The $0 Distribution Playbook for MCP Servers: 12 Channels, 30 Days, Real Numbers

A month ago I shipped aicraft-code-review — an open-source MCP server that reviews code locally (OWASP scanning, N+1 detection, style rules) for Claude Code, Cursor and Cline. I had $0 marketing budget and no audience. One month later: 650+ PyPI installs, 12 Product Hunt followers, and listings in 5 directories — with more pending. Zero dollars spent. Here's the exact playbook, including what didn't work. The channels, ranked by effort-to-reach Channel Cost Status What it took PyPI $0 ✅ 650+ installs One afternoon: pyproject.toml, wheel build, twine upload Smithery $0 ✅ Live Deploy via their CLI, quality score 52/100 mcpservers.org $0 ✅ Approved in ~1 day Simple submit form cursor.directory $0 ✅ Live Submit plugin + MCP server + rule Product Hunt $0 ✅ Launched Free launch, real user feedback Glama $0 ⏳ Reviewing Submit + glama.json + Dockerfile awesome-mcp-servers $0 ⏳ PR open Needs Glama listing + badge first Docker MCP Registry $0 ⏳ PR open Root Dockerfile, LICENSE, SECURITY.md Official MCP Registry $0 ⏳ Next mcp-publisher publish from the PyPI package MCPFind / Cline marketplace $0 ⏳ PRs open YAML metadata, waiting on maintainers Hacker News $0 ✅ 1 point Honest "Show HN" style post Reddit r/mcp $0 ❌ Failed See below What actually moved the needle 1. Directory listings compound. Every listing adds an install path, a backlink, and social proof for the next directory. mcpservers.org approved me in a day; that listing made the cursor.directory submission stronger. 2. Product Hunt gave us the roadmap. We only got 3 upvotes — but two comments became our next release: "Team-shared rule profiles so my whole squad syncs rules" → shipped MCP_CODE_REVIEW_CONFIG "Custom rule sets per repo" → shipped .mcp-code-review.yaml auto-discovery Real users telling you what to build beats any amount of guessing. 3. The awesome-mcp-servers repo is the prize. It has 92k stars and its README is how most people discover MCP servers. But the bar is real: your server must be listed on Glama with a quality score badge. Budget 2 weeks for review. What didn't work (so you don't waste a week) Reddit with a new account = spam filter. Both my r/mcp posts got silently removed. New accounts can't message mods either. Lesson: build karma in technical subreddits before you have something to promote. HN is a lottery. One point, zero comments. Fine — the post is still a permanent backlink. Paid directories come early. mcp.so wants $39. OpenTools is paid-only. Skip them at the start. The bug that almost sank fresh installs Two weeks after 0.1.0 shipped, mcp 2.0.0 dropped with a breaking API change — and fresh installs of my server crashed at import. I had pinned mcp>=1.6 without an upper bound. If you ship a Python MCP server today: pin mcp>=1.6,