AppSumo is an online store for digital Software as a Service (AKA SaaS) products that usually charge a monthly fee but you can buy for a one time one off charge. When you first come across the website it looks too good to be true!
Is AppSumo legit? Yes AppSumo is a legitimate website and business that helps software developers and buyers connect. Deals are usually offered as a one time fee as a way of increasing the developers customer base and gaining feedback to young products.
I’ve been a regular customer for many years so had a look into the company so you don’t need to.
What is AppSumo?
AppSumo.com is a deal website founded by Noah Kagan in March 2010. According to Kagan:
As the founder, Noah’s idea was to partner with software companies to provide fantastic money-saving offers to AppSumo members. These are time limited and are usually on tools and services to help end users in areas such as marketing, communication, and SEO. These are usually lifetime access offers to sites that charge monthly fees.
What deals are on offer?
AppSumo partners with online service providers and offers deals to its members, AKA ‘Sumolings’. They gain access to a wide range of SaaS tools as a heavily discounted rate. When I first came across AppSumo they added a few deals every now and then, but over the last year the number of deals added has gone up dramatically, with the site branching out from SaaS into WordPress themes and plugins.
Deals typically start at $49 (US Dollars), about £38. For website services that normally unlocks lifetime access. For WordPress tools that gives you a licence for a set number of websites.
You can check out the latest deals on the AppSumo website.
Deals usually offer the ability to ‘stack codes’, you can buy multiple codes to gain more features. For example with WordPress tools you might unlock the ability to use them on an unlimited amount of websites.
They heavily market deals online, which is how I first came across the site, and at first you might be asking is AppSumo a scam? For the last year I’ve purchased a number of deals, and they’ve all been 100% legit.
Each deal is usually accompanied by an introduction video from one of the team. Historically a lot of these videos were fronted by Chrystie ‘tats girl’ (as the YouTube commentators call her!), who passed the batton over to other members of the team such as Chris Schelzi and Vanessa Yepes, with more new presenters stepping in front of the camera as the company grows.
Are AppSumo deals worth the cost?
That really depends on who you are, the deal you get, and if it’s a good fit. I’ve purchased a wide range of deals and some tools have been excellent. I bagged deals on plutio.com, Webwave, Crello, and several others which all helped me launch and a side business (iindigo.co.uk)
There have been other deals that look great but which I’ve not yet made full use of. Waste of money? Perhaps, but more often than not a deal I’ve purchased, but not initially used, comes in very useful at some point in the future, so I usually see these as long term investments. For example, I purchased the Amelia WordPress plugin in September 2019 but have only recently deployed in on a website in 2020.
You should also keep in mind that buying via AppSumo doesn’t mean the service will be around forever. They are all completely legit at the time of purchase however lifetime access means the lifetime of the product, not your lifetime, which might end up only being 12 months if the provider doesn’t have a sustainable business model. I’ve purchased a lot of deals and this has only happened to me once.
As these are often small, recently launched, services, they can be acquired. This happened to one of the deals I purchased for website hosting and the acquiring company honoured the one-year deal and then put together a really great offer for customers to stay with them but on a much better package.
How do AppSumo deals work?
Once you purchase a product you’re given redemption instructions and you can immediately access your new tool. Typically you’ll be directed to a special redemption page for the app where you’ll sign up and enter your code.
Making a purchase drops you into the email funnel, you’ll be asked to leave a product review within 24 hours and you’ll get the occasional email informing you of new deals. Overall I’ve found the number of emails to be acceptable and not at all spammy.
A word of caution on the reviews presented on the deal page. Whilst I’ve no doubt they are all real they are also requested soon after purchase which leads to a lot of low-quality 5-star reviews. Fortunately, there are some people who check out the deal filly before putting in the work to write a very helpful review. I find the Q&A section more informative, an active seller checks and answers any new questions daily.
Not all deals require a purchase, I’ve bagged some free offers that have been genuinely useful, examples include free eBooks (proper full books rather than lead magnet pamphlets), a Teachable course on how to design your own online course and various tools (sometimes 1 year free access, sometimes lifetime).
What if I don’t like the deal?
One of the best features to make you confident in a purchase is the refund process. You can check the offer out, watch and read reviews about the product, check out it’s website and if you’re on the fence it’s not a problem, pay for a deal today and you have a 60-day money back guardsmen regardless of the reason.
That’s more than enough time to test our your new products and if you think it’s not right you’ll find it easy to trigger the refund process. I’ve used this myself and it was just a matter of a few clicks and the refund was quickly processed.
Why do websites partner with AppSumo?
The business offer for prospective partners is very attractive: AppSumo have spent years building up a client list of buyers who love exclusive bundle opportunities. This list will cover a broad range of users, they might be a blogger, entrepreneur, small business owner, or business employee, but they all have something in common: they love completely amazing deals and giveaways.
AppSumo has become an effective marketing machine for clients, as well as killing it across social media they have an affiliate scheme via Impact Radius.
Tommy Griffith of ClickMinded, published a partners point of view of the process of working with AppSumo. In it, he reveals he was attracted to the 730,000+ user base (at the time of his offer) and that AppSumo does everything from marketing, landing pages, copy creation, payment processing, customer support and refunds.
Providing you can afford to support the long term promises made as part of the deal this is an innovative and interesting way to promote your products and services.
Is AppSumo Legit?
Hopefully I’ve now answered this question. They’re a very legitimate, professional, marketing company. My personal experience has been very positive, the deals are great value for money and if you don’t fancy anything now there’s no pressure to purchase.
If you find yourself purchasing a lot of deals you may want to consider AppSumo Plus.
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