Pre-launch checklist for indie and SaaS founders

Tick these in the two to four weeks before you announce. Mark an item only after you have checked it on the production site, not in a local demo.

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Technical readiness

The host you will announce, plus proof you can see failures and restore data.

1The domain you will share resolves to production, and the other host (www or the apex) redirects to that one origin.
2HTTPS loads on that origin, the certificate is valid today, and it is set to renew on its own.
3Product analytics shows a page view from a browser that is not signed in as you, in the production property.
4Error monitoring shows a test exception you triggered on production, in the project you will watch on launch day.
5You have a backup of the database and uploaded files, and you have either restored one backup or written down that there is no customer data to restore yet.
6The homepage and the page where someone starts an account or pays are usable on a phone-width screen. You have noted which of those URLs is slowest.

Legal and admin

Pages a customer and a payment provider can open, matched to how you actually sell.

7A privacy policy is linked from the footer and names what you collect, why you collect it, and which processors receive it.
8Terms of use are linked from the footer and describe the product you are shipping.
9A refund or cancellation policy is public, and checkout and the receipt state the same promise.
10Your legal or trading name, a contact email, and where you keep formation and tax records are written down.
11You know who handles sales tax or VAT for this launch: you, a tool, or an accountant. If none is due yet, that answer is written down too.
12Non-essential cookies and ad pixels do not load, or a cookie notice matches the tags that do load.

Payments and onboarding

The money path and the first session, the way a stranger will hit them.

13Production uses live payment keys. Test keys stay on local and preview environments.
14A small purchase on the production origin produced a customer receipt. A provider test charge counts when it sends the same receipt a customer would get.
15You refunded or voided that test charge, and the payment dashboard shows the refund.
16A new person can create an account, complete email confirmation if you require it, and reach an empty state that states the next step.
17Password reset or the magic link opens on the production domain from a normal mail client.
18That first session does not require sample rows that exist only in a development database.

SEO and indexing basics

Host and template setup so the public site can be found. Not a content brief.

19Your sitemap URL returns successfully and lists the public URLs you want found.
20Google Search Console has the production property verified, and that sitemap is submitted there.
21Each public page has its own title and meta description. None is still on a default framework title.
22Open Graph and Twitter card tags point at an image that loads, and that image is at least 1200 by 630 pixels.
23Production robots.txt allows your public pages and links the sitemap. You are submitting the production host, not a preview or staging host.

Support readiness

Who answers, how fast, and where you will say the site is down.

24The contact address published on the site reaches a mailbox at least two people can open.
25A first-response time is visible to customers, on the site, on the receipt, or in an auto-reply.
26Billing failures and product bugs have separate notes, so a failed charge is not answered with a product how-to.
27One person can pause new sales or roll the release back, and a second person can do it if the first is away.
28You have chosen where an outage note will go: a status page, a pinned post, or the support auto-reply.

Launch-day go or no-go

Same-day gates. Announce only when each one is true.

29Every link in the announcement points at the production origin, not a preview host.
30A page view and a test error from the last hour both appeared in the tools you will watch.
31A signup or a purchase from a device you do not use every day appears in the customer list.
32Every policy link in the footer loads, and the refund sentence matches the receipt.
33The pause-sales or rollback step is written where the on-call person can follow it without messaging you.
34If any gate above is false, delay the announcement. Do not publish a made-up signup count or a customer quote to fill the gap.

What this list leaves out: positioning, launch emails, a content calendar, a metrics log, and page-level SEO briefs. Those live in paid packs. This list is the operational gate for the host, the policies, payments, indexing, support, and a same-day go or no-go.

When these checks pass, the launch week still needs a plan. The B2B SaaS Launch Kit is the paid pack for that work: docs, a seven-email sequence, a slide plan, and a carousel.