How to get your startup roasted on r/roastmystartup
TL;DR
r/roastmystartup is a free subreddit with about 36,000 members (October 2026) where founders post a startup or an idea and ask other entrepreneurs to tear it apart. Posts need a real domain of your own and a genuine roast request. It suits founders who want harsh, honest feedback on positioning, pricing or a landing page before they spend money on marketing.
How we checked: we read these rules through public subreddit trackers in October 2026. Read the sidebar and the pinned posts before you post, since moderators update the rules.
What is r/roastmystartup?
The subreddit sums up its purpose in one line: "Post your start-up (or start-up idea) for other entrepreneurs to roast it. We won't hold back punches." Members are founders, indie hackers, marketers and designers, and the community grew by about 16,000 members in the past year, according to GummySearch data from October 2026.
A roast here means public criticism of everything a visitor sees: the headline, the offer, the price, the design and the business model behind it.
The domain authority of 95 on this listing belongs to reddit.com. Links in Reddit posts carry the nofollow attribute, so a roast brings little SEO value. What you get is outside eyes on your product, plus a small wave of curious visitors.
Who should post on r/roastmystartup?
- Founders with a live landing page or product on their own domain.
- Teams preparing a launch on Product Hunt or Hacker News who want to fix weak spots first.
- Founders stuck at low conversion who need people outside their bubble to say what confuses them.
Skip it if:
- Your site lives on a free subdomain, a Vercel preview or a Product Hunt page. The moderators remove those posts.
- You want buyers. The audience is other founders, and they come to critique.
How much does r/roastmystartup cost?
Posting is free and needs only a Reddit account. Reddit sells self-serve ads through Reddit Ads (ads.reddit.com) if you want paid reach later, but a roast request works only as an organic post.
How do you get your startup roasted on r/roastmystartup?
- Open r/roastmystartup, read the rules in the sidebar and scan a week of recent posts to see which ones get the most useful replies.
- Put your product on your own domain. Posts that link to Product Hunt, Vercel or a free subdomain get removed.
- Write a detailed post in your own words: what the product does, who it is for, the price, current numbers and the parts you doubt. Low-effort posts, reposts and AI-written text get removed.
- Ask for the roast directly and name what to roast first, such as the headline or the pricing page. Members call out a launch announcement dressed up as a roast request.
- Reply to every comment, thank the harshest ones, and post an update after you change something.
Tips to get more out of r/roastmystartup
- Share real numbers: visitors, sign-ups, conversion rate, revenue. Roasters give sharper advice when they see the funnel.
- Add a screenshot of the hero section, so readers react before they even click.
- End with three questions, such as "Is the price clear?", "Would you trust this site with your card?" and "What would stop you from signing up?"
- Log every criticism and tag it as fix now, test later or ignore. Repeated points from different people go to the top of the list.
Our verdict
r/roastmystartup gives you free, unfiltered feedback from people who build companies themselves. It sends little traffic and no SEO value, and that is fine, because the point is to find what scares visitors away before you pay to bring them to your site.
More options: see all subreddits for founders. Planning the launch around this listing? The Fe/male Switch startup game walks women founders from idea to first customers.