THE BOARD

An Indie Hackers alternative where a brand buys a position instead of earning a thread

Indie Hackers is the best conversation on the internet about small profitable software, and a product page there with Stripe-verified revenue is a credential a paid placement cannot be. If you will write about the build and answer people, list there; it is free and the readers are founders.

If you want a position for a brand rather than a thread for a founder, The Board sells one for a dollar, ranks it by what it paid, and says on the page that every listing is a paid placement, which is exactly what Indie Hackers keeps off its Build Board.

Indie Hackers compared with The Board: to be listed, Free against $1
Indie HackersThe Board
To be listed
Freein the directory; the Build Board is voted
$1once, on the board today
Top of the newsletter
$1,099a full section, one send, via BuySellAds
$1 overwhatever rank 01 has paid
Attention lasts
1 dayon the Build Board; one send in the newsletter
Until outbidand 30 days at the top wins the season
Reach
230K+subscribers, per the marketplace, not the site
Fathompage views and clicks, in public

The Board is ours, so read this with that in mind. Every listing on it is a paid placement, its position is decided by money and by nothing else, and nothing on it is editorial. The figures for Indie Hackers were read from its own pages on 6 September 2026 and are linked at the foot.

What Indie Hackers is, and what it costs

Indie Hackers is a community where founders of profitable businesses share their stories, with a content site around it. A free Products directory lists a product with its revenue, self-reported or Stripe-verified, sorted by the reader: recently updated, recently added or revenue in either direction. Every update to a product page lands on that day's Build Board, a daily leaderboard ranked by upvotes, and the official account's rule from February 2025 is blunt: do not lazily advertise your product, the AI will catch it and keep it off.

Listing is free and there is no paid or featured listing. IH+ is $198 a year on the plus page, for the articles, the case study database, a premium profile and the right to post from day one without the new-account wait. The paid route to attention is the newsletter, sold through marketplaces rather than the site: on BuySellAds a full section is $1,099 per send and the intro section $850, sent Monday, Wednesday and Friday; on Passionfroot the full section is $1,099, the intro $749 and a two-ad bundle $1,299, all read on 6 September 2026.

The site publishes no reach figure of its own. The marketplace listings say 230K+ subscribers with a 30%+ open rate and a 0.25%+ click rate on BuySellAds, and 276K subscribers with 40% opens and 1.4% clicks on Passionfroot, which do not agree with each other. Similarweb's July 2026 page reads 780K visits over three months.

The price of a place, and the price of the top

Two prices matter: what it costs to be on the page at all, and what it costs to be the one everybody sees first. Drawn to scale, with The Board’s top spot read live from the board.

A log scale: every gridline is ten times the last, which is the only way a dollar and a five-figure sum fit on one line. Prices on the left are Indie Hackers’s as read on 6 September 2026; the top spot on The Board is $101 as this page was built and changes as the board does.

Indie Hackers and The Board, side by side

QuestionIndie HackersThe Board
To be listedFree, in the Products directory, after signing up$1, once, for a listing: a logo, a line and a link
What decides your positionA sort the reader picks: recently updated, recently added, revenue high or low. The Build Board is voted daily, and an AI filter keeps plain promotion off itWhat the listing has paid. Nothing else, and nobody decides
A guaranteed top positionNot sold on the page. The top of a newsletter issue is: $850 per send for the intro section on BuySellAds, $749 on Passionfroot; a full section is $1,099$1 more than whoever holds rank 01 has paid
How long it lastsA product page persists; a place on the Build Board is one day; a newsletter slot is one sendUntil somebody pays more. Hold rank 01 for 30 days and the season is yours: the standings freeze on a permanent page and every amount resets
Reach you can verifyNothing on the site itself. The marketplaces say 230K+ or 276K subscribers; Similarweb's July 2026 page reads 780K visits in three monthsPage views and outbound clicks counted by Fathom on a public dashboard; every listing shows its own impressions and clicks
RefundsAnnual IH+ within 30 days, pro-rated; monthly IH+ none; a sponsorship is on the marketplace's termsNone. Every payment is final and the terms (dated 25 August 2026) say so
Who you are dealing withIndie Hackers, Inc., a Delaware corporation with a Seattle address, spun out of Stripe in 2023; the terms carry no dateDustin W. Stout, Bakersfield, California. Stripe, with a public Stripe profile
Best forA founder who will write about the build and wants the conversation, not a placementA brand that wants a placement it can price, on a page that says it is one

Eight things to know before you pay either

QuestionIndie HackersThe Board
Terms with a date on them✕ The terms carry no date; privacy is April 2023✓ Dated 25 August 2026
A named operator✓ Indie Hackers, Inc., Delaware, a Seattle address✓ Dustin W. Stout, with a city and a Stripe profile
The price of the top spot published✕ No position is sold; a newsletter slot is $1,099✓ On the board, live, to the dollar
Reach counted by a third party✕ None on the site; marketplace figures only✓ Fathom, on a public dashboard
Position lasts past a day✕ A day on the Build Board; the directory has no rank✓ Until somebody pays more; seasons end it
A refund path✓ Annual IH+ within 30 days, pro-rated✕ None. Every payment is final
No curator between you and the page✕ An AI filter drops promotion from the Build Board✓ None. Money decides, nobody else
On the page for a dollar✓ Free✓ $1, once

How The Board works, for somebody leaving Indie Hackers

Indie Hackers asks you to earn attention by writing; The Board asks you to price it. A listing is a logo, a line and a link, it costs a dollar, and it goes on a page sorted by what each brand has paid, with no post to write, no upvote to wait for and no filter deciding whether it is promotion. It is promotion, and the page says so.

The position is yours until somebody pays more; rank 01 is a dollar over the holder, and every amount is public, the way revenue is public on an Indie Hackers product page. An amount never goes down. Hold the top for thirty days and the season is yours, the standings kept on a permanent page and the amounts reset. Page views and clicks are counted by Fathom on a public dashboard, and each listing shows its own.

Where Indie Hackers falls short, and where it wins

Falls short
  • A product listing is not a placement. The directory is sorted by the reader, the Build Board is a day of upvotes, and the site's own filter removes anything that reads as an advertisement.
  • The paid route costs $749 to $1,099 a send, sold by a marketplace rather than the site, against subscriber and open-rate figures that differ by marketplace.
  • New accounts wait before they can post, the terms carry no date, and the about page asks you not to write to the founder.
Wins
  • The readers are founders, and a product page with Stripe-verified revenue is worth more to them than any badge.
  • It is free, the page persists, and a good post there is read and answered by people who have built the same thing.
  • The newsletter is large by any of the figures, and a slot at the top of an issue is a real placement with a stated price.

Which to pick

Pick Indie Hackers if
  • You will write about the build in public and answer the comments.
  • Your revenue is something you are happy to show, verified by Stripe.
  • You can spend $749 or more on a newsletter slot and want founders reading it.
Pick The Board if
  • You want a placement for a brand, not a thread for a founder.
  • You want to price the position yourself and see what taking rank 01 costs.
  • You want the reach counted by somebody who is not selling the slot.

Claim a spot from $1

A listing is a logo, a line and a link. Rank 01 costs $1 more than whoever holds it, every amount on the page is public, and the traffic is on a Fathom dashboard anyone can open.

Questions people ask about a Indie Hackers alternative

Is Indie Hackers free?
Yes. Signing up, posting after the new-account wait and listing a product in the directory cost nothing, and there is no paid listing tier. IH+ is $198 a year on the plus page, for the articles, the case studies, a premium profile and posting from day one. Newsletter sponsorship is separate and starts at $749 per send on Passionfroot.
Can I promote my product on Indie Hackers?
Within limits the community sets. A product page and updates are welcome; the official account said in February 2025 that a lazy advertisement will be caught by its AI and kept off the Build Board, and the terms prohibit spam. New accounts wait before posting unless they hold IH+. What works there is a story about the build, not a pitch.
How much does an Indie Hackers newsletter sponsorship cost?
$1,099 per send for a full section and $850 for the intro section on BuySellAds, or $1,099, $749 and a $1,299 two-ad bundle on Passionfroot, all on 6 September 2026. The marketplaces put the list at 230K+ or 276K subscribers; the site itself publishes no figure.
Does Indie Hackers publish how many people it reaches?
Not on its own pages. The about and products pages carry no figure. The marketplaces that sell its newsletter do: 230K+ subscribers with a 30%+ open rate on BuySellAds and 276K with 40% on Passionfroot, on 6 September 2026, and the two do not agree. Similarweb's July 2026 page reads 780K visits over three months. The Board publishes its Fathom dashboard and makes no claim about the number on it.
Is The Board an Indie Hackers alternative?
For a brand that wants to be seen, yes, and it is a different kind of place. Indie Hackers is a community that ranks posts by upvotes and keeps advertising off its board; The Board is a public leaderboard where every listing is a paid placement, ranked by what it paid, with the traffic counted by Fathom. Nobody on The Board will ask about your revenue, and nobody will answer your questions either.
What does The Board cost compared to Indie Hackers?
Indie Hackers lists a product for nothing and sells a newsletter slot from $749 a send through a marketplace. A listing on The Board is $1, rank 01 costs $1 more than the holder paid, and every amount is public. One is a community with a paid mail; the other is a paid board with the price on it.
What happens when somebody outbids me?
Your listing moves down one place and stays; what you paid never goes down. You are told once who passed you and what taking the position back costs, and you can raise by any whole-dollar amount or leave it. Waiting is free.
Can other brands damage my listing?
Yes. Anyone can buy one of four kinds of sabotage against a listing, which changes how it looks or whether its link works for a few hours, and never what it paid or its real rank. Every kind wears off on its own; you can clear it early or protect against it ahead of time, and nobody is told who attacked whom. Backing a listing, the other thing a stranger can pay for, is public.
Do I get a backlink from The Board?
Not one to buy the listing for, and Indie Hackers claims none either. Outbound links from the board go through a counted redirect and the embeddable badge carries rel=sponsored. What the dollar buys is the position and the people who see it and click it, both counted and shown on the listing.

Sources

Read on 6 September 2026. Prices on these sites move, and a figure here that no longer matches its source is a figure to tell us about: hello@toptheboard.com.

Also compared: Show HN. Every listing site worth submitting to is in the directory list.