--- title: "Launchelion" canonical: "https://launchelion.com/blog" url: "https://launchelion.com/blog" content_type: "text/markdown" --- # Blog — Launchelion > Launchelion is a daily leaderboard of newly-launched AI tools: real launch dates, one-vote-per-signed-in-account-per-day community upvotes, and — when a maker connects Stripe — verified monthly revenue instead of invented traction. Canonical HTML: https://launchelion.com/blog This representation: Accept: text/markdown on the same URL. Agent map: https://launchelion.com/llms.txt · OpenAPI: https://launchelion.com/openapi.json · MCP: https://launchelion.com/api/mcp/mcp ## Posts - [Welcome to Launchelion: what we list and how it works](https://launchelion.com/blog/welcome) — What Launchelion is, which tools appear here, and what the votes, dates, and verified revenue actually mean. - [New: light & dark badges, plus one-prompt AI install](https://launchelion.com/blog/light-and-dark-badges) — Listing badges now come in two variants, with a ready-made prompt so your coding assistant installs them for you. - [Why we verify revenue with Stripe \(and label everything else\)](https://launchelion.com/blog/why-verified-revenue) — How the revenue signal on Launchelion works: verified means a read-only Stripe connection; everything else is labeled self-reported. - [How voting works here: 1 account, 1 vote, 1 day](https://launchelion.com/blog/how-voting-works) — The complete voting rules on Launchelion: signed-in accounts only, one vote per listing per day, no bought votes and no bots. - [AI tool launch trends in 2026: four real shifts](https://launchelion.com/blog/ai-tool-launch-trends-2026) — Four changes that altered how AI tools launch in 2026, from the perspective of a launch leaderboard: products shipping as agents rather than apps, shorter product lifespans, launch attention splitting across surfaces, and an answer layer that intercepts discovery before anyone reaches a feed. - [What the March 2026 core update means for launches](https://launchelion.com/blog/march-2026-core-update-for-ai-tool-makers) — Google's March 2026 core update demoted aggregators and comparison-driven sites while rewarding specialists and primary sources. This post reads that result from a launch leaderboard's side of the table and explains what AI tool makers should change on their own product and launch pages. - [Upvotes are not traction: the launch metric problem](https://launchelion.com/blog/upvotes-are-not-traction) — Upvote counts are the most visible output of a launch and the least predictive. This post argues, from a leaderboard that publishes vote counts, why the number is a weak signal, which launch numbers deserve the attention instead, and what a verified figure is worth compared to a claimed one. - [Launch day is not a growth plan](https://launchelion.com/blog/launch-day-is-not-a-growth-plan) — Launch day traffic decays within roughly 48 hours, yet makers routinely plan a launch and call it a strategy. This post separates what a launch can deliver from what it cannot, and argues for treating the launch as one input to a compounding surface rather than as the growth engine itself. - [Why AI tools disappear in the months after launch](https://launchelion.com/blog/why-ai-tools-disappear-after-launch) — A large share of launched AI tools stop being reachable within months, and almost nobody measures it. This post explains why it happens, why broken URLs cost more than they used to, and how a launch leaderboard is set up to count survival from its own rows rather than guess at it. - [AI Overviews and launch traffic: what to expect](https://launchelion.com/blog/ai-overviews-and-launch-traffic) — AI Overviews appear on the comparison questions buyers ask before choosing a tool and rarely on the ones they ask when ready to act. This post explains what that split means for an AI tool launch, which pages to write for citation, and which pages to keep written for clicks. - [Put a date on your launch page, and keep it honest](https://launchelion.com/blog/put-a-date-on-your-launch-page) — AI answer engines lean toward recent sources, and AI tool facts rot within months. This post argues that a visible, accurate date is one of the cheapest improvements a maker can make to a launch page, and explains why faking freshness costs more than the stale date it hides. - [The launch statistic we cannot source](https://launchelion.com/blog/the-launch-stat-we-cannot-source) — One of our own guides claims that a launch with the maker present converts twice as well as an unattended one. We cannot find a primary source for it. This post explains why we published it, why an unsourced number is worse than no number, and the rule we now apply to every claim. - [The best day to launch: what we will not claim](https://launchelion.com/blog/best-day-to-launch-what-we-wont-claim) — Every launch guide names a best day of the week and almost none names a method. This post explains why a launch leaderboard refuses to publish a best-day claim yet, what would have to be true before one could be trusted, and how to choose your own launch day meanwhile. - [AI agents read your launch page before humans do](https://launchelion.com/blog/agents-read-your-launch-page) — Coding agents and research assistants now visit product pages on behalf of users, and they fetch raw HTML without running JavaScript. This post explains what that means for an AI tool launch, what Google says you do not need to build, and which practical changes actually help. - [Skillselion: what an install-ranked skills directory rewards](https://launchelion.com/blog/skillselion-claude-code-skills-directory) — Skillselion is a directory of Claude Code, Codex and Cursor skills and MCP servers that ranks 59,343 skills by real installs from the skills.sh registry. For makers, it shows what launch distribution looks like when the leaderboard runs on usage instead of upvotes. - [The Skillselion MCP: launching where the users are agents](https://launchelion.com/blog/skillselion-mcp-launch-your-tool-where-agents-shop) — The Skillselion MCP is a free, open-source Model Context Protocol server that lets a coding agent search a catalog of 59,343 skills and load one mid-task, with nothing installed. For makers it previews the next launch surface: distribution that happens inside the agent session.