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Preview. Launch500 opens to the public soon.

Run by 99 Developers Ltd. Listings and Crash Tests pay for it, with the magazine and the conference to come. Money never buys a score or a place on the list. What money cannot buy

Version 2026-10-01. Draft: not yet reviewed by our solicitor.

Terms of use

These terms apply when you use Launch500. If you list a product or pay us, the vendor terms apply as well. If you write for us, so do the contributor terms.

Who we are

Launch500 is a trading name of 99 Developers Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 17257492. Registered office: 55 Queen's Gate, London SW7 5JW.

You can write to us at hello@launch500.com (or use the contact form).

What Launch500 is

Launch500 publishes information about business software. It has two parts, and they are different things.

  • The platform. Companies can list their products here, free or with the £49 Premium listing. Its place in the Featured spots follows the Crash Cup: While no Crash Cup season is open, a Premium listing is featured for seven days in the Featured spots on the homepage and in its category, labelled Sponsored, from the moment the listing goes live, or from payment if it is already live. If a season opens during those days, the spots show its field from then on, and the listing joins the field if a place remains. While a season is taking entries and has places left, a Premium listing takes a place in its field of 32 instead, shown in the Featured spots labelled Cup entrant. Once the field is full, entries have closed or the season is running, a Premium listing gets no featured placement until the next season opens; everything else it includes still applies.
  • Launch500, the annual list. Published every September and chosen only on evidence. A listing, free or paid, never puts a product on the list. A passed Crash Test is needed before a product is considered, and it is not enough on its own: the September editorial decides. A place on the list also brings the company’s story in the Launch500 Magazine, a paid edition that readers buy, and an invitation for its founders to present at the Launch500 Conference. A company cannot pay for either.

What we publish is editorial content, not advice. Check anything that matters to you before you rely on it. Pricing receipts are dated captures of a vendor’s own pricing page and say when they were captured; prices may have changed since.

How the site is paid for

Listings and Crash Tests pay for Launch500, and the Launch500 Magazine and the Launch500 Conference will once they run. Money never buys a score, a review, an order or a place on the list, and every link a payment touched is marked as sponsored. We have no affiliate links today; if we add one, it will say so where it appears. The full breakdown is on how we make money.

Our content

Copyright and database right in the site belong to 99 Developers Ltd, except for material that belongs to others, such as vendors’ logos, screenshots and quoted text, which belongs to its owners.

The open data exports on /data and the markdown versions of our pages are offered under: [[HUMAN: licence for the /data exports and markdown mirrors, chosen by Abdalla and confirmed by the solicitor]]. That licence covers only our own material. It does not license anyone else’s logos, screenshots or text.

Automated access

Crawlers, including AI crawlers, are welcome within the rules in our robots.txt. Do not overload the site, probe it for weaknesses, or try to get around its security or its limits. If you find a security problem, report it to security@launch500.com (or use the contact form) as security.txt describes.

Links to other sites

We link to vendors’ sites and to other sources. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for what they say or do.

Accounts

You must be 16 or over to open an account. This is our own rule. It is not an age check, and we do not verify your age.

There are two kinds of account, and you choose one when you sign up:

  • Crew, for people who use software: you can recommend products and write reviews.
  • Garage, for companies: you can list and claim your own products.

The kind cannot change after sign-up. One login holds one account. A person may hold at most one Crew account and one Garage account, each on its own email address. You sign in with a code we email you, so keep your mailbox secure: anyone who can read it can sign in as you.

What you post

This covers anything you submit through an account: listing details, reports, reviews and anything else you send us. You keep the rights you have in it. You give 99 Developers Ltd a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide licence to publish it on Launch500, to include it in the markdown versions of our pages and in llms.txt, and to keep a published contribution, detached from your account, after you delete the account.

Reviews follow the review policy, which forms part of these terms. Reputation points are awarded for publishing, never for what a review says, and buy nothing.

Under a Premium listing, Crew members whose account is at least three days old can comment, and the company that holds the listing can post makers’ notes. Comments and notes are plain text and show the author’s handle or the company’s name.

What is not allowed

  • Anything illegal, or that encourages anything illegal.
  • Anything false or misleading, including a listing for a product whose domain you do not control.
  • Pretending to be someone else, or hiding a conflict of interest.
  • Abuse, harassment, spam, or other people’s personal data.
  • Threats, slurs, strong swearing and sexual content. Comments, makers’ notes, reviews, listing text, questionnaire answers and account names that contain them are refused automatically before they are published; anything that gets through can be reported.
  • Using reports, recommendations or extra accounts to push a product up or another down.
  • Creating accounts, or posting anything, by script.

Any signed-in reader can report a listing, and any comment or maker’s note. Reports are handled as complaints and reporting describes.

Suspension and appeal

We may hide or remove content, or suspend or close an account, that breaks these terms or the law, or that puts other users or the site at risk. If we act against your account, we tell you why. If you think we were wrong, write to complaints@launch500.com (or use the contact form) and say why; we look at it again and tell you the outcome.

Ending your account

You can delete your account at any time from your account page. What happens to your data then is in the privacy notice.

Corrections and complaints

If we got a fact wrong, write to corrections@launch500.com (or use the contact form). Accepted corrections are published in the corrections log. Every other route, including complaints, is on complaints and reporting.

Liability

[[HUMAN: liability clause, drafted by our solicitor]]

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited or excluded. If you are a consumer, your statutory rights are not affected.

Changes to these terms

Each version of these terms is dated, and the version history at the foot of this page says what changed.

Law and courts

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have jurisdiction.

Version history

  • 2026-10-01: 6 Oct 2026: the annual list is published every September, not February (D34). A place on the list also brings the company's story in the Launch500 Magazine, a paid edition readers buy, and an invitation for its founders to present at the Launch500 Conference; a company cannot pay for either. The magazine and the conference will help pay for Launch500 once they run.
  • 2026-10-01: 6 Oct 2026: the Featured spots follow the Crash Cup (D29). With no season open a Premium listing is featured for seven days, labelled Sponsored; while a season takes entries and has places left it takes a place in the field instead, labelled Cup entrant; once the field is full, entries have closed or the season is running, it gets no featured placement until the next season, and everything else it includes still applies.
  • 2026-10-01: 6 Oct 2026: Crew members can comment under a Premium listing and its company can post makers' notes. Threats, abuse, slurs, strong swearing and sexual content are refused automatically before anything is published, and any comment or note can be reported.
  • 2026-10-01: 6 Oct 2026: the £49 paid listing is renamed the Premium listing. What it includes and costs did not change.
  • 2026-10-01: 3 Oct 2026: featured days changed from 14 to 7 for new payments; a Listing paid before the change keeps the days it bought.
  • 2026-10-01: 2 Oct 2026: the paid Listing's featured span is read from FEATURED_DAYS in offers.ts rather than typed into the text, so the terms change with the offer.
  • 2026-10-01: First draft, for the solicitor.