How Many Product Hunt Startups Let Their Domain Expire? (2014–2026 Data)

Of the domains behind Product Hunt launches from 2016 to 2022, 21% are unregistered today. That is 2,664 of 12,615 domains we could check, or just over one in five. Launches from 2023 and 2024 sit lower, at 15.9% and 14.4%. Across every year from 2014 to 2024 the figure is 18.2%. These are our own numbers, from availability checks run on 2 to 5 November 2026 against the top 30 posts of each day on Product Hunt.

"Unregistered" here means nobody holds the name at check time. The domain lapsed and has not been registered again. It does not mean the product is dead, and it does not mean the product never moved to a new name. The limits are set out below.

How many Product Hunt domains are unregistered, by launch year?

Between 14% and 23% of the domains from each launch year from 2015 to 2024 are unregistered, and the rate peaks for 2019 launches at 22.7%. 2014 is lowest at 10.3%. The share is available domains divided by domains we checked, as at 5 November 2026.

We left 2025 out. Only 95 domains came from it, a partial crawl of December 2025, which is too few to report.

The plateau is the finding. From 2016 to 2022 the rate sits within three points of 21%, whatever the year. A domain registered for a launch in 2016 and one registered for a launch in 2021 have lapsed at about the same rate.

Do more popular launches keep their domains?

Yes. Launches with 500 or more votes are unregistered at 1.1%, against 13.7% for 100 to 499 votes and 11.7% for fewer than 100. The 500+ band is small, at 177 checked domains, so read it as a direction and not a precise rate.

All years are pooled in this table, including the 2026 launches, so the lower bands are pulled down by names that are only months old. We have not split votes by year.

Why are the 2026 launches at 0.2%?

Because they are months old. The 2026 row covers launches from August to October 2026, and 27 of 10,918 checked domains are unregistered. A domain that lapses has to reach the end of a registration term first, and most of these names have not yet been through one. We did not test that explanation. We report the row so the table is complete and so the low rate is not read as a trend.

How did we measure it?

We took the Product Hunt daily leaderboard, the top 30 posts per day, from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2024. We added launches from August to October 2026 from a separate launch study by squirrelscan. The website address from each product page gave one row per registrable domain.

Three limits on the sample:

• It is the top 30 posts per day, not every launch. Lower-ranked posts are not in it.
• Availability checks ran on 2 to 5 November 2026, using RDAP and registrar availability.
• Only TLDs the Revised pipeline checks are counted, which is why "checked" is lower than "domains" in every row.

"Unregistered" means not registered by anyone at check time. The count is a snapshot. A name unregistered on 3 November can be registered on 4 November.

What can't these numbers tell you?

They cannot tell you why a domain lapsed, who held it, or whether anyone registered it in between. The sample is the daily top 30 and not every launch, so it says nothing about products that never ranked.

The older years need care. 2014 and 2015 have lower rates than 2016 to 2022. That is consistent with older lapsed names having been registered again by other people since. We did not measure re-registration, so we do not claim it. The same pattern could come from other causes, including founders who held on to older names more often.

Nor do the numbers show product failure. A company can drop a launch domain after a rename or an acquisition and keep trading. A lapsed domain is a fact about a registration. For what lapses and what follows, see what happens when a domain expires.

Do any of the lapsed domains still have links?

Some do. Of the unregistered Product Hunt domains, 157 still carry links from other sites and are active listings in the Revised directory. We do not name them. Names in the directory are masked until you reveal them,.

Links to a lapsed domain are a reason to look at it, not a reason to register it. The expired domain checker reads the archived history and the backlink checker reads the links. The guide to evaluating a domain's link history lists what to look for before you register anything.

Using the Revised directory for this

Browse the directory of expired domains with backlinks. Set a referring-domain floor, filter by the TLD you want, and sort by newest. Every name there is registrable at the standard fee when it is listed, and we re-check availability before any reveal. The directory is a list of what we know about each name. We do not sell or register domains.

FAQ

How many Product Hunt startups let their domain expire? About 18% of the domains we checked from 2014 to 2024 launches are unregistered today (4,023 of 22,134). For 2016 to 2022 launches the figure is 21%. The sample is the top 30 posts per day, checked 2 to 5 November 2026.

What does unregistered mean in this study? Nobody held the domain when we checked. It lapsed and was not registered again. We did not check whether it was registered in between, or what any site on it showed.

Does an unregistered domain mean the startup shut down? No. Companies rename, merge or move to a new domain and let the old one go. The data records registration only, not whether the product is still running.

Why are older launches lower than 2016 to 2022? Older lapsed names have had more time to be registered by someone else. That is consistent with the data, but we did not measure re-registration, so treat it as a possible reason and not a finding.

Is this every Product Hunt launch? No. It is the top 30 posts for each day. Launches that ranked lower are not in the sample, and only TLDs our pipeline checks were counted.

Can I register one of these domains? If a name is unregistered you can register it with any registrar at the standard fee. Some of them carry links and appear in the Revised directory, where names are masked until you reveal them.