LaunchList
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Contact Trust

Waitlist spam protection on every signup.

Bots, throwaway inboxes and people farming referrals are caught on the way in, and you get the final say on anyone in doubt.

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Free for your first 100 contactsNo credit card needed
The signups list under a segment bar (Everyone 12,847, Hooli alumni, One referral away, Beta cohort), each person with a trust verdict (Valid, Verified, Risky or Unknown) and a pipeline stage (Waitlist, Invited, Joined or Converted). Beside it, the Held for review queue (23) with three selected: Gavin Belson on a random disposable yopmail address, marked Fake, and two signups by yao from one device, marked Risky, ready to Approve or Block as spam. In front, Rohan Vohra's detail: verified, subscribed and deliverable, number 12 of 12,847, signed up on the hosted page from Bengaluru and confirmed by double opt-in. Below, the three people he referred, each credited, and three trust signals passing: email deliverability, ownership confirmed and spam signals.
Every contact carries a verdict, and opening one shows the signals behind it.
How it works

Every signup is checked before it joins your list.

Nothing to switch on. Signups from your Launch page, your embeds and the API are all checked.

1. The signup is checked

Rate limits, a hidden field only bots fill in, a check for forms sent in under two seconds, and your captcha if you added one.

2. The signals are scored

A throwaway inbox, a domain with no mail server, or a burst of signups from one device or network each add to a score. One weak signal alone rarely stops anyone.

3. Let through or held

Clear signups join your list. Anything suspicious is held for you to approve or block, one at a time or a whole selection at once.

Held for review

A suspicious signup waits for you.

Until you approve or block it, a held signup stays out of everything that counts.

The Held for review queue, 23 signups, with three selected: Gavin Belson on a disposable yopmail address, marked Fake, and two signups by yao from the same device, marked Risky. Above them, Approve and Block as spam.
The Held for review queue, 23 signups, with three selected: Gavin Belson on a disposable yopmail address, marked Fake, and two signups by yao from the same device, marked Risky. Above them, Approve and Block as spam.
Off your bill

Held and blocked signups never count toward your contacts, so a bot flood never fills up your list size.

Off the leaderboard

A held signup has no place in line and cannot earn or give referral credit.

Approved keeps their place

Let a real person through and they join the line at the time they originally signed up.

Blocked gives back the credit

Block a signup as spam and it is removed, along with any referral credit it earned for someone else.

The details

What runs behind every verdict.

The defaults suit most launches, and every one of them can be changed.

Choose how strict

Set checks to Off, Relaxed, Balanced or Strict. Stricter settings hold more signups for review, and Off holds none.

Five clear verdicts

Every contact reads Verified, Valid, Unknown, Risky or Fake, and you can override the verdict by hand when you know better.

Caught after the fact

Every hour, signups are grouped by device. When several that each looked fine turn out to share one, their verdicts drop, and they recover if the group shrinks.

A throwaway list kept fresh

Tens of thousands of throwaway email domains are recognized, and the list is refreshed every week as new ones appear.

Test without tripping it

Signups you submit in test mode skip the checks, so filling in your own form ten times in a row never looks like an attack.

Webhooks and API

Get a webhook when a contact's verdict changes, and read or override the verdict through the API.

In the docs:Keeping fake signups out
Connected

Where the verdict follows a contact.

It decides who earns referral credit, sits beside every name in your audience, and travels out through the API.

Questions

What founders ask about fake signups.

How do I stop bots from signing up to my waitlist?
LaunchList runs the bot checks for you on every signup. The setting that helps most on top of them is asking people to confirm their email, which waitlist forms do by default: a fake signup then needs a working inbox. If you are still being flooded, add a captcha or raise the strictness.
How is the trust verdict decided?
It weighs the address itself, the device and network the signup came from, and whether the person confirmed their email. A contact who confirms later can move up from Valid to Verified.
Is a captcha included?
You can add your own Turnstile, reCAPTCHA or hCaptcha keys to a project, and the challenge then appears on your signup forms. It is off until you add keys, because a captcha costs real signups and most launches do not need one. It is only asked for where it can appear, so a missing widget never blocks a form.
Will spam protection block real people?
A signup is refused outright only for a failed captcha, a filled-in bot trap, too many attempts in a short time, or several strong signals at once. Anything less certain is held, so a real person caught by a check usually waits for your approval instead of being turned away.
Is spam and fraud protection on the Free plan?
Yes. Every check, the trust verdict and the held queue work the same on the Free plan as on any other.
Free for your first 100 contacts

Keep your waitlist real.

Your first signup is checked like your ten thousandth.

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