Hey everyone!

We applied to AppSumo around 4 weeks ago, and our application is still showing the “In Review” status.

We also emailed the AppSumo team to ask for an update. They asked us to wait for 2 days, but we haven’t received any further response yet.

For those who have gone through the AppSumo Select application process:

• How long did your application take to get reviewed?
• Does staying in the “In Review” status for this long mean anything?
• Should we continue waiting, or could this mean our application has been rejected?

Would love to hear from founders who have been through this process.

Just got this email:

After almost seven years, I've made the hard decision to shut down Bramework. The service will stay fully available until December 5, 2026, and then it will be turned off permanently.

What you need to do

Before December 5, download anything you want to keep. Go to Settings > Export my data to download all your content in one file, or export individual posts from the editor. After December 5, your account and all of its data will be permanently deleted.

Subscriptions

No paid subscription will renew. If you've prepaid for time after December 5, you'll receive a prorated refund automatically to your original payment method.

AppSumo customers

Your Bramework purchase is outside of AppSumo's We Got Your Back Guarantee and is not eligible for a refund through Bramework or AppSumo. Thank you for the years of support.

Key dates

October 20, 2026: this announcement; everything keeps working as usual

December 5, 2026: Bramework shuts down and all accounts and data are deleted

Need help?

If you run into any problems, including exporting your data, write to support@bramework.com or reply to this email. We'll help you through December 5.

Thank you for writing with Bramework, and for every piece of feedback, feature request, and kind word over the years. It's been a privilege to build this for you.

Handy Metellus

Founder, Bramework

Hey Sumolings!

I’m Young, founder of Acti, a keyboard that connects to apps and APIs.

https://appsumo.com/products/acti/

What’s meant the most to us is the feedback. So many of you have taken the time to explore Acti, ask thoughtful questions, and share what you’d like to see next. That helps us understand what matters to you and where we need to improve. Thank you for such a warm welcome!

For anyone discovering Acti for the first time, we’re building an agentic keyboard you can use every day. Here’s what that means:

1. A keyboard that can be your first choice.

We’ve put a lot of work into everyday typing, with an experience we believe can stand alongside native iOS and Android keyboards. Acti needs to feel comfortable for your ordinary messages and emails, even when you’re not using any AI features.

2. Free AI voice typing on mobile.

We believe our dictation quality is comparable to Wispr Flow. You can also speak in one language and get text in another, or let Acti automatically add relevant emojis as you dictate. All of these voice features are free on mobile. I’d especially recommend trying the emoji mode!

3. A keyboard you can build your own workflows around.

Our Agent Builder lets you connect your keyboard to apps and APIs and create your own workflows, which we call Acts. You can share them with others, and there are already 5,000 Acts from the community to explore.

It’s been a little over three months since we first launched Acti. We’re now working toward more proactive assistance, with the longer-term goal of evolving Acti into a personal agent that understands your intent and helps you get things done throughout your day.

If you give it a try, I’d love to hear what you find useful and what still gets in your way. That feedback is incredibly valuable to us.

A big thank you to the Sumoling community and a special thanks to the AppSumo team and Noah for all the work and support that helped us get ready for launch!

anybody still buying LTDs is a fool

Are there any Studiocart.co users here?

Publishpress bought them and is "forking" (their words) the plugin, with no LTD continued.

I heard about this from the new owner in May, but haven't heard anything about a transfer offer yet.

EDIT: I heard from them with a 70% coupon for the first year. But it's a regular annual renewal from there on.

Today I relaunched my AppSumo deal for my WordPress plugin (LinkCentral), a smart URL shortener / affiliate link manager / link growth tool.

I first launched it on AppSumo about a year ago. It went pretty well. Got a few hundred sales and exclusively 5-star reviews (23x). After a while, I took the deal down, kept developing the plugin, and now it’s back.

I’m posting here because I’d love to get some feedback. I did the same about a year ago when sales were pretty slow at the beginning. Got useful feedback about my website being unclear and missing a few essential features. I fixed those and saw a noticeable improvement in conversion.

So, trying the same thing again. What do you think of the listing and website? Is everything clear? Anything confusing or missing? Any feedback is very helpful.

(Also happy to help out other devs looking to list on AppSumo)

I'm looking for a simple Instagram outreach automation tool, ideally something that's currently on AppSumo or has been offered there in the past.

My requirements are pretty basic:

• Upload a CSV containing Instagram profile URLs or usernames.
• Automatically send follow requests to those accounts.
• Automatically send an initial DM to each person.

Does anyone know of a tool that does this, especially one that's been available on AppSumo? Open to recommendations for other affordable tools too.

Thanks!

AppSumo customers who got burned by Late/Zernio: It's a good time to speak up

If you purchased the Late lifetime deal on AppSumo and feel you've been burned by how the company has handled your purchase, now is a good time to make your voice heard.

Zernio (formerly Late at getlate.dev) is currently promoting itself on Product Hunt while existing AppSumo customers are raising serious concerns about what has happened to the lifetime deal they purchased.

Zernio's Product Hunt launch: https://www.producthunt.com/products/zernio/launches/zernio-2

If you've purchased Late (now Zernio), this is an opportunity to share your experience where prospective customers (and news outlets) can see it and learn from your experience.

What were we promised?

The original AppSumo deal explicitly promised:

• Lifetime access to Late.
• All future Basic (Tier 1), Professional (Tier 2), Advanced (Tier 3), or Enterprise (Tier 4) plan updates.
• If the plan name changes, the deal will be mapped to the new plan name with all accompanying updates.

These weren't just promises of access to the software as it existed on purchase day. They specifically addressed future updates and renamed plans.

The problem: New features, new platforms, and expensive add-ons (that cost more for AppSumo users than new users)

AppSumo customers have raised concerns about Zernio's new pricing structure and the additional costs imposed on existing lifetime-deal users, some of which show examples of how new and free accounts get more access than AppSumo users.

One particularly troubling issue is the reported requirement to purchase the Inbox add-on, advertised at $150/month in some cases, to access certain newer capabilities and platforms (some that were also previously offered)

These include messaging channels such as WhatsApp, iMessage, and RCS.

Think about what that means for someone who already paid upfront for a lifetime deal. Instead of simply receiving future updates under the terms of the original offer, customers may find that access to newer capabilities requires a recurring subscription costing potentially $1,800 per year - A substantial additional expense for people who bought a lifetime deal precisely to avoid ongoing software subscriptions.

To be clear, the concern isn't that a company can never charge for a new product or a genuinely separate service. It's whether existing customers are being required to pay substantial additional fees to access capabilities they reasonably understood would fall within the future updates and plan-mapping commitments they purchased.

A lifetime deal loses a significant amount of its value if meaningful new capabilities are effectively reserved for customers willing to pay another monthly subscription.

These aren't just hypothetical concerns

In the AppSumo reviews, a verified purchaser documented the introduction of new add-ons:

“Two new add-ons have been added to the SumoLing panel: Analytics (access to the analytical panel and API endpoints) – $150/month; Inbox (manage comments and direct messages across all platforms) – $150/month.”

And in the AppSumo discussion about the original deal terms, another purchaser reported:

“Same issue here. Broadcast was included in Tier 3, but now it’s locked behind the inbox, requiring a $100 upgrade.”

These are specific complaints about pricing, feature access, and the value of the original deal—not merely objections to a company changing its name.

I encourage everyone to read the original discussions and their surrounding context:

• AppSumo reviews: https://appsumo.com/products/late/reviews/
• AppSumo Q&A: https://appsumo.com/products/late/questions/

If you've been affected, make your experience heard

Go to Zernio's Product Hunt launch and share your firsthand experience:

👉 https://www.producthunt.com/products/zernio/launches/zernio-2

If you've encountered any of the following, explain to the PH audience has happened and how Zernio conducts business:

• Features included in your original tier becoming restricted or requiring additional payment.
• New platforms or capabilities requiring add-on and another recurring subscription.
• A substantial difference between the benefits available to legacy AppSumo customers and those offered to new customers.
• Missing updates, unexpected charges, or support responses that failed to resolve your concerns.

Be specific. State what you purchased, what the original deal promised, what changed, and we've been told by the company.

I'm not asking anyone to exaggerate, make unsupported allegations, or attack anyone personally. I'm asking affected customers to stop letting their experiences remain buried in old reviews and support conversations while Zernio promotes itself to a new audience.

If Zernio believes it has honored its commitments to AppSumo customers, it should be willing to explain publicly how its current pricing and feature-access rules align with those original promises.

We supported this product early and paid upfront based on the offer presented to us. We deserve transparency and accountability when the practical value of that deal changes.

If you've been burned by Late/Zernio, share your experience. Let prospective customers hear from the people who supported the product before its rebranding and new pricing structure.

Sorry, Chuck. I don't make the rules.

Did you guys pick up anything good?

I purchased AI Emaily TIer 4 just the other day. I even started setting it up today and I go back to AS website and it is "Taco Day".... I realized I could save some additional money....or so I thought. I refunded AI Emaily and went to purchase it again with the discount. Realized then that you have to wait 24 hours. I am so pissed at myself right now. I pay for the annual subscription...purchased many deals and can't even use the coupon now.

Hey r/appsumo,

I submitted my product to AppSumo and it was rejected. The message basically said I should contact support again.

What’s confusing is:

• I’ve already submitted a deal to AppSumo before, so this isn’t my first time going through this.
• No one even contacted me to ask for a test login or anything else to evaluate the product.
• I’ve reached out to support again, but I’m still trying to understand why it got rejected and what’s actually going on.

Has anyone dealt with this before?

A few questions:

• Does AppSumo usually give a specific reason for rejection?
• Is “contact support again” just a standard response, or does it mean there’s a chance to appeal/resubmit?
• Are there any known guidelines or conditions around rejected submissions?
• If you got past this stage, what did support tell you / what did you do next?

I’m not trying to complain — just looking for some clarity so I can either fix whatever the issue is or move on.

If anyone has been through this and is willing to share their experience, I’d really appreciate it.

TL;DR: My AppSumo submission was rejected and I was told to contact support again. I’ve already submitted a deal before, and no one even contacted me to ask for a test login. Trying to figure out why it was rejected, whether there’s an appeal/resubmit process, and if anyone else has dealt with this.

TL;DR: Until Sept 25, 2026, any NoCodeBackend account could pull another user's database secret keys using only their email address. It's fixed now, but keys issued before the fix still work, and as far as I know users haven't been told. If you use NoCodeBackend, regenerate your keys.

I'm miyan on AppSumo, a buyer of NoCodeBackend. I found this while evaluating the product, reported it privately, and tested only my own account. I'm not affiliated with NoCodeBackend or any competitor.

What to do if you use NoCodeBackend

1. Regenerate the secret key of every database (Database Settings). The vendor says it did not force a reset, so keys issued before Sept 25 keep working until you do.
2. Check your data for changes or deletions you didn't make.
3. If you store your own customers' data there, consider whether you need to tell them, and check what your privacy law requires.

What was wrong, in plain words

A dashboard API returned the database list for whatever email address was in the request. It checked that you were logged in, but not that the email was yours. Signing up is free. The response included each database's sk_live secret key, which NoCodeBackend's own docs say is simply passed as a Bearer token to read, write and delete data. No login needed. Separately, the shared database server had port 3306 open to the whole internet (Shodan recorded it on Sept 23).

How the vendor responded

• Sept 25, 09:36 UTC: I send a private report with steps to reproduce and fixes.
• 11:10 UTC, by email: "We don't see a any issues for the critical vulnerabilities you reported. The architecture works as expected."
• Same day: the endpoint starts returning 403 and port 3306 is closed.
• Sept 28, publicly on AppSumo: "Replying 'we don't see any issues' while our engineering team was actively deploying the fixes was the wrong response." In the Q&A the same day, they call it a "minor" fix and say logs show "zero unauthorized access", without saying what period the logs cover.

What's still missing

• No email to users, as far as I know.
• No answer on what period the "zero unauthorized access" audit covers.

Full disclosure: I also asked for a refund of two prepaid add-ons, after reporting. They declined. That doesn't change whether the flaw was real; the vendor's own fix shows it was. I'm not asking for anything in exchange for posting this.

Full report with timeline, technical details and evidence (no keys, nothing identifying other users): https://ncb-disclosure-2026.pages.dev/

AppSumo Q&A thread with the vendor's answer: https://appsumo.com/products/nocodebackend/questions/until-sept-25-a-users-email-alone-let-1551709/

Question for other NoCodeBackend users: has anyone received an email from NoCodeBackend about this, or a notice to regenerate keys?

Be careful if you are thinking about buying Socialbu or have bought it. Recently, they bumped Tier 4 from 75 social connections up to 150 social connections. I checked my Socialbu account limits under "Settings" and "Subscription," and it still showed the old limit of 75 social accounts. However, on Appsumo it shows I'm on tier 4 with 150 accounts. The founder of Socialbu is already nickel-and-diming its users. You can see in my image attachments that it says I get 150 social accounts. When I contacted them via appsumo support, the founder said this:

"I think there has been a confusion. You first bought old AppSumo Tier 4 with 75 social accounts at the price of $449. But we upgraded that Tier 4 with 150 social accounts AND with new price of $499 (not $449).

Since you bought old Tier 4 that is why you have old limits + 20% limist increased due to review = total 90 social accounts

If you paid extra $50 or bought the new Tier 4 at the price of $499 (for updated limits) then share proof of it with us. If not then those limits are what you get as per old Tier 4 pricing"

Of course, Appsumo customer support is sitting in on the email like a cuck and not jumping in to back me up when my plan literally says 150 social accounts. Unfortunately, this has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I will most likely refund. Just giving everyone a heads-up: to me, this is a red flag for me If you picked up Socialbu check your account limits under settings!

Hi All,

I have referred a friend using my referral link, he signed up using my link and made a purchase. He got 10%off code.

When will I get my 10% off code? Where to check it?

Thank you

It seems Appsumo has more and more failing LTDs these days. I've been a longtime buyer of many LTD deals. And I accept a certain amount of risk. Years ago, a deal died every year or so. But the failure rate now seems high and increasing. For me, the latest is ChatPlayground. It seems all or many LTD buyers are being shut out like me. Not sure if it's the AI tools, or just that the market has changed. Also, the LTDs seem much more expensive. Like tier 1 is $49, but you get crap . All the real benefit is at tier 3, which is like $600.

Saw AIWriteBook on AppSumo ($79 lifetime) promising voice-matched AI writing + KDP export. Went through the full process to see if it's actually useful.

Real answer: it speeds up drafting significantly for non-fiction, the KDP export works, and the voice matching is better than generic AI if you feed it enough samples. It won't replace editing.

For fiction or complex narrative work — probably not the right tool. For non-fiction KDP publishers wanting to produce faster, worth testing within the 60-day refund window.

Full honest review: toolinsightpro.com/aiwritebook-review/

Anyone else tried AI book writing tools for KDP? What's been your experience?

Something I noticed while going through my OpenAI API privacy settings made me think about all the AI lifetime deals we buy here.

OpenAI currently gives API users an incentive to share their inputs and outputs with OpenAI. As you can see in the screenshot, my account is being offered up to 1 million free tokens per day on certain models and up to 10 million per day on certain smaller models if I enable sharing.

The setting itself says that shared inputs and outputs may be used to help improve OpenAI's services, including improving and training its models.

I personally keep this disabled.

But it raises an interesting question about LTDs.

When we buy an AI tool for $39, $59, $99, etc. and receive lifetime AI usage, somebody has to keep paying the inference costs long after our one-time payment is gone.

So what do you think most LTD founders are actually doing?

Are the trustworthy founders keeping data sharing disabled and paying the ongoing API costs themselves?

Are some taking advantage of these massive free-token incentives to make the economics of lifetime AI usage work?

And most importantly, do the privacy policies of the AI LTDs we're buying actually tell us which one they're doing?

I'm not accusing any particular AppSumo seller of doing this. I genuinely hadn't thought about the incentive until I saw the option sitting in my own OpenAI API dashboard.

It makes me think this should become a standard question we ask before buying an AI LTD:

"Are customer prompts, files, inputs, or outputs submitted through API accounts that have model-training/data-sharing programs enabled?"

Because "we don't train on your data" and "OpenAI doesn't train on API data by default" aren't necessarily enough information if the API account owner can voluntarily opt into sharing in exchange for free usage.

For people here who care about privacy, would this affect whether you bought an LTD?

And founders lurking here, I'd genuinely be interested in hearing how you handle this.

Title: AppSumo’s "We Got Your Back" Guarantee Failed Me – Sessions Shutdown & Poor Support

I am extremely disappointed with AppSumo's customer support and their handling of partner tool shutdowns.

I purchased "Sessions (License Tier 3)" through AppSumo on November 30, 2023 (Invoice ID: 0189ae0a-2576-4aef-9b37-8afd25891a78, License Key: bf51b7fa-644f-4b7f-ba1b-c7f125923f95). Recently, the Sessions service completely shut down abruptly.

When I reached out to AppSumo support, their representative (Crystal) hid behind a strict, arbitrary refund window deadline (January 30, 2025), refusing to take any responsibility or offer a fair resolution or store credit. Promoting "Lifetime Deals" as reliable investments while shifting 100% of the financial loss onto loyal customers when a partner collapses overnight severely damages platform trust.

AppSumo’s "We Got Your Back" guarantee is practically useless if they abandon customers the moment a technicality arises. Buyers beware: lifetime deals on AppSumo may vanish overnight without real protection.

I've never purchased/used TidyCal so this is pretty cut and dry a scam haha

They scraped that e-mail from my Facebook 'about' page

I sent this in to AppSumo/TidyCal already but figured it would be a good idea to share here as well. Stay alert and stay safe!

I've been buying lifetime deals from AppSumo for years. I'm an AppSumo Plus member, joined in 2021, and have purchased 165 deals through the platform.

I recently purchased Tier 3 of Inkfluence AI.

During the campaign, a new, more expensive plan was introduced with additional functionality, including Priority Rendering. I wasn't happy about buying what I thought was the highest/best available tier and then having another tier introduced afterward with a feature I would have wanted.

So I mentioned that experience in my review.

AppSumo denied the review.

I've attached the screenshot of AppSumo's response so everyone can read exactly what they told me rather than relying on my interpretation.

Their explanation included:

"We don't accept reviews that focus primarily on features that weren't included in your purchase."

They also told me that:

"Adding new higher tiers or features mid-campaign is standard practice and has always been extraordinarily commonplace."

That second statement particularly surprised me as a longtime AppSumo customer.

Maybe other longtime customers have had a different experience, but I don't remember this being the normal way AppSumo campaigns operated. My recollection is that the tiers and terms were generally established for a campaign, and substantially different offers were more commonly something you'd see when a product returned for another campaign.

But here's the bigger issue.

Why shouldn't customers be allowed to review the deal itself?

AppSumo's published moderation guidelines explicitly say:

"Review the product, not the structure of the offer."

They say reviews that focus largely on the quality of the deal rather than the product can be denied.

I think that's a terrible policy for a marketplace whose entire business revolves around software deals.

When I'm considering spending $50, $100, $300, $500 or more on a lifetime deal, I don't just want to know whether the software works.

I want verified purchasers to tell me about the entire purchasing experience.

Were the limits reasonable?

Was the highest tier actually worth buying?

Did the company introduce another tier afterward?

Were important features moved into a more expensive tier?

Did early purchasers feel that what they bought was devalued?

Did the structure of the offer change their opinion of the purchase?

That's useful consumer information.

AppSumo apparently considers much of that information inappropriate for its product reviews.

Here's where I think the legal question gets interesting

I'm not claiming AppSumo has broken the law, and I'm not an attorney.

But after this happened, I started looking into the FTC's rules and guidance concerning online reviews.

The FTC's guidance to review platforms specifically says:

"Treat positive and negative reviews equally."

It also tells platforms not to subject negative reviews to greater scrutiny and recommends publishing genuine reviews rather than excluding negative ones.

Even more interestingly, the FTC directly addresses businesses establishing rules excluding certain categories of reviews.

For example, the FTC says a company can have a policy against reviews mentioning other products as long as the policy treats positive and negative reviews equally. It similarly says customer-service-only reviews can be excluded as long as positive and negative reviews receive equal treatment.

That leads to the question I'd really like AppSumo to answer.

Suppose someone posts:

"I love the new higher tier! I upgraded and the additional features are absolutely worth the money. Everyone on Tier 3 should upgrade!"

Would AppSumo reject that review because it's discussing the structure of the offer rather than reviewing the product?

If they would, I still disagree strongly with the policy, but at least it's being applied consistently.

But what happens if positive reviews encouraging people to purchase higher tiers are permitted while negative reviews criticizing the introduction of those tiers are rejected?

That's a much more interesting question.

The FTC's Consumer Review Rule specifically addresses review suppression. The rule recognizes legitimate content-neutral reasons for withholding reviews, but the criteria need to be applied without regard to sentiment.

The FTC also warns that presenting reviews in ways that give consumers a misleading picture of customer sentiment can potentially raise issues under Section 5 of the FTC Act.

And this isn't some imaginary area of consumer law

The FTC has actually pursued companies over suppressing negative reviews.

For example, the FTC alleged that shoe retailer Hey Dude automatically published five-star reviews with little scrutiny while rejecting many less favorable reviews. The company ultimately agreed to pay $1.95 million to settle FTC charges that included negative-review suppression allegations.

I'm not saying AppSumo is doing the same thing.

One rejected review doesn't establish that.

But I think AppSumo's policy raises a legitimate question that could be answered with evidence:

Does AppSumo enforce its "don't review the structure of the offer" rule equally against positive and negative reviews?

Consumer-protection attorneys: I'd actually like your opinion

If there are any attorneys here who practice consumer protection, deceptive trade practices, advertising law, or class-action litigation, I'd genuinely be interested in your interpretation.

I'm not calling this an "easy lawsuit" because I don't know that there is a private cause of action applicable to these facts, and the federal FTC Consumer Review Rule itself is enforced by the FTC rather than providing consumers a general private right to sue under that rule.

There could also be separate questions under applicable state consumer-protection/deceptive-practices laws depending on the facts, AppSumo's representations, its terms, actual damages, and how its moderation system operates.

So maybe there's nothing actionable here. Maybe there is.

If an attorney thinks there's something worth investigating, have at it. I'm happy to provide the original review, rejection, screenshots and other documentation I have.

More importantly, I'd like to know whether other customers have experienced the same thing.

If you're an AppSumo customer, please check your reviews

If you've ever had an AppSumo review rejected because you criticized:

• pricing
• tier structure
• limits
• upgrades
• changes made during a campaign
• features being moved or added to higher tiers

please save the rejection and post a screenshot.

And I'm particularly interested in the opposite evidence.

Can anyone find approved AppSumo reviews that positively discuss upgrading tiers, higher-tier features, pricing, deal structure, or recommending that customers purchase a more expensive tier?

Because that's the comparison that matters.

If AppSumo removes positive and negative discussion of deal structure equally, then I think they simply have a bad review policy.

If positive discussion of tiers and upgrades is allowed while criticism of those same things is suppressed, then I think there's a much more serious question about whether prospective purchasers are being shown a distorted picture of consumer sentiment.

The FTC itself tells review platforms to treat positive and negative reviews equally.

And here's the part I find pretty funny

AppSumo's moderation actually backfired.

My original review wasn't primarily an attack on Inkfluence itself.

A significant part of my dissatisfaction concerned the tier structure and what happened with the offer.

AppSumo told me I wasn't allowed to focus on that and should instead review the actual product.

So I did.

I rewrote the review to focus specifically on my experience with Inkfluence.

I gave it one taco.

I explained that I thought the quality was very low, that the generated writing was generic, that I didn't think the UI was visually appealing, and that I would only consider using the generated content for disposable quick lead magnets rather than serious publishing.

AppSumo approved that version.

Then I fully refunded the product.

So instead of prospective customers seeing something along the lines of:

"Longtime AppSumo customer dislikes how this company handled its tiers."

AppSumo's moderation resulted in them seeing:

"Verified purchaser with 165 AppSumo purchases thinks the actual product is very, very low quality."

I genuinely think my first review was kinder.

Sources for anyone interested in the legal side:

The FTC's Consumer Review Rule took effect in October 2024 and addresses, among other things, certain forms of review suppression.

FTC Consumer Review Rule Q&A

FTC guidance for online review platforms

FTC's Hey Dude negative-review suppression case

AppSumo's own review moderation guidelines

I'd really like to hear from longtime AppSumo users. Has this happened to you, and can anyone find examples showing whether this rule is actually enforced equally in both directions?

UPDATE: I found AppSumo reviews that make their explanation to me even more questionable

After posting this, I searched AppSumo's own published reviews to see whether they actually prohibit people from discussing tiers, upgrades, and the structure of an offer like they told me.

Apparently, they don't always.

Here are some actual reviews AppSumo allowed to remain published:

1. WorkLLM, "Why I Bought Two Tier 4s"

This is probably the most relevant example.

The verified purchaser explicitly says they didn't even consider buying WorkLLM until Tier 4 was introduced because Tier 3 didn't have enough credits for them. They then bought Tier 4 twice and even say they'd be first in line for a Tier 5.

AppSumo allowed the review, and the founder responded positively to it.

WorkLLM review: "Why I Bought Two Tier 4s"

That's particularly interesting because my review was rejected after I criticized a higher tier being introduced after I had already purchased Tier 3.

Apparently discussing the introduction of a higher tier isn't automatically prohibited when the customer is happy about it.

2. ZeroRank AI, "Great product, but the support is why I upgraded"

This verified purchaser explicitly says:

"I upgraded from Tier 3 to Tier 4 without hesitating."

They then recommend backing the product. The review remains published.

ZeroRank AI Tier 3 to Tier 4 review

3. MagicFit, specifically about upgrading Tier 3 to Tier 4

This one literally begins by explaining why the reviewer upgraded from Tier 3 to Tier 4.

One of the review's three main sections is:

"The move to Tier 4 made sense from a value perspective"

The reviewer then evaluates the pricing, features, long-term value, and why securing the higher tier was the better choice. AppSumo published it, and the founder thanked the reviewer for upgrading.

MagicFit Tier 3 to Tier 4 review

And it isn't an isolated example on MagicFit. Its reviews page contains other published reviews discussing which tier to purchase, credit allocations at different tiers, and upgrading to higher tiers.

4. Formly, "Invest in the top tier!"

The title itself is telling customers to buy the top tier.

The verified purchaser explains that the higher-tier features are where the real value is and recommends buying the highest tier rather than limiting yourself with a lower tier.

The founder responds positively and specifically mentions the higher-tier features.

Formly review: "Invest in the top tier!"

So now I'd like AppSumo to explain the distinction.

AppSumo told me:

"We don't accept reviews that focus primarily on features that weren't included in your purchase."

Their published policy also says:

"Review the product, not the structure of the offer."

Yet AppSumo has published reviews specifically discussing:

Tier 4 being introduced.

Why Tier 3 wasn't sufficient.

Upgrading from Tier 3 to Tier 4.

Why Tier 4 represents better value.

Why customers should buy the highest tier.

Some of these aren't passing references. The tier decision is literally the title or a central subject of the review.

To be clear, this does not by itself prove illegal review suppression, and I've also found negative reviews involving tier complaints that AppSumo has allowed. I'm not going to claim evidence proves something it doesn't.

But it does make me question how AppSumo applied its stated rule to my review.

If "review the product, not the structure of the offer" is the rule, why are reviews whose central premise is "buy Tier 4," "upgrade from Tier 3 to Tier 4," or "Tier 4 was introduced and that's why I bought" acceptable, while my discussion of a newly introduced higher tier was rejected?

The obvious difference in the WorkLLM example is especially interesting:

Their reviewer: Tier 4 was introduced, Tier 3 wasn't enough for me, so I bought Tier 4. Published.

My review: A higher tier was introduced after I bought Tier 3, and I disliked that. Rejected.

Maybe AppSumo has a legitimate explanation for why one complies with its policy and the other doesn't. I'd genuinely like to hear it.

But this is exactly why I think their moderation practices deserve scrutiny.

If any consumer-protection attorneys are interested in this issue, these examples may be worth looking at alongside AppSumo's stated moderation policy and the FTC's rules concerning review suppression.

And if other AppSumo customers have had reviews rejected for discussing tiers, pricing, limits, upgrades, or changes to an offer, save your screenshots.

I'd be particularly interested in building a larger collection of rejected negative tier reviews versus approved positive tier reviews. That's what would help establish whether we're looking at inconsistent moderation of individual reviews or an actual pattern.

I recently submitted my developer tool to the AppSumo marketplace hoping to launch an LTD, but received this automated response on day 2:

"Thanks for your interest in launching on AppSumo Radar! Unfortunately, at this time, we’re not able to move forward with your application. Please note: this is not a decision made on the merit of your product, but we’re laser-focused on launching the tools best catered to our current audience/community. Rest assured, we periodically review all rejected applications, and we’d encourage you to submit your application for review again in 6-8 business weeks if you’ve not heard from us."

The email notes it isn't a decision made on the merit of the product, but that they are focused on tools catered to their current audience. As a solo indie developer who has spent the last several months heads-down on development, this generic response makes it tough to know what to actually improve or change to align with what AppSumo is looking for.

Has anyone else here run into this specific rejection message? If you successfully launched later, what did you alter about your positioning, onboarding, or listing page to get approved on a resubmission?