched https://saasmanual.com on PH and also got a bunch of folks reach out to me, promising to get the product up to #1-4 for anywhere between $150,- and $2.5k. They would have totally done this with fake accounts. I declined the offers and just went with the flow.

If you are curious, here how the launch went, including the attempted cheaters: https://saasmanual.com/articles/launching-on-product-hunt/

Anything that can be gamed will be :) PH is such great distribution, it was only a matter of time.

See also Product Hunt sock puppets? 🤔.