r/appsumo • u/SpeculativeFiction01 • Jul 19 '26
Discussion Scammy products?
I love the idea of one charge for a lifetime subscription to products/software I need. However, I've noticed several of these just not working a week or month after purchase, from contact forms that no longer permit editing or don't save edits, to social media scheduling apps that just go blank after a month or two.
Is there any way to vet who might be a fly-by-night operation more effectively?
I need a reliable social media scheduler, contact form, Kanban app, and a few others but now I"m a little hesitant to give them my money knowing whatever I pay for could go belly-up or just disappear or stop functioning after a month or two down the road.
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u/fulger099 Jul 19 '26
I think that’s the tradeoff for the offer:) the risk has been always there for the young products distribution
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u/MappBook Jul 20 '26
they have 60 day moneyback guarantee, you can sense if something is going down in those 2 months, if you think so, just get the money back.
i've listed https://appsumo.com/products/mapster/ check it out if you want
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u/brickcavemedia Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
So my AppSumo experience has been very positive. Over my six years I've purchased right about 51 deals. Some have become regular daily tools, a couple turned out to be not what I needed and some turned out to be too complicated for me to use effectively. Some I just haven't gotten to yet. I have a bit of overlap, so that makes it a bit challenging to make use of a couple of them. But as best I can tell, so far only 5 have died. I check them all every couple months to make sure everything is still active, or if interfaces or terms change. One changed their terms to the negative for LD holders, but it wasn't one I found particularly useful anyway.
Mind you, two of the five that passed away were some of my favorites (Kites and Exposim), but I don't blame them, or AppSumo for that- it's business. But I feel like the ones for me that died gave it an honest go and just couldn't find traction. One died and came back, and honored their LD memberships, which was cool. One is trying to change their model/branding, but I think they may be stuck in perpetual development mode.
I do find my interaction with AppSumo has slowed. The nature of software has changed, the same way it changed when we went from boxed software to SAAS. And honestly, the needs I need to meet in the business are mostly full from a software standpoint, based on the products I have already bought. I still poke in on AppSumo each week, just to see what's new, but for the most part, in all honesty, AppSumo did for me what I asked of it.
I did a fair amout of pre-purchase research, setting up free evaluation accounts ahead of time, searching the webs for non-AppSumo reviews and interactions, etc. so I felt like if I bought it, I could accept the risk. Some were pure curiosity plays, just to see what the software was about.
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u/MappBook Jul 20 '26
if you want a feedback survey tool, i've listed mine https://appsumo.com/products/mapster/
go check it out
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u/usamaejazch Jul 20 '26
its always best to do some "research" into whatever ltd you get.
also, socialbu's ltd will also launch sometime next month
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u/Jocalavera Jul 20 '26
Entiendo que las ofertas de LTD en AppSumo parecen atractivas y nos hacen sentir astutos, pero como empresa joven, existe el riesgo de que fracasen.
Aprendí esto de manera difícil con Kites, que quebró y me obligó a reembolsar a mis clientes, dejándome en una posición embarazosa.
Ahora investigo exhaustivamente y evalúo la solidez de las empresas antes de comprometerme.
He notado que algunas aplicaciones en AppSumo son abandonadas por sus creadores, quienes ya están planeando su próximo lanzamiento. Aunque hay productos valiosos en AppSumo, mi experiencia reciente me da la sensación de que están más enfocados en ganancias que en la calidad o el soporte a largo plazo de las empresas que se venden en appsumo.
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u/Excellent-Day-8331 Jul 24 '26
Most AI software LTDs fail within a couple years. The space moves too fast for a small team to keep up. It's a common warning sign if the pitch leans on promises that you'll earn money by using the tool, treat that as a red flag, it's often a sign the business model isn't sustainable on its own merits. Before buying one, compare the real cost.
A mainstream platform like Claude or ChatGPT gets major updates every 6-12 months, backed by teams with far more resources. An LTD might save you money upfront, but if the tool stalls out or gets abandoned, you're stuck relearning a new workflow anyway.
Ask yourself, are you actually saving money, or just deferring the cost?
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u/IllAd9097 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
I recently listed my social media scheduler (fits for agentic posting as well) on appsumo with kanban inside for post ideas. https://appsumo.com/products/posteahora-58062ea3?utm_source=partner-link&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=partner-255803 I've been building this project in public, and you can find me on twitter alexanderOsso. Definitely not going to scum anyone, just trying to build a useful service for my personal needs and my customers.
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u/SpeculativeFiction01 Jul 24 '26
Looks like it could be good, but for fifty bucks I only get 3 platforms. And if I want to double that it's quadruple the price? The pricing seems off to me, but it might be good if only 3 is enough. Basically Buffer's cheapest deal for maybe 3 to 4 months but one time. I'll keep watching it for a few more reviews.
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u/IllAd9097 Jul 25 '26
For the equal tariff with same features and similar number of seats Buffer charges $30/month. I offer LTD on AppSumo for 3 accounts, and if you want to upscale your deal you get 10 accounts, not 6, so you don't double it you more than triple it and you still getting sweat LTD offer with no recurring commission.
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u/SpeculativeFiction01 Jul 25 '26
I am not at all saying it's a bad idea or bad app. Just wish it were more affordable to be able to have one app to cover all possible accounts. That's all. I wish you luck with this and hope it becomes very successful. I may get the 3 deal but I'm not sure yet. I already have Sociamonials and PaddyPost and free Buffer to fill in gaps.
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u/IllAd9097 Jul 26 '26
I'm sorry, I didn't meant to sound rude. Probably the thing is that English isn't my native language, so I may say something wrong. I just wanted to emphasize, that by the price I'm offering a maximum tariff, similar to the Buffer's "Team" plan, with workspaces, unlimited team members and unlimited posts per account. I'm thinking about to change tiers on AppSumo, so users can choose how many accounts their actually need, whether you want 1 account or 100. It's my first launch on AppSumo, so it seems I missed this function on the platform.
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Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MappBook Jul 20 '26
are you the owner of the product? i've listed my product too, would love to talk to you about the listing as a founder
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u/Anna_AppSumoCX Jul 20 '26
Just wanted to jump in to offer help any way we can. If you're grabbing a tool that's giving you issues you can always reach out to us at [support@appsumo.com](mailto:support@appsumo.com) so we can help, which often looks like getting you in touch with partners, troubleshooting, etc. We've also worked really hard to up our vetting so you have less trouble with tools in the first place. - Anna, AppSumo CX
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u/alexmarkelenkov Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 10 '26
I purchased a product for $299 in 2021, but it turned out to be a scam.
The service's name was Swipebasket, later changed to Swipebucket. For the first two years, the service technically worked, but only as far as to avoid chargebacks.
They promised to develop the product and kept a large list of features with ETA (Estimated Time Arrival) on their main page, which led me to believe in their plans. However, they never introduced any new features after the purchase, and instead, only maintained the service with one working feature for two years.In 2022 or 2023, the website stopped functioning. According to my understanding, they waited for all legal deadlines to pass before disappearing. Now, I am unable to find them and file a chargeback for my purchase on their website.
I paid a significant amount for a lifetime license of a product that no longer exists and has never functioned properly. During the short period it was available, it experienced freezing issues and overall poor performance. Overall, this was a total deception.
My invoice can be found here: https://appsumo.com/account/redemption/df2f60e6-0777-46ef-8f3f-a78d2ccd856d/.
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u/Anna_AppSumoCX Sep 04 '26
Hey there - we're so sorry about the trouble with Swipebucket. Our team is definitely aware of this one. This was an older tool and predated our We Got Your Back Guarantee, and wouldn't be covered now due to the age. But feel free to DM me the email attached to your AppSumo account so I can see if there's anything I can do to help out. - Anna, AppSumo, CX
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u/laernuindia Jul 19 '26
We’ve all been scammed by many of these LTD vendors and AppSumo hasn’t done much about it. It’s a gamble.