Updated · Data through · 48,858 Show HN posts · Refreshed daily
Show HN benchmarks: how many points is a good Show HN?
7 points or more put a Show HN in the top 11.0%. Of the 48,858 Show HN posts in the 365 days to November 13, 2026, half finished with 2 points or fewer, 7.9% reached 10 and 2.9% reached 50. Type your points below to see how many posts yours beat.
This checker is for founders and makers who just posted a Show HN, or are about to, and want to know what a normal result looks like. It is free and asks for no email.
Check your Show HN points
It opens on 25 points, compared with every Show HN post. Change the number, or compare only with posts that link to the same kind of thing as yours.
25 points beats 95.6% of Show HN posts in this group: 46,732 of 48,858 finished below it. Only 4.4% (2,126) reached 25 or more.
- Group
- Any Show HN post
- Posts in the group
- 48,858
- Median post in the group
- 2 points
Settled posts from the last 365 days, data through November 13, 2026. Points only: the public data has no front-page flag.
Share of Show HN posts that reached each score
The same numbers with nothing typed: each cell is the share of posts in that column that finished with at least that many points, in the 365 days to November 13, 2026.
| Points | Any Show HN post | Links to a GitHub repo | Links to any other site | Text post, no link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5+ | 17.2% | 18.3% | 16.7% | 15.4% |
| 10+ | 7.9% | 8.8% | 7.5% | 6.2% |
| 25+ | 4.4% | 5.1% | 4.1% | 2.5% |
| 50+ | 2.9% | 3.4% | 2.7% | 1.3% |
| 100+ | 1.6% | 1.8% | 1.6% | 0.9% |
| 250+ | 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.6% | 0.2% |
| 500+ | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| Posts | 48,858 | 17,513 | 28,908 | 2,437 |
| Median points | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
What the numbers say
- 34.4% of Show HN posts (16,784 of 48,858) never got a vote past the poster's own, and finished on 1 point.
- Reaching 10 points already beats most posts: only 7.9% (3,870) got there.
- 1.6% reached 100 points (801 posts), and 11 reached 1,000 or more. The highest finished on 3,346.
- Posts linking to github.com reached 50 points 3.4% of the time (17,513 posts), against 2.7% for other sites and 1.3% for text posts.
How to read your result
- Wait two days before you compare. A post keeps collecting points for a while, which is why this data only counts posts once they are 48 hours old.
- Pick the group that matches your post. A repo and a landing page are judged by different readers, so the comparison is fairer within the group.
- Read the comments as well as the score. A post on 8 points with five useful replies taught you more than one on 30 with none.
- If you want a second try, ship something bigger first. The Show HN rules say small upgrades generally aren't enough for a new Show HN but a major overhaul probably is, and that asking friends to upvote or comment is not ok.
Choosing when to post? The best time to post on Hacker News page breaks the same posts down by day and hour. For the rest of a launch, see how to launch on Product Hunt, how to find supporters without breaking the rules, and the pre-launch tactics in order.
How we count
- Our collector reads every post tagged Show HN in the public Hacker News API each morning, for the last 400 days, and keeps the post id, time, points, comment count and linked domain. Titles are not stored.
- The checker and the table use the 48,858 posts made from November 14, 2025 to November 13, 2026 (Eastern time), each at least 48 hours old when read.
- "Beats" means the share of posts that finished with fewer points than the number you type. "Reached" means the share with at least that many.
- Every post starts on 1 point, the poster's own vote, so the lowest score in the data is 1.
- Points stand in for reach. The API has no record of which posts reached the front page or the Show page, which the rules say a post joins once it clears "a small points threshold".
Questions
How many points is a good Show HN?
7 points or more put a post in the top 11.0% of the 48,858 Show HN posts in the 365 days to November 13, 2026. Half of all posts finished with 2 points or fewer, 7.9% reached 10 points and 2.9% reached 50.
How many points does a Show HN need to reach the front page?
The public Hacker News API does not record which posts made the front page, so no one can give an exact number from it. What the data does show: 2.9% of Show HN posts reached 50 points and 1.6% reached 100. The top 1% finished at 156 points or more.
What share of Show HN posts get no upvotes?
34.4% of Show HN posts in the last year finished with 1 point, which is the poster's own. That is 16,784 of 48,858 posts.
Do GitHub links get more points on Show HN?
Slightly, in this data. 3.4% of the 17,513 posts linking to github.com reached 50 points, against 2.7% of the 28,908 posts linking to other sites and 1.3% of 2,437 text posts. That is an association: a repo may simply be easier to try.
Sources
- Hacker News Search API (Algolia), tag show_hn, read November 15, 2026, 5:30 AM ET; data through November 13, 2026
- Show HN guidelines, read November 13, 2026
Cite this
The Growth List, "Show HN benchmarks": 2.9% of 48,858 Show HN posts reached 50 points, data through November 13, 2026, https://www.thegrowthlist.co/launch/show-hn-benchmarks
By Ryan Doyle, founder of CommunityMentions and Sales.co. Published November 15, 2026; the numbers rebuild from the data every day.